Erika Fuchs
Encyclopedia
Translation
Translation is the communication of the meaning of a source-language text by means of an equivalent target-language text. Whereas interpreting undoubtedly antedates writing, translation began only after the appearance of written literature; there exist partial translations of the Sumerian Epic of...
.
Born into a well to do large family, Fuchs spent most of her childhood and youth in Belgard in Pomerania
Pomerania
Pomerania is a historical region on the south shore of the Baltic Sea. Divided between Germany and Poland, it stretches roughly from the Recknitz River near Stralsund in the West, via the Oder River delta near Szczecin, to the mouth of the Vistula River near Gdańsk in the East...
, where in 1921 she was the first girl to be admitted to the boys' Gymnasium
Gymnasium (school)
A gymnasium is a type of school providing secondary education in some parts of Europe, comparable to English grammar schools or sixth form colleges and U.S. college preparatory high schools. The word γυμνάσιον was used in Ancient Greece, meaning a locality for both physical and intellectual...
(grammar school) - she passed her Abitur
Abitur
Abitur is a designation used in Germany, Finland and Estonia for final exams that pupils take at the end of their secondary education, usually after 12 or 13 years of schooling, see also for Germany Abitur after twelve years.The Zeugnis der Allgemeinen Hochschulreife, often referred to as...
exam there in 1926. She went on to study art history
Art history
Art history has historically been understood as the academic study of objects of art in their historical development and stylistic contexts, i.e. genre, design, format, and style...
in Lausanne
Lausanne
Lausanne is a city in Romandy, the French-speaking part of Switzerland, and is the capital of the canton of Vaud. The seat of the district of Lausanne, the city is situated on the shores of Lake Geneva . It faces the French town of Évian-les-Bains, with the Jura mountains to its north-west...
, Munich and London and took her degree in 1931–1932. In 1935 her dissertation was entitled "Johann Michael Feuchtmayr
Johann Michael Feuchtmayer
Johann Michael Feuchtmayer was a German Baroque stucco sculptor and plasterer of the Wessobrunner School, who worked alongside Johann Michael Fischer, Johann Joseph Christian, and Franz Joseph Spiegler to create some of the most famous churches along the Upper...
: Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte des deutschen Rokoko" - "a contribution to the history of German Rococo
Rococo
Rococo , also referred to as "Late Baroque", is an 18th-century style which developed as Baroque artists gave up their symmetry and became increasingly ornate, florid, and playful...
". It received a summa cum laude
Latin honors
Latin honors are Latin phrases used to indicate the level of academic distinction with which an academic degree was earned. This system is primarily used in the United States, Canada, and in many countries of continental Europe, though some institutions also use the English translation of these...
. Her husband, Dipl.-Ing. Günter Fuchs (1907–1984), was an industrialist and inventor and tried various inventions at home.
Erika Fuchs became famous in Germany due to her translations of American Walt Disney
The Walt Disney Company
The Walt Disney Company is the largest media conglomerate in the world in terms of revenue. Founded on October 16, 1923, by Walt and Roy Disney as the Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio, Walt Disney Productions established itself as a leader in the American animation industry before diversifying into...
cartoon
Cartoon
A cartoon is a form of two-dimensional illustrated visual art. While the specific definition has changed over time, modern usage refers to a typically non-realistic or semi-realistic drawing or painting intended for satire, caricature, or humor, or to the artistic style of such works...
s, especially Carl Barks
Carl Barks
Carl Barks was an American Disney Studio illustrator and comic book creator, who invented Duckburg and many of its inhabitants, such as Scrooge McDuck , Gladstone Gander , the Beagle Boys , The Junior Woodchucks , Gyro Gearloose , Cornelius Coot , Flintheart Glomgold , John D...
's stories about Duckburg and its inhabitants. Unlike the English originals, the translations included many hidden quotes and literary allusions. As Erika Fuchs once said, "You can't be educated enough to translate comic books".
Many of her creations (re)entered the German language
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
. The phrase "Dem Ingeniör ist nichts zu schwör" - "nothing is too hard for an engineer" but with the vowels at the end of "Ingenieur" and "schwer" altered to make them rhyme amusingly was often attributed to Fuchs. However it was based on a song written by Heinrich Seidel
Heinrich Seidel
Heinrich Friedrich Wilhelm Seidel was a German engineer, poet and writer.-Life:...
