Translating personal and geographic names between Belarusian and English languages

Государственное учреждение образования Республиканский институт высшей школы Кафедра молодежной политики

Выпускная работа Translating proper nouns and names from English to Belarusian and from Belarusian to English

Исполнитель: Цыуля Татьяна Михайловна Руководитель: Кожуховская Людмила Сергеевна, кандидат культурологии

Минск, 2013 1

CONTENTS Introduction ............................................................................................................................................ 3 Chapter I. Basic rules of translating proper nouns and names................................................................... 4 1.1 Definition of proper noun and name ........................................................................................... 4 1.2 Basic techniques of translating proper nouns and names .......................................................... 4 Chapter II. Belarusian language and Romanization system ...................................................................... 7 2.1 Standard systems for Romanization of the Belarusian language .................................................. 7 Chapter III. Translation of proper nouns and names from English into Belarusian ................................. 11 3.1 Basic rules of translating proper nouns and names from English into Belarusian ................. 11 3.2 Difficulties of translating proper nouns and names from English into Belarusian ................. 15 References ............................................................................................................................................ 19

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Introduction The topic of this paper is “Translation of proper nouns and names from English to Belarusian and vice versa”. The main idea of this paper is to outline basic rules and principles how proper nouns and names should be translated to and from the Belarusian language. The goal of the article is to provide translators with tools to render proper nouns and names to the Belarusian language correctly, as well as to render Belarusian names to English in the most appropriate way.

The main objectives are: 

to define basic rules and principles how to translate proper nouns and names



to indicate weak points of Belarusian to English and English to Belarusian

translation and 

to give clues how to tackle the issue correctly

Key words: proper noun, proper name, translation, transliteration, source language, target language, Romanization, word origin, lacinka.

The paper consists of the introduction, three chapters, the conclusion and the references.

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Chapter I. Basic rules of translating proper nouns and names 1.1 Definition of proper noun and name Proper nouns are used to refer to unique objects that can be identified thanks to such naming out of any context. A proper noun is a noun that in its primary application refers to a unique entity, such as Paris, Venus, Martha, or Volkswagen, as distinguished from a common noun, which usually refers to a class of entities (city, goddess, person, car), or non-unique instances of a certain class (a city, another goddess, these persons, our car). Some proper nouns occur in plural form (optionally or exclusively), and then they refer to groups of entities considered as unique (the Simpsons, the Outer Hebrides, the Alps). A distinction is normally made in current linguistics between proper nouns and proper names. By this strict distinction, because the term noun is used for a class of single words (tree, beauty), only single-word proper names are proper nouns: Peter and America are both proper names and proper nouns; but Peter the Great and Latin America, while they are proper names, are not proper nouns. Few proper names have only one possible referent: there are many places named New Haven; Venus may refer to a planet, a god, a ship, or a statue; there are towns and people named Toyota, as well as the company.

In English and many other languages, proper names are associated with capitalization; but the details are complex, and vary from language to language (French lundi, Canada, canadien; English Monday, Canada, Canadian).

The study of proper names is sometimes called onomastics or onomatology.

Proper names can fall into groups such as: anthroponyms, for example surnames, pen names (Mark Twain) and nick names (Peter Piper); animal names (Hercules the Bear), fiction and mythological characters’ names (Zeus, Peter Pan) etc; toponyms (Sri-Lanka), hydronyms (the Danube), ethnonyms (Australians) and demonyms (Germans, Roma, Bushmen, Vandals), astronyms (Gemini, Capricorn), titles of organizations (UNICEF, Doctors without Borders, companies (Belaruskali, Ernst&Young), buildings (The Tower), mass media (the BBC, The Washington Post); titles of films and books, and many others.

1.2 Basic techniques of translating proper nouns and names Since naming deals with individualization of its referent, generally proper names can be rendered to another language by means of borrowing, and there are several ways to do it.

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Transliteration means representing words in the corresponding characters of another alphabet.

