Dracula-to-English Translation, Anyone?

[Shodan]

There is a passage in Dracula, where a minor character is speaking in some unrecognizable dialect. He is an old man, who sits with his buddies in the graveyard where Dracula first bites Lucy.

I have puzzled out most of what he is saying, but not all, and I would appreciate anyone being able to clear up the rest for me.

The passage that puzzles is as follows: (from here, if you would like to read it in context):

He is a funny old man. He must be awfully old, for his face is gnarled and twisted like the bark of a tree. He tells me that he is nearly a hundred, and that he was a sailor in the Greenland fishing fleet when Waterloo was fought. He is, I am afraid, a very sceptical person, for when I asked him about the bells at sea and the White Lady at the abbey he said very brusquely,

"I wouldn't fash masel' about them, miss. Them things be all wore out. Mind, I don't say that they never was, but I do say that they wasn't in my time. They be all very well for comers and trippers, an' the like, but not for a nice young lady like you. Them feet-folks from York and Leeds that be always eatin'cured herrin's and drinkin' tea an' lookin' out to buy cheap jet would creed aught. I wonder masel' who'd be bothered tellin' lies to them, even the newspapers, which is full of fool-talk." (OK, I got most of this. "Fash" means "bother", which I picked up from Kidnapped by RL Stevenson. Thus the dialect is Scottish, perhaps?

"Comers" and "trippers" must be tourists and day-trippers. "Feet-folks" - walkers? "Creed aught" = believe anything. "Cheap jet" must be trinkets made of jet.)

I thought he would be a good person to learn interesting things from, so I asked him if he would mind telling me something about the whale fishing in the old days. He was just settling himself to begin when the clock struck six, whereupon he laboured to get up, and said,

"I must gang ageeanwards home now, miss. My grand-daughter doesn't like to be kept waitin' when the tea is ready, for it takes me time to crammle aboon the grees, for there be a many of `em, and miss, I lack belly-timber sairly by the clock."
"Crammle aboon" = scramble over. "Grees" must be either graves or steps, which are mentioned immediately.)

He hobbled away, and I could see him hurrying, as well as he could, down the steps. The steps are a great feature on the place. They lead from the town to the church, there are hundreds of them, I do not know how many, and they wind up in a delicate curve. The slope is so gentle that a horse could easily walk up and down them.

snip

Lucy was looking sweetly pretty in her white lawn frock. She has got a beautiful colour since she has been here.

I noticed that the old men did not lose any time in coming and sitting near her when we sat down. She is so sweet with old people, I think they all fell in love with her on the spot. Even my old man succumbed and did not contradict her, but gave me double share instead. I got him on the subject of the legends , and he went off at once into a sort of sermon. I must try to remember it and put it down.

"It be all fool-talk, lock, stock, and barrel, that's what it be and nowt else. These bans an' wafts an' boh-ghosts an' bar-guests an' bogles an' all anent them is only fit to set bairns an' dizzy women a'belderin'. They be nowt but air-blebs.
(Bans and wafts? Some kind of ghost, no doubt. Boh-ghosts - no idea. Bar-guests? Bogles = bogies. But he is saying that ghost stories are just to set children and women crying. I think.)

They, an' all grims an' signs an' warnin's, be all invented by parsons an' illsome berk-bodies an' railway touters to skeer an' scunner hafflin's, an' to get folks to do somethin' that they don't other incline to.
(Berk-bodies = busybodies? Or is this a name for clergy? Railway touters = people telling stories to draw in a tourist trade?)

There's a lot more to the speech, but that might do for a start.

If any Doper is familiar with Scottish dialect, a translation is appreciated.

Regards,
Shodan

[GorillaMan]

'Cheap jet' is one of the clues - Whitby Jet, from Yorkshire, was a fashionable fad in Victorian Britain. It's a (rather clumsy and generic, IMO) transcription of a Yorkshire accent and dialect.

....and clicking on the link you gave, I see it's set in Whitby. *Feels smug*.

[Walloon]

"It be all fool-talk, lock, stock, and barrel, that's what it be and nowt else. These bans an' wafts an' boh-ghosts an' bar-guests an' bogles an' all anent them is only fit to set bairns an' dizzy women a'belderin'. They be nowt but air-blebs.

