Keskustelujen arkisto

I'm Popeye, the sailor
I'm Popeye, the sailor
I'm Popeye, the sailor
I yam what I yam and that's all that I yam
I yam what I yam what I yam what I yam
I'm Popeye the sailor man!

(arf, arf, arf)

hi,

if donald is actually scrooge's nephew and h, d, and l are the children of
donald's sister della/dumbella, then it makes sense that della/dumbella is
scrooge's niece (unless one of her parents is different than one of donald's
parents, making them half brother and sister, which could still make her
children donald's nephews without her being scrooge's niece -- much too
complicated).

of course, scrooge could be called "uncle" as a title of affection, not of
blood relationship, the same way everyone calls grandma duck "grandma," when
obviously she couldn't be the grandmother of everyone, including scrooge, who
adresses her with that title.

regards,

william price

HelpDear quackeroos...
I wanna know if is possible find greek, norwegian or finnish comics (Disney Comics of course) in places like London and Paris... (I have friends there)

And, by the way... what German comics have the better stuff ( I mean a lot of Barks or Rosa and not so much Topolino). The only source for find it here in Buenos Aires is suscription. I wanna elect the real thing.

Thanks,
Fabio (Buenos Aires at 34 ? C)

bonvolu postu al longtom at oeste.com.ar

Gary wrote:
"And just to add something else: English is not a "native" language in
the USA. That honor belongs to the various indigenous tongues
encountered by the European immigrants who brought English over (along
with French, Spanish, German, Norwegian, Italian, etc.,
and their various dialects, brogues, and whatnot) not all that long
ago."

This is politically-correct nonsense. While it's popular these days to
define "native" as the "most ancient" it's really not very accurate or
practical. English is the native language in Oregon because it is the
language spoken by the politically dominant majority, and has been for a
hundred and fifty years. Does it really make any sense to define the
native language as one of twenty or so indian languages and dialects?
And why are the Rogue, Klamath or Yakima indian's the natives? I'm
rusty on my neolithic history for this period, but I seem to remember
reading about dozens of protracted indian wars where hordes of "native"
people were continually displaced. And before the politically-correct
politics of the day prevailed and shut down research on the subject, the
discovery in Washingon of the Kinnewick man, a 9000 year old human
skeleton with arguable caucasion features, threatened to redefine what
"native" meant. Who knows what language he spoke.

Very interesting debate here! We norwegians could probably keep this
discussion up for ages, please let us know in a polite way when we are
overstaying our welcome :-)

I agree totally with Don that it is a shame that we don't use the norwegian
dialects to create more interesting dialogs in comics, books and films! But
as is already pointed out, many norwegians are _extremely_ touchy about
this! Resulting in norwegian bokm?l ("Standard norwegian") beeing used in
almost anything public, especially if aimed towards children. One reason for
this is that the dialects are so regional. So no matter what you use as a
dialect for a villain, you will automatically have insulted one region of
the country!

About the Disney comics specifically, they came to Norway at a time when
comics where thought of in general as beeing unhealthy reading for small
children. In order to assure that this was good literature, they got this
teacher of norwegian language to do the dialogs. It was one important part
of the advertising to get people to buy this new comic series, where the
children now in a easy and fun way could learn correct norwegian!

The first attempt to change this, was "Lost in Andes", where the inhabitants
spoke nynorsk ("New norwegian", also an official "language", but so close to
bokm?l that it is more like a dialect [and now I have already stamped on
many norwegian toes]), and without beeing norwegian, I think you will never
get close to understanding how much turmoil was created by that story the
first time around!

Almost all childrens movies are dubbed into norwegian, and with extremely
few exceptions, this is done in bokm?l. That is one reason why I always see
new Disney movies in the undubbed version. Another reason is that the
translation is quite bad, they never bother about trying to get the double
meanings often present, which adds to the fun for adults. Especially the
song lyrics often have a quality closer to what you can see for "Aunt Mary's
40th anniversary" than for something meant to be shown public. Added
together, norwegians have a much "simpler" version of Disney movies than
americans! The only exception I have seen, was "The little mermaid", where
the norwegian singer Sissel Kyrkjeb? dubbed the little mermaid. And she is
from Bergen and was actually allowed to use her own dialect in the movie,
making it the most believable voice-over I have ever heard in a Disney
movie! (Note: I have not seen all the latest ones, so I'm not quite
up-to-date here!)

