Translations of The Lord of the Rings
Encyclopedia
The Lord of the Rings
by J. R. R. Tolkien
appeared 1954–55 in the original English
. It has since been translated
, with various degrees of success, into dozens of other languages. Tolkien, an expert in Germanic
philology
, scrutinized those that were under preparation during his lifetime, and had comments that reflect both the translation process and his work. To aid translators, and because he was unhappy with some choices made by early translators such as Åke Ohlmarks, Tolkien wrote his Guide to the Names in The Lord of the Rings (1967).
Because The Lord of the Rings purports to be a translation of the Red Book of Westmarch
, with the English language in the original purporting to represent the Westron
of the original, translators need to imitate the complex interplay between English and non-English (Elvish) nomenclature in the book. An additional difficulty is the presence of proper names in Old English (names of the Rohirrim) and Old Norse
("external" names of Dwarves
). Their relation to English (within the history of English, and of the Germanic languages more generally, respectively) is intended to reflect the relation of the purported "original" names to Westron.
(1956-7, Max Schuchart) and Swedish
(1959–60, Åke Ohlmarks). Both took considerable liberties with their material, apparent already from the rendition of the title, In de Ban van de Ring "Under the Spell of the Ring" and Sagan om ringen "The Tale of the Ring", respectively. Most later translations, beginning with the Polish
Władca Pierścieni in 1961, render the title in literal translations. Further non-literal title translations after the Polish translation are the Japanese
"Legend of the Ring", Finnish
Taru Sormusten Herrasta "Legend of the Lord of the Rings" and the first Norwegian
translation Krigen om ringen "The War of the Ring".
Tolkien in both the Dutch and the Swedish case objected strongly while the translations were in progress, in particular regarding the adaptation of proper names.
Despite lengthy correspondence, Tolkien did not succeed in convincing the Dutch translator of his objections, and was similarly frustrated in the Swedish case.
However if one would read the Dutch version, little has changed except the names of certain characters. This to ensure no reading difficulties emerge for Dutchmen who would not speak a word of English.
Schuchart's translation as of 2008 remains the only authorized translation in Dutch. However, there is an unauthorized translation by E.J. Mensink-van Warmelo, dating to the late 1970s.
A revision of Schuchert's translation was initiated in 2003, but the publisher Uitgeverij M decided against publication of the revised version.
(1911–1984) was a prolific translator, who during his career besides Tolkien published Swedish versions of Shakespeare, Dante
and the Qur'an
. Tolkien intensely disliked Ohlmark's translation of The Lord of the Rings, however, more so even than Schuchart's Dutch translation.
Ohlmarks' translation remained the only one available in Swedish for forty years, and until his death in 1984, Ohlmarks remained impervious to the numerous complaints and calls for revision from readers.
After The Silmarillion
was published in 1977, Christopher Tolkien
consented to a Swedish translation only on the condition that Ohlmarks have nothing to do with it. After a fire in his home in 1982, Ohlmarks incoherently charged Tolkien fans with arson, and subsequently he published a book connecting Tolkien with "black magic
" and Nazism
.
Ohlmarks' translation has only been superseded in 2005 by a new translation by Erik Andersson with poems interpreted by Lotta Olsson.
in The Lord of the Rings
compiled by J. R. R. Tolkien
in 1966 to 1967, intended for the benefit of translators, especially for translations into Germanic languages
. The first translations to profit from the guideline were those into Danish
(Ida Nyrop Ludvigsen
) and German
(Margaret Carroux), both appearing 1972.
Frustrated by his experience with the Dutch and Swedish translations, Tolkien asked that
With a view to the planned Danish translation, Tolkien decided to take action in order to avoid similar disappointments in the future. On 2 January 1967 he wrote to Otto B. Lindhardt, of the Danish publisher Gyldendals Bibliotek
:
Photocopies of this "commentary" were sent to translators of The Lord of the Rings by Allen & Unwin from 1967. After Tolkien's death, it was published as Guide to the Names in The Lord of the Rings, edited by Christopher Tolkien
in A Tolkien Compass (1975).
Hammond and Scull (2005) have newly transcribed and slightly edited Tolkien's typescript, and re-published it under the title of Nomenclature of The Lord of the Rings.
Tolkien uses the abbreviations CS for "Common Speech, in original text represented by English", and LT for the target language of the translation. His approach is the prescription that if in doubt, a proper name should not be altered but left as it appears in the English original:
The names in English form, such as Dead Marshes
, should be translated straightforwardly, while the names in Elvish should be left unchanged. The difficult cases are those names where
An example of such a case is Rivendell
, the translation of Sindarin
Imladris "Glen of the Cleft", or Westernesse
, the translation of Númenor
.
The list gives suggestions for "old, obsolescent, or dialectal words in the Scandinavian and German languages".
The Danish (Ludvigsen) and German (Carroux) translations were the only ones profiting from Tolkien's "commentary" which were published before Tolkien's death in 1973.
Since then, throughout the 1970s, 1980s, 1990s and 2000s, new translations into numerous languages have continued to appear.
, Tolkien endorses the Gouw of the Dutch version and remarks that German Gau "seems to me suitable in Ger., unless its recent use
in regional reorganization under Hitler
has spoilt this very old word."
The German translator, Margaret Carroux, decided that this was indeed the case, and opted for the more artificial Auenland "meadow-land" instead.
Rivendell Tolkien considered as a particularly difficult case, and recommends to "translate by sense, or retain as seems best." Carroux (1972) opted for literal translation, Bruchtal.
Another difficult case is the name of Shelob
, formed from the pronoun she
plus lob, a dialectal word for "spider
" (according to Tolkien; the OED is only aware of its occurrence in Middle English
). Tolkien doesn't give any prescription; he merely notes that "The Dutch version retains Shelob, but the Swed. has the rather feeble Honmonstret ["she-monster"]." Carroux chose Kankra, an artificial feminine formation from dialectal German Kanker "Opiliones
" (cognate to cancer).
The name "Baggins" was rendered as Beutlin (containing the word Beutel meaning "bag"), and "Elf
" was rendered as Elb, the plural Elves as Elben. The choice reflects Tolkien's suggestion:
The Elb chosen by Carroux instead of the suggested Alb is a construction by Jacob Grimm
in his 1835 Teutonic Mythology
. Grimm, like Tolkien, notes that German Elf is a loan from the English, and argues for the revival of the original German cognate, which survived in the adjective elbisch and in composed names like Elbegast. Grimm also notes that the correct plural of Elb would be Elbe, but Carroux does not follow in this and uses the plural Elben, denounced by Grimm as incorrect in his German Dictionary
(s.v. Alb).
A first effort at publication was made in the 1960s, but in order to comply with literary censorship in Soviet Russia
, the work was considerably abridged and transformed. The ideological danger of the book was seen in the "hidden allegory 'of the conflict between the individualist West and the totalitarian, Communist East.'" (Markova 2006), while, ironically, Marxist readings in the west conversely identified Tolkien's anti-industrial ideas as presented in the Shire with primitive communism
, in a struggle with the evil forces of technocratic capitalism
.
Russian translations of The Lord of the Rings circulated as samizdat
and were published only after the collapse of the Soviet Union
, but then in great numbers, no less than ten official Russian translations appeared between 1990 and 2005 (Markova 2006). Tolkien fandom in Russia grew especially rapidly during the early 1990s at Moscow State University
. Many unofficial and incomplete translations are in circulation. The first translation appearing in print was that by Kistyakovski
and Muravyov
(volume 1, published 1982).
member Ruth Livnit, aided by Uriel Ofek as the translator of the verse. The 1977 version was considered a unique book for the sort of Hebrew that was used therein, until it was revised by Dr. Emanuel Lottem according to the second English edition, although still under the name of the previous translators, with Lottem as merely "The editor".
The difference between the two versions is clear in the translation of names with the book:
Elves, for an example, were first translated as "בני לילית" (Bneyi Lilith, i.e. the "Children of Lilith
") but in the new edition was transcribed in the form of "Elefs" maintained through Yiddish as "עלף".
