A little more about the "on the Path" translation. Here's the song that's titled "Back On The Path" (willing to bet real money that it's something like "znov na szlaku" in the original, sorry for the Ukrainian-translit of Polish).
Does this sound like a Witcher Path to you? :P
To me, it sounds exactly like being on the road somewhere back home in Ukraine. I grew up with this atmosphere, hiked a lot through villages and so on. It feels awesome playing a game about it!
*says the person who hasn't touched the game in a week, b/c work and other stuff, lol - but looking forward to getting back to it
Another little translation thing that's been stuck in my head. When Geralt meets monsters, he sometimes grumbles "zar-r-raza", and I've been trying to figure out how I'd render that in English. It's an extremely mild, children's swear (think "darn" by mildness), which translates literally as something like "you contagious thing", with tones of an annoying thing/situation that just won't go away or leave you alone. I don't think I know any corresponding expressions in English everyday language.
He says that only in Russian version (not sure about Ukrainian). In Polish it's simple and straightforward "kurwa" and I was always wondering why in Russian translation they decided to use such a soft curse!
@kravietz Nope, I'm listening to the Polish version. Don't do Russian localizations on principle, most of them are shit. Witcher does have some exceptions - I know at least one really good translator on those games - but thanks to him, I already know exactly how the sausage was made on this one, which is what interests me.
But I do admit the zaraza thing surprised me immensely. I didn't even think it was a thing in Polish.
Can capture a sound bit when done with work for the day.
Oh wait, but it's the game, not the series, right?
That's interesting, I was thinking game was also using the original "kurwa" as in the books.
If Polish game version decided to go with "zaraza", which directly translates to "plague" in Polish, and is rather archaic form, this explains why they used the same in Russian.
And game might have gone for "zaraza" to bypass age restrictions 😃
@kravietz Yeah, the game. XD And nah, the Polish version isn't going light on the age restrictions - it has some of the most creative swearing in dialogue I've ever read, the English version doesn't hold a candle to it!
Geralt has a lot of different combat quips, from "damn, you're disgusting" to "...not good" on the milder side of the scale to a few more creative ones, where I'd need to look up the exact formula to be sure.
Ok, that is probably my mistake - it seems like Geralt uses "zaraza" even in the original book stories a lot - along with "kurwa" 😀
@kravietz Not surprising - if you're saying it sounds old rather than childish, then it's an easy way to create a medieval style simultaneously with the whole "intellectual with a sword" vibe Sapkowski was going for! Very elegant solution on his part, I think.
His opponents have a lot of variations, tho - apologies for bad spelling, I can understand Polish, but haven't read too much in the language so don't know how things should be properly spelled - but "zgin, stervojazhe" tickles me to bits.
Sapkowski's language is very rich indeed, and he brought back a lot of almost-forgotten words. I think language forms large part of his popularity, the other is the "intellectual with a sword" atmosphere that you so precisely captured.
"Zgiń, ścierwojadzie!" is the spelling in Polish :) Literally "die corpse eater".
@kravietz I should probably pick up the books in the original and read them for fun, maybe even go for the Rijnevan books as well for old times' sake. I leafed through the English translations of the Witcher books, and you can also see where the translators struggled with the language and where they lost.
And yup, I got the meaning - that's why it tickles me. :P But jadzie, of course, and the śc - makes sense. I really need to do some looking at Polish text so that I can actually spell!
And as a native Polish speaker I understand a lot of Ukrainian just like that, especially there's a lot of common vocabulary, which is not the case for example with Russian, where many of similar words means something completely different (canonical fun examples: uroda, sklep).
What is the largest barrier is the Ukrainian alphabet, which most people in Poland don't know and have no desire to learn.
I'm pretty sure you would understand 90% of spoken Polish. I have a friend here who is Ukrainian and I've asked him specifically to talk in Ukrainian to me and I do understand it without any problems. Reading is a bit more challenging as I have little practice - I have to read some words aloud and then I have this "a-ha!" moment where I'm able to recognize the word by its pronunciation.
@kravietz Lol, yes, I do that too - read the word and then go "oh!"
I've had Polish folks balk at my Ukrainian in Polish stores in the Netherlands, but that may be just me - I don't enunciate very clearly on the best of days, and if they're not expecting it, it takes a few seconds to code-switch. Also, everyday language is just plain harder for me, because people swallow half the words. Professionally pronounced stuff is usually fine.
