Lightspine Posted April 18, 2016 Report Share Posted April 18, 2016 Noticed something odd about Alethi and Veden. I've read a number of Brandon's books, and so far only Stormlight contains wordplay. Wordplay that wouldn't make sense... If Alethi and Veden weren't forms of English. However, we have been told how to say certain things in Alethi (such as "bridge four") and it does not sound like English. Brandon is the type of author who puts tiny little details in his books that we easily overlook and have significance later. He doesn't seem like the type who would make a mistake like this. It doesn't seem unintentional to me, since I haven't seen wordplay in any other of his books but it literally fills the stormlight books (with Wit, Shallan and Kaladin making puns frequently). I haven't read all his books and have a baddish memory, so please point out any other instances of wordplay you can recall. Otherwise, what do you think is up with the Alethi language?? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eki Posted April 18, 2016 Report Share Posted April 18, 2016 Lightsong of Warbreaker used some wordplay I believe, and so does Wayne (though his sounds more accidental, really). I think this is just a 'translation' thing. We have very witty characters who would have used puns in their own language. The only way to represent that in an English book is to make the puns in English, then either waving your arms and saying the pun works in both languages, or say that it was really a slightly different pun in the original language, but it was changed in the 'translation' to English, so that the story works. In short, it's a nice observation, but I think it has more to do with a higher concentration of witty characters than something about the Rosharan languages. 7 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Purelake Earthquake he/him Posted April 18, 2016 Report Share Posted April 18, 2016 What Eki said about translations, basically. It's actually a pretty common perspective for non-Earth based fantasies, I believe. I know Sanderson describes it this way, and I think Brent Weeks has as well. It's all about conservation of tone. The characters are getting across the same information to each other, and their doing it with the same tone. So, they might be making a pun at around that point, but it might not be the same pun. The best example I can give of this is in anime translations, sometimes if there's a pun there will be a whole bunch of subtitles explaining how the pun works, other times it will just insert an English pun that kind of fits what's going on (or they just leave it literally and let the audience be confused). That second option is what's going on with wordplay on secondary world fantasy most of the time. The problem in real translations is that those often wind up being either clunky in the conversation or just awkward half-puns. In the fantasy situation you don't have to bother with the specifics of the language (unless you're Tolkien), you just assume that what you're writing is the best possible translation of the pure ideas that are being conveyed in the fantasy language. So, there's still some suspension of disbelief going on here. It can get even more complicated where you have situations where the fantasy text is being written literally. Usually this is when it's a language the characters aren't fluent in, or you're trying to say something particular about the language. if an English book had some instances of untranslated French dialogue interspersed and it's being translated into Spanish, they should leave the French sentences intact. Brandon likes puns, so I think most of his books will at least slip one of them in somewhere. I can't think of any off the top of my head though, except for the already mentioned characters. I'd imagine the original mistborn trilogy had some in there as well. But Stormlight is the only one with full out wordplay battles between characters. 7 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lightspine Posted April 18, 2016 Author Report Share Posted April 18, 2016 Lol k that was resolved quickly Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shardbearer he/him Posted April 18, 2016 Report Share Posted April 18, 2016 I believe there is a WoB out there somewhere that it is indeed a case of native puns being translated into English puns. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nyali she/her Posted April 18, 2016 Report Share Posted April 18, 2016 Brandon isn't just translating Alethi into English, he's localizing. That's why the songs of the Listeners have English rhymes, and why Lift uses the word "awesomeness" (a very modern word in English) and how there can be so much wordplay that relies on the sound or structure of English words. When you localize, like for a TV series or video game, you don't just translate the words, or even the meanings, into the language of the region you're localizing for; you translate the intent. You make it so your audience has the same reactions (or as close as possible) to the content as the people for whom the content was originally created. If "awesomeness" sounded jarring to you, well, the Azish word (or whatever language she thinks in) that she actually uses would sound just as jarring to Gawx. And yeah, there's plenty of word play in Warbreaker. Vasher on Roshar illustrates the difference between translation and localization - none of the idioms he uses make any sense to the people around him, despite having perfectly translated the words from Idrian to Alethi. 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IndigoAjah he/him Posted April 19, 2016 Report Share Posted April 19, 2016 Khriss uses some lovely word play in one of the Ars Arcanum I think too. Around "prosaically" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Walker Posted April 20, 2016 Report Share Posted April 20, 2016 I think this is just a 'translation' thing. We have very witty characters who would have used puns in their own language. The only way to represent that in an English book is to make the puns in English, then either waving your arms and saying the pun works in both languages, or say that it was really a slightly different pun in the original language, but it was changed in the 'translation' to English, so that the story works. In many cases, this explanation would work. But Brandon REALLY breaks this in Stormlight with the mis-Jasnah-ist pun. There is no way for that to be a translation. Unless, that is, the name Jasnah is something of meaning that you would translate. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DreamEternal Posted April 21, 2016 Report Share Posted April 21, 2016 Uhg, don't remind me of all the horrible puns! I love Brandon's books, but IMO he is very far from being as witty as people give gim the credit for. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tomerad Posted July 30, 2016 Report Share Posted July 30, 2016 i tend to agree with the op. look at this example which can only occur while the spoken language is english WoK chapter 22 : "“Wit,” Dalinar said, “do you have to?” “Two what, Dalinar?” Wit said, 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Erklitt she/her Posted July 30, 2016 Report Share Posted July 30, 2016 2 hours ago, Tomerad said: i tend to agree with the op. look at this example which can only occur while the spoken language is english WoK chapter 22 : "“Wit,” Dalinar said, “do you have to?” “Two what, Dalinar?” Wit said, Welcome, Tomerad! Have an upvote for your first post! Yeah, Wit is an extreme example. Yet I still think the explanation of Eki and others is valid, even with the mis-Jasnah-something. Alethi or Veden would not have the same way of forming such a word, but they might have a different way. It would take a really brilliant translator to find ways to represent things like that in another language adequately, and they would need the courage and freedom to change the literal content in order to convey the tone of the wordplay. But it's not impossible. Wit could have made an entirely different joke in response to something Dalinar said, which would yet have felt the same as the English one we actually get to read. Anyway, short of inventing a whole language (Tolkien has been mentioned) and teaching that language to all readers (not even Tolkien tried that seriously) there is no way around just pretending that the fantasy languages share the properties of the real language. The only alternative would be using a very poor, limited language that conveys nothing but pure content. And I think none of us want to read that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blackhoof Posted August 5, 2016 Report Share Posted August 5, 2016 Well, its highly possible that the Alethi word for "misogynist" has a middle section that sounds similar to "Jasnah", as well as containing equivalent prefixes and suffixes that misogynist has. For instance, let me make up an example: gescastaenf ges-casta-enf "or would that be "ges-Jasnah-enf"? highly unlikely to occur in a real-life language, but in a fictional language anything goes. Likewise with two and to. Maybe in Altethi, those words sound the same as well. "Nes, nehs and ness", perhaps. "“Wit,” Dalinar said, “do you have nes?” “Nehs what, Dalinar?” Wit said," A bit of suspension of disbelief is required, but it can work. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts