Studia Islandica - 01.06.1957, Síða 37

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sion in the former being reproduced similarly in the
latter, and elaborate language rendered with its equi-
valent or its closest approximation. In this regard Þor-
láksson has, on the whole, been very successful, and this
is an evidence of his good judgement and linguistic taste.
He does, indeed, in a few cases, use “kennings”, old-
fashioned poetic circumlocutions. If these were numerous,
they would tend to give an archaic character hardly ap-
propriate to render the language Pope generally employs.
But as there are only about twenty in the whole transla-
tion, they are not of much consequence.
It is agreed that a translation should be idiomatic,
that is to say, an Icelandic translation should be tho-
roughly Icelandic as regards choice of words and syntax.
This demand Þorláksson has, in general, met success-
fully. The language of his translation of the Essay is
comparatively free from the foreign (Danish) corrup-
tions, which were common in his day, in the spoken and
written language alike. He has not, it is true, entirely
avoided the use of Danish expressions, but their number
is very small, and it was hardly to be expected that he
could entirely avoid this error, so common in his age,
especially when translating from the Danish. Un-Ice-
landic, although good Danish is, indeed, the use of meiri
(more) — mest (most) in the comparison of adjectives,
but of these errors there are very few instances.
The purity of the language of the translation of the
Essay and the frequent, happy phrasings, are all the more
admirable when we keep in mind what linguistic diffi-
culties the translator had to contend with. The Icelandic
tongue was not, at that time, highly developed as the
vehicle of religious or philosophic thought, or rather it
had, during the previous centuries, lost much of its fa-
cility for expressing such subject-matter.
Under these circumstances, Þorláksson’s position is
clear. Naturally, he was confronted with a number of