# Nonsense words in translation **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [October 13, 2014, 8:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nonsense-words-in-translation/701189 "2014-10-13T08:57:21Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 18\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![psychonaut](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/psychonaut/32/4655_2.png) [@psychonaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/psychonaut)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2014, 8:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nonsense-words-in-translation/701189/1 "2014-10-13T08:57:21Z")
Lewis Carroll’s “[Jabberwocky](http://www76.pair.com/keithlim/jabberwocky/poem/jabberwocky.html)” is perhaps the world’s most famous nonsense poem. It’s been [translated into many different languages](http://www76.pair.com/keithlim/jabberwocky/translations/index.html), which is no small feat considering that the nonsense words need to be translated as well. These words aren’t just random strings of characters, but rather plausibly English-sounding words which, due to their resemblance to other bona fide words, evoke certain meanings. So, for example, one translator rendered the nonsense word “slithy” from the original into “lubricilleux” in French. The Middle Earth works of J.R.R. Tolkien pose a similar challenge for translators. Tolkien used a lot of made-up proper names seemingly derived from English words. In the German translation of _The Hobbit_ and _The Lord of the Rings_, the protagonist’s surname is “Beutlin”, which recalls “Beutel” (lit. “bag”) the same way that “Baggins” evokes the English “bag”. I’m trying to collect a list of other famous works of literature which make heavy use of this sort of made-up or nonsense vocabulary, and which have already been professionally translated into another language. Can anyone help me think of other translated stories and poems? ---
**Author:** ![EinsteinsHund](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/einsteinshund/32/8400_2.png) [@EinsteinsHund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EinsteinsHund)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2014, 10:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nonsense-words-in-translation/701189/2 "2014-10-13T10:41:07Z")
Judging from what I’ve read about [“Finnegans Wake”](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finnegans_Wake) by James Joyce, it could have been no small feat to translate it, but it [has been done](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finnegans_Wake#Translations_and_derivative_works). ---
**Author:** ![psychonaut](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/psychonaut/32/4655_2.png) [@psychonaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/psychonaut)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2014, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nonsense-words-in-translation/701189/3 "2014-10-14T18:54:14Z")
Thanks for that! I’ve heard of the novel but didn’t realize that it was full of neologisms. Today I came across this [Gobblefunk dictionary](http://wonderfuldahl.blogspot.co.uk/p/dahl-dictionary.html), which reminds me that Roald Dahl was another author fond of making up his own words. ---
**Author:** ![EinsteinsHund](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/einsteinshund/32/8400_2.png) [@EinsteinsHund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EinsteinsHund)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2014, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nonsense-words-in-translation/701189/4 "2014-10-14T21:00:50Z")
Maybe not exactly what you’re after, but a book in a similar vein is [“The Meaning of Liff”](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Meaning_of_Liff) by Douglas Adams and John Lloyd, in which they took existing names of geographical places and defined them as words for concepts for which no words existed before. Very funny. I own the German version “Der tiefere Sinn des Labenz”. Since this version predominantly uses German place names instead of the English original, you cannot exactly call it a translation. But this version has the original text as an appendix, and many of the definitions are equivalent to the English original, but with a German name instead, very clever sometimes. ---
**Author:** ![psychonaut](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/psychonaut/32/4655_2.png) [@psychonaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/psychonaut)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2014, 6:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nonsense-words-in-translation/701189/5 "2014-10-15T06:34:23Z")
Yes, I’ve read _The Meaning of Liff_, though I had no idea there was a German version as well! If you like fantasy dictionaries like these, then you might be interested in Ben Schott’s _Schottenfreude: German Words for the Human Condition_ (Blue Rider Press, 2013, ISBN 978-0-399-16670-9), in which the author takes everyday concepts and names them with sesquipedalian German compounds. Example coinages are _Mahlneid_ (coveting your dining partner’s restaurant order), _Traumneustartversuch_ (attempting to resume a dream after being roused), and _Kühlschrankblockade_ (staring hungrily but irresolutely at your open refrigerator). The book is also available in a German edition (_Schottenfreude: Meisterwerke der deutschen Sprache_, transl. Rainer Wieland, 2013, Albrecht Knaus Verlag, ISBN 978-3-813-50602-0) though it’s only the definitions and footnotes which have been translated. ---