The change was made because "Bneyi Lilith" essentially relates with Babylonian-derived Jewish folklore character of Lilith, mother of all demons, an inappropriate name for Tolkien's Elves.
Since the whole seven appendices and part of the foreword were dropped in the first edition, the rules of transcript therein were not kept. In the New edition Dr. Lottem translated the appendices by himself, and transcribed names according to the instructions therein. Furthermore, the old translation was made without any connection to the rest of Tolkien's mythological context, not The Silmarillion nor even The Hobbit. Parts of the story relating to events mentioned in the above books were not understood and therefore either translated inaccurately, or even dropped completely.
There are also major inconsistencies in transcript or in repetitions of similar text within the story, especially in the verse.
For some of these languages, there is a translation of The Hobbit
, but not of The Lord of the Rings. For some languages, there is more than one translation of The Lord of the Rings. These notably include Russian, besides Swedish, Norwegian, German, Polish and Slovenian.
In addition to languages mentioned above, there are published translations of the Hobbit into Albanian, Arabic, Armenian, Belarusian, Esperanto, Faroese, Georgian, Luxembourgish, Macedonian, Moldavian, Persian and Ukrainian. The Marathi translation, however, seems not to exist or at least not to be published.
Comparatively few translations appeared during Tolkien's lifetime: when Tolkien died on 2 September 1973, the Dutch, Swedish, Polish, Italian, Danish, German and French translations had been published completely, and the Japanese and Finnish ones in part. The Russian translations are a special case because many unpublished and unauthorized translations circulated in the 1970s and 1980s Soviet Union
, which were gradually published from the 1990s.
The Lord of the Rings
The Lord of the Rings is a high fantasy epic written by English philologist and University of Oxford professor J. R. R. Tolkien. The story began as a sequel to Tolkien's earlier, less complex children's fantasy novel The Hobbit , but eventually developed into a much larger work. It was written in...
by J. R. R. Tolkien
J. R. R. Tolkien
John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, CBE was an English writer, poet, philologist, and university professor, best known as the author of the classic high fantasy works The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Silmarillion.Tolkien was Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon at Pembroke College,...
appeared 1954–55 in the original English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
. It has since been translated
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...
, with various degrees of success, into dozens of other languages. Tolkien, an expert in Germanic
Germanic languages
The Germanic languages constitute a sub-branch of the Indo-European language family. The common ancestor of all of the languages in this branch is called Proto-Germanic , which was spoken in approximately the mid-1st millennium BC in Iron Age northern Europe...
philology
Philology
Philology is the study of language in written historical sources; it is a combination of literary studies, history and linguistics.Classical philology is the philology of Greek and Classical Latin...
, scrutinized those that were under preparation during his lifetime, and had comments that reflect both the translation process and his work. To aid translators, and because he was unhappy with some choices made by early translators such as Åke Ohlmarks, Tolkien wrote his Guide to the Names in The Lord of the Rings (1967).
Because The Lord of the Rings purports to be a translation of the Red Book of Westmarch
Red Book of Westmarch
The Red Book of Westmarch is a fictional manuscript written by hobbits, a conceit of author J. R. R...
, with the English language in the original purporting to represent the Westron
Westron
Westron, or the Common Speech, is a fictional language in the fantasy works of J. R. R. Tolkien.Westron is the closest thing to a lingua franca in Middle-earth, at least at the time during which The Lord of the Rings is set. "Westron" is an invented English word, derived from West...
of the original, translators need to imitate the complex interplay between English and non-English (Elvish) nomenclature in the book. An additional difficulty is the presence of proper names in Old English (names of the Rohirrim) and Old Norse
Old Norse
Old Norse is a North Germanic language that was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and inhabitants of their overseas settlements during the Viking Age, until about 1300....
("external" names of Dwarves
Dwarf (Middle-earth)
In the fiction of J. R. R. Tolkien, the Dwarves are a race inhabiting the world of Arda, a fictional prehistoric Earth which includes the continent Middle-earth....
). Their relation to English (within the history of English, and of the Germanic languages more generally, respectively) is intended to reflect the relation of the purported "original" names to Westron.
Early translations
The first translations of The Lord of the Rings to be prepared were those in DutchDutch language
Dutch is a West Germanic language and the native language of the majority of the population of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Suriname, the three member states of the Dutch Language Union. Most speakers live in the European Union, where it is a first language for about 23 million and a second...
(1956-7, Max Schuchart) and Swedish
Swedish language
Swedish is a North Germanic language, spoken by approximately 10 million people, predominantly in Sweden and parts of Finland, especially along its coast and on the Åland islands. It is largely mutually intelligible with Norwegian and Danish...
(1959–60, Åke Ohlmarks). Both took considerable liberties with their material, apparent already from the rendition of the title, In de Ban van de Ring "Under the Spell of the Ring" and Sagan om ringen "The Tale of the Ring", respectively. Most later translations, beginning with the Polish
Polish language
Polish is a language of the Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages, used throughout Poland and by Polish minorities in other countries...
Władca Pierścieni in 1961, render the title in literal translations. Further non-literal title translations after the Polish translation are the Japanese
Japanese language
is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an...
"Legend of the Ring", Finnish
Finnish language
Finnish is the language spoken by the majority of the population in Finland Primarily for use by restaurant menus and by ethnic Finns outside Finland. It is one of the two official languages of Finland and an official minority language in Sweden. In Sweden, both standard Finnish and Meänkieli, a...
Taru Sormusten Herrasta "Legend of the Lord of the Rings" and the first Norwegian
Norwegian language
Norwegian is a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Norway, where it is the official language. Together with Swedish and Danish, Norwegian forms a continuum of more or less mutually intelligible local and regional variants .These Scandinavian languages together with the Faroese language...
translation Krigen om ringen "The War of the Ring".
Tolkien in both the Dutch and the Swedish case objected strongly while the translations were in progress, in particular regarding the adaptation of proper names.
Despite lengthy correspondence, Tolkien did not succeed in convincing the Dutch translator of his objections, and was similarly frustrated in the Swedish case.
Dutch translation (Schuchart)
Regarding the Dutch version, he wrote- In principle I object as strongly as is possible to the 'translation' of the nomenclature at all (even by a competent person). I wonder why a translator should think himself called on or entitled to do any such thing. That this is an 'imaginary' world does not give him any right to remodel it according to his fancy, even if he could in a few months create a new coherent structure which it took me years to work out. [...] May I say at once that I will not tolerate any similar tinkering with the personal nomenclature. Nor with the name/word HobbitHobbit (word)The invention of the word hobbit is traditionally ascribed to J. R. R. Tolkien, whose The Hobbit was first published in 1937. The Oxford English Dictionary since the 1970s has credited Tolkien with the invention of the word...
. (3 July 1956, to Rayner UnwinRayner UnwinRayner Stephens Unwin was the son of publisher Sir Stanley Unwin of the publishing firm George Allen & Unwin....
, Letters, pp. 249-51).
However if one would read the Dutch version, little has changed except the names of certain characters. This to ensure no reading difficulties emerge for Dutchmen who would not speak a word of English.
Schuchart's translation as of 2008 remains the only authorized translation in Dutch. However, there is an unauthorized translation by E.J. Mensink-van Warmelo, dating to the late 1970s.
A revision of Schuchert's translation was initiated in 2003, but the publisher Uitgeverij M decided against publication of the revised version.
Swedish translation (Ohlmarks)
Åke OhlmarksÅke Ohlmarks
Åke Joel Ohlmarks was a Swedish author, translator and scholar of religion.He worked as a Lecturer at the University of Greifswald from 1941 to 1945...
(1911–1984) was a prolific translator, who during his career besides Tolkien published Swedish versions of Shakespeare, Dante
DANTE
Delivery of Advanced Network Technology to Europe is a not-for-profit organisation that plans, builds and operates the international networks that interconnect the various national research and education networks in Europe and surrounding regions...
and the Qur'an
Qur'an
The Quran , also transliterated Qur'an, Koran, Alcoran, Qur’ān, Coran, Kuran, and al-Qur’ān, is the central religious text of Islam, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God . It is regarded widely as the finest piece of literature in the Arabic language...
