Busking publishers

[hdw]

I like this story, from the Summer 2009 issue of the translators' journal "In Other Words":

"The two founders of a small Czech publisher, Větrn? Ml?ny (meaning, appropriately enough, 'windmills'), used to catch a train to Berlin whenever money was short, where busking Simon and Garfunkel songs brought in the Deutschmarks to publish the next book".

What dedication!

Harry

[Eric]

Dedication, certainly. I like the idea of noble publishing houses that really are in it for the literature and are prepared to make such gestures. I had a quick look on the internet and did indeed find their website:

V?trn? ml?ny (http://www.vetrnemlyny.cz/o-nas)

My reading knowledge of Czech isn't great, being basically derived from my knowledge of Polish, plus guesswork, but I can see that it was started in 1995 by Petr Minař?k a Pavel Řehoř?k. They started out by publishing theatre texts, then moved on to prose and poetry. Since 2005, they also publish a monthly called RozRazil where they cooperate with the students of the Masaryk University in Brno (Moravia). They also appear to organise festivals.

Most of the names of the authors they do are unknown to me, except for the ubiquitous Will Shakespeare, whose Hamlet, Othello and Twelfth Night they've published in translation. There's one Swede mentioned called Ingmar Villquist - no, he's not a Swede, he's a Pole with a pseudonym: Jaroslaw Swierszcz. I have heard of Viewegh, Lorca, Rostand, and one or two others.

Anyway, the Větrn? ml?ny people seem a dynamic lot.

[hdw]

Dedication, certainly. I like the idea of noble publishing houses that really are in it for the literature and are prepared to make such gestures. I had a quick look on the internet and did indeed find their website:

V?trn? ml?ny (http://www.vetrnemlyny.cz/o-nas)

My reading knowledge of Czech isn't great, being basically derived from my knowledge of Polish, plus guesswork, but I can see that it was started in 1995 by Petr Minař?k a Pavel Řehoř?k. They started out by publishing theatre texts, then moved on to prose and poetry. Since 2005, they also publish a monthly called RozRazil where they cooperate with the students of the Masaryk University in Brno (Moravia). They also appear to organise festivals.

Most of the names of the authors they do are unknown to me, except for the ubiquitous Will Shakespeare, whose Hamlet, Othello and Twelfth Night they've published in translation. There's one Swede mentioned called Ingmar Villquist - no, he's not a Swede, he's a Pole with a pseudonym: Jaroslaw Swierszcz. I have heard of Viewegh, Lorca, Rostand, and one or two others.

Anyway, the Větrn? ml?ny people seem a dynamic lot.

I think the two founders' names would translate as Peter Collier and Paul Gregory. I often ponder which language I'm more useless at, Polish or Czech, being possessed of a slight knowledge of both. I find Czech easier, I think, certainly as regards pronunciation, and I have definitely read more Czech literature (in translation).

Harry

[Eric]

Czech you find easier to pronounce? What about the "ř". And the other "r": Strč prst skrz krk, and all that. (Imagine it being said in a Brummie accent: "stirch purst scurs kirk, loike") And the Vltava's a bit of a tongue-twister. Though Polish words like rtęć, dżdżysty, pszczoła and bzdura are no joke, either.

I sussed the Gregory thing when writing my posting, but I didn't realise that a mine is a mine. Peter and Paul. Where's Mary?

[hdw]

Czech you find easier to pronounce? What about the "ř". And the other "r": Strč prst skrz krk, and all that. (Imagine it being said in a Brummie accent: "stirch purst scurs kirk, loike") And the Vltava's a bit of a tongue-twister. Though Polish words like rtęć, dżdżysty, pszczoła and bzdura are no joke, either.

I sussed the Gregory thing when writing my posting, but I didn't realise that a mine is a mine. Peter and Paul. Where's Mary?

"Easier", very relatively speaking (and speaking). I don't have a problem with the ř - just do a flapped r immediately followed by a -zh- as in leisure. That's probably as good as anything Havel can spit out. He's supposed to have a bit of a speech defect and to be unable to pronounce Czech as she is spoke.

Maybe I was a bit too quick to pronounce on Colliers. I saw "mina" meaning 'mine' in one of my dictionaries, which is Czech-English only, then looked up "miner" in a Czech-English one and found Cz. "horn?k".

Harry

[Eric]

Why I thought the ř was difficult was because I thought the rolled "r" sound and the "zh" sound were simultaneous. It's quite possible to articulate if you can roll an "r" like a Skawt and say "je" like Frog, but it's not that easy. Even in England, somewhere near the Scots border, there is a town where they even use a back-"r". Can't remember where, but I heard someone from there. Sounded like a Fleming or similar.

I hadn't heard of the fact that Vartslaff Havvel was the Czech equivalent of Jonathan Woss. One of my Estonian teachers had difficulties with the wolled "r", which is standard in that language.

Miners are horny devils at the best of times. They work down the "pit", as Swedes would say. In English we have "pit", "mine", "collier", and other words with different etymology. So I suppose Czech has similar variance.

Between Polish and Czech-&-Ukrainian there is the "g" / "h" distinction. The Poles tend towards a "g", the Czechs and Ukrainians, a "h" (voiced "g"). Hence "g?rnik" versus "horn?k". And the Czech i-acute is rendered unnecessary in Polish which has no length-of-vowel distinction.

Pedantry can become addictive.

Cheers!