"They, an' all grims an' signs an' warnin's, be all invented by parsons an' illsome berk-bodies an' railway touters to skeer an' scunner hafflin's, an' to get folks to do somethin' that they don't other incline to."

nowt[/] = nothing.
ban = a curse having, or supposed to have, supernatural sanction, and baleful influence.
boh-ghosts, bar-guests, bogles = boggards = specters, goblins, or bogies.
[i[bairn = child.
air-blebs = air bubbles.
railway touters = tramps?
hafflin' = halfling, one not fully grown.

[Tapioca Dextrin]

They, an' all grims an' signs an' warnin's, be all invented by parsons an' illsome berk-bodies an' railway touters to skeer an' scunner hafflin's, an' to get folks to do somethin' that they don't other incline to.

grim = grimoire = book
illsome = gruelling, laborious, up to no good
berk-bodies = not sure. You're probably right with busy-bodies
railway touter. Touter is a hawker, unlicencsed salesman. So, railway touter is presumably someone who sells their wares to railway passangers, either on the platform or by hopping on and off trains.
skeer = scare
scunner = poor, working class


It's deifinitely a weird mix of Yorkshire and Scottish dialects.

[Tapioca Dextrin]

[quote]Them feet-folks from York and Leeds [/url]

feet-folks = effete people. They are described as eating cured herring, drinking tea and buying jewellery, which could be seen as over-indulgent or refined.

[Julius Henry]

The following information comes from the notes to an edition of Dracula edited by Marjorie Howes and published by Everyman. Stoker got the dialect from an 1876 book by F. K. Robinson called A Glossary of Words Used in the Neighborhood of Witby.

fash masel' : worry myself
feet-folks : foot passengers, as opposed to higher class carriage passengers
jet : a hard, black form of coal, polished and used for making toys, buttons, and jewelry
gang ageeanwards : go towards
crammle aboon the grees : hobble up the stairs
belly-timber : food
bans : curses
wafts : ghosts
boh-ghosts an' barguests and bogles : ghosts and hobgoblins
bairns : children
a-belderin' : blubbering
air-blebs : bubbles
grims : ghosts or skeletons
beuk-bodies : learned people
skeer an' scunner : scare
hafflin's : half-wits
airt : direction
steans : tombstones
acant : leaning to one side
quare scowderment : queer confusion
death-sarks : shrouds
jouped : jumbled
timmlin' and ditherin' : trembling
dozzened : shrivelled
Yabblins : possibly
balm-bowl : chamber pot
kirk-garth : church yard
consate : imagine
be happed here : are buried here
snod an' snog : smooth and compact
lay-beds : graves
toom : empty
aftest abaft : hindmost, near stern
bier-bank : churchyard path
antherums : doubts
thruffstean : a table-like tombstone covering the entire body
gawm : understand
acrewk'd : twisted
lamiter : a deformed person
the clegs and the dowps : the flies and the crows
addle : to work or earn

[Shodan]

Thanks for all your responses!

Any idea what "I lack belly-timber sairly by the clock" mean? If "belly-timber" is food, what is "sairly", and what does a clock have to do with it?

Regards,
Shodan

[LifeOnWry]

Originally Posted by Shodan

Thanks for all your responses!

Any idea what "I lack belly-timber sairly by the clock" mean? If "belly-timber" is food, what is "sairly", and what does a clock have to do with it?

Regards,
Shodan

"Sairly" is sorely, but I'm not sure "belly-timber" is food - if it IS, it sounds like "It's way past my lunchtime."

BTW, I only really popped in here to say that this is my favorite thread title ever.

[Lamia]

For some reason in Victorian Era literature there's a lot of use of dialect in writing -- to some extent it was supposed to add realism to the story, but a lot of humor from the period depends on this device. I think Stoker wanted the reader to be impressed by the way he captured the Whitby dialect but also to have a hearty chuckle at the funny speech of people from the area. Readers of the time apparently loved that kind of thing.

Dracula always struck me as a particularly ridiculous example of this fad, because it requires us to believe that Mina sat down later and transcribed the old man's exact words in dialect, that Dr. Seward imitated Van Helsing's accent when making his phonograph diary, etc.

[cher3]

Originally Posted by Lamia

Dracula always struck me as a particularly ridiculous example of this fad, because it requires us to believe that Mina sat down later and transcribed the old man's exact words in dialect, that Dr. Seward imitated Van Helsing's accent when making his phonograph diary, etc.

I'd have to go back and look, but I think at some point Mina says that she is transcribing it (for whomever she is writing to) because is it so quaint.

