So over on the Asatru Studies ML, there was someone pretty new to Asatru who had lots of questions about interpretations in the Havamal. They were a bit caught up in "why does this translator use this word, and the others are using these words... I don't see a connection. The problem of course is that translations are never perfect. It is impossible to fully translate from one language into another, from one culture into another, through the passage of times and different beliefs. Colloquilial expressions are different, sometimes one language may have nuances of words not present in the other. Even the syntax and structure of a sentence is different from one language to the other. In English we usually have a noun as a subject of our sentence first, then the verb. But in some languages the 'noun' or subject of the sentence can appear after the verb. This can impact translations. If you try to traslate line for line it may not make sense, and instead you have to translate the entire section of text instead.
Sometimes the syntax even in the same language can vary by regional influences. As Americans we don't think of this overly much, but I add lots of extra things to my sentences "I will go to the store shortly" becomes "I will be heading on out to the store here in a few" because we Southerners have a tendency to slow down and draw out our sentences. I don't just say thanks, or even thank you, I say thank you so much when the waiter refills my glass of water at the restauraunt, or even like the character of Brenda in TNT's The Closer, I sometimes say "thank you, thank you so much." All of these things impact translations, not to mention things such as the intent of the translator: Are they trying to keey some semblance of rhythmic or poetic devices in the original source to give the translation a bit of it's flavor? Have they dropped awkward phrases or antiquated languge to instead update to a more common modern vernacular? Sometimes of course preconceived notions or personal biases can influence a translator's choice of words.
This means that ultimately each translation is at best a re-telling of the original text. Short of learning the language of the ancient source material, the best course of action is to try not to be caught up in semantics, but to look at the big picture and the context, as usually that will steer you true. But of course that can sometimes be hard to do. And there are times when trnalstions 'color' in ways that may not be obvious outside of looking at the original source.
These are all important things to understand before reading any of the lore, let alone trying to decipher them. What follows is some discussion about specific stanzas of the Havamal, and my othoughts upon them in relation to one of the members of the ML's questions.
( Havamal 16 )( Havamal 127 )
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
lokis_dottir's journal