Beeing used to bokm?l in almost all entertainment, norwegian kids very often
switch from their own dialect to bokm?l when they play something that is
more or less a roleplay, like "Mother and father"! Some also tend to do this
when talking on the telephone.

The absolutely most disappointing movie dubbing I have seen so far, was the
quite recent Asterix movie with Gerard Depardieu. This would be the perfect
movie for letting the romans talk bokm?l and the others "tribes" talk some
dialect (I think tr?ndersk would have been perfect for Asterix' village).
Instead everyone talked the same boring bokm?l!

As for difficulties in using dialects because we don't understand each
other, I don't think that's a problem. It is true that I can go 30km from
home and listen to old people whom I don't understand (even if it's the same
dialect "group"). And there are swedish dialects closer to mine than other
norwegian dialects. But today mostly children speak the real dialect, grown
ups tend to speak a modified version which almost any norwegian would
understand, but still be able to characterize as the correct dialect. And
using these modified versions in e.g. Disney comics would add a lot to the
stories. But of course, introducing such an element now is probably going to
be extremely difficult...

And with that, I hereby declare that I will try to restrain myself from
further comments on this subject, without making any promises :-)

Knut Hunstad

I just received a message from one of my many translator friends who seems
to have misunderstood what I was saying about various foreign (as re. the
original) editions of comics (or movies, etc.). I was certainly not
criticizing translators! "Why, some of my best friends are translators!" I
know that there are translators who do such good jobs in translating my
stories into their idioms, changing untranslatable gags or puns or
expressions, that their translations are funnier than my originals! But note
that my comments always referred to the *editors*. The impression I was
getting from the original questioner was that some comic editors might have
the general policy to *never even attempt* to translate broken or accented
language, and have the wrongheaded idea that to have all dialogue in perfect
grammar is more important than preserving the original intent of the story.
For example, my hillbilly aliens in "Attack of the Hideous Space
Varmints"... *obviously* the translations will not have them speaking Jed
Clampett English, and I cannot begin to imagine how a diligent translator
will manage to handle the translation of such a mess as I've made for him --
I'm sure he'll sweat blood in the attempt. But what I refer to is the editor
who tells him to not even try because he has a policy against anything but
perfect spelling and grammar in his editions. This would make me start to
imagine a newspaper editor who disliked the grammar in Walt Kelly's POGO
strips and before he'd allow them to be published in his paper, he'd have
someone rewrite all of the Swamp critters' dialogue into perfect English.
People would be better off seeing a blank spot on the comics page! I will
sometimes go down into the "vault" and get out my Dell ANIMAL COMICS of the
40's (where Kelly created "Pogo") and if I'm sure no one can hear me, read
the dialogue aloud to myself. Of the art, the plot, the gags, and the
dialogue, it was the *dialogue* that was the best part of the strip!

Fran?ois:
>> in most French Disney comics,
>> language has always been a perfectly correct one.
Ari Seppi:
> This is mostly the case in Finland too,
> most of the characters use proper language.
> Even those, like Goofy, ...

The same in Sweden too,
I just remember one case,
Brer Bear talked in a very strange and foolish way
in some issues 50 years ago.
I don't think many consider it to be funny,
but quite interesting.
Perhaps something for Stefan Di?s to take a closer look at ...

You may make fun of your own dialect or habits though.
For example, there is a stand-up-comedian from the northern part of Sweden
who says:
"It's never too late to give up".
Which fits to stereotyped view of people from "the North".
BTW, you shouldn't say "the North", that's also an insult.

Kjell
(having a mother from "the North")

BTW again, perhaps too OT,
but what do the British, Italians, Germans, Belgians ...
think of Asterix ?

To Gary: When I mentioned native language in USA, I was referring to the native
language of the bulk of the people in USA who read Disney Comics in English. As
to the "Native" language of USA: If a NATION can be indeed be born, its
official language at its birth should then be considered its "native"
language. I understand that the European colonials encroached
upon "indiginous" peoples, who were in North America first (speaking other
languages). But, I see that we're getting too far off topic here.

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