Article

Name: Names of weapons and armor in folklore monuments and in their translation: problems and solutions

Authors: Yulia V. Limorenko

Institute of Philology of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Novosibirsk, Russian Federation

In the section Study of folklore

Abstract: The paper deals with the question of how to translate in a folklore text the words of the lexical-thematic group «weapons and armor» by the example of translating the most common lexemes indicating the details of the bow and the armor. The names of different types of weapons and armor are of great importance in the folklore text: these are the elements of the national culture, an indication of the era to which the narrator relates the action of the narrative, and the way the heroes are characterized (for example, the pointed shooter). These names play a particularly significant role in heroic epos, where great attention is paid to the description of weapons and armor of heroes and in historical legends, where one can often find the exact reflection of the historical realities of a particular era. The names of small arms and their parts give rise to a number of translation problems. In the languages of the Siberian Turks, the same word can call different shells for shooting – an arrow and a bullet. In some texts, there is a coincidence of the names not only of arrows and bullets but also of a bow and a gun. The context allows us to determine what kind of weapon the characters use: the bow is more characteristic for the epic tales, guns are typical for historical legends about the times when firearms were already widely used. The names of some bow details cause difficulties for translators. The variants of translation in different sources may coincide although they are not entirely accurate. Meanwhile, there are exact equivalents for parts of the device of bows and arrows, but they are used mostly in specialized literature. Thus, it is more appropriate to call the «incisions» at the ends of the bow horns, which show the strength of its tension, with the term «cut-outs» and the «jags» of the tip of the arrow with the term «teeth» in archeological literature. One cannot expect that the translator and the reader of the translation are aware of these specific terms by default, so a comment to the text is critical, explaining as it does what was meant in the text. The choice of translation variant for the name of the armor kuyak/hujah/hujag also causes some difficulties. Armor of this type is a lamellar armor, so translating kuyak as «armor» or «chain armor» is incorrect from the point of view of historical accuracy. The author analyzes the different ways of translating this word and suggests the best options. Based on ethnographic and archaeological sources, it is possible to select exact Russian equivalents for the names of weapons and armor that do not obscure the meaning of the texts.

Keywords: folklore of the Turkic-speaking peoples of Siberia, translation of folklore, military arts, bow, arrow, armor, armature, kuyak

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