EJA posted:Oh, and in answer to another poster's question, Olys Corellisi cannot be translated because it's supposed to be UN-translated and in the original. That's why it's called Olys Corellisi. So there's still those words to contemplate. My point is, it can't all be translated, as it would disrupt too much, IMHO. Hence my theory.
SuperWatto posted:Well, EJA, a number of objections have been put forth that challenge your theory, but you don't seem to want to consider them... For instance, in your theory, how do you account for the fact that the language doesn't change? And how do you account for the fact that coffee isn't called coffee, but hot chocolate is still hot chocolate?
EJA posted:I still reckon the distant ancestors of the humans in the SW galaxy originated on Earth, and were transplanted to planets like Coruscant by aliens. As interesting as all these theories that Basic is just translated into English are, has anyone thought about my idea that some unknown beings have manipulated the growth of language in the GFFA so that Basic has many similarities with modern English? Current Basic is said to be descended from non-human languages like Durese and Bothese, so they would have to have been directed by these guys - whoever they are - as well. I realise it's a bit far-fetched, but I'd like to know what people think.
Lord_Hydronium posted:For sanity's sake, I'm dropping the quotation marks below. Assume that when I talk about the "real languages" or "translating", I'm speaking within the in-universe framework. Obviously in the real world, this was all created after-the-fact. EJA posted:Oh, and in answer to another poster's question, Olys Corellisi cannot be translated because it's supposed to be UN-translated and in the original. That's why it's called Olys Corellisi. So there's still those words to contemplate. My point is, it can't all be translated, as it would disrupt too much, IMHO. Hence my theory. Again, Tolkien did the exact same thing. In his metafiction, while some languages are identical to their real versions, others were translated to preserve their relationship with English. Rohirric was an ancient form of Westron, so it became Old English when he translated it in LOTR. Names, too, were translated in the same fashion; Théoden, for example, was really Tûrac, and "Théoden" means the same thing as "Tûrac" does in Rohirric (namely "King"). So for Olys Corellisi, real Olys Corellisi has the same resemblance to Basic as the translated version does to English. The translated Olys Corellisi words were made up by LFL to give the same impression to us as the real ones would give to a Basic speaker. And for Karrde, it would go something like this: "Card" in Basic is "skark", and Talon's real surname is "Scarkk". The LFL translators got from the original texts "Talon Scarkk", and his ship, the "Blurb Scarkk". In order to preserve the meaning of the ship's name and the pun, they translated "Scarkk" to something that has the same association with our word "card". They chose "Karrde". That probably sounds more complicated than it is, but the same thing happens in our own world in translating across languages, and I'll point to Tolkien again as an example of that kind of device used in fiction. Example: The Baranduin River was nicknamed by the hobbits as "Bralda-hîm", meaning "heady ale". Tolkien, in translating, chose an English name that gave similar connotations, "Brandywine". EDIT: If it seems like I'm beating Tolkien into the ground here, I'll say that honestly, I don't know any other authors who have done an analysis of their own fake translations. If someone can think of another, bring them up so I can stop beating my copy of The Peoples of Middle-Earth to death. And an interesting thing I found when refreshing my memory from the Wikipedia article on Westron. Apparently Tolkien did the exact same thing that jSarek brought up regarding translating Basic to English, but keeping it in Aurabesh. Namely, he "translated" Westron to English on Balin's tombstone, but kept it in the Cirth runes.
Thrawn McEwok posted:Hydronium: The problem is that Tolkien's metafiction is explicitly a printed text of a translation of material from the Red Book of Hergest, rendered into English out of Westron (and large sections of which were already translated from Elvish)
darth_paul posted:Thrawn McEwok posted:Hydronium: The problem is that Tolkien's metafiction is explicitly a printed text of a translation of material from the Red Book of Hergest, rendered into English out of Westron (and large sections of which were already translated from Elvish)Quick, off-topic question -- is this correct, or did you do some odd accidental mental recombination to produce Red Book of Hergest? Because I know the Red Book of Hergest, I've studied texts from it, and it's a real book full of writings in Welsh. It would be totally bizarre if Tolkien linked his fictions into an extant medieval Welsh manuscript, but stranger things have happened, and I don't remember what name (if any) Tolkien assigned to his Red Book, so I thought I'd ask. -Paul
Ris_jSarek posted:browwiw posted:Then how do we rationalize Latin and French phrases in the GFFA. Personally, I just write them off as throwbacks to archaic forms of Basic. Same here. I've always figured Latin was archaic Kuati (hence the use of Latin names for their big ships) and that Greek was the ancient language of the Cygnus system (hence their regular use of greek letters for their shuttles and gunboats), and that Basic borrowed heavily from them.
browwiw posted:Then how do we rationalize Latin and French phrases in the GFFA. Personally, I just write them off as throwbacks to archaic forms of Basic.
EJA posted:When did I say the Basic language doesn't change?
EJA posted:In a purely fictional context, the SW saga was given to Earth humans in the form of the Journal of the Whills, an unknown amount of time ago. George Lucas found the Journal and made the movies based on what was in it. Later, all the other myriad tales and legends were edited and published by LFL. And that's what we have today
EJA posted:By the way, Lord_Hydronium: By your reckoning, is "ootman" - the Huttesse term for outsider - actually a translation, and not the proper Huttesse word itself? And does the same principle apply to some Old Gungan words, e.g. "tongue-grabben" (the Old Gungan for "eating")? Sorry, but I'm just trying to get as much sorted as possible. Thanks.
SuperWatto posted: For instance, in your theory, how do you account for the fact that the language doesn't change? And how do you account for the fact that coffee isn't called coffee, but hot chocolate is still hot chocolate?