@ native german speakers: i need help with some words for a translation

[Kyriakos]

I am contracted to translate a large number of works by Franz Kafka, yet given i will have to translate from english i want to ask about some crucial terms which seem to be rendered differently in various english translations.


For the time being i am translating the story "Ein Hungerkünstler". I suppose that kunst means art (going from the famous composition by Bach), yet i want to ask the following:


-is the term "Hungerkünstler" more than a mere neologism combining two terms? Ie, does it come across as a bizarre term? Asking cause in various english translations it has been rendered as "Hunger artist", "Fasting professional" or similar terms/combinations.
Currently i am translating it as someone who presents hunger (as in a hunger strike) as a profession, but maybe "art" is closer to the intended meaning. How would a native german speaker translate it?


(more questions will follow, as i go on)

[mishkin]

Maybe you could also try in the Deutsch (German) Thread. (If they are people as reasonable as they seem, they will ask for a percentage of what you get from the translation ).

[Kyriakos]

^ Well, hunger/fasting artists actually existed in the german world till the 1910s, so why not
Some kind of show-man/circus act.

[Condottiere 40K]

Extended fasting as performance art?

Nowadays, that's either runway models or a political protest.

[Kyriakos]

Extended fasting as performance art?

Nowadays, that's either runway models or a political protest.

According to a wiki german article, the hunger artist was part of the show, i suppose like the bearded woman or two-headed man or incredibly tall/short person.

[Ἀπολλόδοτος Α΄ ὁ Σωτήρ]

Warum nicht fragen mirh, meine deutsche sehr gut, ja? Ich nicht know gut grammatik aber ich sprechen gut, vileicht Ich helpen ihr, ja?

[Condottiere 40K]

Ve haf vays of making this wok.

[Ἀπολλόδοτος Α΄ ὁ Σωτήρ]

[Iskar]

Hungerkünstler is not a common word these days but it was such around 1900. "... artist" seems more appropriate than "... professional" as these people appeared in circuses and varietés and the like rather than doing an orderly "professional" job.

Composite nouns in German often do not come with the artificial connotation of actual "neologisms" as German allows the ad-hoc formation of such composita in discourse. All components being known to those talking the compositum is automatically parsed and understood as well.

[Kyriakos]

^I think it would be closer to a "craft" or "trade", and even more to a show or performance, but in greek there aren't many distinctions, and most non-artistic jobs are either named by the noun form of the job (eg dancer, not dance artist) or are in general understood as a profession. Besides, the distinction used is in profession that allows one to live, juxtaposed to something meant as less systematic.

Currently i keep the title as "professional" in that sense, though in the body of the story i have used all descriptions that make it less ambiguous.

"Hunger" is another issue. It is meant as one who performs not eating, which isn't automatically understood by "fasting" (the latter usually means you avoid certain types of food for religious or medical reason). So, again, while i can't easily change it in the title (kept the analogous greek for 'fasting') i am making it clear it is about not eating at all (the person there just drinks water). So the term "aphagia" (non-eating) is employed, just not in the title because the term itself isn't good to use without peripheral words to make it specific.

Re Kafka's meaning (and if it should be an artist in the story), it actually is not straightforward, cause the person not eating is of the view that "not eating is the easiest thing in the world". Ie he isn't proud due to not eating itself, at least not as things happen in this story.

[Iskar]

Yes, the German verb "hungern" also has an active meaning as "not eating" rather than the passive/medial one of "not having anything to eat". I think it is rather this active meaning in "Hungerkünstler". Notice also that the German word "Künstler" may in some contexts not refer to someone actually producing art but to a sort of professional entertainer as well. The German word "Artist" itself even almost exclusively refers to people working at circuses/varietés/etc which would include Hungerkünstler as well. Hope that helps for the contextualisation.

[Condottiere 40K]

The audience expects the spectacle of a skeletal figure; hunger pornography?

If you want to argue semantics, kunst is both art and artificial.

