Keskustelujen arkisto

>Message: 9
From: "Madame Jennifer Inantaz" <madame82 at hotmail.com>
To: dcml at stp.ling.uu.se
Subject: A Don Rosa Mistake?
Date: Fri, 22 Feb 2002 21:54:12 -0600

>I'm new here, and maybe newbies shouldn't be asking questions, but
>I just had to....

Well, of course newbies should be asking questions! :) That's often the only
way to find answers! (after 11 months with Don, Harry, Søren, AC, Nils, Rob,
Dan, Timo and the huge crowd of people I forgot to mention right now, I
still consider myself to be a newbie :) )

>We all know Huey, Dewey and Louie's mother is Scrooges NIECE!

Hmm... I've never noticed this, does anyone know if this was corrected in
the Scandinavian translation? Or did I just not read the story good enough?
(shame on me!)

Olaf (happy, happy newbie)

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After FINALLY finding parts of the CBL in Colors at my local library, I have
a question:

I notice that many of the dialogue balloons in CB stories have a very "free"
language that does not at all look like what I learned in English class at
school - like "kin" instead of "can" and "de" instead of "the". These
examples I found in some villains' dialogue, but also Donald and his nearest
have words in their vocabulary which are impossible to find in a dictionary.

I just don't get it! I've always imagined that this stories would be written
in perfect dictionary American English, just like the Norwegian Duck Comics
are in perfect dictionary Norwegian bokmål. I also notice this in some
online Don Rosa stories. Can someone explain to me _why_ this is so?

Olaf Solstrand
www.andebyonline.com

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In a message dated 2/17/02 6:04:47 AM Eastern Standard Time, From:
Goofy313g at aol.com
:

> was already disgusted about the "HOUSE OF MOUSE", with all the Disney
> Characters
> in the same story: what do the Beast, Cinderella's stepmoter, Mushu,
> Hades, Mickey Mouse, Dumbo, Jiminy, the cookie Man and the Queen of the
> Heart
>

Who decided that all these characters have their own exclusive continuities?
It is SUPOSED to be fun entertainment aimed, especially now with niche cable
programming,at young children. If we adults enjoy it at all, it is merely
lucky happenstance. What if, horror of horrors, they happen to make a
superior story? Just remember, Toy Story 2 was supposed to be a direct to
home video sequel and look how wonderful that turned out. How 'bout we see
these films first before we condemn them,eh?

Michael Feldman
???????????????????????????<A HREF="http://hometown.aol.com/ritmic/myhomepageindex.html">The Go Happenin' Home Page</A> ?
????????????????( <A HREF="http://hometown.aol.com/ritmic/myhomepageindex.html">http://hometown.aol.com/ritmic/myhomepageindex.html</A>)

******************************************************************************
? ? "A computer lets you make more mistakes faster than any invention
in human history -- with the possible exceptions of handguns and tequila."
? ? ? ? --Mitch Ratliffe, _Technology Review_ April 1992

From: "Olaf Solstrand" <harryklein at hotmail.com>
>>>>I notice that many of the dialogue balloons in CB stories have a very
"free"
language that does not at all look like what I learned in English class at
school - like "kin" instead of "can" and "de" instead of "the". These
examples I found in some villains' dialogue, but also Donald and his nearest
have words in their vocabulary which are impossible to find in a dictionary.
I just don't get it! I've always imagined that this stories would be written
in perfect dictionary American English, just like the Norwegian Duck Comics
are in perfect dictionary Norwegian bokm?l. I also notice this in some
online Don Rosa stories. Can someone explain to me _why_ this is so?

Is this odd question posed ironically? Sarcastically? What are you asking?
Why the Norwegian editions don't translate the spirit of the originals
correctly? Or why there is improper grammar in the originals?
Well, I'll hafta assume you are being serious...
Any proper, effective dialogue in a story, whether it's a movie or a book or
a comic, should show a distinct character when that would benefit the story
and help identify the character or personality of the speaker. If the
Norwegian editions sabotage that aspect of a story (and I don't know if they
do, I'd hafta take your word for that), probably with the well-meaning but
misguided idea that to have even some small bit of dialogue written with an
accent or broken grammar would cause all the readers to suddenly UNlearn
everything they know about their language, that is a fault in that editor's
view of good storytelling. I assume such an editor (if you say they are so)
would also want all spoken dialogue in a film to sound as if it was coming
from the mouth of a college professor in linguistics and grammar, and that
would be just as wrong for good film storytelling. By that same logic, all
the characters in the film or comic should look as though they just bought
their clothes new at a fashionable boutique, regardless of whether they have
just spent 6 months on a desert isle or are crawling across the Sahara
desert.
Anyway, the thought that *good* dialogue is being mucked up by an editor
somewhere is rather disturbing to this storyteller. I'd hate to know what
such an editor, just as regards my stories much less the thousands of
others, did with the dialogue for Arpin Lusene in "The Black Knight" or all
of the backwoods aliens in my "Attack of the Hideous Space Varmints". The
broken grammar of the characters in the latter was about 50% of the humor
and character of the story!

Hi Y'all! (translated: "How are you all?" wider meaning: Hello! How are you
all?" Hiya' (translated: "How are you?")

Regarding Olaf's question about the non-official non-Dictionary English used in
the "Carl Barks Library":

That language is a combination of coloquial, regional language, common national
informal slang, and language of uneducated "country bumpkins(hicks,
unsophisticated folk)". The use of "de" for "the", "dose" for "those", "dem"
for "them", etc. is used to portray uneducated, unsophisticated, simple folk,
(as was the desired image of criminals in Disney stories. The use of
nonofficial language by the main characters was to bring everyday speech into
the story to make it more realistic.

