Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes: A Scandal in Bohemia translated into Occidental: Part 3

Wednesday, December 31, 2008


Time to pick up where I left in June, when I first started translating the story as practice when I first started learning Occidental. Eventually I just might finish it. Here it is:



English Occidental
"My dear Holmes," said I, "this is too much. You would certainly have been burned, had you lived a few centuries ago. It is true that I had a country walk on Thursday and came home in a dreadful mess, but as I have changed my clothes I can't imagine how you deduce it. As to Mary Jane, she is incorrigible, and my wife has given her notice, but there, again, I fail to see how you work it out." "Car Holmes", yo dit, "to es tro mult. Certmen tu vell ha esset brulat, si tu vivet quelc centennies ante. It es ver que yo fat un promenada in li rure jovedí e revenit al hem in un statu de sordidage, ma pro que yo ha changeat mi vestimentes yo ne posse imaginar qualmen tu deducter it. Pri Mary Jane, ella es íncorrectibil, e mi marita ha dit a ella que ella va esser demissionat, ma denov, yo ne posse vider qualmen tu ha perceptet it."
He chuckled to himself and rubbed his long, nervous hands together.Il ridet un poc e frictet junt su manus long e nervosi.
"It is simplicity itself," said he; "my eyes tell me that on the inside of your left shoe, just where the firelight strikes it, the leather is scored by six almost parallel cuts. Obviously they have been caused by someone who has very carelessly scraped round the edges of the sole in order to remove crusted mud from it. Hence, you see, my double deduction that you had been out in vile weather, and that you had a particularly malignant boot-slitting specimen of the London slavey. As to your practice, if a gentleman walks into my rooms smelling of iodoform, with a black mark of nitrate of silver upon his right forefinger, and a bulge on the right side of his top-hat to show where he has secreted his stethoscope, I must be dull, indeed, if I do not pronounce him to be an active member of the medical profession.""It es simplicitá self," il dit; "mi ocules di a me que al interiore de tui sapate levul, precismen u li foy-luce batte it, li cute es inciset per six cisuras, presc paralel. Clarmen ili es causat de alcun qui, ínatentivmen, ha scrappat circum li bord del solea por remover li mudde incrustat. Ergo, tu vide, mi duplic deduction que tu hat esset éxter in tempe abominabil, e que tu hat un servitora de London, particulari malefic. E pri tui practica, si un senior intra mi salas con li odore de iodoform*, con un marca nigri de nitrate de argente sur su dextri fingre, e un protuberantie ye li dextri látere de su cilindre que monstra u il ha celat su stetoscop, yo deve esser obtusi, vermen, si yo ne declara il quam un membre activ del mestiere medical."
I could not help laughing at the ease with which he explained his process of deduction. "When I hear you give your reasons," I remarked, "the thing always appears to me to be so ridiculously simple that I could easily do it myself, though at each successive instance of your reasoning I am baffled until you explain your process. And yet I believe that my eyes are as good as yours."Yo ne posset ne rider al facilita con quel il explicat su curse de deduction. "Quande yo audi tu dant tui rasones," yo remarcat, "li cose sempre apari a mi tant ridiculmen simplic quam yo self posse far it simplicmen, benque chascun vez quande tu explica it yo es confuset til tu explica tui curse. E támen yo crede que mi ocules es tam bon quam li tuis."
"Quite so," he answered, lighting a cigarette, and throwing himself down into an armchair. "You see, but you do not observe. The distinction is clear. For example, you have frequently seen the steps which lead up from the hall to this room.""Totmen," il respondet, inflammante un cigarette, e jettante se in un fotel. "Tu vide, ma tu ne observa. Li distintion es clar. Por exemple, tu ha frequentmen videt li scalunes queles precede ad-supra del hall a ti sala."

"Frequently."

"How often?"

"Well, some hundreds of times."

"Then how many are there?"

"How many? I don't know."

"Frequentmen."

"Quant vezes?"

"Nu, quelc cent vezes."

"Alor, quant mult es ili?"

"Quant mult? Yo ne save."
"Quite so! You have not observed. And yet you have seen. That is just my point. Now, I know that there are seventeen steps, because I have both seen and observed...""Exactmen! Tu ne ha observat. E támen tu ha videt. To es precismen punctu. Nu, yo save que es deci-sett scalunes, pro que yo ha e videt e observat."

3 comments:

Bill Chapman said...

Occidental is certainly easy to read.

There must be something about Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Sherlock Holmes whichj attracts those interested in IALs.

One of the novels, The Hound of the Baskervilles, was published in book form in 1998, translated by the Scots writer William Auld as "La Ĉashundo de la Baskerviloj" and is still available from the Esperanto Association of Britain.

I’ve seen a few other Sherlock Homes pieces in Esperanto over the years, but I pay them little attention, as I prefer to use Esperanto to read texts whioch would otherwise be inaccessible to me.

A booklet in Ido entitled “La Misterio di Valo Boscombe” translated by David Weston was also published some years ago.

Me said...

I wonder if that was the source for this?

http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Novial/Hound_Lesson_1

Novialists seem to like Sherlock Holmes too. I think it's the fact that you can translate an entire story within a fairly short time that people like, and also the fact that you learn a fair bit about deduction and observation at the same time that makes it enjoyable.

Bill Chapman said...

Occidental is certainly easy to read.

There must be something about Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Sherlock Holmes whichj attracts those interested in IALs.

One of the novels, The Hound of the Baskervilles, was published in book form in 1998, translated by the Scots writer William Auld as "La Ĉashundo de la Baskerviloj" and is still available from the Esperanto Association of Britain.

I’ve seen a few other Sherlock Homes pieces in Esperanto over the years, but I pay them little attention, as I prefer to use Esperanto to read texts whioch would otherwise be inaccessible to me.

A booklet in Ido entitled “La Misterio di Valo Boscombe” translated by David Weston was also published some years ago.

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