The Not Quite: Translating from Alemannic to English

Author: Pugh Sheenagh  

Publisher: Maney Publishing

ISSN: 1745-9214

Source: Oxford German Studies, Vol.40, Iss.1, 2011-03, pp. : 109-112

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Abstract

For a poet translator such as myself the motivation to render a particular German poem into English is usually personal, my decisions instinctive or intuitive. I fell upon Hebel's Allemannische Gedichte by chance and found his voice distinctive and use of dialect unique. Finding a suitable voice and an equivalence to the dialect were the two greatest challenges: in English dialect has a different status and can easily sound comic or patronizing. I stuck to standard English but used contractions to indicate divergence from received usage; other decisions simply felt right, which means they are difficult to rationalise.