Transliteration is based on the principle of graphic resemblance [p. 21, 2]. Strict transliteration preserves a maximum of orthographic detail of the source language (including phonetically meaningless distinctions), at the expense of readability in the target language. It is convenient to use transliterated names in legal documents, in search engines, as it contributes to universality and accuracy of reproducing the name in written form. However, the target language imposes pronunciation rules of its own, and the transliterated name might sound very differently which causes misunderstanding in oral communication. Transliteration was used especially in 18th and 19th century when translation was fragmentary.

Sometimes, when languages use the same writing system, a name is directly transferred from one language to another. Difficulty arises here again in spoken speech: the borrowed word might sound differently because of different rules of reading letter clusters, or the source language might use diacritic marks that might be ignored by the target language. As a result, translated name will be far from the original in pronunciation and thus unrecognizable.

For example: Melpomene /mɛlˈpɒminiː/ (Greek to En), Kosciuszko /kɒziːˈɒskoʊ/ (Polish to En) Another technique is transcription which is carried out according to phonetic resemblance. The task of such translation is to illustrate pronunciation of a name in its original form by means of the writing system of the target language. Phonetic transcription preserves a maximum of phonetic detail of the source language (including sounds which do not exist in the target language or which are subtly different from ones that do). This principle is prevalent nowadays because spoken speech is considered to be the primary form of communication whereas written speech is secondary.

For example: Ivanhoe (En) – Айвенга (By), Rimbaud (Fr) – Рэмбо (By) The most reasonable kind of translation of names is practical transliteration systems are hybrids that strike a balance between these two extremes, sacrificing both orthographic and phonetic details.

If a name is translated, the word becomes a kind of a borrowing, and it undergoes adaptation to phonetic, morphological and syntactical rules of the language, for the purpose of convenience in speech. The degree of adaptation can vary, depending on the type of language, its structure, 5

social traditions etc., for example the target language might adopt the name to its own writing or declination system.

For example: Saint Petersburg (En) - San Petesburgo (Sp.); Sharon Stone (En) - Šārona Stouna (Ltv.).

And before translating a name, make sure it does not have a traditional variant: The English Channel – Ла-Манш; Washington – Вашынгтан; Beijing – Пекін; München – Munich; Köln – Cologne; Warszawa – Warsaw.

Sometimes a principle of transposition is applied [p. 24, 4], or in other words a principle of etymological correspondence. When a name of the same linguistic origin has slightly different variants in several languages, it is translated to the target language with the closest phonetic and graphic correspondence to the source language. This principle is coming into use in several postSoviet countries in which the Russian language lost its position of lingua franca and gave way to national languages. In Belarus it has caused vigorous discussion for people and an unsolvable issue for public institutions (see paragraph 2.3).

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Chapter II. Belarusian language and Romanization system 2.1 Standard systems for Romanization of the Belarusian language The Belarusian language has used the Cyrillic alphabet predominantly. However it has a Roman alphabet known as lacinka which first occurred in the 16th century and was developed in 19th and early 20th centuries. There are several Romanization systems for Belarusian created since mid-20th century. Based on the lacinka, the first draft of it was compiled in 1998 and subsequently officially adopted in 2000. The national system of Romanization that was adopted in its present form on 11 June, 2007 by the State Committee on Property, Republic of Belarus.

The latest variant was updated in February 2013 by the United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names (UNGEGN). “The second version of the Regulation was repeatedly submitted to UNGEGN WG on Romanization Systems in May, 2012 and met no objections.

National system of Belarus is recognized to be reversible and understandable by the population of many countries. Today the system of the Roman alphabet transliteration of Belarusian geographical names is applied in road and tourist maps production, represented in the normative reference book “The names of settlements of the Republic of Belarus” in six volumes, in the State Catalogue of geographical Names of the Republic of Belarus and other publications intended for international use." [10] (See Picture 1).

Picture 1.

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The document also quotes the BGN/PCGN Romanization system for Belarusian adopted in 1979 by United States Board on Geographic Names and by the Permanent Committee on Geographical Names for British Official Use [9]. The system is generally used nowadays to render Belarusian proper names into English for instance in passports, in mass media etc. The picture below contains only the differences that exists between the BGN/PCGN and UN adopted Romanization system.

