Oriental Studies (Apr 2018)
The Peculiarities of Translation of Kalmyk Non-Equivalent Vocabulary into German (Evidence from Kalmyk Fairy Tales Recorded by G. J. Ramstedt)
Abstract
The article analyzes the non-equivalent vocabulary of the fairy tales recorded and translated into German by the Finnish scholar G. J. Ramstedt. The choice of the genre is determined by the fact the language of fairy tales most completely reflects ethnic culture and traditions containing the largest bulk of culture specific lexis. The paper classifi es and distributes the words designated as nonequivalent among the 16 groups as follows: household utensils; fauna; religious lexis; home; flora; kinship terms and those denoting surroundings of a person; food and beverages; mythical and fairy tale creatures; clothes; different social strata; administrative territorial division; landscape elements; occasional lacunae; measures of length; addresses; natural phenomena. The analysis of the vocabulary has shown that the largest groups of Kalmyk culture-specifi c lexis are constituted by words denoting household utensils (22 and 31); elements of fauna (18 and 21) and religion (13 and 25). All the mentioned indicators are considered in the context of separate groups of non-equivalent vocabulary. It is noteworthy that the wide range of synonyms selected by G. J. Ramstedt in his German translation do not always express the actual meanings of the source words. As for the frequency of use of nonequivalent lexis, groups as follows can be identifi ed: kinship terms and those denoting surroundings of a person (186); different social strata (172), and religious lexis (150). The total amount of non-equivalent words has been revealed as well as the amount of nonequivalent words with due regard to their synonyms and frequency of use. The paper also discusses the means of translations of culture-specifi c vocabulary: approximate and descriptive translation, transcription / transliteration and loan translation. The non-equivalent vocabulary has been analyzed by types of translation in various groups which revealed the most frequently used types: loan, approximate and descriptive methods of translation amount to 85 % of the translated culture-specific lexis.
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