English translations of informal 'you'

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big boots
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English translations of informal 'you'

Postby big boots » Tue Jun 27, 2017 9:57 am

I recently had the pleasure of reading Dostoyevsky's The Brothers Karamazov in English (the McDuff translation).

At a couple of points, it was necessary to communicate that a character said ‘ты’ instead of ‘вы’, and McDuff chose to translate this as ‘thou’. I thought that worked reasonably well, but it occurred to me that many English readers probably don't even know that ‘thou’ was the informal variant before it disappeared from the language.

How have you seen other translators work around this problem? It must be a common one, given how many European languages have that distinction.
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Re: English translations of informal 'you'

Postby Speakeasy » Tue Jun 27, 2017 11:57 am

My initial exposure to the now-archaic English pronouns “thee, thou, thy, thine, ye” occurred in my childhood in the 1950’s, a period when the King James version of the Bible was a standard reference for Christians and when many common prayers used these pronouns. Subsequent exposure to the works of Shakespeare and period-piece movies from the 1940’s provided a level of reinforcement. As we all know, these pronouns have been replaced by “you, your, yours” in Modern English. Over the past few decades, new translations of the Christian Bible have appeared along with some jarringly dissonant editions of Shakespeare’s works.

As to translated texts, I have come across a number of 19th century German-to-English and French-to-English translations that used the “thee, thou, thy, thine, ye” pronouns. However, I am under the impression that the "direct translation" of the “informal you” through the use of the archaic English pronouns seems to have been at least partially abandoned during the 1930’s and wholly-so since the 1950’s.

The practice of translating the “informal you” of some languages to the one-size-fits-all English “you” poses a genuine problem. Taking French as an example, the shift in register from “vous” to “tu” can have numerous connotations that are not easily rendered in English. A simple translation of both of these French pronouns into the English “you” could occult the sense of intimacy or social separation intended by the author of the original work. The result can be a rather vague, incomplete and, for some, inadequate translation. However, resorting to the use of the archaic pronouns “thee, thou, thy, thine, ye” through a rigid adherence to the Principle of Equivalent Effect -- which continues to be a subject of debate – might not clarify things for an English-speaker, even when used in “period” pieces, as they could seem rather odd to the modern reader.

This is an interesting question for which I am unable to propose an adequate solution. I look forward to reading comments from others.
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Re: English translations of informal 'you'

Postby Ogrim » Tue Jun 27, 2017 1:41 pm

Interesting topic which would be worth a serious study. I found this short blogpost dealing with the issue, and juggling with surname vs. first name in English as a way of rendering the difference is something I've seen before as well.

This topic has also been discussed here in Wordreference.
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Re: English translations of informal 'you'

Postby donkeygoatee » Tue Jun 27, 2017 2:00 pm

I don't know if this is common in all languages that have polite and familiar forms (probably not) but I always thought the significant thing in Spanish was not so much the pronoun itself, but the fact that polite speech is in the third person. That's what gives it it's distinct feel. And that does exist in English, although it's extremely rare: Would sir care to see a wine list? Since that's so unusual to hear in all but the most posh situations, I take it to mean that our normal way of addressing people is the familiar form, and we just don't really have a polite form any more, rather than the other way around. But I have to admit, I had no idea that "thou" was familiar and "you" polite. I thought they were just alternative words for the same thing.
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Re: English translations of informal 'you'

Postby big boots » Tue Jun 27, 2017 2:10 pm

Ogrim wrote:Interesting topic which would be worth a serious study. I found this short blogpost dealing with the issue, and juggling with surname vs. first name in English as a way of rendering the difference is something I've seen before as well.

This topic has also been discussed here in Wordreference.


That blog post was fascinating, thanks. I'm extremely impressed by the two examples given, and how the translators seamlessly conveyed the moods of the original French words.
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Re: English translations of informal 'you'

Postby galaxyrocker » Tue Jun 27, 2017 4:41 pm

donkeygoatee wrote:I don't know if this is common in all languages that have polite and familiar forms (probably not) but I always thought the significant thing in Spanish was not so much the pronoun itself, but the fact that polite speech is in the third person. That's what gives it it's distinct feel. And that does exist in English, although it's extremely rare: Would sir care to see a wine list? Since that's so unusual to hear in all but the most posh situations, I take it to mean that our normal way of addressing people is the familiar form, and we just don't really have a polite form any more, rather than the other way around. But I have to admit, I had no idea that "thou" was familiar and "you" polite. I thought they were just alternative words for the same thing.


I immediately thought of 'sir' when reading this. Perhaps something like "You, sir," and rely on context to distinguish it from sarcasm.
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Re: English translations of informal 'you'

Postby -JM- » Tue Jun 27, 2017 6:29 pm

There is formal/plural (siz) you and informal/singular (sen) you in Turkish. It's really not hard to make a distinction while translating from English. You look at the context and the speakers, then you got it.
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Re: English translations of informal 'you'

Postby Cainntear » Tue Jun 27, 2017 10:40 pm

big boots wrote:I recently had the pleasure of reading Dostoyevsky's The Brothers Karamazov in English (the McDuff translation).

At a couple of points, it was necessary to communicate that a character said ‘ты’ instead of ‘вы’, and McDuff chose to translate this as ‘thou’. I thought that worked reasonably well, but it occurred to me that many English readers probably don't even know that ‘thou’ was the informal variant before it disappeared from the language.

How have you seen other translators work around this problem? It must be a common one, given how many European languages have that distinction.

Even if thee/thou was strictly informal (which the translators' forum says it isn't), well... who would know that? The only place most people come across it is the Bible and Shakespeare, and it has become assumed to be highly formal, and you'll sometimes people using "thee" and "thou" in highly stylised forms when sarcastically bowing to someone.

Personally, I'd look for somewhere else in the sentence to show the informality, may "yeah" rather than "yes", or just little things like dropping a pronoun (eg "don't know what you're talking about") or phrases like "know what I mean?"
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Re: English translations of informal 'you'

Postby Iversen » Wed Jun 28, 2017 5:19 am

Both ‘ты’ and ‘вы’ should be translated into "you", and then you have to find other ways to express the shift from formal to informal ways of addressing your fellow human beings - in Modern English "thou" is reserved for your God. Actually you must be a fairly rotten translator to let people address each other with with "thou" in your translations!

The problem is to find good ways of expressing the act of becoming informal, and my hunch is that the best way would be to use the different naming conventions - as far as I know every Russian first name has an informal short form, just as in the States - like "Миша" for "Михаил". Wouldn't that be enough to mark a shift in your relations with the relevant fellow human being?
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