[Madd Maxx]

"I vant to suk your blud." = I want to suck your blood.

The pointy teeth get in the way of proper annunciation.

[Lamia]

Originally Posted by cher3

I'd have to go back and look, but I think at some point Mina says that she is transcribing it (for whomever she is writing to) because is it so quaint.

I think you're right. I do remember that when she starts her journal she says she wants to be like a "lady journalist" and keep an accurate record of interesting things that happen.

So maybe I can give that a pass. But I still think the idea of Dr. Seward imitating Dr. Van Helsing's speech for the phonograph is pretty silly! A little of this I could see, but every time he wanted to talk about what the man said?

[cher3]

Actually, I should have read the OP more carefully, because the part I was thinking of is right there where she says she must try to remember his "sermon" and put it down.

[GorillaMan]

Originally Posted by Lamia

For some reason in Victorian Era literature there's a lot of use of dialect in writing -- to some extent it was supposed to add realism to the story, but a lot of humor from the period depends on this device. I think Stoker wanted the reader to be impressed by the way he captured the Whitby dialect but also to have a hearty chuckle at the funny speech of people from the area. Readers of the time apparently loved that kind of thing.

Dracula always struck me as a particularly ridiculous example of this fad, because it requires us to believe that Mina sat down later and transcribed the old man's exact words in dialect, that Dr. Seward imitated Van Helsing's accent when making his phonograph diary, etc.

This is all true. But it's easy to ridicule the Victorian attitude to accents - don't forget, that before the expansion of the railways, only a minority of people would ever hear 'unusual' accents. The 'exoticism' of a North Yorkshire dialect to Londoners would be significant. Plus, it's also easy for us to comment on inaccuracies or unlikely situations - these aren't things that would concern the contemporary audience at all.


As a slight aside, regarding the earlier suggestion that some of the written dialect seems Scottish as much as Yorkshire, it wouldn't surprise me if there were aspects of Scottish accent & dialects that influenced fishing communities in particular, and which have since disappeared.

[Mirror Image egamI rorriM]

Has anyone else noticed that Dracula reads like it's been translated from Latin? Seriously, there were some odd bits of grammar in there that I've only ever seen or used in Latin translations. Things like "The knife having been sharpened," for example. It's just not standard English, but it is a pretty usual constuction in Latin to English translations.

[violacrane]

The barguest is specific kind of supernatural creature, a black dog and death portent. Bogles cause fright or dread and are closely related to bogey men. According to this site a waft in Yorkshire is a wraith or double. A ban may well be a curse but could also be related to the banshee -- which seems more appropriate in a list of creatures. I suspect bohghost may also have a specific meaning but it has defeated my google skills, aside from a suggestion that boh is a word for a tree branch (bough) making it a perhaps a treespirit.

While it's true the dialect of Whitby has some features in common with Scottish I feel they may well have come via the Geordie or Newcastle dialect.

[FriarTed]

I'd bet Leonard Wolf's THE ANNOTATED DRACULA has a full translation. It was republished under a slightly altered title a few years ago when the Coppola film came out (he was technical advisor- btw, social commentator & author Naomi Wolf is his daughter).

[Shodan]

Thanks again for all the responses, and I will hie me off to the library and try to find the annotated Dracula that FriarTed mentions.

I asked a Scottish guy at work about "lack belly-timber sairly by the clock", and he thinks it means that the guy was saying "I get real hungry at this time every day".

It seems to have been more common for Brits not to be able to understand each other if they spoke different dialects, before the advent of TV and mass communication. Mina even mentions it in the same passage quoted above.

Thanks again to all.

Regards,
Shodan

[WotNot]

Originally Posted by violacrane

While it's true the dialect of Whitby has some features in common with Scottish I feel they may well have come via the Geordie or Newcastle dialect.

Almost certainly. The fishermen of Scotland and Northumberland used to follow the herring shoals down the east coast of England every year – they certainly went further south than Whitby – and many would have settled at various places along the way. The dialect as presented doesn’t look much like Yorkshire (or Scots) to me, but it’s very like contemporary transcriptions of Geordie/Northumbrian dialect. In fact if I hadn’t known that it was set in Whitby, that’s what I would have said it was.

“Barguest” and “bohghost” look to me like alternative transcriptions of the same word – it may seem strange to Americans, but in England there can easily be that much variation in pronunciation within five miles (or even less).

