Famous Opening Lines in Literature
Translated into Middle Egyptian, for practice, then back to English, for humor
This article is less of an article, and more personal translation practice that I thought was fun enough to post. Feel free to steal and use the Egyptian translations for anything you want!
Have any of you ever played with translationparty.com? It’s a really fun web app where, first, you enter a phrase in English:
Then, it translates the phrase into Japanese, back to English, back to Japanese, etc:
until equilibrium is reached:
After ten or so iterations of back-and-forth translation, the phrases are (usually) completely different in meaning.
“Nothing in life is so exhilarating as to be shot at without result” —> “It’s so fresh that you can shoot without any result in your life.”
There’s lots of interesting aspects to this simple game. “Equilibrium,” as defined by translationparty, is some kind of “eigenphrase” of the English-Japanese translation engine. I’m pretty curious about the math behind that.
However, for today’s short article I’m going to do two things:
Try out translationparty.com on some famous opening lines in literature
Try a (manual) version of translationparty, but with Ancient Egyptian instead of Japanese
Why am I doing this? No good reason, but I do need to practice my Egyptian.
Note: if anyone reading this blog reads Middle Egyptian better than I do, please let me know if/when I make translation errors!
Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen
Original
It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.
-Jane Austen
TranslationParty
GlyphParty
A rich man, alone, needs a wife — this is a truth known by all mankind.
Moby Dick, by Herman Melville
Original
Call me Ishmael
TranslationParty
Oh no, it got caught in a loop!
GlyphParty
I am one who is Ishmail.
L’Étranger, by Albert Camus
Original
Aujourd’hui, maman est morte. (“Today, mother died,” but with an emphasis that actually comes across better in the Egyptian stative)
TranslationParty
Eh, boring.
GlyphParty
Mother is in the state of being dead, today.
The Bell Jar, by Sylvia Plath
Original
It was a queer, sultry summer, the summer they electrocuted the Rosenbergs, and I didn’t know what I was doing in New York.
TranslationParty
GlyphParty
It was a hot and strange summer. It was summer (when) they executed these Rosenberg(s). I did not know (what) I do in New York.
House of the Rising Sun, The Animals
All right, this one is not an opening line of literature, exactly, but it is an opening line. This song is great for translation into Egyptian because words like “sun,” “rise,” “poor man,” and others translate very well into Egyptian, a sun-worshipping culture with lots of poor commoners.
Original
There is a house in New Orleans they call the rising sun. And it’s been the ruin of many a poor boy. And God, I know I’m one.
TranslationParty
GlyphParty
House of the Rising Sun
Behold! There is a house in New Orleans (phonetic translation).
The Rising Sun is its name.
It has caused to be ruined many commoners.
O Gods! I know it
I am one who is ruined.