Orð og tunga - 01.06.2016, Qupperneq 136

126 Orð og tunga
• Auður Ava Ólafsdótt ir: Výhonek osmilisté růže (Afl eggjarinn).
2012. Trans. H. Kadečková
Nom. masc. endings in nom. omitt ed, Icelandic graphemes used.
Examples: Þröst, Þórgunn
We can see that hardly any rules in rendering proper and place names
can be found in Czech translations of modern Icelandic literature. Dif-
ferences occur not only between translators; the same translator may
also change her/his own practice in diff erent translations (Kadečková,
Bartošková). If one – in spite of these diffi culties – tries to trace some
trends, one can state the following:
1. Acute accents are always retained. These are present in
the Czech alphabet, although marking only the length,
not diphthongs as in Modern Icelandic.
2. If the Icelandic graphemes are replaced, most transla-
tors use t for þ (just in two cases th is used) while ð is
always transcribed as d.
3. The growing technical possibilities have enabled an
increased use of Icelandic graphemes, which is an
approach that respects the source language better on
the one hand, but on the other hand it is a marked
one, as it clearly indicates the individual translator’s
presumption that foreign forms do not bother readers,
i.e.; that an “exotic” aspect is a positive one.
4. In the majority of contemporary translations, the
Icelandic masc. nom. ending is omitted in oblique
cases, while it is retained in the nominative.
As far as I know, there has not been made any att empt by Czech trans-
lators from Modern Icelandic to create any consensus on the matt er of
rendering proper names. One of the reasons why translators of mod-
ern literature do not see this as a problem as much as translators of
Old Norse literature do (cf. Novotná & Starý 2014) is probably the fact
that names do not have any strong correlation, either in other literary
works or in historiography. With the main focus on the artistic mes-
sage, identifi cation of a name is generally not important – although a
geographical one would sometimes be possible.
tunga_18.indb 126 11.3.2016 14:41:18