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Originally Posted by Legate of Amon Lanc
Even a sentence like "In the green forest it was twilight" does not sound the same as "V zeleném lese bylo šero", and the, let's say, melody of the language is already different.
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Lol, I understand that!
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Therefore, names should be translated accordingly too, wherever it is appropriate.
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because they are supposed to sound "like home", therefore, they should sound akin to placenames and surnames familiar to the reader
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I agree. For exmple, "Baggins" would leave me staring blankly at the page (if I didn't know English), but "Torbins" would mean something, and therefore give off a certain spirit.
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and then specific names, for instance Gollum, which conveys a certain sound, in case it sounded weird in the language into which it is being translated - in Czech, it is Glum, and that sounds really as if you are swallowing something nasty, while Gollum is a bit too long and has double consonant, which does not really fit the language and would start seeming strange.
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Russian has a lot of consonants in words, at least more than English (we could have a combination of
tstv, for example). Sometimes the translator added in some letters to names, especially Rohirric names, to make them more Russian-sounding. Taking Gollum as an example - it's made into Gorlum, with sounds like a gurgling noise.
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Most of the poems and songs in LotR are translated really nicely, but the Rohirric ones, for some reason, are totally off - they don't rhyme, they don't alliterate, they sound like random "shouts in the dark".
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They don't rhyme in Russian either, but they are melodic. The content of some poems (in generel, not only Rohirric) is sometimes changed slightly, but they sound terriffic, and most of them have rhyme. Some of them I like a little better in Russian, but maybe that's just because I'm used to them being that way.
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So, all in all, my belief about translating the names in LotR is: what is English (in terms of the story, translated from Westron) should be translated into the respective language, only what is Elvish should be kept Elvish and so on, and words of questionable origin (like hobbit) can also be translated. After all, I am not sure what does Tolkien think, but the word "hobbit" is a translation, the "real" Westron word is kuduk, right? Therefore, I don't see why it should not be translated.
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That is a very good point!
Another think that I want to mention is the line that Frodo says to Galadriel when offering her the Ring.
English: "You are wise and fearless and fair"
Translation: "You are wise, fearless, and just"
A curious difference, with the double-meaning of "fair". No one knows hich one Tolkien really meant...
