Saturday 14 August 2010

Esperanto and hogs.

Doctor Tim, drug expert and amateur surrealist, sends me a message on Facebook. He has recently acquired 'The Edinburgh Pocket Esperanto Dictionary' [1939 edition]. I ask him if he can translate into esperanto:

Í'm a hog for you baby, I can't get enough of your love.''

In case you don't know, this is a traditional Essex folk song sung by a young man to his sweetheart. It was made famous local folk musicians, Doctor Feelgood. And, Roberto est onklo, within an hour or two the Tim gets back to me. The translation is:

'Mi estas porkovi infanteo, mi ne povas recvi sufice da via kunigo.''

I've tried to sing it, but somehow it doesn't sound right. I can see why esperanto never caught on.

4 comments:

Brian Barker said...

Hi Phil

Where did you receive the information that Esperanto never caught on ?

mankso said...

Perhaps if you could first translate "I'm a hog for you, baby" into standard English you might get a translation that is remotely meaningful to someone from a non-English background! For a successful translation one has to get at the meaning, not just switch words from one language to another. Even a modern dictionary, such as that of J.C. Wells (Mondial, NYC, 2010):
http://www.mondialbooks.com/
is unlikely to be of much help till you can do that! Monolingual myopia is a terrible disease!

Miĉjo said...

Let me take a whack at it.

"I'm a hog for you" implies love to the point of overindulgence, and could be translated as "Mi voramas vin", which literally means "I devouringly-love you". "Baby" can be rendered as "knanjo", a feminine term of endearment based on the word "knabino" = "girl"; derived from "bebo" = "baby", it would be "benjo" (to form a feminine term of endearment from a word in Esperanto, take the first one or two syllables of the word, and add "-njo"). "I can't get enough of your love" can be translated as "Mi malsatas vian amon", literally "I hunger-for your love". Putting it all together:

"Mi voramas vin, knanjo, mi malsatas vian amon."

Pronunciation (in case you want to try to put it to music):

mee vor-AH-mahss veen k'NAHN-yo, mee mahl-SAH-tahss VEE-ahn AH-mohn.

which, surprisingly, manages to keep the same number of syllables and almost the same meter :-).

Phil Ashcroft said...

Many thanks for the above comments, particularly the translation by Micjo.

Go to Youtube and and check out Doctor Feelgood doing Í'm a Hog for You Baby' if you have time. Could an Esperanto version express the gutsy, lusful power of Lee's vocals? Esperanto sounds too mellifluous, if you ask me.