January Meme: A fandom I first encountered in translation and how it varies from the original

[selenak]

lilacsigil asked me this. Well, the case that immediately comes to mind is Star Trek (TOS specifically), which I frst saw as a child and teenager dubbed into German on German afternoon tv. It wasn't until I was in my 20s that I saw the episodes in the English original. Among other things, this means I still instinctively associate the characters with their German voices before I recall the English, err, American ones. (Especially true with Spock.)

(It also means that Leonard McCoy's nickname in my head isn't Bones as much as it is Pille; the translators back in the day probably correctly concluded a German audience in the late 60s and 70s would not have the same associations - Sawbones, surgeon, etc. - , and Kirk calling his friend "Pill" still preserves the medical aspect, but in retrospect it amuses me that of the very late 60s/70s pill-popping was picked.)

Leaving voices and nicknames aside the biggest difference for German fans of my age was that we didn't get to see one episode - Patterns of Force - at all, and saw another - Amok Time - with a completely different script. The first one one was for the somewhat obvious reason that a show TPTB on German tv in the early 70s judged to be aimed at children, "the one where they end up on a Nazi planet" was not considered a good idea. When I finally did see the episode at a FedCon (FedCon is the largest German ST convention), I concluded we didn't miss much, simply because it's one of the dumbest ST had produced. If you're a historian in Gene Roddenberry Star Trek, you clearly have a fetish for dictatorships and dictators (see also: Space Seed), and let's get not even into the un-funnyness of "You'd make a great Nazi". Also, I'm sorry, but as excuses to let the cast use historical wardrobe are concerned, I'll take the episodes where the Enterprise comes across Space Chicago or Space Rome any time. I think I've beaten that particular dead equine a couple of times under the headline "operetta Nazis".

Otoh, German Amok Time remains one of the most amusing fandom stories I have to offer, and I don't mind repeating it. This episode was censored and rewritten because early 70s children were not to be bothered with anything that would cause quesitons about sex and reproduction. As a result, the script for the dubbed version, which is called Weltraumfieber, "Space Fever", was completely altered so that Spock gets essentially space flu and falls into a delirium during which he has this really bizarre dream about going home, attempting to get married, fighting and killing Kirk. By that time, McCoy has come up with a cure, and when a cured Spock wakes up, he is really (and happily) surprised to find out Kirk is alive and that he was only dreaming! No Vulcan biological cycles talked about in this episode, no Sir and Ma'am. The term "pon farr" never comes up.

Now, in the 80s, when I started to read Star Trek media tie ins, you may bet I was confused about what this Pon Farr was which kept being referenced. I think the first time I saw ST III - The Search for Spock, which includeds the scene with Saavik explaining what Pon Farr is to a katra-less young Spock on the planet Genesis was when when it finally clicked, though even then I did miss the implication about Saavik, err, having to calm down mind-less young Spock. Anyway, once it was the 90s and I had access to videos with the original version of those episodes at a Munich video store, I fell for Star Trek all over again. My TNG experience was slightly different because while I saw the first four seasons first in German, starting with season 5 I found ways to see them in English, and most of my later fandoms were English firsts for me. Not to mention that even wtihout having access to the original, it was easy for a German ST fan to be disgruntled about the TNG dubbing, as they kept switching the modes of adress between characters, especially Riker and Troi, from Sie to Du and back. (If an episode made a dialogue reference to Riker/Troi and their backstory as lovers, it was "Du", if an episode didn't, they were calling each other "Sie".)

One big problem (or advantange, depending on your pov on spoilers) for German ST fans back in the day was that it was really difficult to watch anything later than the original TOS unspoiled. It was all broadcast first in the US (or released, in the case of the movies), and usually not just months but at least a year if not more before making it to German tv. And with the rise of the internet, that meant, for example, you knew what the cliffhanger of Best of Both Worlds I would be before the Borg were introduced.

Another fandom I encountered first in translation was Lord of the Rings, with the qualifier that I liked but didn't love the books when I read them as a teenager and it took years for me to really fall for them. Not because the German translation is bad, btw. Tolkien himself was still able to countercheck it it, and that's why I'm pretty sure the Professor himself decides the Elves would not be called Elfen in German but Elben. (The association for Elfen at least back in the 60s and 70s would have been with tiny flitting Victorian era creatures, whereas Elben was used in 19th century Edda translations and by Richard Wagner in Ring of the Nibelung, so sounded old and Norse-associating which presumably Tolkien much preferred.) Also, all the Hobbit surnames were translated, including Bilbo's and Frodo's (Baggins = Beutlin), though the translator(s) gave me the wrong idea bout Sam's old Gaffer, since the German version calls him the "Ohm" (old fashioned German term for "Uncle"), whereas in the original, I think he's Sam's father. And speaking of Sam, something which I think teenage me didn't clue on in the German version is the feudalism/social hierarchy in his calling and referring to Bilbo and Frodo as "Master Bilbo" and "Master Frodo", because "Herr Bilbo" and "Herr Frodo" just sounded formal to me but didn't convey the same thing.