For most Polish people Ukrainian will sound just like someone speaking in broken Polish with strong eastern accent, which is why they will pay attention as they are trying to make sense of it. They can understand almost all of it... but there's something they cannot get about it, and this is what makes them uncomfortable.
@kravietz For us, probably less so - because we're used to Western Ukrainians, and their Ukrainian has been really impacted by Polish. Although what folks speak really near the Polish and Romanian borders still requires quite a bit of adaptation from Central/Eastern/Southern Ukrainians!
I don't think it's only Polish influence in Western Ukraine - some of my friends in Russia get quite agitated when I mention that but when I was trying to read old Russian scriptures in Orthodox churches it's much more similar to Ukrainian than modern Russian, and thus much easier to read by a Polish person (assuming you can read the alphabet).
@kravietz Yeah, Russian is farthest from general Old East Slavic roots - common knowledge for linguists, not so much for most Russians. :P I am reminded of my favorite quip: "those who say that Ukrainian, Belarussian and Russian are the same language cannot say it in either Ukrainian or Belarussian!"
Interestingly, it's a bit more challenging with Belarussian but it's probably due to even less practice on my side. For example this Brutto lyrics:
Неба – колеру цёплага воску,
Цяжкую вільгаць цягне патроху.
Анархісту дай папяроску
Выпраўляючыся* ў дарогу.
All words are like 100% match in Poland but how they are pronounced is just unusual for me.
Niebo - koloru ciepłego wosku
Ciężką wilgoć ciągnie po trochu
Anarchiście daj papieroska
Wyjeżdżający w drogę
@kravietz Ukrainian and Belarussian is usually mutually intelligible - for me it's about the same level of adaptation required as to Polish. But yeah, it takes some effort to code switch as well.
Ah, the wonders of closely related languages: easy to pick up, so much harder to master!
My first encounters with Russian were.. interesting - specifically because of the temptation to assume identical words have identical meaning. But between Russian and Polish there's *plenty* of such traps so you use words like "krawat", "lustro", "kawior" and you're all "ha, I'm speaking Russian" and you just see people's faces getting longer and longer as you're speaking nonsense to them 😂
@kravietz Bwahaha, oh, false friends are the best. It's almost a rule of thumb that if you see a word that looks too familiar that you've got to double check it! But the pull of folk philology is strong, precisely because we're pattern-seeking creatures - and yet most of us don't spend enough time on those patterns to get decent results. XD So many obvious yet wrong inferences!
Then, Russian has accented words (писать, замок) which are virtually non-existent in Polish. You can imagine my friend's father's surprise when I started talking to him using this false-Russian-Polish with the most frequent word being "pisać" (писать), obviously with the accent on the last part, because it's how it sounds in Polish.
And I just wanted to write a post card! 😂
@kravietz There was a fun picture in one of my friends' posts just today, one moment...
There! English-Russian-Ukrainian false friend - although I'm not sure laino exists in Polish?
Well, лайн is easily understood by anyone working in IT, if this is where it comes from? Proper noun would be "linia".
"Obuzdać" exists in Polish - put "uzda" (bridle) on a horse, metaphorically "control something or someone".
"Moc" is quite straightforward too.
@kravietz Yeah, the English version is the origin, laino is also "shit" in Ukrainian, but not in Russian. :) So reading this before being awake got several people on my friends' feed laughing hysterically: "Harness the power of shit! Briefly on the properties of lines in art".
People were legit like "ok, this is a book about correcting fuckups... OH."
Ah, I understand the joke now - and yes, it's also found in Polish as ŁAJNO which looks similar but the Ł makes a big difference in pronounciation - it's no longer like лайно but becomes something like уайно (if this makes any sense).
@kravietz Yeah, it does. :P I think someone was quipping a few days ago that after their friend learned about the ł, they started greeting them with "hełło" every day, being cute about it!
@kravietz And thank you for the chat - got me through some extremely boring but necessary data entry!
Same here 🤝
* ok, "Выпраўляючыся" is the only word that doesn't match Polish - more similar to Russian "выправляющися"
@kravietz Haha! We do have some initiatives to move over to latynka, but it's hard to make them stick for the exact reason outlined above.
And yes - I just wanted to listen to the Polish version for fun, I never expected to, you know, actually understand 90% of what I was hearing and being able to correct the English subtitles on the fly. That was more than a little shocking, even though I knew how close the languages are in theory.
I wouldn't do so well on everyday conversations, I imagine.