Picture 2. The BGN/PCGN 1979 System [10]

In traditional lacinka diacritic marks are used on top of some specific sounds of the language, whereas in BGN/PCGN system letter clusters are used. There is a slight difference in rendering palatalization and j sound. Existence and parallel use of both systems creates some difficulties, especially in official documentation, and hampers accuracy of translations and reading.

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2.2 Difficulties of translating proper nouns and names from Belarusian into English

Existence of several Romanization systems and lack of uniformity causes variability in translation. For example:  Palatalization of consonants is reflected through i or y: Byalynichy or Bialynichy.  Й is reflected through j or y: Siarhey or Siarhej  Г is reflected through g, not h: Galina instead of Halina; meantime the plosive sound is used in few words, like Agatha (as a variant)  Apostrophe is not Romanized: Мар’я – Marjia – Maryja  Ў might be rendered through w or ŭ (the latter often loses the diacritic mark): Mahilyow, also transliterated Mahilioŭ, Mahilou  Soft consonants are not always reflected, besides the mark ’ might be confused with the apostrophe: Кісель - Kisel/Kisel’, Ваньковіч – Vankovich/Van’kovich  Kh might be read as aspirated к rather than Cyrillic х: imagine reading Pukhavichy.

Another trouble here is that the softening symbols i/y will be read by English-speaking people not as a softened consonant, but with full reproduction of the vowel, which does not help to imitate the pronunciation of the original name, but rather creates an additional difficulty for reading the translation.

Besides, the use of lacinka with diacritic marks might be a difficulty for those who do not know the system and do not use diacritic symbols: Štefan – Stefan, Mahilioŭ – Mahiliou.

Still, the most serious trouble in Belarus is the phenomenon of transposition. Many Belarusians are used to speaking and writing in Russian. Thus, questions arise when they see their names translated from Belarusian. Transposition is used inconsistently in Belarus and creates a number of variants for one and the same name, some of which can be hard to recognize: Yauheniya – Evgeniya, Grigoriy – Ryhor, Olga – Volha, Alexander – Ales, Gennadiy – Henadzi.

Problems occur with Soviet times’ names originating from Russian: Oktiabrskij or Kastrychnitski town; Krasnozvezdnaya or Chyrvanazornaya street etc. No matter how monstrous the words might sound in Belarusian, it is inappropriate to make substitutions of the kind, we should leave it as it is from the outset: Zvyazda newspaper.

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Additional difficulty arises when state registration bodies are reluctant to change the name for the variant that a person chooses in his or her identity cards, which might later cause real problems in computer registration systems and official relations of different kinds. Still, the person-referent should enjoy full rights to choose the name variant and the language they are used to. Here, the issue stays for the debate on self-identity and the state’s language policy.

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Chapter III. Translation of proper nouns and names from English into Belarusian 3.1 Basic rules of translating proper nouns and names from English into Belarusian Basically, proper names in translation from English into Belarusian are transformed and adapted to the general phonology rules of the latter. So it is essential to know the pronunciation specific of Belarusian.

Many consonants may form pairs that differ only in palatalization and called hard vs soft consonants, the latter being represented in the IPA with the symbol ⟨ʲ⟩. Such correlation is a distinctive feature of Belarusian, but does not exist in English. Thanks to this correlation we can observe several typically Belarusian phenomena:  Tsyekannye (цеканне) and dzyekannye (дзеканне) – the pronunciation of Old East Slavic /tʲ/,/dʲ/ as soft affricates /tsʲ/, /dzʲ/.  Postalveolar consonants are all hard (laminal retroflex) while Russian and Ukrainian have both hard and soft postalveolars. (these are affricates tʃ dʒ and fricatives ʃ ʒ); also /rʲ/ has hardened and merged with /r/ due to which it is followed by /y/ instead of /i/ sound.  Akannnie (аканне) – the merger of unstressed /o/ into /a/. Unlike in Russian akanye, the pronunciation of the merged vowel is a clear open front unrounded vowel [a], including after soft consonants and /j/: Francois Hollande - Франсуа Аланд, Токіа, Ватэрлоа.

