One message David [Salo] got the other day from a high school student said that hearing the languages in [The Fellowship of the Ring] spurred an interest in linguistics, and could David recommend any colleges with good linguistics programs?
Now that is just cool. Wizard cool, if I may say so. The kid may well change his mind–but I doubt he’ll ever regret his interest.
Dorothea Salo, Influence
That kid reminds me of… well, me, although I was more taken by Jabberwocky. (Friends may find this heretical, but I only read The Lord of the Rings in university.) Perhaps because both parents are language teachers (between them they speak French, German, Spanish, and Slovak), or perhaps just because I have a predilection towards the trivial and the transmundane, I enjoy discovering versions of familiar works–music, poetry, books, etc.–in different languages, even those I don’t understand.
Which is why I was glad today to find a version of Jabberwocky that I’d never seen: a translation into French by Frank L. Warrin. (The page also includes Robert Scott’s German version, which I’ve loved for years: Es brillig war. Die schlicten Toven / Wirrten und wimmelten in Waben….
) I’d love to hear Stephanie’s rendition of either… bien sûr avec son accent vaudois.