**Author:** ![Waterman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/b2d939/32.png) [@Waterman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Waterman)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2014, 8:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nonsense-words-in-translation/701189/6 "2014-10-15T08:13:56Z")
Rather than a story or poem, there is the partial nonsense lyrics of the song “_Mairzy Doats_”. Not sure if this has been translated and therefore meets your criteria. ---
**Author:** ![EinsteinsHund](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/einsteinshund/32/8400_2.png) [@EinsteinsHund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EinsteinsHund)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2014, 8:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nonsense-words-in-translation/701189/7 "2014-10-15T08:32:28Z")
> [@psychonaut](#): > > If you like fantasy dictionaries like these, then you might be interested in Ben Schott’s _Schottenfreude: German Words for the Human Condition_ (Blue Rider Press, 2013, ISBN 978-0-399-16670-9), in which the author takes everyday concepts and names them with sesquipedalian German compounds. Example coinages are _Mahlneid_ (coveting your dining partner’s restaurant order), _Traumneustartversuch_ (attempting to resume a dream after being roused), and _Kühlschrankblockade_ (staring hungrily but irresolutely at your open refrigerator). > > The book is also available in a German edition (_Schottenfreude: Meisterwerke der deutschen Sprache_, transl. Rainer Wieland, 2013, Albrecht Knaus Verlag, ISBN 978-3-813-50602-0) though it’s only the definitions and footnotes which have been translated. Intereresting. Though I’ve read some of Schott’s almanacs (in the German translation), I didn’t know about this dictionary. Sounds funny. But one small quibble: Schott may think that he invented the concept for _Mahlneid_, but there’s already a perfectly cromulent German word for this phenomen: _Futterneid_. ---
**Author:** ![Moe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/moe/32/2972_2.png) [@Moe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moe)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2014, 8:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nonsense-words-in-translation/701189/8 "2014-10-15T08:44:14Z")
I found it interesting when I first connected **Cinderella** with the German **Aschenbrödel**. (i.e. connecting “cinder” - rock formed from lava - with the German word for “ash”). ---
**Author:** ![Kamino\_Neko](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kamino_neko/32/34_2.png) [@Kamino\_Neko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kamino_Neko)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2014, 9:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nonsense-words-in-translation/701189/9 "2014-10-15T09:19:40Z")
> [@Moe](#): > > I found it interesting when I first connected **Cinderella** with the German **Aschenbrödel**. (i.e. connecting “cinder” - rock formed from lava - with the German word for “ash”). It’s an easier connection to make since cinder is not defined so narrowly. It’s more commonly synonymous with ash and ember. ---
**Author:** ![psychonaut](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/psychonaut/32/4655_2.png) [@psychonaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/psychonaut)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2014, 9:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nonsense-words-in-translation/701189/10 "2014-10-15T09:37:27Z")
> [@EinsteinsHund](#): > > Intereresting. Though I’ve read some of Schott’s almanacs (in the German translation), I didn’t know about this dictionary. Sounds funny. But one small quibble: Schott may think that he invented the concept for _Mahlneid_, but there’s already a perfectly cromulent German word for this phenomen: _Futterneid_. Yeah, there are actually a number of oversights of this sort. His shtick is that he’s “borrowing” German compounds for concepts which are reasonably common but until now lacked their own English words. But there _do_ already exist English words for a few of his definitions—for instance, he invents _Pissoirzurückhaltung_ for the “inability to urinate when other people are present”, perhaps unaware that “[paruresis](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/paruresis)” (and the more vulgar “piss-shyness”) have already been around for decades. Of course, this doesn’t significantly dampen one’s overall enjoyment of the book, which comes just as much from the meticulously researched footnotes and commentary as it does the neologisms. ---
**Author:** ![MickNickMaggies](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/59ef9b/32.png) [@MickNickMaggies](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MickNickMaggies)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2014, 1:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nonsense-words-in-translation/701189/11 "2014-10-15T13:40:56Z")
[QUOTE=psychonaut] , the protagonist’s surname is “Beutlin”, which recalls “Beutel” (lit. “bag”) the same way that “Baggins” evokes the English “bag” [/QUOTE] Similarly, he’s ‘Saquet’ in France. Would you count the punning names in the Asterix comics? They’re usually changed according to the language of the translation. A note with regard to Joyce: there are, apparently, two Chinese translations of Ulysses out there- one literal and one attempting to preserve the word play. I cannot imagine doing the Wake. Though plenty have: [Forthcoming Book on Translating Finnegans Wake | BLT](http://bltnotjustasandwich.com/2013/04/03/forthcoming-book-on-translating-finnegans-wake/) ---