Here it is essential to know the place of the word stress, depending on which the translator chooses the correct word form: Rusino, Stowbtsy, but not Rusina and Stawbtsy.  There is no germination for many letter clusters, such as cci: Белучы, Гучы.  Doubled consonants are translated according to the transcription principle, in other words, they are shortened till single consonant: Greenville – Грынвіль, Churchill – Чэрчыль, Калькута, Ніца, Марока. However, the recent Belarusian language reform has left the exceptions women’s name Ганна, Жанна, Сюзанна and Мекка.

For full rules see Picture 3 and 4.

As for names which consist of proper noun plus a class name, the former is transliterated and the latter is translated accordingly, and, where necessary, accompanied by an explanatory comment; abbreviations should be rendered as abbreviation only if they are commonly known, otherwise they should be explained and abbreviation in the target language should be introduced.

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Remarkably, in English class names usually follow proper names, whereas in Slavic tradition class names come before proper names. Also, English proper names, including titles of mass media, are not separated with inverted commas, whereas in Belarusian they are used to limit practically any title except for names of public institutions. Well-known brand names, mass media etc. can be left untranslated, but only in case the translator is sure that the target audience understands the name.

UNESCO – ЮНЕСКА PACE – ПАСЕ – Парламенцкая асамблея Савета Еўропы Xinhua agency - навінавае агенцтва “Сіньхуа” EBU – “Еўрапейскі вяшчальны саюз" The Times – газета “Таймс” Мінгарвыканкам – Minsk City Executive Committee кінатэатр «Перамога» - Pieramoha Cinema РУП «Белпошта» - the Republican Unitary Enterprise Belposhta

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Picture 3 [p. 21, 2]

13

Picture 4 [p. 22, 2]

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3.2 Difficulties of translating proper nouns and names from English into Belarusian According to the recent reform of the Belarusian orthography held in 2008 – 2010 [7], spelling of proper names has been changed towards uniformity according to rules of Belarusian literary pronunciation.  Unstressed o becomes a: Токіа, Ватэрлоа.  e at the end of proper names becomes э: Каба-Вердэ, Душанбэ, Струвэ, Мерымэ.  дт at the end of a word was shortened to т: Гумбальт, Кранштат, Брант, Рэмбрант, Шміт, Клот.

However, the reform law has still left many issues open for debates. For example:  Letters д, т, дз, ц are written according to the literary pronunciation in proper names: Дэфо, Дэтройт, Тэкерэй, Целяханы, Цюмень, Гаіці, Палесціна, Церак (the last word in soviet time was spelt “Терэк" (river) against any possible norm of the Belarusian language, but alongside with this a name "Тэрэк-Сай" (town, Kirgizia) existed which is fixed in Belarusian encyclopedias. At the same time, the author of this paper has always heard and said “Палестына”, with the hard vowel /t/, so the grounds for using soft consonant here is not obvious. In online articles both variants are used inconsistently, sometimes even within one text, which shows that speakers themselves are confused [15]. The article of the law (paragraph 12.7 of the law) recommends consulting the spelling dictionary.  At the end of proper names у is never shortened: Ландау, Дахау, Шоу.  Й at the beginning of proper names and in intervocalic position disappears: НьюЁрк, Мая, Ёфе. Strangely enough, J at the beginning of some words was substituted by full vowel I + vowel: Іаркшыр, Іакагама.

Special attention should be paid to capitalization and hyphenation.

The following proper names are hyphenated:  compound names and surnames, as well as toponyms: Жан-Жак Русо, КамянецПадольскі  toponyms with particles на, дэ, сюр: Растоў-на-Доне, Франкфурт-на-Майне, Па-дэКале, Булонь-сюр-Мэр; a special rule says that particles in such words all go with small 15

letters: Рыа-дэ-Жанэйра, Па-дэ-Кале, Булонь-сэр-Мэр, Сьера-дэ-лас-Мінас, Дар-эсСалам, Салам-і-Гомес  personal names with -хан, -шах, -паша, -бей, -бай, -задэ, -аглы, -кызы, -бек.  personal names and toponyms with Ван-, Мак-, Нью-, Сан-, Санкт-, Сен-, Сент toponyms with Усць-, Верх-, Соль toponyms with parts of the world Усходне-, Заходне-, Паўднёва-, Паўночна-, Цэнтральна- are hyphenated and capitalized.

