2. Vocabulary

a. General principles

Vocabulary should be chosen in order to achieve the best balance between three considerations:

i.       The use of English should be resourceful, exploiting (near-) synonyms for, e.g., 'ruler' in order to reflect the lexical richness of the original (see Heiti below);

ii.      it should be borne in mind that readers will include native speakers of more than one variety of English (including American and British) as well as fluent but non-native speakers/readers of English;

iii.     non-standard vocabulary should be avoided, viz. slang or other words that are dated or likely to date, dialect, archaisms other than mild ones, and obscurities of any kind. Elevated, poetic words may be appropriate, but beware of absurdity. Latinate, polysyllabic vocabulary is to be used with discretion - neither overdone nor avoided.

b. Personal names

These should be kept in the Norse-Icelandic form, including accents, non-English graphs (e.g. Þ) and inflectional -r. This applies even to names with recognised English versions, hence, e.g., Óðinn not Odin, and to non-Norse names, although forms appropriate to the nationality can be added in square brackets, e.g. 'Jarisleifr [Jaroslav]'.

c. Place-names

i.       Place-names which have established English counterparts (e.g. Danmǫrk/ Denmark, Dyflinn/ Dublin) should take English forms. Others definitely identifiable with modern places should be in the language of the country in which the place is located, e.g. Fjón > Fyn, Raumaríki > Romerike. Others should remain in the original form of the Text.   

ii.      Any problems of mismatch, e.g. Svíþjóð = Sweden, when they are not co-terminous, should be signalled in Notes. Conjectural identifications can also be given in Notes, with references to any published discussions available.

‡ iii. Ethnic names should not be translated, e.g. Hǫrðar should be retained rather than 'people of Hordaland'. Such names will be covered in the Index and can be explained in the Notes if especially important or problematic.

Such information will be collected into a combined Index in the final publication and on the project web site.

d. Technical words

E.g. drómundr. If there is no close English equivalent, these can be italicised in the translation and explained either using a word or short phrase in square brackets within the translation. As with place-names, there will be a combined Index explaining such terms in the final publication.

e. Nuances

These should be retained, e.g. hringstríðir 'ring-harmer' even though the meaning amounts, within the conventions, to ‘ring-giver’.

f. Compounds

i.       Both elements should be translated, e.g. auðgjafi 'wealth-giver', not just 'patron', or flugstyggr 'flight-shunning', not just 'brave'.

ii.      Following the same principle, a simplex in the original should be translated wherever possible with a simplex, not a compound, e.g. gýgr 'ogress, giantess' not 'troll-wife'.

g. Echoes

Echoes (i.e. repetitions of lexical elements) in the original should be preserved in the translation. They should not be introduced where there is none in the original — this involves trying to avoid unintended repetition, which can arise, for instance, from translating two different 'sea' heiti as 'sea'.

h. Heiti

i.       If possible, a range of vocabulary should be used to distinguish between, e.g., harri, fylkir, þengill, gœðingr, stillir and hilmir; blóð and sveiti; fold and jǫrð; mar, brim and sær; skeið, knǫrr, (her)skip, etc. Faulkes’ translation of Skáldskaparmál in Snorri Sturluson. Edda (Everyman, 1987) could be a useful source of inspiration here. Translations adopted will ideally suggest something of the specific usage and etymology of the OIcel. item. ‡ However, this should be done with discretion. E.g. stál can be 'steel', but hilmir is best translated 'ruler' or similar rather than 'helmet-provider', 'protector' or whatever. If individual heiti are of particular significance they can be discussed in the Notes. Similarly, if a stanza contains 4 different heiti for 'man', we can mention this in the Notes.

‡ Species names such as tree species in man-kennings should be kept distinct, e.g. þollr ‘fir’, not just ‘tree’. Occasionally, we may have to use a compound in 'tree' for clarity, e.g. 'ash-tree'. If rare species are mentioned, e.g. fish such as pollack or saithe, they may need explaining in a Note.

‡ ii.   Some heiti have clear double meanings: a literal (prose) sense and a figurative sense as heiti, e.g. stál is lit. ‘steel’ but as a heiti has the sense 'sword', e.g. in kenning stáls él. It will not be possible to indicate both in the Translation, so one needs to be prioritised, and the other, if necessary, mentioned in the Notes.

iii.     Where the heiti is the name of a known personage (mythical, heroic or historical), it should be annotated in the format:

Yggr <= Óðinn>.

Meiti <legendary sea-king>; Varðrún <giantess>; Ymir <primeval giant>.

Thus equivalent names are presented with = (# and space following), explanations without = . The angle-bracket notation is required for encoding to distinguish heiti from other words requiring glosses. This notation may not be used in the printed publication.

References