Tolkien

Karolina Krzywoń to lektor oraz tłumacz języka angielskiego i niemieckiego. Współpracuje z RC Languages od 2019r. Prowadzi zajęcia z języka angielskiego, niemieckiego oraz warsztaty tematyczne m.in. z translatoryki. Interesuje się literaturą fantasy, grami wyobraźni i przekładem literackim.

What is the most well-known book series in the world? “Harry Potter”, of course. But one novel by another British author comes very close to “Harry Potter’s” popularity – “The Lord of the Rings” by J.R.R. Tolkien. Do you know what a remarkable person Tolkien was and that he might be a role model for every philologist and linguist? He knew over 30 languages (and created his own languages!) and worked as a lecturer in the University of Oxford. It’s possible that without Tolkien, the biggest English dictionary, Oxford English Dictionary, would look completely different today.

“The Lord of the Ring”, written by a renowned philologist, was a tough nut to crack for all translators. To make their job easier, Tolkien published tips how to translate the names he created – but the translators didn’t always listen to them, which made Tolkien very upset.

And what about Polish translations of “The Lord of the Rings?”. There are three of them, and discussions about them are endless. The first translation is the one by Maria Skibniewska, who had contacted Tolkien, asking for advice. Her translation is the most popular one. Then, the translation by Jerzy Łoziński was published – a ‘bad apple’ among Polish translations of “LotR”. Fans were furious by what they read: Baggins became ‘Bagosz’ and Merry was named ‘Radostek’. Readers were so angry that the translation was edited, although Łoziński was against it. Anyway, Frodo officially remained a Baggins. The newest translation is the one by Maria Frąc and Cezary Frąc, but it didn’t result in either positive or negative emotions among the readers.

The question remains: which Polish translation of “LotR” should you chose? Some recommend Skibniewska’s, other Łoziński’s, and fans on Facebook groups keep arguing which is the best and why. I LOVE “LotR” and I couldn’t sleep, not knowing the answer. So I decided to find it while writing my BA thesis in English Philology.

In my thesis, I compared dialogues in each translation. I chose 12 dialogues between various characters from the entire novel and analysed how the translators did. I thought there won’t be so many differences and that fans’ opinions were over-the-top – but I was wrong.

The differences are HUGE! I was shocked. It turned out that Frodo Bagosz wasn’t the biggest problem with Łoziński’s translation: the real one was too sophisticated style and the fact that the translator didn’t understand the original. The hobbits, according to Łoziński, speak as if they were created by Sienkiewicz. Dialogues don’t sound natural and are emotionless (although triple exclamation marks appear quite often). The jokes and humour disappear, everything sounds very serious and very complicated. The Frąc’s translation, on the other hand, is full of omissions. Omission is probably the worst translation strategy, which should be avoided. It basically means “cutting out” a fragment of the original like it wasn’t there. Why are there so many of them? Nobody knows.

So which translation won this battle? Surely the translation by Maria Skibniewska: the oldest, and yet the best. It’s not perfect – but no translation is. After all, ‘translation is the art of losing’. It contains some mistakes and elements that could have been translated better. But it is clear that only Skibniewska really understood what Tolkien wanted to express. And that’s what literary translation is about: we want to read a book written by its author, not the translator. If you really want to feel “The Lord of the Rings” and fall in love with it, read Skibniewska’s translation. And even better – read the original and go for a journey with the wonderful English language! 😀

The road goes ever on and on!