In school when we had reached a class where one English novel (in English) is part of the curriculum, we could choose which one, but our English teacher white faced begged for it not to be Lord of the Rings. The previous year had chosen it, he said, and they had still been struggling through Volume I by the time the school year was finished. (We ended up with short one volume Catcher in the Rye instead.) "Tolkien writes really difficult English for a non-natiive speaker", he said. Well, sort of, kinda, and I certainly think it was easier for me to read in English later as an adult than it would have been as a teenager, but I also missed out on some of the poetry - I don't mean Tolkien's own verses but, say, the description of Eowyn that shows up in a conversation between Aragorn, Eomer and Gandalf in the books and becomes part of Grima's dialogue in the movies, or the description of death Gandalf gives to Pippin in the movies which I think is in a descriptive passage in the books, not in dialogue. And who knows? I might have fallen in love faster if I had read the whole thing in English first.

The other days

Comments

[rheanna]

This is so interesting! I never knew about the different German version of Amok Time.

There was one episode of ST:TNG (I forget which one) where a line of dialogue referred to the reunification of Ireland, which to this day I’ve never seen because the BBC didn’t show it during the show’s original run in the UK in the late 80s/early 90s, as the Northern Ireland Troubles were still very much happening at that point and even mentioning the possibility of Irish unity was presumably considered too controversial.

[trobadora]

Hee! I'm pretty sure I learned about Pon Farr from a one of the guide-to-Star Trek books back when I was reading everything I could get my hands on.

[ratcreature]

Heh, I did a book report on LOTR in fifth or sixth grade (I don't remember which). Not for English class but German, when everyone was supposed to do a quick thing on their favorite book. My "introduction" was pages and pages long with backgrounds on all the characters and the mythology... I had copied handouts. I don't think anyone else in my class had read LOTR at this point, and I completely lost my audience in the depths of geekery.

Later LOTR was the very first book I read in English, actually before we ever read a whole novel for school. It was so hard, even though I was intimately familiar with the translation. But I persevered, and until my early twenties re-read it at least once a year. For quite a while it actually was the only English thing I had read voluntarily.

[scintilla10]

Oh my gosh, the Amok Time translation story is so funny. Space flu! Fascinating. :D

[vilakins]

I've never seen the Nazi planet one (Patterns of Force?) as it wasn't shown here either. However the end credits always included a brief image of them in Nazi uniforms which puzzled the hell out of me, and I think yours is the first mention I've ever seen of that elusive episode. BTW those alternate history planets where Rome rose or the US didn't (I don't remember the ep names) outraged my sense of logic, as do the mirror universe ones - how would the same individuals exist in different worlds, with the same sperm and egg meeting despite different personalities, histories, and cultures?

I read LOTR as a native speaker and was absolutely drawn into it. There were strange words like "bane" that were unknown to me which I didn't look up but just worked out from context, but the language was part of the richness of the world.

[lilacsigil]

Thank you for answering my question in such an entertaining way! Amok Time as a fever dream...well it sort of was from Spock's POV, and I can see why "fuck or die" is not really a concept you want on children's TV at the time!

It was really difficult to watch anything later than the original TOS unspoiled. It was all broadcast first in the US (or released, in the case of the movies), and usually not just months but at least a year if not more before making it to German tv.

Same as an Australian. When TNG was finally shown here they showed both parts of Encounter at Farpoint then skipped to Season 2. It was always out of order, would get pre-empted for sports, would do badly in the ratings for obvious reasons, then would end up at 11pm or later before they ditched the rest of the season entirely. (My parents were not enforcers of bedtime, as long as we were quiet, so fortunately I still got to watch even the late ones, but this was a problem for many of my friends.)

That poor English teacher dragging the class through Lord of the Rings! I don't think "Uncle" is a bad translation of "Gaffer", though, since it doesn't mean "father", just an old-fashioned term for "old guy in charge of me", more often used for a foreman or the boss of tradesmen than a father.

