"[I have also translated this full version of this book, but I have not yet edited it. This shorter version Rus to Rusia is 27 pages. The full book is over 500 pages, but it’s half that amount of text because it is fully illustrated with about 300 medieval woodcuts. Therefore it is a beautiful book, and the reason why I did it. I sincerely doubt that I will post it here though, because adding hundreds of images would be a daunting task.]"
Have you considered having it professionally scanned? I'd be prepared to help with the cost if we can find a method. If the book is rare, this should be done. Perhaps the entire work could be scanned as a PDF file? I can't see the cost being too prohibitive, and as scholars we owe it to posterity to preserve as much as we can of such works.
In that sense I regard our efforts as similar to medieval scribes, who ironically preserved much of Hellenic, Persian and Roman culture, even though their own beliefs stood in opposition. Of course much of the time the scribes had no idea what they were transcribing, it was simply understood that outside the monastic walls knowledge was being lost, and so they sought to preserve what they could and left it to future generations to sort it all out. In that sense, the internet is our Library of Alexandria, and as much as we take out we should strive to put back (while keeping the flames at bay)
Umberto Eco touches on this theme in his 'The Name of the Rose' which was made into a film of the same name starring Sean Connery, in what is arguably the best role of his career.
Hello ebear, and I appreciate this comment. And surely we can collaborate some day. But on this book: Of course I have the Russian book in pdf. I translated it all and it is in a Word file. I went ahead and inserted all of those images in the proper spots in Word, and sized the pictures so the text layout fits on the pages. How it works when you translate is that you get a big block of English text. It has to be spaced out and formatted. Plus there are "translation artifacts".
Artifacts means translation is Artificial Intelligence, not fixed, and certainly not word for word. Translating the same word twice depends on the context, and will be different in different place. Names are done phonetically and Russian sounds do not have English equivalents. One name might have a dozen spellings in different places. I try to straighten some of it out, but don't stress over it. For instance Gumilev and Gumilyov appear mixed up.
I have lots of projects half done. Well, I wanted to test what they're all about but I didn't want to get submerged in them. So I will move to finish with some of them. The shorter ones first. (Well, my sense of making progress, find what finishes quickly.) All I have to do with Rus to Russia is read it. Then of course to upload the chapters, probably 15. The wood cuts will be in there.
Now I am editing the "Discovery of Khazaria", it was left already as a block of English text. Well, I won't talk about it here.
I'm familiar with the translation issues, and they are formidable, I agree. I can read Russian of course, but I don't always know what I'm reading, the nuances of a case based language being a new experience for me. I'm fluent in Spanish, and can read Portuguese and Italian with a fair degree of confidence, as too with French which was a compulsory subject from grade 4 onward when I went to school. My first encounter with a non-Latin language was Japanese, followed by Punjabi, which is actually fairly easy once you learn the script, it being Indo-European and having many similarities to the Latin group. Japanese of course relies on Chinese characters, which are a major obstacle for someone versed in phonetic scripts (Hiragana helps, but only at a basic level). Mandarin defeated me entirely. Not the tonal aspects so much as the characters as I'm a visual learner and couldn't see the point of speaking a language I can't read (and trust me, I tried...lol). This is an obstacle for any outsider trying to operate in that environment which I believe is a major reason for the insularity of cultures that use Chinese characters. They are beautiful no doubt, but they take a lot of effort to learn relative to most other languages.
"I have lots of projects half done."
The story of my life. There's a 22 ft. boat sitting in my driveway that will never see the ocean again. It needs a new engine and a complete rebuild of the interior, which I've done before, but when I was much younger. It serves as a constant reminder not to bite off more than I can chew, given that I'm no longer a spring chicken:)
"[I have also translated this full version of this book, but I have not yet edited it. This shorter version Rus to Rusia is 27 pages. The full book is over 500 pages, but it’s half that amount of text because it is fully illustrated with about 300 medieval woodcuts. Therefore it is a beautiful book, and the reason why I did it. I sincerely doubt that I will post it here though, because adding hundreds of images would be a daunting task.]"
Have you considered having it professionally scanned? I'd be prepared to help with the cost if we can find a method. If the book is rare, this should be done. Perhaps the entire work could be scanned as a PDF file? I can't see the cost being too prohibitive, and as scholars we owe it to posterity to preserve as much as we can of such works.
In that sense I regard our efforts as similar to medieval scribes, who ironically preserved much of Hellenic, Persian and Roman culture, even though their own beliefs stood in opposition. Of course much of the time the scribes had no idea what they were transcribing, it was simply understood that outside the monastic walls knowledge was being lost, and so they sought to preserve what they could and left it to future generations to sort it all out. In that sense, the internet is our Library of Alexandria, and as much as we take out we should strive to put back (while keeping the flames at bay)
Umberto Eco touches on this theme in his 'The Name of the Rose' which was made into a film of the same name starring Sean Connery, in what is arguably the best role of his career.
Hello ebear, and I appreciate this comment. And surely we can collaborate some day. But on this book: Of course I have the Russian book in pdf. I translated it all and it is in a Word file. I went ahead and inserted all of those images in the proper spots in Word, and sized the pictures so the text layout fits on the pages. How it works when you translate is that you get a big block of English text. It has to be spaced out and formatted. Plus there are "translation artifacts".
Artifacts means translation is Artificial Intelligence, not fixed, and certainly not word for word. Translating the same word twice depends on the context, and will be different in different place. Names are done phonetically and Russian sounds do not have English equivalents. One name might have a dozen spellings in different places. I try to straighten some of it out, but don't stress over it. For instance Gumilev and Gumilyov appear mixed up.
I have lots of projects half done. Well, I wanted to test what they're all about but I didn't want to get submerged in them. So I will move to finish with some of them. The shorter ones first. (Well, my sense of making progress, find what finishes quickly.) All I have to do with Rus to Russia is read it. Then of course to upload the chapters, probably 15. The wood cuts will be in there.
Now I am editing the "Discovery of Khazaria", it was left already as a block of English text. Well, I won't talk about it here.
I am quite occupied though. That's good.
Thanks again
.
I'm familiar with the translation issues, and they are formidable, I agree. I can read Russian of course, but I don't always know what I'm reading, the nuances of a case based language being a new experience for me. I'm fluent in Spanish, and can read Portuguese and Italian with a fair degree of confidence, as too with French which was a compulsory subject from grade 4 onward when I went to school. My first encounter with a non-Latin language was Japanese, followed by Punjabi, which is actually fairly easy once you learn the script, it being Indo-European and having many similarities to the Latin group. Japanese of course relies on Chinese characters, which are a major obstacle for someone versed in phonetic scripts (Hiragana helps, but only at a basic level). Mandarin defeated me entirely. Not the tonal aspects so much as the characters as I'm a visual learner and couldn't see the point of speaking a language I can't read (and trust me, I tried...lol). This is an obstacle for any outsider trying to operate in that environment which I believe is a major reason for the insularity of cultures that use Chinese characters. They are beautiful no doubt, but they take a lot of effort to learn relative to most other languages.
"I have lots of projects half done."
The story of my life. There's a 22 ft. boat sitting in my driveway that will never see the ocean again. It needs a new engine and a complete rebuild of the interior, which I've done before, but when I was much younger. It serves as a constant reminder not to bite off more than I can chew, given that I'm no longer a spring chicken:)