[Kyriakos]

Due to the problematic-to-translate term being in the title itself, i can't really be lenient in how i present the title. Which is why i chose to use the body of the story to distance/negate any wrong meanings of "fasting" and turn it into "not eating", as a show (which is what is going on)

Otherwise i would have to use an apax legomenon expression (one not found in other titles) as the title itself - which wouldn't be a good idea, and would sound needlessly pompous in this case. Eg "a professional shower of absinence from food" (analogous in greek, "Ένας που παρουσίαζε ως επάγγελμα την αποχή απο το φαγητό") which while technically is sound, it is not a good replacement for such a small title in the original!

We didn't have something officially titled like a hungerkünstler here, so there isn't any local term to use anyway.

So, instead of a large but more specific phrase, i currently use "Ένας επαγγελματίας νηστευτής" ("a professional faster). Previous greek translations have used "The faster" (Ο Νηστευτής) and "A hunger artist" (Ένας καλλιτέχνης της πείνας). The latter is, again, bizarre and unique, so i don't want it.

[Kyriakos]

Ok, moving on to another story


Does "Unglücklichsein" mean "unhappiness"?


Moreover, if a native german can have a look at the following text and tell me if the appearance of the child is translated by something like "as if it was a small ghost" or "like a ghost" (crucial, cause -at least- later on it is evident the narrator thinks it was a ghost anyway).

Als kleines Gespenst fuhr ein Kind aus dem ganz dunklen Korridor, in dem die Lampe noch nicht brannte, und blieb auf den Fußspitzen stehn, auf einem unmerklich schaukelnden Fußbodenbalken.

(full story at http://www.textlog.de/3883.html)

[Condottiere 40K]

Kafka's story is titled Unhappiness in English, though I think it implies being in a state of.

[Iskar]

Unglücklichsein means "being unhappy" as a noin/gerund. Unhappiness would be "Unglücklichkeit" or rather "Betrübtheit".

"Als kleines Gespenst" is a funny expression. It can be translated both as "like a small ghost"/"as if it was a small ghost" (implying it isn't one but looks like it) and "as a small ghost" (implying it is in fact one). The German expression superimposes both meanings, leaving it intentionally ambiguous.

[Kyriakos]

Unglücklichsein means "being unhappy" as a noin/gerund. Unhappiness would be "Unglücklichkeit" or rather "Betrübtheit".

"Als kleines Gespenst" is a funny expression. It can be translated both as "like a small ghost"/"as if it was a small ghost" (implying it isn't one but looks like it) and "as a small ghost" (implying it is in fact one). The German expression superimposes both meanings, leaving it intentionally ambiguous.

Hm, well that can be accounted for by using "ws" (omega, sigma) in greek, since that means either "like a" and "since it was a"

[Kyriakos]

Ok, moving on to another story. This one is only 1000 words.


Titled "Der Schlag ans Hoftor".


Currently i am translating it as (analogous in greek) "the knock on the gate of the manor", but manor referred to as some kind of farm. There are some terms i could use, eg "ktema" (farm; basically it is a synekdoche, ie it means the farmland and by extention any buildings there), and "agroikia", literally "country-house" or cottage.
I would ideally use "ktema", cause "agroikia" is a lot more austere-sounding. (if you wear a monocle, you'd call it that ).


So, first question is: Would Hoftor be a special name for the gate, or is it the actual collection of land/buildings?
Also, i suppose this is a gate of the farmland+buildings there (eg a peasant house etc), with the gate being in some fence/wall?





You can read the full story in german, at http://gutenberg.spiegel.de/buch/franz-kafka-erz-161/1

[Iskar]

Hof in German can both mean court(yard) and farm(house). A rural Hof is usually a collection of buildings, including barn, stables, sheds and the actual house where people live. The Hoftor would be the gate of the enclosing wall (definitely rather an actual, at least man-high wall than a fence in the context of the story) of the entire estate. Given the story it would most likely be a stately manorial farm.

[Kyriakos]

^Thanks