To my mind, as well, a construction like “The knife having been sharpened” would be perfectly standard English at the time – in literature at any rate. Whether people actually would have said that is something I couldn‘t possibly say

[WotNot]

Oh, … I meant to add that I think a closer translation of “I lack belly-timber sairly by the clock”, would be “Judging by the time, I’m overdue for my meal”.

[Walloon]

I just wanted to second what WotNot said. If sentence construction in 19th-century English literature sounds Latinate, it's probably because most men who completed a secondary education, and virtually all who had a college education, studied Latin. Latin verse and prose were held up as models.

[Zabali_Clawbane]

Originally Posted by Shodan

Thanks for all your responses!

Any idea what "I lack belly-timber sairly by the clock" mean? If "belly-timber" is food, what is "sairly", and what does a clock have to do with it?

Regards,
Shodan

Sairly is "surely" said with a Yorkshire/Scottish accent. I'd say he's saying, "Well, the clock says it's lunch time and I need to eat." Unspoken is the thought that he wouldn't know it was lunch time without a clock, because he didn't feel hungry. I think it's a rougish compliment to the lady. "Your company is so wondrous you make me forget food exists." That fits the Victorian way. You have to read between the lines a lot, and look at what hasn't quite been said.

[Zabali_Clawbane]

Amending. (I did actually realize this, just spazzed out and posted incorrectly.) I remember reading a translation of "Tam O' Shanter" in which sair is "sore". My re-phrasing still fits, he didn't say he felt hungry, and implied the only way he knew it was past his meal time was by the clock.

[Asashouryuu]

Originally Posted by Mirror Image egamI rorriM

Seriously, there were some odd bits of grammar in there that I've only ever seen or used in Latin translations.

One of of the things that continued to fascinate me throughout the book was Stoker's regular use of the present subjunctive, a mood which, though paralleled in Latin, is all English. Today its use has almost entirely disappeared, if a few idioms, rarities, and pedants be excepted ;-) .

[CalMeacham]

Originally Posted by FriarTed

I'd bet Leonard Wolf's THE ANNOTATED DRACULA has a full translation. It was republished under a slightly altered title a few years ago when the Coppola film came out (he was technical advisor- btw, social commentator & author Naomi Wolf is his daughter).

You can't really call this a Zombie Thread -- it's about Dracula, so it has to be a Vampire thread -- it's Undead!


Actually, Wolf's The Essential Dracula doesn't add much that wasn't in The Annotated Dracula, and it doesn't have a lot of reproductions that the earlier book had. But since thuis thread appeared Thre New Annotated Dracula by Leslie Klinger has come out, and it's much longer than either of Wolf's volumes (and corrects some of his errors). My copy's at home, but I think it pretty completely annotates that speech from the OP.

[Chronos]

“Barguest” and “bohghost” look to me like alternative transcriptions of the same word – it may seem strange to Americans, but in England there can easily be that much variation in pronunciation within five miles (or even less).

I wonder if "bohghost" might also be a corruption of "bog ghost", presumably meaning a will-o'-the-wisp.

And a barghest is what the Hound of the Baskervilles was purported to be.

[hogarth]

With regards to "railway touters", I thought he meant people who organize railway excursions for people from the city (Thomas Cook got his start doing this, for instance). So in this case, the guy is saying that tour promoters try to entice clients to purchase vacation packages by telling them ghost stories and local legends.

I figured boh-ghost just meant "ghost that says 'boh'='boo'". And any D&D player worth his salt has heard of a bar-guest (a.k.a. barghest).

[Giles]

Originally Posted by Zabali_Clawbane

Amending. (I did actually realize this, just spazzed out and posted incorrectly.) I remember reading a translation of "Tam O' Shanter" in which sair is "sore". My re-phrasing still fits, he didn't say he felt hungry, and implied the only way he knew it was past his meal time was by the clock.

As someone who lived in Yorkshire aged 2-9 years (and visited Whitby during that period), I think "sairly" is "sorely" and not "surely". OED gives "sairly" as a variant spelling of "sorely", not of "surely". In the context it means "very" -- the word "sore" or "sorely" with this meaning is cognate with the German "sehr", but has been displaced in standard modern English by the word derived from Anglo-Norman French "very".

[Andy L]

Originally Posted by Giles

As someone who lived in Yorkshire aged 2-9 years (and visited Whitby during that period), I think "sairly" is "sorely" and not "surely". OED gives "sairly" as a variant spelling of "sorely", not of "surely". In the context it means "very" -- the word "sore" or "sorely" with this meaning is cognate with the German "sehr", but has been displaced in standard modern English by the word derived from Anglo-Norman French "very".