[mildred_of_midgard]

I was going to say the same thing about Gaffer/uncle/Ohm: even though Sam's Gaffer happens to be his father, that's not what "Gaffer" means, and in fact that was a point that I as a native speaker was unclear on at first: he was an older relation of Sam's, but which older relation? A grandfather? So you got about as much out of "Ohm" as I got out of "Gaffer" at that age.

The OED tells me that the continental synonyms are French compère/commère and German gevatter, both etymologically "godfather" but with extended uses as well. (Tell me if that's true about German, Selena; I've seen "compère" in its extended use, but not sure I have with "gevatter" yet.)

The OED gives these definitions for "gaffer":

1. A term applied originally by country people to an elderly man or one whose position entitled him to respect.

a. Prefixed by way of respect (sometimes with an affectation of rusticity) to a proper name, the designation of a calling, office, etc. In 17–18th centuries the usual prefix, in rustic speech, to the name of a man below the rank of those addressed as ‘Master’.

b. Used simply as a title of address, often with no intimation of respect = my good fellow.

2. An elderly rustic; an old fellow. Also simply, a fellow.

3.a. A master, a ‘governor’. Obsolete exc. dialect.

b. The foreman or overman of a gang of workmen; a headman.

teenage me didn't clue on in the German version is the feudalism/social hierarchy in his calling and referring to Bilbo and Frodo as "Master Bilbo" and "Master Frodo"

To be fair, when I first read this, young English-speaking me didn't get clued in on that either, as "master" as a form of address was no more part of my world than "gaffer" was!

[lilacsigil]

I had heard gaffer used, but specifically as the boss of a road crew (my dad was a surveyor for the roads board, so I knew a lot of road-related jobs!) or as the boss electrician in a crew. So, only usage 3b. So Sam being a gardener and referring to his boss/dad as "gaffer" made perfect sense.

[selenak]

You know, I dimly remember reading about this in the Nitpicker's Guide years later. Didn't the BBC also dub all Sinn Fein politicians like Gerry Adams, thereby technically not broadcasting their voices but still reporting what they said?

[selenak]

Copied Handouts, that brings back memories. :) Sadly my German teacher in that year didn't do the favourite book thing, he just assigned topics (I got Schiller's Don Carlos).

The first book I read in English was the Mists of Avalon, and like you with LotR I had read it first in German. It made a huge impression on me when I was 13, so when I was 14 and participated in an US exchange program for students, and saw it on my host mother's book shelf, I read it. It did help a lot with my vocabulary.

[selenak]

:)

[selenak]

how would the same individuals exist in different worlds, with the same sperm and egg meeting despite different personalities, histories, and cultures?

With you there, though in the case of the "historical parallel world" episodes, including Patterns of Force, the in universe explanation provided was that someone deliberately recreated the culture in question, in that case a historian who thought Hitler was great minus a few blemishes like the Holocaust, and he could recreate fascism without providing an enemy group to demonize. (Spoiler: it didn't work.) Like I said, aside from everything else objectionable here, it's one of the dumbest episodes of the show.

[selenak]

it sort of was from Spock's POV, and I can see why "fuck or die" is not really a concept you want on children's TV at the time!

Quite. As a sign for changing times: Buffy the Vampire Slayer decades later was also shown in the late afternoon as a program mainly adressed to teenagers, and as far as I know all the episodes passed uncensored. (I watched the first two seasons in German and then I had access to the English original.)

Re: Gaffer - then the German translator way back when is exonorated

[selenak]

Tell me if that's true about German, Selena

It is. The fairy tale where Death becomes the godfather of the main character is called "Gevatter Tod". (The more modern German word for "godfather" is "Pate", though, and that's what the Mario Puzi book and Coppola movie is called.)

[rheanna]

Yes, that happened! I was a teenager at the time and I remember it very well. I can still remember the exact phrase the BBC and other news organisations settled on -- they would preface every clip of someone from Sinn Fein with the words, "Due to reporting restrictions, [name]'s words are spoken by an actor." When those restrictions were lifted, I recall a joke doing the rounds about how it was bad news for the small group of Belfast actors who'd had consistent work dubbing Sinn Fein politicians for years.

[vilakins]

Ah, cultural infection, rather like the gangster one which I've always enjoyed. That's acceptable logically. There was one ep though where the primitives were basically Yanks with the same flag etc, only discovered near the end (I never saw it again but I was annoyed as a teenager). Same with the the Roman one with "sun/son" worship; that was another example of parallel evolution which makes zero sense. I don't think either of those were due to copying our history, but it's been a long time since I saw them so I could be wrong.

[mildred_of_midgard]

Thanks! Yeah, "Pate" is the word I'm familiar with for the literal meaning of "godfather". I either haven't encountered "Gevatter" yet or not enough for it to stick in my memory, and I certainly haven't encountered it in extended use.