Those of us who have spent any protracted amount of time in USA know that the
local inhabitants do not speak the "Kings English" of the Oxford Dictionary,
nor even the official USA English of the Webster Dictionary. They speak
regional dialects, usually along with a "lazy" or informal variant of same. In
addition, the uneducated people of that area would speak an even more simple
or "lazy" variant.

In addition to these local dialects, there is a "National slang" or informal
language which approximates more closely, the most common everyday speech of
the masses. That is what Donald and the main characters speak most often in
the original Barks stories. Examples: "I'm gonna..." (I am going
to...); "G'wan!" ((Go on!(Get going!) or (You cannot mean that!?); C'mon ((Come
on!) or (I do not believe you!); "Whaddaya mean?" (What do you mean?); "You
guys..." (you fellows);etc.

Don Rosa and most of the other Disney Comics, and, indeed, most novel writers
use that same convention, as it makes their universes more realistic.

I have spent some time in Norway, but am not an expert, so forgive me if my
analogy is not reasonable; and also forgive me if I offend people from any
given area, as I do not intend to do so. Below is my attempt to make an
analogy that might be of meaning to you:

Thuggish, brutish criminals from the rip-roaring times of the 1850s through
1910 or so (with little education, because they joined The Merchant Marine or
signed up with large fishing or whaling companies for a life at sea, or were
thrown out of school and a young age for being incorrigible); speaking a
simple, uneducated language.

Isolated Country folk from remote areas in the North of Norway, speaking a
simple, uneducated country language ((a simplified generalised speech that
might be attributed to less educated country folk which could be understandable
all over Norway) devoid (as much as possible) of regional differences. The
exception here would be that in USA, a major stereotype of use of uneducated
speech involves regionality to some degree, as "Southern country dialect" is
used to depict persons of little education and sophistication.

If we used the "hicky", unsophisticated "bumpkins" in the Narvik area, for
example (NOT the educated, sophisticated persons there), as a stereotype of
speaking a simple country "lazy" to a sophisticated Oslo university graduate,
slang filled "Norwegian"; that might be an analogy to the Barks usage.

The language used by Donald would be more like "T.V. American", which is
a "Lingua Franca" in USA, that most people should be able to understand, and
recognise as familiar and realistic enough to them for the listener to get lost
in a film or Television programme (which would not be possible, if the players
were using dictionary language). Examples might be everyday, relaxed (as
opposed to "Dictionary")Hochdeutsch; the equivalent Hollands, the Lange d'Oil
(Paris dialect)Francais. There is an equivalent TV Canadian, I am not so sure
that there is an equivalent in England, but to my ear there seems to be one for
Scots and Irish English.

This everyday "Lingua Franca" would NOT be the "more proper" language used on
national Television news broadcasts, but a more colloquial, everyday speech.
In USA, howver, the relaxed version is now taking over, even on News
broadcasts. I have noticed that it has even affected several Canadian
newcasters, who were brought down to USA partly because of their superior
diction (such as Robert MacNeil, Peter ? (on ABC),Lorne Greene and a few
others), who are now,or have in recent years (UNBELIEVABLY)letting lazy
language, slang and incorrect grammar slip into to their national newscasts.
(The current or recent newscast comment, of course, does not apply to Lorne
Greene, who stopped being a newscaster in the early 1960s to become an actor.

The main point of all of this is that Comic writers should be using the
comfortable, everyday language of the common people to represent common speech
in their stories; otherwise it won't ring true.

Rob Klein

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From: "Don Rosa" <donrosa at iglou.com>

> Any proper, effective dialogue in a story, whether it's a movie or a book
or
> a comic, should show a distinct character when that would benefit the
story
> and help identify the character or personality of the speaker. If the
> Norwegian editions sabotage that aspect of a story (and I don't know if
they
> do, I'd hafta take your word for that), probably with the well-meaning but
> misguided idea that to have even some small bit of dialogue written with
an
> accent or broken grammar would cause all the readers to suddenly UNlearn
> everything they know about their language, that is a fault in that
editor's
> view of good storytelling.

In Italian it's always been "perfect" Italian too, so the first time I saw
an original strip (Gottfredson's If I remember correctly), I was amazed by
that. I absolutely loved it, but I also realized that there could be no way
to make that in Italian.
We only have one way to write things and one way to read them (we have
accents, but we can't "write" them). And we don't have "errors" like "he
don't like it", nor short forms like "gotta", "gonna"... or "hafta" that you
use so often.

About the aliens in "Attack", I remember that in Italian they speak with a
Roman accent! (That's not Italian, it's more like a dialect, even though
it's not really a dialect). That was quite weird to read! (But Alberto
placed a note in the introduction, explaining the reasons for this
decisions).

--
Francesco

DonRosa wrote:
>What are you asking?
>Why the Norwegian editions don't translate the spirit of the originals
>correctly? Or why there is improper grammar in the originals?

The Duck stories are translated to standard written Norwegian. It goes back to
the first Disney comics published in Norway. The stories has to be suitable
to children and the editors made a school teacher translate the comics.
The comercials went "...The text is translated and edited by Mrs. Helene
Kloevstad,
teacher at Oslo public schools."
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Here's a Disney Comic Quiz! Everybody in it is in the Donald or Uncle Scrooge comics!
 
(It's been approved by a duck expert)
 
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