At 07:12 PM 9/10/02 -0600, Jay F Kominek wrote:
On Tue, Sep 10, 2002 at 08:43:34PM -0400, Bob LeChevalier wrote: > I remain partial to Burton's version of the Arabian Nights of which 12 > volumes are up on Gutenberg (not sure if its complete - I've seen up to 30 > volume versions), because it has the virtue of being of classic interest> and because it definitely is NOT a children's book but retained some of the > general appeal of same. But whether the language is "reasonably modern" is> a matter of opinion; it is Victorian era and he was trying to emulate the > flowery style of the Arabic. Translating a translation seems rather unproductive, I know for a fact I'm not the only Lojbanist who considers it vastly distasteful. Of course, not many of us know Arabic, but that just means we ought not be translating Arabian Nights. (There is actually an Arabic speaking Lojbanist now, (Hi iusris!) who ought to be the one translating something like Arabian Nights, if anyone.)
My understanding is that "Thousand Nights and a Night" is an oral tradition story, and thus there is no canonical Arabic text to translate from; they are Arabic cultural tales and there are stylistic elements that Burton went to great lengths to imitate. Translations as such have ranged from a single volume to Burton's which ranges from 20-30 vol (he kept adding to it).
The Arabian Nights stories actually come from all over the region (especially India and Persia in addition to the Arabic world, and many show evidence of pre-dating the Arabic version. Sheherazad for example is Persian. The first version may actually have been Persian. The earliest Arabic versions date to around 850 when there were relatively few stories (the 1001 was metaphorically "a lot"), and the stories have accumulated over the years in multiple versions (and probably a variety of dialects of Arabic). Even Burton did more than one version, but the one to aim for is the "unexpurgated version".
The inputs of an Arabic language speaker would be valuable in coming up with a definitive Lojban "translation", but one of the reasons I've always liked the idea of doing the Arabian Nights is the fact that we CAN take liberties with the text so long as we work to preserve the culture and style, and thus the Lojban version might end up as a work unto itself.
lojbab -- lojbab lojbab@lojban.org Bob LeChevalier, President, The Logical Language Group, Inc. 2904 Beau Lane, Fairfax VA 22031-1303 USA 703-385-0273 Artificial language Loglan/Lojban: http://www.lojban.org