. Tolkien intensely disliked Ohlmark's translation of The Lord of the Rings, however, more so even than Schuchart's Dutch translation.
Ohlmarks' translation remained the only one available in Swedish for forty years, and until his death in 1984, Ohlmarks remained impervious to the numerous complaints and calls for revision from readers.
After The Silmarillion
The Silmarillion
The Silmarillion is a collection of J. R. R. Tolkien's mythopoeic works, edited and published posthumously by his son Christopher Tolkien in 1977, with assistance from Guy Gavriel Kay, who later became a noted fantasy writer. The Silmarillion, along with J. R. R...
was published in 1977, Christopher Tolkien
Christopher Tolkien
Christopher Reuel Tolkien is the third and youngest son of the author J. R. R. Tolkien , and is best known as the editor of much of his father's posthumously published work. He drew the original maps for his father's The Lord of the Rings, which he signed C. J. R. T. The J...
consented to a Swedish translation only on the condition that Ohlmarks have nothing to do with it. After a fire in his home in 1982, Ohlmarks incoherently charged Tolkien fans with arson, and subsequently he published a book connecting Tolkien with "black magic
Black magic
Black magic is the type of magic that draws on assumed malevolent powers or is used with the intention to kill, steal, injure, cause misfortune or destruction, or for personal gain without regard to harmful consequences. As a term, "black magic" is normally used by those that do not approve of its...
" and Nazism
Nazism
Nazism, the common short form name of National Socialism was the ideology and practice of the Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany...
.
Ohlmarks' translation has only been superseded in 2005 by a new translation by Erik Andersson with poems interpreted by Lotta Olsson.
Tolkien's "commentary"
The Guide to the Names in The Lord of the Rings is a guideline on the nomenclatureNomenclature
Nomenclature is a term that applies to either a list of names or terms, or to the system of principles, procedures and terms related to naming - which is the assigning of a word or phrase to a particular object or property...
in The Lord of the Rings
The Lord of the Rings
The Lord of the Rings is a high fantasy epic written by English philologist and University of Oxford professor J. R. R. Tolkien. The story began as a sequel to Tolkien's earlier, less complex children's fantasy novel The Hobbit , but eventually developed into a much larger work. It was written in...
compiled by J. R. R. Tolkien
J. R. R. Tolkien
John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, CBE was an English writer, poet, philologist, and university professor, best known as the author of the classic high fantasy works The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Silmarillion.Tolkien was Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon at Pembroke College,...
in 1966 to 1967, intended for the benefit of translators, especially for translations into Germanic languages
Germanic languages
The Germanic languages constitute a sub-branch of the Indo-European language family. The common ancestor of all of the languages in this branch is called Proto-Germanic , which was spoken in approximately the mid-1st millennium BC in Iron Age northern Europe...
. The first translations to profit from the guideline were those into Danish
Danish language
Danish is a North Germanic language spoken by around six million people, principally in the country of Denmark. It is also spoken by 50,000 Germans of Danish ethnicity in the northern parts of Schleswig-Holstein, Germany, where it holds the status of minority language...
(Ida Nyrop Ludvigsen
Ida Nyrop Ludvigsen
Ida Nyrop Ludvigsen , Danish translator and official, was born and raised in Gentofte, Denmark as the first of two children. Her parents, mag.art Karen Nyrop and mag.art Anders Carl Christensen, were both engaged to teach French language for listeners at the Danish State Broadcast when it started...
) and German
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....
(Margaret Carroux), both appearing 1972.
Frustrated by his experience with the Dutch and Swedish translations, Tolkien asked that
- when any further translations are negotiated, [...] I should be consulted at an early stage. [...] After all, I charge nothing, and can save a translator a good deal of time and puzzling; and if consulted at an early stage my remarks will appear far less in the light of peevish criticisms (7 December 1957 to Rayner Unwin, Letters, p. 263).
With a view to the planned Danish translation, Tolkien decided to take action in order to avoid similar disappointments in the future. On 2 January 1967 he wrote to Otto B. Lindhardt, of the Danish publisher Gyldendals Bibliotek
Gyldendal (Denmark)
Gyldendalske Boghandel, Nordisk Forlag A/S, in Denmark usually referred to simply as Gyldendal is a Danish publishing house. Founded in 1770 by Søren Gyldendal, it is the oldest and largest publishing house in Denmark, offering a wide selection of books including fiction, non-fiction and...
:
- I have therefore recently been engaged in making, and have nearly completed, a commentary on the names in this story, with explanations and suggestions for the use of a translator, having especially in mind Danish and German (Tolkien-George Allen & UnwinAllen & UnwinAllen & Unwin, formerly a major British publishing house, is now an independent book publisher and distributor based in Australia. The Australian directors have been the sole owners of the Allen & Unwin name since effecting a management buy out at the time the UK parent company, Unwin Hyman, was...
archive, HarperCollinsHarperCollinsHarperCollins is a publishing company owned by News Corporation. It is the combination of the publishers William Collins, Sons and Co Ltd, a British company, and Harper & Row, an American company, itself the result of an earlier merger of Harper & Brothers and Row, Peterson & Company. The worldwide...
, cited after Hammond and Scull 2005).
Photocopies of this "commentary" were sent to translators of The Lord of the Rings by Allen & Unwin from 1967. After Tolkien's death, it was published as Guide to the Names in The Lord of the Rings, edited by Christopher Tolkien
Christopher Tolkien
Christopher Reuel Tolkien is the third and youngest son of the author J. R. R. Tolkien , and is best known as the editor of much of his father's posthumously published work. He drew the original maps for his father's The Lord of the Rings, which he signed C. J. R. T. The J...
in A Tolkien Compass (1975).
Hammond and Scull (2005) have newly transcribed and slightly edited Tolkien's typescript, and re-published it under the title of Nomenclature of The Lord of the Rings.
Tolkien uses the abbreviations CS for "Common Speech, in original text represented by English", and LT for the target language of the translation. His approach is the prescription that if in doubt, a proper name should not be altered but left as it appears in the English original:
- "All names not in the following list should be left entirely unchanged in any language used in translation (LT), except that inflexional s, es should be rendered according to the grammar of the LT."
The names in English form, such as Dead Marshes
Dead Marshes
The Dead Marshes is a fictional place from J. R. R. Tolkien's universe, Middle-earth.-Literature:Once a part of the ancient battlefield of Dagorlad, the Dead Marshes lie north-west of the Morannon, the principal entrance to Mordor...
, should be translated straightforwardly, while the names in Elvish should be left unchanged. The difficult cases are those names where
- "the author, acting as translator of Elvish names already devised and used in this book or elsewhere, has taken pains to produce a CS name that is both a translation and also (to English ears) a euphoniousEuphonyPhonaesthetics is the claim or study of inherent pleasantness or beauty or unpleasantness of the sound of certain words and sentences. Poetry is considered euphonic, as is well-crafted literary prose...
name of familiar English style, even if it does not actually occur in England."
An example of such a case is Rivendell
Rivendell
Rivendell is an Elven outpost in Middle-earth, a fictional realm created by J. R. R. Tolkien. It was established and ruled by Elrond in the Second Age of Middle-earth...
, the translation of Sindarin
Sindarin
Sindarin is a fictional language devised by J. R. R. Tolkien, and used in his secondary world, often called Middle-earth.Sindarin is one of the many languages spoken by the immortal Elves, called the Eledhrim or Edhellim in Sindarin....
Imladris "Glen of the Cleft", or Westernesse
Westernesse
Westernesse is a fictional kingdom in the Middle English romance of King Horn. It has been associated with various regions in the British Isles, among which the Wirral District in Cheshire...
, the translation of Númenor
Númenor
Númenor is a fictional place in J. R. R. Tolkien's writings. It was a huge island located in the Sundering Seas to the west of Middle-earth, the main setting of Tolkien's writings, and was known to be the greatest realm of Men...