A few years back I was thinking that most short and common words in German have English cognates, and was trying to think of what the cognate for "sehr" would be. After a bit, I thought of "sore" as used in the King James version of the Christmas story - "then an angel of the Lord appeared and they were sore afraid."

[Shodan]

I see Dracula has risen from the grave. Thanks to all for your thoughts.

Regards,
Shodan

[FriarTed]

Originally Posted by Shodan

I see Dracula has risen from the grave. Thanks to all for your thoughts.

Regards,
Shodan

He does tend to do that.

I wonder if there's a movie with that title? Maybe by Hammer Films?

[Candyman74]

I wouldn't fash masel' about them, miss. Them things be all wore out. Mind, I don't say that they never was, but I do say that they wasn't in my time. They be all very well for comers and trippers, an' the like, but not for a nice young lady like you. Them feet-folks from York and Leeds that be always eatin'cured herrin's and drinkin' tea an' lookin' out to buy cheap jet would creed aught. I wonder masel' who'd be bothered tellin' lies to them, even the newspapers, which is full of fool-talk."

I wouldn't fuss [bother] myself about them, miss. Those things are all worn out.

Eck. I started, but didn't realise there was so much of it. No time! It's easier if you say it aloud in a Scottish accent a few times.

[CalMeacham]

I just dug out my copy of Klinger's New Annotated Draclua and, indeed, it gives the original speech, a "ttanslation", and explanations of some of the words on pp. 124-5. The translation reads:

It's all nonsense. These ghosts and spirits are fit tales only to make children and foolish women cry. They're nothing but phantoms, invented by preachers and evil-minded scholars and promoters, and used by them to scare people. They're not content with printing or preaching their stories, either; they've put them on the tombstones! All these jumbled stones are covered with lies. Half of them cover empty tombs, and no one cares about them. It'll be something to see on Judgement Day when the dead show up in their shrouds, with their hands shrivelled up from being in the sea, trying to carry their tombstones with them as proof of their worth.

If you really want the ultimate annotated Dracula, apparently the book to go to is Clive Leatherdale's immense 1998 Bram Soker's Dracula Unearthed


If you want an exercise in translating dialect, have a look at Robert Louis Stevenson's Thrawn Janet:

http://www.classicreader.com/book/2967/1/


For a very different impenetrable dialect, try Joel Chandler Harris' Uncle Remus stories:

http://www.readcentral.com/chapters/...rer-Rabbit/002

http://www.en.utexas.edu/amlit/amlit...exts/remus.htm

[Bryan Ekers]

Why can't the English teach their children how to speak?


Or Scottish, whatever.

[carnivorousplant]

Originally Posted by Bryan Ekers

Why can't the English teach their children how to speak?


Or Scottish, whatever.

As I have mentioned many times on the board, the English invented a language they cannot speak.

[CalMeacham]

I checked my copies of Leonard Wold's The Annotated Dracula (1973, 1976) and The Essential Dracula (1993). Both contain the same "translation" of the speech, which is more literal than Klinger's:

It is all fool's talk, lock, stock, and barrel; that's what it is, and nothing else. These curses and ghosts and apparitions and spirits and bogies and all such things are only fit to set children and dizzy women to wailing, They are nothing but air bubbles! They, and all ghosts and signs and warnings, are invented by parsons and ill-mannered pedants and railway touts to scare and disgust young boys, and to get folks to do something that they don't otherwise want to. It makes me angry to think of them. Why, it's they who, not content with printing lies on paper and peaching them out of the pulpit, cut them on tombstones. Look here all around you wherever you choose, all those stones, holding up their heads as well as they can out of their pride leaning to one side -- simply tumbling down with the weight of the lies written on them, 'Here lies the body' or 'Sacred to the memory' written on all of them, and yet in nearly half of them there are no bodies at all; and the memories of them aren't cared for them so much as a pinch of snuff, much less being [held] sacred. Lies, all of them, nothing but lies of one kind or another! My God, but it'll be a strange turmoil at the Day of Judgement when they come tubling up here in their death robes, all splashing about and trying to drag their tombstones with them to prove how good they were, some of them trembling and dithering, with their hands so withered and slippery from lying in the sea that they can't even keep their grip on them.