However, particles and articles in personal names да, дэ, ла, ле, ля etc. and дэр, дон, фон, ван are written separately, with small letter and without a hyphen: Леанарда да Вінчы, Шарль дэ Кастэр, Анарэ дэ Бальзак, ла Валета, ла Мот, ле Шапелье, ля Крэзо, Ван дэр Мейлен, фон дэр Гольц, дон Хуан, Людвіг ван Бетховен.

Parts of personal compound names of Eastern origin (Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese, Birma, Indonesian, Tai, Sri-Lankan and Japanese people) are capitalized and not hyphenated: Ань Лушань, Ван Янмінь, Сунь Ятсен, Тао Юаньмінь, Цзян Гуанцы (Кітай); Ан Чхан Хо, Чхве Чxі Вон, Пак Ін Но (Карэя); Нгуен Фук Ань, Нгуен Чай (В’етнам); Пі Маў Нін, Такін Кода Хмайн (Бірма); Сутан Такдыр Алішахбана, Прамудзья Ананта Тур, Утуі Тутанг Сантані (Інданезія); Кулаб Сайпрадыт, П’я Тасін (Тайланд); Карахара Карахіта (Японія).

Some pronunciation phenomena also might cause a difficulty. Unlike in Russian, phonemic /v/ and /l/ merge as [w] syllable-finally. This is reflected in the spelling, which uses a special symbol known as "non-syllabic U" (Belarusian: у нескладовае): Паўлаў. The question is how to say in Belarusian Abraham Maslow and Nemiroff both of which seem to have Russian roots but are adopted and recognized worldwide as English-sounding names.

Names with Г are letter transliterated via H and not G, the thing that many Russian-speaking Belarusians forget or do not accept. By the way, in reproducing such names in English, some speakers may also fail to read it correctly, making H a silent letter. We can compare with French, Czech and German: Honoré de Balzac, Vaclav Havel, Wolfgang Goethe. Again, it should be up to people to use the variant they like, but the variant should be universal for bank, for court, for air tickets as well as for business cards.

Besides the spelling rules, a translator will surely come across more serious difficulties one of which is absence of sounds or sound combinations in the target language. For example: 16

Jonas Bergström (No) – Ёнас Бергстром /Austin-Bergstrom – Остын Бергстром (аэрапорт) Sometimes phonetic peculiarity of the Belarusian language results in loss of sounds which are essential for distinction of name referents. For example, stress can be essential for translation to Belarusian, as /o/ in unstressed position changes for /a/: Claude Monet – Клод Манэ / Édouard Manet – Эдуард Манэ Sometimes one letter might be gender-differentiating: Антоніа - Антонія.

In general, to translate names that have never been translated before, it is highly advisable to check it with some name directory, especially if the name is other but English by origin. The origin of the name is essential, as different reading traditions might result in creating variants of one and the same name: Hugo – Х’юга, Уга; Hercules – Гуркулес, Эркюль

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Conclusion Translation of proper nouns is one of the most difficult and responsible parts of translators’ work. Basic techniques of translating proper nouns and names are transliteration, direct transfer, transcription, and practical transcription, the last one being the most popular with modern-day translators.

The Belarusian language has had several systems of Romanization with the latest variant adopted in 2013. The geographical names standard system uses the traditional Belarusian lacinka alphabet, whereas people’s registration is carried out according to the BGN/PCGN system of 1979. Existence of several systems together with broad use of two official languages in Belarus and dialects and colloquial variants of the languages prevents accuracy and uniformity in writing. Translation of a name becomes a hard task, and transposition in such circumstances provokes angry public discussions of linguistic character. This issue is to be left within the issue of national self-identity and the state’s language policy. The existence of several Romanization systems causes high variability for names translation and might result in serious misunderstandings. A translator must take into account the purpose for which translation is carried out, the audience’s awareness of the language specific. The best advice here is to stick to one consistent system of transcription and provide comments where necessary and possible.

The reform of the language in 2008 has not added up to homogeneity in translating names from English into Belarusian. Translators need to consult dictionaries, name directories, literary norms and spelling rules. They also should pay attention to the need to translate the name in the most convenient and the most recognizable way.

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