Huge Sambahsa translation of Stendhal available! Also Interlingua, Frenkisch...

Over at the new Joy of Literature site which now accompanies this blog, an ongoing translation of the great French novel La Chartreuse de Parme is underway, starting with Chapter Four which features scenes from the Battle of Waterloo. By the way, I mean 'great' only in the sense of it being a great literary work, not in the sense of agreeing with any views expressed therein. But I digress.

Anyway, along with my humble contribution of an Interlingua translation, and David Parke's kind contribution of a Frenkisch translation, both of which are in their early stages, Dr Olivier Simon has 'gone nuts' (as we say in Australian English, to imply 'worked with great enthusiasm') and finished the entire chapter, producing a Sambahsa translation of over 6,000 words! Since each of these translations shows the original French and an English translation in parallel, this is the perfect opportunity for students wishing to learn how to write literature in these constructed languages.

That Olivier was able to so quickly create (in a few days) such a large translation demonstrates the maturity of the Sambahsa language and its grammar. An achievement not to be sniffed at. Also notable is that the Sambahsa text is shorter than both the English and the French, demonstrating that Sambahsa is indeed a capable yet concise language. Being concise is a virtue not to be underestimated.

To celebrate Olivier's amazing achievement, I am going to attempt to translate some of the Sambahsa into English without reading either the original French or its English translation. Since I have not read the end of the chapter, this is a valid test. Let's test the precision of Sambahsa, a language at which I am a beginner barely capable of writing a few short sentences, by doing this exercise. Unfortunately, Sambahsa is rather difficult and so I think I had better start with just one paragraph, the fifth-last paragraph of the chapter, which I have never read. Let's take a look at the Sambahsa:

Is sergeant, currend ex id herbehrg, hieb viso sien colonel falle, ed iom credih grave-ye vurnen. Currt apter Fabrices ekwum ed seht id ak os sien saber do ia nugvers ios fur; so fallt. Ies hussars, vidend ep id brigv tik iom sergeant ped-ye, upergaloppent ed feugent jaldi. So qui eet ped-ye mwaungsout do id rur.

Okay, here goes. First I will make a literal translation, to demonstrate some aspects of Sambahsa grammar. Highlighted in yellow are shown some interesting Sambahsa constructions:

The sergeant, running out of the inn, had seen his colonel fall, and believed him gravely wounded. He runs behind Fabrice's horse and cuts the point of his sabre into the kidneys of the thief; that one* falls. The hussars, seeing on the bridge only the sergeant on foot, gallop over** and flee quickly. That one*** who was on foot escapes into the countryside.

* meaning the thief

** strongly implying "over the bridge"

*** meaning the one who was on foot (that is, the sergeant) 

I am no expert on Sambahsa tenses but it seems to me that the text is written using an unusual literary device of tense formation, namely that some of the text uses the present tense although the action occurs in the past. Since this is just the sort of trick that the original author, Stendhal, liked to get up to, I'm assuming it has been translated as such. Now let's convert all this into literary English:

The sergeant, running out of the inn, had seen his colonel fall and believed him gravely wounded. He ran behind Fabrice's horse and cut the point of his sabre into the kidneys of the thief, felling him. The hussars, seeing on the bridge only the sergeant on foot, quickly galloped over and fled. The man on foot escaped into the countryside.

Okay, that's about the best I can do without spending too much time looking up documentation. This was a fun exercise, didn't take too long, and I enjoyed it immensely. I was able to deduce here and there a few words which were not found in the dictionary, and was reasonably comfortable doing so, extrapolating from what is in the dictionary. This shows I am getting more comfortable with Sambahsa. Mind you, reading the whole chapter would take me a long time.

I must say, I like the literary quality of Sambahsa, it is very fine.

Okay, now for the result. How did I do?

Here is the original French:

Le maréchal des logis, en accourant de l'auberge, avait vu tomber son colonel, et le croyait gravement blessé. Il court après le cheval de Fabrice et plonge la pointe de son sabre dans les reins du voleur, celui-ci tombe. Les hussards, ne voyant plus sur le pont que le maréchal des logis à pied, passent au galop et filent rapidement. Celui qui était à pied s'enfuit dans la campagne.

And here is Scott-Moncrieff's translation (in grey) compared to my result (in green):

The serjeant, as he hurried from the inn, had seen his colonel fall, and supposed him to be seriously wounded. He ran after Fabrizio’s horse and plunged the point of his sabre into the thief’s entrails; he fell. The hussars, seeing no one now on the bridge but the serjeant, who was on foot, crossed at a gallop and rapidly disappeared. The one on foot bolted into the fields.

The sergeant, running out of the inn, had seen his colonel fall and believed him gravely wounded. He ran behind Fabrice's horse and cut the point of his sabre into the kidneys of the thief, felling him. The hussars, seeing on the bridge only the sergeant on foot, quickly galloped over and fled. The man on foot escaped into the countryside.

Another fantastic result for Sambahsa! Almost exactly correct.

Sambahsa really is an amazing literary language of great quality. It's only drawback is its difficulty.

Bravo, Olivier!