I know you've always wanted to read a translation of H.P. Lovecraft into Basque... No? Well, how about a Basque translation of an H.P. Lovecraft story about "the barbarous Vascones"? The story is "The Very Old Folk" (1927), and it's here at après moi, le déluge, the Basque version (translated by "our friend Odei") followed by the original. Enjoy... or rather tremble in eldritch horror!
Posted by languagehat at September 7, 2005 03:43 PMSilmarillion is amazing!
Posted by: John Emerson at September 7, 2005 07:17 PMIn this case the amazing euskaldun is Hartza!
Posted by: silmarillion at September 7, 2005 10:38 PMI must confess that after reading "Basque lovecraft" I expected a much more tantric comment on the translation... Alas, thanks a lot hat.
What else could anyone expect from English speaking Basques ('euskaldunak') haunting Brussels??? Eldricht horrors, eerie posts and little else.
Posted by: Hartza at September 8, 2005 03:24 AMOh, well, you never know:
http://www.gatuzain.com/kama%20sutra%20lien.htm
Yes, there is a "Euskal Kama Sutra" (Basque Kama Sutra"). Without any doubt with a lot of pre-indoeuropean... let's say modus operandi.
Posted by: hartza at September 8, 2005 06:24 AMThanks, Hartza! I'll never read it, alas.
Posted by: John Emerson at September 8, 2005 09:00 AMHartza, perhaps you could translate the Basque dialect passages from Don Quixote into Basque. Now that would be a challenge! (I believe that Rabelais and John Skelton also feature little snippets of supposed Basque.)
Posted by: John Emerson at September 8, 2005 09:13 AMInto Basque or into English? Well, why not? I have recently re-discovered in my library (think about Gormenghast, but all of it books & trinkets) a good article on that particular passage by Rabelais (who in fact did wrote it in actual Basque!). And I also have some editions of the Quixote there… Anyway, if I recall correctly, the ‘Basque’ used by Cervantes was anything but real (*). I have to check that again (damned Alzheimer!).
Promised then: You will read soon about those topics in après moi.
Cheers!
(*) There is a very good article (in Spanish) on the humoristic use of pretended Basque in the Spanish comedies of XVI-XVII centuries at: http://www.cuadernoscervantes.com/art_43_vizcainos.html
I did check Skelton, and there was no Basque, alas.
Posted by: John Emerson at September 8, 2005 12:32 PM"No Basque, Alas" would make a great title.
Posted by: language hat at September 8, 2005 02:52 PM