Translation issues
Jan. 24th, 2012 06:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethDoes anyone here happen to speak Swedish?
Actually it's only Google's auto translate that tells me that's the language I'm after.
I was reading a thing on made up nerd words and it included Card's hierarchy of foreignness. I typed it into Google because I vaguely recalled they're not made up words, they're made up meanings. Which would make bringing them into wider use, er, potentially problematic. But google, as usual, presents me with a whole bunch of possibilities I can't make sense of. So, potential Scandinavian speaking people:
utlanning, framling, raman, varelse, djur
what do they mean?
because google reckons utlanning means alien, which is a bit of a pickle when it's meant to mean human you don't know.
utlanning: stranger human of our world but from far away
framling: human from a different world
ramen: different species but you can chat
varelse: different species and you can't communicate or figure them out at all, like animals
djur: dire beast, the scary hungry sort
with ramen you can be friends, with varelse you can live and let live, but djur is not going to let you alone or leave room to negotiate.
that's how I remember it anyways, I haven't read Speaker for ages.
Actually it's only Google's auto translate that tells me that's the language I'm after.
I was reading a thing on made up nerd words and it included Card's hierarchy of foreignness. I typed it into Google because I vaguely recalled they're not made up words, they're made up meanings. Which would make bringing them into wider use, er, potentially problematic. But google, as usual, presents me with a whole bunch of possibilities I can't make sense of. So, potential Scandinavian speaking people:
utlanning, framling, raman, varelse, djur
what do they mean?
because google reckons utlanning means alien, which is a bit of a pickle when it's meant to mean human you don't know.
utlanning: stranger human of our world but from far away
framling: human from a different world
ramen: different species but you can chat
varelse: different species and you can't communicate or figure them out at all, like animals
djur: dire beast, the scary hungry sort
with ramen you can be friends, with varelse you can live and let live, but djur is not going to let you alone or leave room to negotiate.
that's how I remember it anyways, I haven't read Speaker for ages.
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Date: 2012-01-24 08:07 pm (UTC)Utlänning (http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/utl%C3%A4nning) is cognate with English outlander. Translating it as alien is not the best choice, but it's not wrong: before alien meant extraterrestrial, it meant "Belonging to another person, place, or family; strange, foreign, not of one's own" [OED].
Främling (http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/fr%C3%A4mling) means "stranger, foreigner". (Cognate with Old English fremd, but this disappeared from the language.)
Varelse (http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/varelse) means "a creature, a being; especially of mythological origin". (From the verb vara, "to be", which is cognate with English were.)
Djur (http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/djur) means "animal". (Cognate with English deer.)
I have no idea about raman!
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Date: 2012-01-25 07:51 pm (UTC)thanks
no subject
Date: 2012-01-24 08:41 pm (UTC)framling - again with two umlauts over the first a is stranger
ramen - frame or framework depending on context
varelse - creature
djur - animal
Cheers,
MJ
no subject
Date: 2012-01-25 07:52 pm (UTC)but not made up, not nerd words, not uncomplicated to make wider use.