LibriVox

[hugh]

question: is there a great work that we think ought to be translated (from a language many librivoxers are skilled in to a language many librivoxers are skilled in)? any interest in finding such a work and trying a collaborative, wiki-like, translation of the work? (which of course we would subsequently record)?

would be interesting to see if this is a feasible sister-project to librivox. it certainly could be useful.

the only language I could offer any help in (other than english) is french (taking into account that, being a quebecer, i translate : "do you want" to "t'en veux-tu?").

i've been discussing this a bit with chrishughes, and it seems like it'd be worth floating the idea here.

thoughts?

EDIT: Here is the Wiki page we are working on:

http://www.wertsdfg.com/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page
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[jimmowatt]

I'd love this to happen but have no skills to offer for such a project.
There are many European history books I would love to read that have never been translating into English and also some Indian writings I would love to see.

I've been trying to teach myself Latin just lately and would actually like to see some classic English literature translated into Latin too.
That would be fun.

I'll bet there are some people out there who would love to try that particular exercise.
Caeristhiona - do you reckon you could translate Pride and Prejudice into Latin?
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[than]

i'd absolutely love to see old english poems in polish. they can be found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Old_English_poems - most of them is translated into modern english, so there is no problem with not knowing old english (though it would be quite useful sometimes). only few of them are now available in polish (and i must say that existing translations aren't what i'd dream of), so it'd be nice to get the rest of them 'done'
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[Shurtagal]

That sounds great. I also would have no skills to offer but would love to watch the transformation of some french to english works! (I'm trying to lear french right now.)
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[Caeristhiona]

Latin!!!



Latin, Latin, Latin...

*scurries off to sing The Latin Song*
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[EnglishRose17]

I'm quite good at translating English - German and the other way around... but I suppose that's not THAT helpful *lol*

[gypsygirl]

[ChrisHughes]

There is a discussion about this here:

http://www.pen.org/page.php/prmID/528

From the list suggested above, I looked up a couple of untranslated French science fiction authors:

http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gustave_Le_Rouge
(author of such works as: The Mysterious Doctor Cornelius, The Prisoner of the Planet Mars, and The War of the Vampires)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J.-H._Rosny_a%C3%AEn%C3%A9

Might be good to start (if we do start!) with something light and fun. Get a basic template from Babelfish, and get editing.

Just a suggestion - I am sure there are worthier ideas. And of course, all the above presumes French to English.
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[hugh]

note on this issue:

There may be a good number of works that are public domain in their original language, but their translations are not public domain... i think there is some kafka for instance that we had trouble with.

so this opens up the field considerably; tho admittedly it's a less useful tack than an untranslated work.
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[ChrisHughes]

A lot of Kafka (in german, as well as other translations) is here:

http://www.kafka.org/

I don't see 'The Castle' in english on gutenberg.
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[hugh]

so the way i might see this happening on a LV model:

-BC responsible for the translation
-chapters allocated as we do here, to individuals, maybe down to 10-page segments ...
-probably best with 2 people per segment - one in each language
-once the whole thing is complete, some kind of standardization would be required (preferably by one person, preferably by the BC)
-then distributed proofing.
-then publish.

looking at that, thinking only of a small work like the castle, it seems like a pretty big project !
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[d.e.wittkower]

Sounds to me like we need a new forum: Translators Wanted.

There are a number of great works which didn't *quite* get translated in time. Keep in mind, though, we need "works first published before January 1, 1923 with proper copyright notice" -- even though Kafka wrote it earlier (i.e. before he died), Das Schloß wasn't published until 1926. This means that it's not necessarily public domain unless we can find a German edition the copyright of which was not renewed 28 years after its publication and show that the work was not under copyright in Germany in 1996. As far as I can tell, in other words, just because it is currently in the public domain in Germany, it is not guaranteed that it is in the US. I don't know German copyright law well enough. If I'm not mistaken, though, Germany would have been under the EU Council Directive 93/98/EEC, which set copyright as terminating 70 years after the death of the author. This would clear Kafka's work in German, except for any of it that might have remained unpublished prior to 1982. Or, again, such at least is my best understanding.

http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Gutenberg:Copyright_How-To#Rule_6
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Directive_on_harmonising_the_term_of_copyright_protection

There is, however, plenty that's much easier to show to be public domain.

Personally, while I'd love to do this kind of work, I don't have the time to devote to any large work, and I know German well enough only to do translation as part of a team (and other languages even less well). So I'd propose Hölderlin!

The translations I've found online (Michael Hamburger, Richard Sieburth, David Constantine, and James Mitchell) are clearly not public domain, and I can't find record of public domain translations through WorldCat. Further, it's clear that his work was not under copyright in 1996 (excepting, again, any which was still unpublished prior to 1982), and he has plenty of poems, which would be a good subject for this kind of project.

[ChrisHughes]

@d.e. Ai! Kafka seems to be a legal and bureaucratic minefield. Irony of ironies. I do not know Hölderlin, but have great faith in your excellent taste!

@hugh
Your model seems logical.

However, there is the possibility here of wikipedia-like opening up of the process to many eyes, all with editing rights. Perhaps that would be impractical, but it is possible to use a rough, (perhaps even - whisper it - machine generated) basic text, which was then edited by many.

Editing could be like this (unofficial) Spanish translation of the GPL, in a wiki:
http://www.viti.es/gplv3/index.php/Portada

But your model is far more LV like, especially with people responsible for various parts of the job, and I do prefer that, personally. But I do like the hive-like possibilities a wiki offers. Maybe this could be used at one stage in the process?
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[d.e.wittkower]

[hugh]