. A somewhat more clumsy version of the phrase was the first verse of Seidels Ingenieurlied (The engineers song) and had been used by fraternities at technical universities for the German equivalent of the The Ritual of the Calling of an Engineer
The Ritual of the Calling of an Engineer
The Ritual of the Calling of an Engineer is a ritual for students about to graduate from an engineering program at a university in Canada. Participation may also be permitted for Canadian professional engineers and registered engineers-in-training who received training elsewhere. The ritual is...
. A classical Fuchs is as well to be found in Huey, Dewey, and Louies „Wir wollen sein ein einig Volk von Brüdern, in keiner Not uns waschen und Gefahr“ (We shall be a single People of brethren, Never to wash in danger nor distress) and adapts Schillers version of the Rütlischwur
Rütlischwur
The Rütlischwur is a legendary oath of the Old Swiss Confederacy, taken on the Rütli, a meadow above Lake Lucerne near Seelisberg. The oath is notably featured in the Wilhelm Tell drama of 1804 by Friedrich Schiller.-Early accounts:...
in a suitable way.
She also used verbs shortened to their stem
Word stem
In linguistics, a stem is a part of a word. The term is used with slightly different meanings.In one usage, a stem is a form to which affixes can be attached. Thus, in this usage, the English word friendships contains the stem friend, to which the derivational suffix -ship is attached to form a new...
not only to imitate sounds (onomatopoeia), such as schluck, stöhn, knarr, klimper (gulp, groan, creak, chink/jingle) but also to represent soundless events: grübel, staun, zitter (ponder, goggle, tremble). The word for these in German is now an "Erikativ", named after her. Fuchs's creations are commonly used in Internet forum
Internet forum
An Internet forum, or message board, is an online discussion site where people can hold conversations in the form of posted messages. They differ from chat rooms in that messages are at least temporarily archived...
s and chatrooms to describe what people are doing as they write.
After the Second World War she worked as a translator for the German edition of Reader's Digest
Reader's Digest
Reader's Digest is a general interest family magazine, published ten times annually. Formerly based in Chappaqua, New York, its headquarters is now in New York City. It was founded in 1922, by DeWitt Wallace and Lila Bell Wallace...
, before carrying out translating jobs for other American magazines. In 1951 she became chief editor of the newly founded German Micky Maus magazine, where she worked until she retired in 1988. In 2001 she was awarded the Heimito von Doderer
Heimito von Doderer
Heimito von Doderer was a famous Austrian writer.- Life and work :...
Prize for Literature for her work on Duckburg. Until her death at 98, Erika Fuchs was an honorary member of the "D.O.N.A.L.D." ("Deutsche Organisation nichtkommerzieller Anhänger des lauteren Donaldismus" or the "German Organization of Non-commercial Devotees of the true Donaldism
Donaldism
Donaldism is the fandom associated with Disney comics and cartoons. The name refers to Donald Duck and was first used by Jon Gisle in his book Donaldismen in 1973....
") Some members of this organisation (Patrick Bahners and Andreas Platthaus) occasionally sprinkled Fuchsian tidbits amongst the headlines of the serious FAZ
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , short F.A.Z., also known as the FAZ, is a national German newspaper, founded in 1949. It is published daily in Frankfurt am Main. The Sunday edition is the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung .F.A.Z...
newspaper, although these were often recognisable only by those in the know.
1991 painter Gottfried Helnwein
Gottfried Helnwein
Gottfried Helnwein is an Austrian-Irish fine artist, painter, photographer, installation and performance artist.-Work:Helnwein studied at the University of Visual Art in Vienna...
set a portrait of Fuchs among his work „Die 48 bedeutendsten Frauen des Jahrhunderts“ (48 most important women of the century) The work is now to be found at Museum Ludwig
Museum Ludwig
Museum Ludwig, located in Cologne, Germany, houses a collection of modern art. It includes works from PopArt, Abstract and Surrealism, and has one of the largest Picasso collections in Europe. It also features many works by Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein....
in Cologne.