.
The list gives suggestions for "old, obsolescent, or dialectal words in the Scandinavian and German languages".
The Danish (Ludvigsen) and German (Carroux) translations were the only ones profiting from Tolkien's "commentary" which were published before Tolkien's death in 1973.
Since then, throughout the 1970s, 1980s, 1990s and 2000s, new translations into numerous languages have continued to appear.
German translation (Carroux)
For ShireShire (Middle-earth)
The Shire is a region of J. R. R. Tolkien's fictional Middle-earth, described in The Lord of the Rings and other works. The Shire refers to an area settled exclusively by Hobbits and largely removed from the goings-on in the rest of Middle-earth. It is located in the northwest of the continent, in...
, Tolkien endorses the Gouw of the Dutch version and remarks that German Gau "seems to me suitable in Ger., unless its recent use
Reichsgau
A Reichsgau was an administrative subdivision created in a number of the areas annexed to Nazi Germany between 1938 and 1945...
in regional reorganization under Hitler
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...
has spoilt this very old word."
The German translator, Margaret Carroux, decided that this was indeed the case, and opted for the more artificial Auenland "meadow-land" instead.
Rivendell Tolkien considered as a particularly difficult case, and recommends to "translate by sense, or retain as seems best." Carroux (1972) opted for literal translation, Bruchtal.
Another difficult case is the name of Shelob
Shelob
Shelob is a fictional character from J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth legendarium. She appears at the end of the fourth book, second volume , of The Lord of the Rings.-Literature:...
, formed from the pronoun she
She
She is the third person singular, feminine, nominative case pronoun in modern English.She can also may refer to:-Literature and film:* She: A History of Adventure, a novel by H...
plus lob, a dialectal word for "spider
Spider
Spiders are air-breathing arthropods that have eight legs, and chelicerae with fangs that inject venom. They are the largest order of arachnids and rank seventh in total species diversity among all other groups of organisms...
" (according to Tolkien; the OED is only aware of its occurrence in Middle English
Middle English
Middle English is the stage in the history of the English language during the High and Late Middle Ages, or roughly during the four centuries between the late 11th and the late 15th century....
). Tolkien doesn't give any prescription; he merely notes that "The Dutch version retains Shelob, but the Swed. has the rather feeble Honmonstret ["she-monster"]." Carroux chose Kankra, an artificial feminine formation from dialectal German Kanker "Opiliones
Opiliones
Opiliones are an order of arachnids commonly known as harvestmen. , over 6,400 species of harvestmen have been discovered worldwide, although the real number of extant species may exceed 10,000. The order Opiliones can be divided into four suborders: Cyphophthalmi, Eupnoi, Dyspnoi and Laniatores...
" (cognate to cancer).
The name "Baggins" was rendered as Beutlin (containing the word Beutel meaning "bag"), and "Elf
Elf (Middle-earth)
In J. R. R. Tolkien's legendarium, Elves are one of the races that inhabit a fictional Earth, often called Middle-earth, and set in the remote past. They appear in The Hobbit and in The Lord of the Rings, but their complex history is described more fully in The Silmarillion...
" was rendered as Elb, the plural Elves as Elben. The choice reflects Tolkien's suggestion:
- "With regard to German: I would suggest with diffidence that Elf, elfen, are perhaps to be avoided as equivalents of Elf, elven. Elf is, I believe, borrowed from English, and may retain some of the associations of a kind that I should particularly desire not to be present (if possible): e.g. those of DraytonMichael DraytonMichael Drayton was an English poet who came to prominence in the Elizabethan era.-Early life:He was born at Hartshill, near Nuneaton, Warwickshire, England. Almost nothing is known about his early life, beyond the fact that in 1580 he was in the service of Thomas Goodere of Collingham,...
or of A Midsummer Night's DreamA Midsummer Night's DreamA Midsummer Night's Dream is a play that was written by William Shakespeare. It is believed to have been written between 1590 and 1596. It portrays the events surrounding the marriage of the Duke of Athens, Theseus, and the Queen of the Amazons, Hippolyta...
[...] I wonder whether the word Alp (or better still the form Alb, still given in modern dictionaries as a variant, which is historically the more normal form) could not be used. It is the true cognate of English elf [...] The Elves of the 'mythology' of The L.R. are not actually equatable with the folklore traditions about 'fairies', and as I have said (Appendix F[...]) I should prefer the oldest available form of the name to be used, and leave it to acquire its own associations for readers of my tale.
The Elb chosen by Carroux instead of the suggested Alb is a construction by Jacob Grimm
Jacob Grimm
Jacob Ludwig Carl Grimm was a German philologist, jurist and mythologist. He is best known as the discoverer of Grimm's Law, the author of the monumental Deutsches Wörterbuch, the author of Deutsche Mythologie and, more popularly, as one of the Brothers Grimm, as the editor of Grimm's Fairy...
in his 1835 Teutonic Mythology
Deutsche Mythologie
Deutsche Mythologie is a seminal treatise on Germanic mythology by Jacob Grimm. First published in Germany in 1835, the work is an exhaustive treatment of the subject, tracing the mythology and beliefs of the Ancient Germanic peoples from their earliest attestations to their survivals in modern...
. Grimm, like Tolkien, notes that German Elf is a loan from the English, and argues for the revival of the original German cognate, which survived in the adjective elbisch and in composed names like Elbegast. Grimm also notes that the correct plural of Elb would be Elbe, but Carroux does not follow in this and uses the plural Elben, denounced by Grimm as incorrect in his German Dictionary
German dictionary
German dictionaries have a history dating back to the Brothers Grimm, who started work on the first major dictionary of the German language, the Deutsches Wörterbuch in 1838. The Duden dictionary dates back to 1880, and is currently the prescriptive source for the spelling of German....
(s.v. Alb).
Russian translations
Interest in Russia awoke soon after the publication of The Lord of the Rings in 1955, long before the first Russian translation.A first effort at publication was made in the 1960s, but in order to comply with literary censorship in Soviet Russia
Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic
The Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic , commonly referred to as Soviet Russia, Bolshevik Russia, or simply Russia, was the largest, most populous and economically developed republic in the former Soviet Union....
, the work was considerably abridged and transformed. The ideological danger of the book was seen in the "hidden allegory 'of the conflict between the individualist West and the totalitarian, Communist East.'" (Markova 2006), while, ironically, Marxist readings in the west conversely identified Tolkien's anti-industrial ideas as presented in the Shire with primitive communism
Primitive communism
Primitive communism is a term used by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels to describe what they interpreted as early forms of communism: As a model, primitive communism is usually used to describe early hunter-gatherer societies, that had no hierarchical social class structures or capital accumulation...
, in a struggle with the evil forces of technocratic capitalism
Capitalism
Capitalism is an economic system that became dominant in the Western world following the demise of feudalism. There is no consensus on the precise definition nor on how the term should be used as a historical category...
.
Russian translations of The Lord of the Rings circulated as samizdat
Samizdat
Samizdat was a key form of dissident activity across the Soviet bloc in which individuals reproduced censored publications by hand and passed the documents from reader to reader...
and were published only after the collapse of the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
, but then in great numbers, no less than ten official Russian translations appeared between 1990 and 2005 (Markova 2006). Tolkien fandom in Russia grew especially rapidly during the early 1990s at Moscow State University
Moscow State University
Lomonosov Moscow State University , previously known as Lomonosov University or MSU , is the largest university in Russia. Founded in 1755, it also claims to be one of the oldest university in Russia and to have the tallest educational building in the world. Its current rector is Viktor Sadovnichiy...
. Many unofficial and incomplete translations are in circulation. The first translation appearing in print was that by Kistyakovski
Andrey Kistyakovsky
Andrey Andreyevich Kistyakovsky was a Russian translator and political activist. He translated the belles-lettres from English to Russian and began publishing in 1967....
and Muravyov
Vladimir Muravyov (translator)
Vladimir Sergeyevich Muravyov was a Russian translator and literary critic. He was awarded the Inolit Prize for Best Translation in 1987 ....