[selenak]

It's this fairy tale.

[mildred_of_midgard]

a German audience in the late 60s and 70s would not have the same associations - Sawbones, surgeon, etc.

Continuing with the theme of "me neither," I can tell you this 1990s American audience member did not have that association either, and to this day continues to have it only because I finally read an explanation of what was up with that nickname. I don't think I've actually encountered it anywhere else.

Also, I'm embarrassed that I missed the Picard quote in "Prussian Doll"! As soon as I saw that comment, I could hear Picard's voice in my head. Well played!

[likeadeuce]

I definitely didn't get the Spock/Saavik situation in III when I saw it as a young teen, either, so it's not just a translation issue.

I only rewatched all the TOS films last year and then it clicked!

[likeadeuce]

I've most recently encountered 'gaffer' as a nickname for 'coach' on 'Ted Lasso,' which I assume is an accurate thing to English football culture. (Though now that I say it I'm not SURE if it's used on the show or if I've mostly seen it in fic).

[selenak]

I think if I had understood as a teenager I'd have mentally gone "but he's her Dad!" in protest. (I mean, I knew he wasn't, biologically. But I did see their mentor/protege relationship somewhat in those terms.)

[likeadeuce]

Certainly how I saw it!!

[watervole]

I never knew Tolkien had checked the German translation of LOTR, but then he was a ,linguist.

[watervole]

The 'yanks episode was appalling. Suddenly they were the good guys because they had an obscure link to US culture.

[vilakins]

Exactly, and even back then it made me furious.

[cahn]

Heh, I'd forgotten but I had the same trouble with Gaffer! I think someone refers to him as Sam's father eventually, right?

teenage me didn't clue on in the German version is the feudalism/social hierarchy in his calling and referring to Bilbo and Frodo as "Master Bilbo" and "Master Frodo"

Not sure how much I clued in on that at the time either, but not very long afterwards I did read Le Guin's excellent review of LotR in The Language of the Night, and I've never forgotten her phrasing of "and there's... Sam, who keeps saying 'sir' to Frodo until one begins to have mad visions of founding a Hobbit Socialist Party" :)

[cahn]

I am dying at the "Amok Time" story. Because I got to TOS at around the time of the fifth movie, so the episodes were no longer on TV, I only occasionally got to watch episodes when my parents would let me rent a video from Blockbuster. Which was rare in itself, and even more rare that they'd let it be a weird SF thing... I had access to some fan books that meant I could read up on the episodes, and "Amok Time" was the first one I asked to rent. (I fell hard for the Trio, what can I say.) Fortunately, I guess, my parents were SF non-fans enough that they didn't watch it with me? Although I am not sure it would have bothered them.

[cahn]

Me too!! (I did not get the Spock/Saavik thing when I saw it as a teen either, and would have been severely squicked out if I had. Now I think it's interesting!)

[selenak]

Oh, my parents would have been unbothered as well. I did know how reproduction worked by the time I watched Star Trek, and reading Anne Golon's Angelique novels had left me with the impression that sex must be great because most characters were wild about it. The novels don't provide any details, though, so when by the time I was 13 or 14 I came across another novel (a contemporary one) which did have explicit oral sex, I was a bit shocked because I thought it sounded terribly unhygienic. I did ask my mother for verification that people actually did that despite the lack of hygiene, and she said yes, and that it was fun. Which was the end of the conversation because I didn't want to know more. So no, my parents would not have minded the original Amok Time - but German tv was really conservative, still, at that point, especially in Bavaria. (Our public broadcast networks have federal structures paralleling the federal states.) Famously in a national tv production of Aristophanes' play Lysistrata - which is about the women of Athens and Sparta going on sex strike until their men agree to make peace - directed by Fritz Kortner (remember him?), Bavaria stopped broadcasting during the transmission, which tells you all about German tv in the late 60s and early 70s.

[selenak]

LOL, that's priceless.

[cahn]

Aww, that's a great story and your mom's great :D My mom wouldn't have gone that far (she probably would have been squicked out by the entire conversation and would probably have tried to change the subject very quickly) but for people who are in many ways very (sometimes VERY) conservative, my parents weren't very bothered about things like dirty jokes and so on -- "Amok Time" was definitely indirect enough that it wouldn't have bothered them.

[lokifan]

Aw, the handouts! So cute.

I teach English as a foreign language, and at one point I had a low-level student who was struggling through LOTR. He knew the original well, and he got there eventually! I was very impressed with his perseverance, and yours!