Tuesday, September 04, 2012

The script to a very unusual British spaghetti Western in Hebrew?

Have you got a better explanation?





11 comments:

  1. Where is this from?

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  2. How exactly would you say, "Badges? Badges? We don't need no steenking badges!"?

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  3. This reads like a pre-modern Hebrew Hebrew primer.

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  4. Isn't it a zoo rather than a park?

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    Replies
    1. There a quite a few mistakes and mistranslations in this "Spaghetti Western", park - zoo is only one of them.

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  5. Anyway, this is from Sefat Britaniya, by Poylishe Chossid turned Warsaw censor turned British missionary turned, maybe, ba'al teshuva, Chatzkel "Stanislaw" Hoga. I thought his examples were hilarious and inadvertently began to present a theme.

    I don't think his Hebrew translation is bad so much as nonliteral, which was very much the style of the time. No attempt was usually made to write Hebrew in English words, but to translate ala the Rambam's advice in his now-famous letter to Ibn Tibbon (transposing thoughts, not words, into the other language). He is not wrong for translating גנת החיות as "park" for the word "zoo" did not exist in 1840ish when this was written. In fact, the Oxford English dictionary only finds the first use of "zoo" in 1847. Before then it was "Zoological Garden" or, yes, "[animal] park."

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  6. "Bedek" is a great word and is not Hebrew in origin. A few days ago in daf yomi the gemara talked about "bidkei mitah" - death traps.
    In modern Hebrew most Israelis (incorrectluy) assume that "bedek" is a variant of "livdok". This was the downfall of antiquities forger Oded Golan whose "artifact" talked about "la'asot bedek bayit" instead of "l'taken" or "l'chazek" "bedek habayit". Misusing the word "bedek" is a lip slip. And as we know, loose lip slips sink ships.

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  7. I thought "bedek" was a type for "sedek."

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  8. "type" above is typo for "typo", sorry.

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  9. This sure beats "the pen of my aunt is on the table." Also not your typical Berlitz book of handy travel phrases.

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  10. http://www.zomet.org.il/?CategoryID=160&ArticleID=5949.

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