Text Examples
These pages are still a work in progress.
These pages are still a work in progress.
To illustrate the different translations and allow comparison, I've included in this group of pages the first paragraph of the first chapter of the first book of the first volume (FR). Rather than choosing something more common, such as the Ring inscription, I've used this for two reasons. First, it is much easier to locate in any translation. Even partial translations always start with the beginning of the Fellowship. Second, it is prose text rather than poetic text and therefore is closer to illustrating more common grammatical and lexical choices than the somewhat artificial structures found in poetry. The order of examples is the same as the order on my shelves, which is roughly in order of families and subfamilies by geography, starting with my native language, English, on its home island of Great Britain and moving across Europe and Asia into the Pacific.
To illustrate the different translations and allow comparison, I've included in this group of pages the first paragraph of the first chapter of the first book of the first volume (FR). Rather than choosing something more common, such as the Ring inscription, I've used this for two reasons. First, it is much easier to locate in any translation. Even partial translations always start with the beginning of the Fellowship. Second, it is prose text rather than poetic text and therefore is closer to illustrating more common grammatical and lexical choices than the somewhat artificial structures found in poetry. The order of examples is the same as the order on my shelves, which is roughly in order of families and subfamilies by geography, starting with my native language, English, on its home island of Great Britain and moving across Europe and Asia into the Pacific.
Some translations have different translators for different parts of the LOTR or different translators for prose and poetry. I have listed here only the translator(s) of the passage in question.
Some translations have different translators for different parts of the LOTR or different translators for prose and poetry. I have listed here only the translator(s) of the passage in question.
Translations and transliterations from non-Roman scripts are from Google Translate. While Google Translate adequately handles most of the plain text, especially for the most common languages, the original "eleventy-first" has often come back into English from the various translations in a variety of incorrect ways (most commonly as just "eleventh"). I've replaced these numbers with "[eleventy-first]", as in Frisian, just to avoid confusion. If the number "eleventy-first" or "hundred and eleventh" is not in brackets, as in Dutch, then Google Translate has correctly translated the form back into English. Other than correcting the number, I have done nothing to smooth out the sometimes awkward English that is expected in machine translation. These translations are here to give an idea of the "flavor" of each attempt to render the English text into another language by the human translators.
Translations and transliterations from non-Roman scripts are from Google Translate. While Google Translate adequately handles most of the plain text, especially for the most common languages, the original "eleventy-first" has often come back into English from the various translations in a variety of incorrect ways (most commonly as just "eleventh"). I've replaced these numbers with "[eleventy-first]", as in Frisian, just to avoid confusion. If the number "eleventy-first" or "hundred and eleventh" is not in brackets, as in Dutch, then Google Translate has correctly translated the form back into English. Other than correcting the number, I have done nothing to smooth out the sometimes awkward English that is expected in machine translation. These translations are here to give an idea of the "flavor" of each attempt to render the English text into another language by the human translators.
I have ordered the samples in the order of translation when there are multiple translations into a single language. I used Wikipedia's list of translations for ordering and have mentioned translations that I do not have an example of at this time.
I have ordered the samples in the order of translation when there are multiple translations into a single language. I used Wikipedia's list of translations for ordering and have mentioned translations that I do not have an example of at this time.
[Germanic] English, Frisian, Dutch, Afrikaans, German, Yiddish, Icelandic, Faroese, Norwegian (Nynorsk, Bokmål, Riksmål), Danish, Swedish; [Balto-Slavic] Ukrainian, Belarusian, Russian, Polish, Czech, Slovak, Croatian, Serbian, Slovenian, Bulgarian, Macedonian, Lithuanian, Latvian; [Italic] French
[Germanic] English, Frisian, Dutch, Afrikaans, German, Yiddish, Icelandic, Faroese, Norwegian (Nynorsk, Bokmål, Riksmål), Danish, Swedish; [Balto-Slavic] Ukrainian, Belarusian, Russian, Polish, Czech, Slovak, Croatian, Serbian, Slovenian, Bulgarian, Macedonian, Lithuanian, Latvian; [Italic] French