„Wir befinden uns im Jahre 50 v. Chr. Ganz Gallien ist von den Römern besetzt... Ganz Gallien? Nein! Ein von unbeugsamen Galliern bevölkertes Dorf hört nicht auf, dem Eindringling Widerstand zu leisten...“
Seit 1959 beginnt jeder „Asterix“-Band mit diesen einführenden Zeilen. Erschaffen wurden die Geschichten um den pfiffigen Krieger Asterix und dessen Freund Obelix, die gemeinsam ihr kleines Dorf gegen die Römer verteidigen [!] von dem Zeichner Albert Uderzo und dem Autor René Goscinny.
From Buchaktuell.de, 21 October 2017
Translation offered by the translation software:
“We are in the year 50 B.C. All Gaul is occupied by the Romans... All Gaul? No! A village populated by inflexible Gauls does not stop resisting the invader...”
Since 1959, every “Asterix” volume has begun with these introductory lines. The stories were created about the clever warrior Asterix and his friend Obelix, who together defend their small village against the Romans by the draughtsmanZeichnerdraughtsman Albert Uderzo and the author René Goscinny.
(translation: deepL.com)
Spotlight translation:
“The year is 50 BC. Gaul is entirely occupied by the Romans. Well, not entirely... One small village of indomitableunbeugsam, unbezähmbarindomitable Gauls still holds out against the invaders.”
Since 1959, every volume of Asterix has started with this introduction. The stories about the shrewd warrior Asterix and his friend Obelix, who together defend their small village against the Romans, were created by the illustrator Albert Uderzo and the author René Goscinny.
Analysis
- Our German text this month is taken from a blurbWerbetext, Klappentextblurb about Asterix in Italien, published in October 2017.
- DeepL translator was launched in August last year by the German company that is also behind the translation database linguee — and its translation is very good indeed.
- The adjective “inflexible” can be used to describe people who are unwilling to compromise, but it has a slightly negative connotation. However, by clicking on this word, you get a list of suitable synonyms, such as “stubbornstur, eigensinnigstubborn”, “unyieldingunnachgiebig, unbiegsamunyielding”, “unwaveringstandhaft, unerschütterlichunwavering”, “indomitable”, “unrelentingunbeugsam, dickköpfigunrelenting”, etc.
- “Does not stop resisting” is not quite right tense-wisein puncto Tempustense-wise. The action started in the past and continues into the present, so that to construct the sentence around the verb “stop”, the present perfect is needed (“has not stopped resisting”). One could also say “still refuses to abandon its resistance”.
- The Oxford English Dictionary defines “draughtsman” as “an artist skilled in drawing” — which is certainly true of Albert Uderzo. But the word doesn’t sound quite right in the context. Two good alternatives suggested by DeepL are “artist” and “illustrator”.
- “The stories about..., who together defend...,” is a complex noun phrase that should be kept together as a unit. The program wrongly inserted the passive construction (“were created”), thus to splittrennensplitting it from its by-agentHandlungsträger(in)by-agent.
- Interestingly, these errors are due to a mistake in punctuation in the original text: there is a comma missing at the end of the relative clause (after “Romans”). We added the comma and then had the software translate the same excerptTextauszugexcerpt again. This time, the noun phrase remained together, and the sentence was perfectly correct (“The stories about..., who together defend..., were created by...”).
- The most important lesson to be learned this month has nothing to do with vocabulary or sentence structure. It is that good software might be able to provide a usable translation, but that it still cannot process the significance of what it translates. To a human translator, the message of the words Seit 1959 beginnt jeder “Asterix”-Band mit diesen Zeilen is perfectly clear: there’s no need to translate the first paragraph at all, because it’s the original translation of the introductory lines to the English version of Asterix — and that translation has existed from the start.
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