(volume 1, published 1982).
Hebrew
The first translation of The Lord of the Rings into Hebrew (שר הטבעות) was done by Canaanite movementCanaanism
Canaanism was a cultural and ideological movement founded in 1939 that reached its peak in the 1940s among the Jews of Palestine. It has significantly impacted the course of Israeli art, literature, and spiritual and political thought. Its adherents were called Canaanites...
member Ruth Livnit, aided by Uriel Ofek as the translator of the verse. The 1977 version was considered a unique book for the sort of Hebrew that was used therein, until it was revised by Dr. Emanuel Lottem according to the second English edition, although still under the name of the previous translators, with Lottem as merely "The editor".
The difference between the two versions is clear in the translation of names with the book:
Elves, for an example, were first translated as "בני לילית" (Bneyi Lilith, i.e. the "Children of Lilith
Lilith
Lilith is a character in Jewish mythology, found earliest in the Babylonian Talmud, who is generally thought to be related to a class of female demons Līlīṯu in Mesopotamian texts. However, Lowell K. Handy notes, "Very little information has been found relating to the Akkadian and Babylonian view...
") but in the new edition was transcribed in the form of "Elefs" maintained through Yiddish as "עלף".
The change was made because "Bneyi Lilith" essentially relates with Babylonian-derived Jewish folklore character of Lilith, mother of all demons, an inappropriate name for Tolkien's Elves.
Since the whole seven appendices and part of the foreword were dropped in the first edition, the rules of transcript therein were not kept. In the New edition Dr. Lottem translated the appendices by himself, and transcribed names according to the instructions therein. Furthermore, the old translation was made without any connection to the rest of Tolkien's mythological context, not The Silmarillion nor even The Hobbit. Parts of the story relating to events mentioned in the above books were not understood and therefore either translated inaccurately, or even dropped completely.
There are also major inconsistencies in transcript or in repetitions of similar text within the story, especially in the verse.
List of translations
The number of languages into which Tolkien's works has been translated is subject to some debate. HarperCollins explicitly lists 38 (or 39) languages for which translations of "The Hobbit and/or The Lord of the Rings" exist:- Basque, Breton, Bulgarian, Catalan, Chinese (Simplified and Traditional), Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Estonian, Finnish, French, Galician, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hungarian, Icelandic, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Latvian, Lithuanian, Marathi, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese (European, Brazilian), Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish, Swedish, Thai, Turkish, Ukrainian.
For some of these languages, there is a translation of The Hobbit
The Hobbit
The Hobbit, or There and Back Again, better known by its abbreviated title The Hobbit, is a fantasy novel and children's book by J. R. R. Tolkien. It was published on 21 September 1937 to wide critical acclaim, being nominated for the Carnegie Medal and awarded a prize from the New York Herald...
, but not of The Lord of the Rings. For some languages, there is more than one translation of The Lord of the Rings. These notably include Russian, besides Swedish, Norwegian, German, Polish and Slovenian.
In addition to languages mentioned above, there are published translations of the Hobbit into Albanian, Arabic, Armenian, Belarusian, Esperanto, Faroese, Georgian, Luxembourgish, Macedonian, Moldavian, Persian and Ukrainian. The Marathi translation, however, seems not to exist or at least not to be published.
Comparatively few translations appeared during Tolkien's lifetime: when Tolkien died on 2 September 1973, the Dutch, Swedish, Polish, Italian, Danish, German and French translations had been published completely, and the Japanese and Finnish ones in part. The Russian translations are a special case because many unpublished and unauthorized translations circulated in the 1970s and 1980s Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
, which were gradually published from the 1990s.
| language | title | year | translator | publisher | ISBN | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dutch Dutch language Dutch is a West Germanic language and the native language of the majority of the population of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Suriname, the three member states of the Dutch Language Union. Most speakers live in the European Union, where it is a first language for about 23 million and a second... |
1957 | Max Schuchart | Het Spectrum, Utrecht Utrecht (city) Utrecht city and municipality is the capital and most populous city of the Dutch province of Utrecht. It is located in the eastern corner of the Randstad conurbation, and is the fourth largest city of the Netherlands with a population of 312,634 on 1 Jan 2011.Utrecht's ancient city centre features... |
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| Swedish Swedish language Swedish is a North Germanic language, spoken by approximately 10 million people, predominantly in Sweden and parts of Finland, especially along its coast and on the Åland islands. It is largely mutually intelligible with Norwegian and Danish... |
1959 to 1961 | Åke Ohlmarks | Almqvist & Wiksell, Stockholm Stockholm Stockholm is the capital and the largest city of Sweden and constitutes the most populated urban area in Scandinavia. Stockholm is the most populous city in Sweden, with a population of 851,155 in the municipality , 1.37 million in the urban area , and around 2.1 million in the metropolitan area... |
ISBN 978-91-1-300998-8 | ||
| Polish Polish language Polish is a language of the Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages, used throughout Poland and by Polish minorities in other countries... |
1961 to 1963 | Maria Skibniewska (poems by Włodzimierz Lewik and Andrzej Nowicki)) | ||||
| Italian Italian language Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia... |
1967 to 1970 | Vittoria Alliata di Villafranca | Bompiani | |||
| Danish Danish language Danish is a North Germanic language spoken by around six million people, principally in the country of Denmark. It is also spoken by 50,000 Germans of Danish ethnicity in the northern parts of Schleswig-Holstein, Germany, where it holds the status of minority language... |
1968 to 1972 | Ida Nyrop Ludvigsen Ida Nyrop Ludvigsen Ida Nyrop Ludvigsen , Danish translator and official, was born and raised in Gentofte, Denmark as the first of two children. Her parents, mag.art Karen Nyrop and mag.art Anders Carl Christensen, were both engaged to teach French language for listeners at the Danish State Broadcast when it started... |
Gyldendal Gyldendal Gyldendal may refer to:*Gyldendal, a Danish publishing house*Gyldendal Norsk Forlag, a Norwegian publishing house founded as a demerger from the Danish one*Søren Gyldendal, the founder of the Danish publishing house... , Copenhagen Copenhagen Copenhagen is the capital and largest city of Denmark, with an urban population of 1,199,224 and a metropolitan population of 1,930,260 . With the completion of the transnational Øresund Bridge in 2000, Copenhagen has become the centre of the increasingly integrating Øresund Region... |
ISBN 978-87-02-04320-4 | ||
| German 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.... |
1969 to 1970 | Margaret Carroux and Ebba-Margareta von Freymann (poems) | Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart Stuttgart Stuttgart is the capital of the state of Baden-Württemberg in southern Germany. The sixth-largest city in Germany, Stuttgart has a population of 600,038 while the metropolitan area has a population of 5.3 million .... |
ISBN 978-3-608-93666-7 | ||
| Norwegian (Bokmål) Norwegian language Norwegian is a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Norway, where it is the official language. Together with Swedish and Danish, Norwegian forms a continuum of more or less mutually intelligible local and regional variants .These Scandinavian languages together with the Faroese language... |
1973 to 1975 | Nils Werenskiold | Tiden Norsk Forlag | ISBN 82-10-00816-1, ISBN 82-10-00930-3, ISBN 82-10-01096-4 | ||
| French French language French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts... |
1972 to 1973 | Francis Ledoux | Christian Bourgois | |||