**Author:** ![C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b2d939/32.png) [@C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/C_K_Dexter_Haven)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2014, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nonsense-words-in-translation/701189/12 "2014-10-15T14:59:58Z")
> [@MickNickMaggies](#): > > Similarly, he’s ‘Saquet’ in France. Interesting. My French edition of _Bilbo le Hobbit_ leaves his name as “Baggins.” My Spanish edition _El Hobbit_ has him as Bolsón which seems to mean “school bag” or “knapsack.” German, as someone said, he’s Beutlin. In Norwegian, Lommelun and in Hungarian Zsakos. He remains Baggins (or Bagins) in Romanian, Serbian, and Hebrew. I can’t tell you the Russian, Japanese, or Korean. (I have the books, but no way of reading their alphabets/hieroglyphs. I have a collection based on my travels) The problem here (I presume) is the rhyming joke of Baggins of Bag-End, and translators always have trouble with puns and rhymes. ---
**Author:** ![psychonaut](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/psychonaut/32/4655_2.png) [@psychonaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/psychonaut)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2014, 3:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nonsense-words-in-translation/701189/13 "2014-10-15T15:32:43Z")
> [@C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](#): > > Interesting. My French edition of _Bilbo le Hobbit_ leaves his name as “Baggins.” … He remains Baggins (or Bagins) in Romanian, Serbian, and Hebrew. How’s the name translated in _The Lord of the Rings_? IIRC Tolkien included some extensive instructions for translators in the appendix. It’s possible your French, Romanian, Serbian, and Hebrew versions of _The Hobbit_ were translated before LOTR was published. > [@](#): > > The problem here (I presume) is the rhyming joke of Baggins of Bag-End, and translators always have trouble with puns and rhymes. Yep, though in the professional literature a lot has been written on strategies for coping with wordplay. _Traductio: Essays on Punning and Translation_, an edited volume by Dirk Delabastita, comes to mind. The problem also gets occasional coverage in _[The Translator](https://www.stjerome.co.uk/tsa/journal/1/)_, an academic journal for translation studies. ---
**Author:** ![MickNickMaggies](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/59ef9b/32.png) [@MickNickMaggies](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MickNickMaggies)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2014, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nonsense-words-in-translation/701189/14 "2014-10-15T16:04:09Z")
> [@C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](#): > > Interesting. My French edition of _Bilbo le Hobbit_ leaves his name as “Baggins.” My Spanish edition _El Hobbit_ has him as Bolsón which seems to mean “school bag” or “knapsack.” German, as someone said, he’s Beutlin. In Norwegian, Lommelun and in Hungarian Zsakos. He remains Baggins (or Bagins) in Romanian, Serbian, and Hebrew. > > I can’t tell you the Russian, Japanese, or Korean. (I have the books, but no way of reading their alphabets/hieroglyphs. I have a collection based on my travels) > > The problem here (I presume) is the rhyming joke of Baggins of Bag-End, and translators always have trouble with puns and rhymes. I can only speak to the films, I’m afraid, where he is Bilbo Saquet of Cul-de-Sac 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b2d939/32.png) [@C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/C_K_Dexter_Haven)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2014, 10:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nonsense-words-in-translation/701189/15 "2014-10-16T10:10:01Z")
> [@psychonaut](#): > > How’s the name translated in _The Lord of the Rings_? IIRC Tolkien included some extensive instructions for translators in the appendix. It’s possible your French, Romanian, Serbian, and Hebrew versions of _The Hobbit_ were translated before LOTR was published. No clue, I don’t have a collection of _Lord of the Rings_ books – it’s expensive enough to get _The Hobbit_, and often difficult. (I was only in Korea for a short time, I had to run to a bookstore while the tour group was seeing some temple.) ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2014, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nonsense-words-in-translation/701189/16 "2014-10-18T14:39:40Z")
One of the more amusing examples is that in Danish (and probably other Scandinavian languages), the word for king is kong. So how do you translate King Kong? Answer: Kong King. Donald Duck becomes Anders And (and being the word for duck and Anders a common first name). ---
**Author:** ![Sitnam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Sitnam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sitnam)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2014, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nonsense-words-in-translation/701189/17 "2014-10-18T15:01:58Z")
Wonder if Nadsat is changed in the Russian version of A Clockwork Orange. ---
**Author:** ![Surok](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/cc9497/32.png) [@Surok](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Surok)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2014, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nonsense-words-in-translation/701189/18 "2014-10-18T15:13:18Z")
> [@Sitnam](#): > > Wonder if Nadsat is changed in the Russian version of A Clockwork Orange. One of the Russian translations puts Nadsat words in Latin characters. (See [here](http://loveread.ws/read_book.php?id=8617&p=1) for the first page).