maandag 26 januari 2009

Otto's oto

(This one is for Adina Luncan, who was sitting in the same train as I reading the same two books, and who pointed my attention to Ernst Jandl and his poem Ottos mops. The effect of feeding nursery rhymes like these to Babelfish is really hilaric. I don't own a car and have no intention of buying one, but 'oto' was my first word.)



O
zo
trots
is
Otto
op zijn
oto.
Otto
klopt
op zijn
borst:
O!
wat
een mooie
oto
is mijn
oto.
Otto
droomt
dat ook
Oda
zegt:
O!
wat een mooie
oto,
Otto!
Zo groot
en zo
glanzend.

3 opmerkingen:

Adina. zei

:)))

the automatic translators made sense of it all except the first 'line', for me.
Nice translation of the last one too, or I just like it a lot ("as large and so shiiiiiiiiiny...")
Somehow it reminded me that Tweedledum and Twedledee were transatedas Trulala and Tralala :) into Russian (or at least in one russian cartoon I've seen).

Floris Solleveld zei

Yeah, I also liked very much what babelfish made of "klopt op zijn borst" (pounds his chest): >>is correct on his udder<<. It took me a long time to accept as a child that 'oto' was spelled 'auto'. (Pronounced French style, unlike German 'Auto'.)

You'll love the link to Otto's mops, it links to a competition of translations for it at the marvellous internet magazine Signandsight.

Which reminds me of a sign in Chinese English:
"valuable thing behaviour proper will protect pipe".
It probably had to be 'Please don't smoke'.

Adina. zei

Yes, I saw the translations. I also recently discovered a book publisehd in Romania that includes an anthology of Jabberwocky translations into "70 languages that don't exist"! :)