| Japanese Japanese language is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an... |
1972 to 1975 | Teiji Seta and Akiko Tanaka | Hyouronsya, Tokyo Tokyo , ; officially , is one of the 47 prefectures of Japan. Tokyo is the capital of Japan, the center of the Greater Tokyo Area, and the largest metropolitan area of Japan. It is the seat of the Japanese government and the Imperial Palace, and the home of the Japanese Imperial Family... |
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| Finnish Finnish language Finnish is the language spoken by the majority of the population in Finland Primarily for use by restaurant menus and by ethnic Finns outside Finland. It is one of the two official languages of Finland and an official minority language in Sweden. In Sweden, both standard Finnish and Meänkieli, a... |
1973 to 1975 | Kersti Juva, Eila Pennanen, Panu Pekkanen | ||||
| Portuguese Portuguese language Portuguese is a Romance language that arose in the medieval Kingdom of Galicia, nowadays Galicia and Northern Portugal. The southern part of the Kingdom of Galicia became independent as the County of Portugal in 1095... -Portugal |
1975 to 1979 | António Rocha and Alberto Monjardim | Publicações Europa-América | |||
| Romanian Romanian language Romanian Romanian Romanian (or Daco-Romanian; obsolete spellings Rumanian, Roumanian; self-designation: română, limba română ("the Romanian language") or românește (lit. "in Romanian") is a Romance language spoken by around 24 to 28 million people, primarily in Romania and Moldova... -Romania |
1999 to 2001 | Irina Horea, Gabriela Nedelea, Ion Horea | Editorial Group Rao | |||
| Russian Russian language Russian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics... |
1976 (publ. 2002) | A. A. Gruzberg | ||||
| Greek Greek language Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;... |
1978 | Eugenia Chatzithanasi-Kollia | Kedros, Athens Athens Athens , is the capital and largest city of Greece. Athens dominates the Attica region and is one of the world's oldest cities, as its recorded history spans around 3,400 years. Classical Athens was a powerful city-state... |
ISBN 960-04-0308-2 | ||
| Hebrew Hebrew language Hebrew is a Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Culturally, is it considered by Jews and other religious groups as the language of the Jewish people, though other Jewish languages had originated among diaspora Jews, and the Hebrew language is also used by non-Jewish groups, such... |
1979 to 1980 | Ruth Livnit | ||||
| Norwegian (Bokmål) Norwegian language Norwegian is a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Norway, where it is the official language. Together with Swedish and Danish, Norwegian forms a continuum of more or less mutually intelligible local and regional variants .These Scandinavian languages together with the Faroese language... |
1980 to 1981 | Torstein Bugge Høverstad | Tiden Norsk Forlag | ISBN 978-82-10-04449-6 | ||
| Spanish Spanish language Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the... |
1980 | Matilde Horne, Luis Domènech and Rubén Masera | Círculo de lectores, Barcelona Barcelona Barcelona is the second largest city in Spain after Madrid, and the capital of Catalonia, with a population of 1,621,537 within its administrative limits on a land area of... |
ISBN 84-450-7032-0 (Minotauro) | ||
| Serbian Serbian language Serbian is a form of Serbo-Croatian, a South Slavic language, spoken by Serbs in Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Croatia and neighbouring countries.... |
1981 | Zoran Stanojević | Nolit, Belgrade Belgrade Belgrade is the capital and largest city of Serbia. It is located at the confluence of the Sava and Danube rivers, where the Pannonian Plain meets the Balkans. According to official results of Census 2011, the city has a population of 1,639,121. It is one of the 15 largest cities in Europe... |
no ISBN | ||
| Russian Russian language Russian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics... |
1982 to 1992 | V. S. Muravev (2nd to 6th books, poems), A. A. Kistyakovskij (first book) | ||||
| Russian Russian language Russian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics... |
1991 | V.A.M. (Valeriya Aleksandrovna Matorina | Amur, Khabarovsk | no ISBN | ||
| Russian Russian language Russian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics... |
1984 (publ. 1991) | H. V. Grigoreva and V. I. Grushetskij and I. B. Grinshpun (poems) | Severo-Zapad | ISBN 5-7183-0003-8, ISBN 5-352-00312-4 (Azbuka) | ||
| Hungarian Hungarian language Hungarian is a Uralic language, part of the Ugric group. With some 14 million speakers, it is one of the most widely spoken non-Indo-European languages in Europe.... |
1985 | Réz Ádám and Göncz Árpád and Tandori Dezső (poems) | Európa Könyvkiadó, Budapest Budapest Budapest is the capital of Hungary. As the largest city of Hungary, it is the country's principal political, cultural, commercial, industrial, and transportation centre. In 2011, Budapest had 1,733,685 inhabitants, down from its 1989 peak of 2,113,645 due to suburbanization. The Budapest Commuter... |
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| Catalan Catalan language Catalan is a Romance language, the national and only official language of Andorra and a co-official language in the Spanish autonomous communities of Catalonia, the Balearic Islands and Valencian Community, where it is known as Valencian , as well as in the city of Alghero, on the Italian island... |
1986 to 1988 | Francesc Parcerisas | Vicens Vives, Barcelona Barcelona Barcelona is the second largest city in Spain after Madrid, and the capital of Catalonia, with a population of 1,621,537 within its administrative limits on a land area of... |
ISBN 84-316-6868-7 | ||
| Armenian Armenian language The Armenian language is an Indo-European language spoken by the Armenian people. It is the official language of the Republic of Armenia as well as in the region of Nagorno-Karabakh. The language is also widely spoken by Armenian communities in the Armenian diaspora... |
1989 | Emma Makarian | Arevnik, Erevan | Only The Fellowship of the Ring, no ISBN | ||
| Russian Russian language Russian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics... |
1990 | Z.A. Bobyr' | Interprint | no ISBN Condensed translation | ||
| Czech Czech language Czech is a West Slavic language with about 12 million native speakers; it is the majority language in the Czech Republic and spoken by Czechs worldwide. The language was known as Bohemian in English until the late 19th century... |
1990 to 1992 | Stanislava Pošustová | Mladá fronta, Praha | ISBN 80-204-0105-9, ISBN 8020401945, ISBN 80-204-0259-4 | ||
| Icelandic Icelandic language Icelandic is a North Germanic language, the main language of Iceland. Its closest relative is Faroese.Icelandic is an Indo-European language belonging to the North Germanic or Nordic branch of the Germanic languages. Historically, it was the westernmost of the Indo-European languages prior to the... |
1993 to 1995 | Þorsteinn Thorarensen and Geir Kristjánsson (poems) | Fjölvi, Reykjavík Reykjavík Reykjavík is the capital and largest city in Iceland.Its latitude at 64°08' N makes it the world's northernmost capital of a sovereign state. It is located in southwestern Iceland, on the southern shore of Faxaflói Bay... |
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| Lithuanian Lithuanian language Lithuanian is the official state language of Lithuania and is recognized as one of the official languages of the European Union. There are about 2.96 million native Lithuanian speakers in Lithuania and about 170,000 abroad. Lithuanian is a Baltic language, closely related to Latvian, although they... |
1994 | Andrius Tapinas and Jonas Strielkūnas | Alma Littera, Vilnius Vilnius Vilnius is the capital of Lithuania, and its largest city, with a population of 560,190 as of 2010. It is the seat of the Vilnius city municipality and of the Vilnius district municipality. It is also the capital of Vilnius County... |
ISBN 9986-02-038-7, ISBN 9986-02-487-0, ISBN 9986-02-959-7 | ||
| Portuguese (BRA) Brazilian Portuguese Brazilian Portuguese is a group of Portuguese dialects written and spoken by most of the 190 million inhabitants of Brazil and by a few million Brazilian emigrants, mainly in the United States, United Kingdom, Portugal, Canada, Japan and Paraguay.... |
1994 | Lenita M. R. Esteves and Almiro Pisetta | Martins Fontes | ISBN 85-336-0292-8 | ||
| Russian Russian language Russian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics... |
1994 | Mariya Kamenkovich and Valerij Karrik | Terra-Azbuka, St. Petersburg | ISBN 5-300-00027-2, ISBN 5-300-00026-4 | ||
