So, I have been struggling over one particular issue in the story thus far and would like to ask for some reader opinion feed-back.
The issue is an intersection between the peculiarities of the elven language, and the method I have chosen to use when it's presented to the reader. You see, because I based it on an ancient language from Earth, it has no personally posessive pronouns such as his, her, your, their ext. The word for "me" can be used in a manner similar to how we use the word "my" though.
Because I am also choosing to present elven as it's English translation [in square brackets,] I have also chosen to accurately translate over this lack of personally possessive pronouns.
I think these things work well for presenting depth to the world, but I have lately been running into a point where the intersection of the two has been causing problems. This is in all references to members of royalty, such as the fairy queen.
You see, the elven language does make use of honorifics, so there would absolutely be some official manner of respect which is used to refer to the queen that would be the equivalent of "your majesty" or "your grace" or "her highness." However, that is exactly the problem. Every single one of the equivalent English honorifics used to refer to a royal, which are the things I would have to be translating the elven honorifics to, involve the use of a personal pronoun.
So far, I have just been using "the queen" in the advanced chapters I have been writing, but that really comes off as stale and lacking in weight, especially when it's just used in repetition like that. You see, I definitely have a problem.
So, this is ultimately about how this story is perceived by the readers, so I thought I would seek some reader opinions. I will not necessarily go with the exact results of the poll, but it will be very likely that it factors in to my final decision on this matter. Please do tell me what you all think.
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Just keep saying nothing but "the queen." Votes: 10 10.3%
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Drop the no personal pronoun rule, but only for use with the nobility. Makes them stand out more. Votes: 31 32.0%
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Don't provide a translation, use the untranslated elven honorific. Votes: 42 43.3%
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Just forget about the no personal pronouns in the translations rule. Votes: 14 14.4%
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another way to approach it that is odd in English but works in other languages is a more descriptive indirect. instead of "the queen" you could say "she who rules", "the most high" "she who must be obeyed" etc. personal possessive pronouns are mostly used to differentiate relationships "my lord vs your lord" so more descriptive titles keeps the clarity without them.
I like this suggestion. Thank you for this.
Haven't committed to this being my method, but it is high on the consideration list right now.
I vote for this one
Just so I understand, you are having the same problem many translators and authors have with manga and manhwa where the cultural possessive form is not personal pronoun but formal noun. How they frequently just use "name-honorific's object" instead of I/me/my or you/your or he/his/she/her. There is no personal pronoun so there is no personal possessive pronoun? That problem, there seems to already be an established manner of dealing with that.
The problem is figuring out a way to relay this element of the elven language while still addressing the royal honorifics issue. I have managed to more or less figure my way around writing without possessive pronouns. That one single area though is posing a significant obstacle.
The formal methods would involve revising the entire way I am portraying elven, which I am not so keen on. I'm trying to figure out a good focused solution just to deal with this one specific issue with the royal honorifics.
I would recommend either using the honorific untranslated, or translate the honorific into verbiage that does not utilize a possessive pronoun. That does make for a difficult job since most titles in English include a possessive pronoun in their means of address. Perhaps something like "the majestic" rather than "her majesty". Or a similar work around for whatever descriptor your honorific of choice uses.
Question on where you are running into this problem. Is it mostly in named (her majesty queen __name_goes_here__) or unnamed situations (her majesty the queen)?
Unnamed
This question sort of goes deep into the intricacies of translations and it's something even professional translators sometimes seem to struggle with when it comes to differently structured languages.
Keeping the intricacies of the original language may make the translation harder to read.
On the other hands, a liberal translation may result in the loss of cultural subtleties that are present in the language.
In this case, purely from a grammatical perspective, honorifics might work basically like an additional name for the person in question.
In some way similar to how sometimes the name of a region can be used as a title (or part thereof) and in turn this title can become synonymous with the current holder of the title
Which would offer the option to not or only partially translate the honorifics. Then again, this might make it sound very informal in the translation when the original dialogue would be extremely formal.
From talking to a friend who does professional translation, the general rule is that translations should value being natural in the language you're translating to, rather than trying to preserve features of the original language.
While that's true here IRL, the issue here is that it's a showcasing of a fictional language. In this case, making it sound natural in the language it's presented creates a scenario where translation = might as well not have the language at all.
@Jemini exactly for that reason from the very beginning it was more natural for me ta have that language presented as it is and not translated. While this could cause some issues for lazy readers it has the opportunity to show the depths of the word you're building. There are some examples where the fictional language have become so popular that fans could be interested in learning it. Like the dovahzul form Skyrim or the elven language in the lord of the ring series. So for me it would be better if you didn't translate the honorific or instead you could put it before or after the translation in the original fictional language as a spoiler. With this I conclude my rant
but the most important thing is that ultimately the decision of what to do is yours.
@EnerHighwave im a bit late but figured id give a go. so both those languages are good but they dova in skyrim isn't used as the main language its in its original because to being so has no effect on game play or complicated every thing, in lotr the main language is english from what I remember elven isn't the one its mainly written in or used in the movies, this situation is one where english is used by f*ckall people in this world to the point that for what we know only 5 people could actually know it. using the original and then the translation while yes would be nice doubles all txt related to talking when not using english and would likely alienate just even more people who don't like that style.
I'm not being rude just trying to think of a way to make this work too while adding a bit to the convo(no matter how really late I am) what you say has merit but also problems my rant is also over because I've written to much even if its really an incomplete mess and likely makes me sounds like an ass but my brain hurts and I need sleep sorry to anyone who reads my mess of a msg
@Tonytoce that's also valid, though is lost the opportunity to showcase these languages.
@EnerHighwave I have entertained plans, on occasion, to translate the Christian bible into Elven, more as an exercise to flesh out the Elven dictionary than anything else. Whenever I get to that project, I'll be sure to publish it as a companion book along side the world bible.
Then, after completing that, I'll be able to publish the Elven-English dictionary itself. (I'd be embarrassed to publish it now as it is very incomplete in terms of showcasing a functional language.)
@Jemini that actually an amazing idea... and a really good way to help fill in some language gaps that may exist...