ATTN Multi-Language Readers: Title Translation Needed

[Whiskers]

[image moved]

[Pietro_Mercurios]

Re: ATTN Multi-Language Readers: Title Translation Needed

[image moved]

I cheated, Berry and googled it. Apparently, it's 'The Weird of the White Wolf'.

http://www.physic.ut.ee/~larry/mardu...se_raamat.html

I'm guessing it's Estonian.

[Typhoid_Mary]

Beat me to it, clever clogs!

[Whiskers]

Can anyone confirm if this is Estonian?

[Azariel]

That an awfully strange cover for an Elric novel.

[L'Etranger]

It is probably Estonian if it isn't Melnibonأ©an ...

[Pietro_Mercurios]

My first guess was Finnish, but it didn't seem exactly right, so I checked the URL address for the institution hosting the web page I got the info. from, which ended in '.ee' and that's Estonian: www.ee

The corresponding address for a Finnish URL would be: www.fi

Interesting to see how similiar Estonian and Finnish are, actually. :)

It could still be a Finnish language edition, available in Estonia, of course, but virtually all the web pages I've googled for 'Valge Hundi saatus' are Estonian, so I think we're safe enough.

[Governor of Rowe Island]

There are some more here.

Slighter better quality pic of the one you found Berry and a few others, seems to be mostly Elric books, only small scans though.

[spaced_moorcock]

Interesting to see how similiar Estonian and Finnish are, actually. :)

They're very closely related languages. They're part of the same family as Hungarian (the Finno-Ugric) but have very few similarities with it, or very many other languages for that matter. Or so my Finnish phrase book tells me. :)

[Michael Moorcock]

There are three of these (or at least I have three) and they ARE Elric books, but using traditional covers. I thought when they turned up that they were Finnish, but I agree they are more likely Estonian. I also got another Hebrew edition in the same batch of books sent to me by my agent. The cover just had a picture of a crown on it! Unfortunately, they don't usually say where the books came from -- I get a general batch. There was the new German edition of Dreamthief's Daughter, too -- with an old Whelan cover!

[Oren]

Interesting to see how similiar Estonian and Finnish are, actually. :)

They're very closely related languages. They're part of the same family as Hungarian (the Finno-Ugric) but have very few similarities with it, or very many other languages for that matter. Or so my Finnish phrase book tells me. :)

That's true. Only the grammar in Hungarian resembles the Finnish one. Both languages lack masculine and feminine pronouns (there are no "he" or "she" but only "it"). However, the relation between the languages dates many thousand years into the past, so few actual words are similar; some body parts for example (e.g. kأ©z is hand in Hungarian, kأ¤si in hand in Finnish and Estonian). Also it seems some animlas were holy to both people, for example the wolf. The actual animal was therefore not called by its real proper name (to avoid blasphemy, I guess!), but given a description. That's why in Hungarian wolf is not actually named, but is called "farkas" which means "one with a tail". Similarly deer is called szarvas, meaning "one with horns". I believe in Finnish there are similar meanings. It's funny but the actual original names for "wolf" and "deer" in Hungarian are now forgotten!

Here is something to illustrate the level of similarity between Finnish and Hungarian:

jأ¶n a vonat = the train is coming (Hungarian)
jأ¶nna vonna = the train is coming (Finnish)

Ah, a proof the languages are similar, eh? Well, the only problem is that "vonat" is train in Hungarian, while in Finnish it is "jأ¶nna"... :lol:

[Oren]

I also got another Hebrew edition in the same batch of books sent to me by my agent. The cover just had a picture of a crown on it!

A new Hebrew edition I was unaware of! Excellent! It's a translation of Elric of Melnibonأ© (previously unavailable in Hebrew):

http://www.bookme.co.il/itempics/692-6.jpg (subtitle is "The First Volume in the Sage of Elric". I assume more volumes are forthcoming).

Here are the other covers in Hebrew:

http://www.bookme.co.il/itempics/32-11001B.jpg (Stormbringer)

http://www.bookme.co.il/itempics/32-11385B.jpg ("Hell's Sword" - Hebrew translation for "The Stealer of Souls". The cover shows a dagger!)

http://www.bookme.co.il/itempics/32-11496B.jpg ("Scroll of the Swords" - Hebrew translation for Corum's Swords trilogy).

The only other book I'm aware of in Hebrew is The Black Corridor, but it's been out-of-print for many years.

[L'Etranger]

Here is something to illustrate the level of similarity between Finnish and Hungarian:

jأ¶n a vonat = the train is coming (Hungarian)
jأ¶nna vonna = the train is coming (Finnish)

Ah, a proof the languages are similar, eh? Well, the only problem is that "vonat" is train in Hungarian, while in Finnish it is "jأ¶nna"... :lol:

Great! I've got to show this to my in-laws who didn't get far in Finland with their Hungarian (they're native speakers ...).
The Fins, of course, are convinced they are far advanced and there's a joke there saying: Do you know what was written on a sign-post on the banks of the Danube (the mighty river flowing through Buda-Pest) when the Huns came there for the first time many centuries ago? No? Well, it said there: All who can read go further North to Finland!

Don't recount this in front of Hungarians unless you know they like you very much The least you will get is several hours ex-promptu lecturing about Hungarian literature! Which you can easily extend by remarking that the recent (and only?) Hungarian Nobel Laureate for Literature is a Jew ...

Anyway, I get on pretty well with both tribes avoiding certain subjects and expressing my admiration for their women!

[Oren]

I wasn't sure that I got the Finnish spelling exact up there (took it off some websites), so I researched it further a bit and came up with the conclusion that this joke I quoted above (which is quite common in Hungary) has a bit less connection to the truth than what I thought. "Juna" means train in Finnish, which really sounds like "jأ¶n a" ("comes the") in Hungarian. But "comes" seems to be "tuli" in Finnish, which doesn't sound similar to the Hungarian "vonat" then. Oh well, who said that jokes have to be accurate anyway?

Any Finnish speakers here by any chance? :)

[Governor of Rowe Island]

Any Finnish speakers here by any chance? :)

Ei.

(Sorry couldn't resist. :) )