| Croatian Croatian language Croatian is the collective name for the standard language and dialects spoken by Croats, principally in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Serbian province of Vojvodina and other neighbouring countries... |
1995 | Zlatko Crnković | ||||
| Slovenian Slovenian language Slovene or Slovenian is a South Slavic language spoken by approximately 2.5 million speakers worldwide, the majority of whom live in Slovenia. It is the first language of about 1.85 million people and is one of the 23 official and working languages of the European Union... |
1995 | Polona Mertelj, Primož Pečovnik, Zoran Obradovič | ||||
| Turkish Turkish language Turkish is a language spoken as a native language by over 83 million people worldwide, making it the most commonly spoken of the Turkic languages. Its speakers are located predominantly in Turkey and Northern Cyprus with smaller groups in Iraq, Greece, Bulgaria, the Republic of Macedonia, Kosovo,... |
1996–1998 | Çiğdem Erkal İpek, Bülent Somay (poems) | Metis, İstanbul Istanbul Istanbul , historically known as Byzantium and Constantinople , is the largest city of Turkey. Istanbul metropolitan province had 13.26 million people living in it as of December, 2010, which is 18% of Turkey's population and the 3rd largest metropolitan area in Europe after London and... |
ISBN 975-342-347-0 | ||
| Esperanto Esperanto is the most widely spoken constructed international auxiliary language. Its name derives from Doktoro Esperanto , the pseudonym under which L. L. Zamenhof published the first book detailing Esperanto, the Unua Libro, in 1887... |
1995 to 1997 | William Auld William Auld William Auld was a Scottish poet, author, translator and magazine editor who wrote chiefly in Esperanto. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1999, 2004, and 2006 making him the first and only person to be nominated for works in Esperanto... |
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| Estonian Estonian language Estonian is the official language of Estonia, spoken by about 1.1 million people in Estonia and tens of thousands in various émigré communities... |
1996 to 1998 | Ene Aru and Votele Viidemann | Tiritamm, Tallinn Tallinn Tallinn is the capital and largest city of Estonia. It occupies an area of with a population of 414,940. It is situated on the northern coast of the country, on the banks of the Gulf of Finland, south of Helsinki, east of Stockholm and west of Saint Petersburg. Tallinn's Old Town is in the list... |
ISBN 9985-55-039-0, ISBN 9985-55-046-3, ISBN 9985-55-049-8 | ||
| Polish Polish language Polish is a language of the Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages, used throughout Poland and by Polish minorities in other countries... |
1996 to 1997 | Jerzy Łozinski and Marek Obarski (poems) | ||||
| Bulgarian Bulgarian language Bulgarian is an Indo-European language, a member of the Slavic linguistic group.Bulgarian, along with the closely related Macedonian language, demonstrates several linguistic characteristics that set it apart from all other Slavic languages such as the elimination of case declension, the... |
1990–1991 | Lyubomir Nikolov | Narodna Kultura Sofia Sofia Sofia is the capital and largest city of Bulgaria and the 12th largest city in the European Union with a population of 1.27 million people. It is located in western Bulgaria, at the foot of Mount Vitosha and approximately at the centre of the Balkan Peninsula.Prehistoric settlements were excavated... |
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| German 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.... |
2000 | Wolfgang Krege Wolfgang Krege Wolfgang Krege was a German author and translator.-Life and work:Wolfgang Krege was born and raised in Berlin. In the early 1960s he began studying philosophy at the Free University of Berlin. Afterwards he worked as editor of lexica, as copywriter and editor for publishing houses... |
Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart Stuttgart Stuttgart is the capital of the state of Baden-Württemberg in southern Germany. The sixth-largest city in Germany, Stuttgart has a population of 600,038 while the metropolitan area has a population of 5.3 million .... |
ISBN 978-3-608-93639-1 | ||
| Russian Russian language Russian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics... |
2002 | V. Volkovskij, V. Vosedov, D. Afinogenova | AST AST (publisher) AST is one of the largest book publishing companies in Russia. AST and its rival Eksmo together publish approximately 30% of all Russian books. The company is headed by Oleg Bartenev... , Moscow |
ISBN 5-17-016265-0 | ||
| Polish Polish language Polish is a language of the Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages, used throughout Poland and by Polish minorities in other countries... |
2001 | Books I,II,II,IV : Maria and Cezary Frąc ; Book V : Aleksandra Januszewska ; Book VI : Aleksandra Jagiełowicz ; Poems : Tadeusz A. Olszański ; Appendices: Ryszard Derdziński | Amber, Warszawa | |||
| Slovenian Slovenian language Slovene or Slovenian is a South Slavic language spoken by approximately 2.5 million speakers worldwide, the majority of whom live in Slovenia. It is the first language of about 1.85 million people and is one of the 23 official and working languages of the European Union... |
2001 | Branko Gradišnik | ||||
| Slovak Slovak language Slovak , is an Indo-European language that belongs to the West Slavic languages .Slovak is the official language of Slovakia, where it is spoken by 5 million people... |
2001 to 2002 | Otakar Kořínek and Braňo Varsik | ||||
| Galician Galician language Galician is a language of the Western Ibero-Romance branch, spoken in Galicia, an autonomous community located in northwestern Spain, where it is co-official with Castilian Spanish, as well as in border zones of the neighbouring territories of Asturias and Castile and León.Modern Galician and... |
2001 to 2002 | Moisés R. Barcia | Xerais, Vigo Vigo Vigo is a city and municipality in north-west Spain, in Galicia, situated on the ria of the same name on the Atlantic Ocean.-Population:... |
ISBN 84-8302-682-1 | ||
| Thai Thai language Thai , also known as Central Thai and Siamese, is the national and official language of Thailand and the native language of the Thai people, Thailand's dominant ethnic group. Thai is a member of the Tai group of the Tai–Kadai language family. Historical linguists have been unable to definitively... |
2001 to 2002 | Wanlee Shuenyong | Amarin, Bangkok Bangkok Bangkok is the capital and largest urban area city in Thailand. It is known in Thai as Krung Thep Maha Nakhon or simply Krung Thep , meaning "city of angels." The full name of Bangkok is Krung Thep Mahanakhon Amon Rattanakosin Mahintharayutthaya Mahadilok Phop Noppharat Ratchathani Burirom... |
ISBN 974-7597-54-3 | ||
| Traditional Chinese Chinese language The Chinese language is a language or language family consisting of varieties which are mutually intelligible to varying degrees. Originally the indigenous languages spoken by the Han Chinese in China, it forms one of the branches of Sino-Tibetan family of languages... |
2001 to 2002 | Lucifer Chu | 聯經出版公司, 台北 | |||
| Macedonian Macedonian language Macedonian is a South Slavic language spoken as a first language by approximately 2–3 million people principally in the region of Macedonia but also in the Macedonian diaspora... |
2002 | Romeo Širilov, Ofelija Kaviloska | AEA, Misla, Skopje Skopje Skopje is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Macedonia with about a third of the total population. It is the country's political, cultural, economic, and academic centre... |
ISBN 9989-39-170-X, ISBN 9989-39-173-4, ISBN 9989-39-176-9 | ||
| Russian Russian language Russian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics... |
2002 | Alina V. Nemirova | AST, Kharkov | ISBN 5-17-009975-4, ISBN 5-17-008954-6, ISBN 966-03-1122-2 (Folio) | ||
| Basque Basque language Basque is the ancestral language of the Basque people, who inhabit the Basque Country, a region spanning an area in northeastern Spain and southwestern France. It is spoken by 25.7% of Basques in all territories... |
2002 to 2003 | Agustin Otsoa Eribeko | Txalaparta, Tafalla Tafalla Tafalla is a town and municipality located in the province and autonomous community of Navarre, northern Spain.-External links:**... |
ISBN 84-8136-258-1 | ||
| Indonesian Indonesian language Indonesian is the official language of Indonesia. Indonesian is a normative form of the Riau Islands dialect of Malay, an Austronesian language which has been used as a lingua franca in the Indonesian archipelago for centuries.... |
2002 to 2003 | Anton Adiwiyoto, Gita K. Yuliani | Gramedia, Jakarta Jakarta Jakarta is the capital and largest city of Indonesia. Officially known as the Special Capital Territory of Jakarta, it is located on the northwest coast of Java, has an area of , and a population of 9,580,000. Jakarta is the country's economic, cultural and political centre... |
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| Latvian Latvian language Latvian is the official state language of Latvia. It is also sometimes referred to as Lettish. There are about 1.4 million native Latvian speakers in Latvia and about 150,000 abroad. The Latvian language has a relatively large number of non-native speakers, atypical for a small language... |
2002 to 2004 | Ieva Kolmane | Jumava, Riga Riga Riga is the capital and largest city of Latvia. With 702,891 inhabitants Riga is the largest city of the Baltic states, one of the largest cities in Northern Europe and home to more than one third of Latvia's population. The city is an important seaport and a major industrial, commercial,... |
ISBN 9984-05-579-5 | ||
| Persian Persian language Persian is an Iranian language within the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages. It is primarily spoken in Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan and countries which historically came under Persian influence... |
2002 to 2004 | Riza Alizadih | Rawzanih, Tehran Tehran Tehran , sometimes spelled Teheran, is the capital of Iran and Tehran Province. With an estimated population of 8,429,807; it is also Iran's largest urban area and city, one of the largest cities in Western Asia, and is the world's 19th largest city.In the 20th century, Tehran was subject to... |
ISBN 964-334-116-X, ISBN 964-334-139-9, ISBN 964-334-173-9 | ||
| Ukrainian Ukrainian language Ukrainian is a language of the East Slavic subgroup of the Slavic languages. It is the official state language of Ukraine. Written Ukrainian uses a variant of the Cyrillic alphabet.... |
2003 | A. V. Nemirova | Фолио (Folio) | ISBN 966-03-1915-0 ISBN 966-03-1916-9 ISBN 966-03-1917-7 | ||
| Albanian Albanian language Albanian is an Indo-European language spoken by approximately 7.6 million people, primarily in Albania and Kosovo but also in other areas of the Balkans in which there is an Albanian population, including western Macedonia, southern Montenegro, southern Serbia and northwestern Greece... |
2004 to 2006 | Ilir I. Baçi (part 1), Artan Miraka (2 and 3) | Dudaj, Tirana Tirana Tirana is the capital and the largest city of Albania. Modern Tirana was founded as an Ottoman town in 1614 by Sulejman Bargjini, a local ruler from Mullet, although the area has been continuously inhabited since antiquity. Tirana became Albania's capital city in 1920 and has a population of over... |
ISBN 99927-50-96-0 ISBN 99943-33-11-9 ISBN 99943-33-58-5 | ||
| Faroese Faroese language Faroese , is an Insular Nordic language spoken by 48,000 people in the Faroe Islands and about 25,000 Faroese people in Denmark and elsewhere... |
2003 to 2005 | Axel Tórgarð | Stiðin, Hoyvík Hoyvík Hoyvík is the third largest town in the Faroe Islands. It has grown in size for many years and is now merged with Tórshavn becoming a northern suburb of the Faroese capital. A person from Hoyvík is known as a hoyvíkingur.... |
ISBN 99918-42-39-X | ||
| Ukrainian Ukrainian language Ukrainian is a language of the East Slavic subgroup of the Slavic languages. It is the official state language of Ukraine. Written Ukrainian uses a variant of the Cyrillic alphabet.... |
2004 to 2005 | Olena Feshovets and Nazar Fedorak (poems) | Astrolabia, Lviv Lviv Lviv is a city in western Ukraine. The city is regarded as one of the main cultural centres of today's Ukraine and historically has also been a major Polish and Jewish cultural center, as Poles and Jews were the two main ethnicities of the city until the outbreak of World War II and the following... |
ISBN 966-8657-18-7 | ||
| Swedish Swedish language Swedish is a North Germanic language, spoken by approximately 10 million people, predominantly in Sweden and parts of Finland, especially along its coast and on the Åland islands. It is largely mutually intelligible with Norwegian and Danish... |
2004 to 2005 | Erik Andersson and Lotta Olsson (poems) | Norstedts | ISBN 91-1-301153-7 | ||
| Norwegian (Nynorsk) Norwegian language Norwegian is a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Norway, where it is the official language. Together with Swedish and Danish, Norwegian forms a continuum of more or less mutually intelligible local and regional variants .These Scandinavian languages together with the Faroese language... |
2006 | Eilev Groven Myhren | Tiden Norsk Forlag, Oslo Oslo Oslo is a municipality, as well as the capital and most populous city in Norway. As a municipality , it was established on 1 January 1838. Founded around 1048 by King Harald III of Norway, the city was largely destroyed by fire in 1624. The city was moved under the reign of Denmark–Norway's King... |
ISBN 82-05-36559-8 | ||
| Belarusian Belarusian language The Belarusian language , sometimes referred to as White Russian or White Ruthenian, is the language of the Belarusian people... |
Uladar pyars'tsyonkaŭ: Z'vyaz Pyars'tsyonka, Dz've vezhy, Vyartan'ne karalya | 2008–2009 | Дзьмітрый Магілеўцаў and Крысьціна Курчанкова (Dźmitry Mahileŭcaŭ and Kryścina Kurčankova) | Mensk | no ISBN | |
| Arabic Arabic language Arabic is a name applied to the descendants of the Classical Arabic language of the 6th century AD, used most prominently in the Quran, the Islamic Holy Book... |
2007 | Amr Khairy | Malamih, Cairo Cairo Cairo , is the capital of Egypt and the largest city in the Arab world and Africa, and the 16th largest metropolitan area in the world. Nicknamed "The City of a Thousand Minarets" for its preponderance of Islamic architecture, Cairo has long been a centre of the region's political and cultural life... |
ISBN 978-977-6262-03-4, only The Fellowship of the Ring, Book I | ||
| Arabic Arabic language Arabic is a name applied to the descendants of the Classical Arabic language of the 6th century AD, used most prominently in the Quran, the Islamic Holy Book... |
2009 | Farajallah Sayyid Muhammad | Nahdet Misr, Cairo Cairo Cairo , is the capital of Egypt and the largest city in the Arab world and Africa, and the 16th largest metropolitan area in the world. Nicknamed "The City of a Thousand Minarets" for its preponderance of Islamic architecture, Cairo has long been a centre of the region's political and cultural life... |
ISBN 977-14-4114-0, ISBN 9771411349, ISBN 9771411276 | ||
| Georgian Georgian language Georgian is the native language of the Georgians and the official language of Georgia, a country in the Caucasus.Georgian is the primary language of about 4 million people in Georgia itself, and of another 500,000 abroad... |
2009–2011 | Nika Samushia (prose and poems) and Tsitso Khotsuashvili (poems in The Fellowship of the Ring) | Gia Karchkhadze Publishing, Tbilisi Tbilisi Tbilisi is the capital and the largest city of Georgia, lying on the banks of the Mt'k'vari River. The name is derived from an early Georgian form T'pilisi and it was officially known as Tiflis until 1936... |
ISBN 978-99940-34-04-8, ISBN 978-99940-34-13-0, ISBN 978-99940-34-14-7 | ||
| Frisian West Frisian language West Frisian is a language spoken mostly in the province of Friesland in the north of the Netherlands. West Frisian is the name by which this language is usually known outside the Netherlands, to distinguish it from the closely related Frisian languages of Saterland Frisian and North Frisian,... |
2011 to ??? | Liuwe Westra | Frysk en Frij and Elikser, Friesland Friesland Friesland is a province in the north of the Netherlands and part of the ancient region of Frisia.Until the end of 1996, the province bore Friesland as its official name. In 1997 this Dutch name lost its official status to the Frisian Fryslân... |
ISBN 978-90-8566-022-4 |
See also
- Bibliography of J. R. R. TolkienBibliography of J. R. R. Tolkien-Fiction:*1936 Songs for the Philologists, with E.V. Gordon et al.*1937 The Hobbit or There and Back Again, ISBN 0-618-00221-9 .*1945 Leaf by Niggle *1945 The Lay of Aotrou and Itroun, published in Welsh Review...
- International reception of Tolkien
- Translations of The HobbitTranslations of The HobbitJ. R. R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit has been translated into many languages. Known translations, with the first date of publishing, are:...
- Complete list of translations of The Lord of the Rings (with all bibliographical details)