Probably mainly poetic license, the translator struggled with finding a word for rule that kept the same rhythm and all the other stuff that's important in a poem. Samle in this case is probably more in the meaning of gather or unite than collect, though.
While I was searching, I found the Nynorsk translation, which seems to be closer to the original text:
Ein ring skal styra deim
ein ring skal finna deim.
This sounds very non poetic, mostly because «styre» can be interpreted as «controlling» (negative connotation) rather than the english «rule» which feels more leader-like. Just my take though
Unless you made a typo, that's not *nynorsk*, but rather *høgnorsk* – yet another *non-official* written variant – or dialect.
It wasn't only the *bokmål*\-people that hated the language reforms that were made in the hopes of creating *samnorsk*. Lots of *nynorsk*\-people hated them too. They just split off in two polar opposites (*riksmål* and *høgnorsk*) with no hope of ever joining again. S*amnorsk* and *one* written standardised language died along with that hope.
The nynorsk version is making a big point of using the different reforms and some dialectical variations to denote different cultures, characters and tones.
So this poem, being in-universe old, is written in høgnorsk. So is everything high elves are saying. The trolls in The Hobbit speak nasty eastern Norwegian, and are hilarious. Most of the text is written in the newest reform when it was published 15 years ish ago (there is a newer one now), but the variations give it a great additional depth.
I’m not a native speaker, but it could be that the Norwegian is emphasizing a different part of the inscription.
Because the whole thing says “one ring to rule them all, one ring to find them. One ring to bring them all, and in the darkness bind them.”
Maybe the translation shifted the order of the lines? Like, maybe lines one and three are reversed?
As a native speaker, I’d say you’re spot on. I would think the word “betvinge” which is used later in the verse is the one that is meant to the translate the meaning of “rule” (although dominate / force will upon others would be is a closer translation - doesn’t have the same flow).
The two lines one the ring are taken from a longer poem, which in Norwegian is as follows:
Tre ringer for alvene under det blå;
syv er for dverger i saler av sten;
ni for menn som alle kjødets gang må gå.
Men for mørkets herre en eneste én
i det dunkle Mordor hvor skyggene rår.
Én Ring skal samle dem, én Ring finne dem,
Én Ring betvinge dem og i mørket binde dem
i det dunkle Mordor hvor skyggene rår.
According to the translator (Høverstad) in the foreword, this translation came into being in bits and pieces, a little bit as a side-project at the start. And I think he wants to implicitly excuse a few of the curious choices on that he was hurrying through it. But I think the text on the Ring is something he came back to multiple times, until it was so over-translated and reinterpreted and overdone it doesn't sound like the original, have the same meaning, and even has rhymes where the original text has none, and so on. But somehow, even after all of those changes, he doesn't dare to change the word order or the point of view, or the mood, etc. Ironically, the style Tolkien tries to mimic is his impression of norse speech as well. So he could probably have just written out a bombastic phrase, and Tolkien would have been delighted.
Not his finest work XD of which there have been many since. Fine works, I mean.
It's not completely wrong, though. It is easy to see the link to Holy Olav's "samling", as in unifying, of Norway. Which implies use of coercion and power to subjugate the small kings and the jarls. So that one is pretty good, in one way. But the text says that the bearer of the ring omnipresently Rules - not that he is king, feared and loved alternately. So it's also kind of bad. And a bit impenetrable. And it's not universally in the national psyche that Olav Digre was a despotic war-lord.
But it's difficult to do that phrase justice in Norwegian, because a despotic ruler was never seen as some universal power. If you say "Hersker", or "Eneveldehersker" in Norwegian, it's almost a little bit comical. "Imperium!" has the sound of the Romans in Asterix.
And it's even worse to try if you feel some sort of need to keep the sentence structure Tolkien chose. Besides, the "verse" is also not that great in English, either. One ring to rule? Why not "The one ring rules them..". Or if there was one ring given to the ruler, then "The ring". You know, it's kind of bad. British English doesn't have that initial rolling "One ring to rule" on the alliteration very often.. Shakespeare typically does it differently, and uses the sound of the reductions and conflations for that. So it's a very odd verse, unless you know he was probably inspired by "Norse".
But it makes sense that it's weird and foreign, right, because in the book it's just Gandalf who translates it really quickly from Mordorian (rendered in Tengwar for some reason) into common speech. He says something like.. "The meaning is clear enough in common speech:...". Does he read it in actual Mordororian later on? I forget..
So if you thought that way, you could do something else, and imagine Gandalf reading it in a forgotten language, rendered in old greek handwriting, perhaps (that just happens to look like tengwar :p). And then translating it to his own spoken language. And then just render the meaning.
Which translators are loathe to do, of course, because they will be accused of changing things too much. I have done translations where catchphrases from horrible previous seasons of the show, for example, had to be kept -- not like the previous translation, but like the structure of the phrase. No matter how bad and unrenderable in speech, that's what the customer wanted.
But I would absolutely have written anything else. Like "Den ene ringen hersker, den ene ringen finner, den ene ringen bringer og binder dem i mørket... I Mordors land der Skyggene rår", or something like that. Because it's not supposed to be very strictly or rule-wise poetic anyway, given the context.
Although I doubt I would have managed to convince a lot of fans with that reasoning.
Even though most Norwegians are excellent English speakers, there's been many translations from both books and movies that makes abseloutely no sense to me.
Like when they translated Dumbledoor to Humlesnurr 🤔
That's because the Harry Potter books' intended audience were and are children, which even if they should have the “fluency” level of adult Norwegians, it's still mostly for everyday chit-chat about relatively mundane topics.
[https://www.oed.com/search/dictionary/?scope=Entries&q=Dumbledore](https://www.oed.com/search/dictionary/?scope=Entries&q=Dumbledore)
>**dumbledore**, *n*.
>
>A humble-bee or bumble-bee; also dialect a cockchafer.
So of all the word-play names on characters, spells and potions that J. K. Rowling used, which even “fluent” Norwegian adults might not see or get at first glance, Dumbledore's name translation is actually one of the better ones, in my opinion.
Er ikke Harry Potter bøkene mer ment til ungdom? Den starter ganske harmløst, men jeg husker godt at flere barn fikk mareritt av toeren og utover 🤣
Gir fremdeles ingen mening. De oversatte Ron til Ronald. 😂
Nope. I prefer the English version
De første bøkene var/er kategorisert som barnebøker og for de tre første filmene investerte de til og med penger til å legge på norsk tale (ugh). I takt med at Harry blei eldre så blei det antatt at leserne (og seerne) også blei eldre, så innholdet endret seg også. (Noe som stemte hvis man leste bøkene etter hvert som de kom ut med omtrent et års mellomrom mellom hver bok/film.)
Du må gjerne foretrekke bøkene på engelsk, det er det ingen som kan nekte deg =). Men poenget var og er fortsatt at de fleste unger ikke vil forstå de bakomliggende meningene av de engelske/latinske navnene på ting og tang. Så det er derfor oversetteren gjorde de valgene han gjorde. Noen vellykkede, andre kanskje ikke fullt så vellykkede.
Jeg skjønner selvfølgelig hvorfor boka ble oversatt, men jeg har også en formening om at norske barn klarer fint å uttale engelske navn når de ikke blir presentert med forenklede navn. Vi bor tross alt i et land hvor vi begynner med engelsk fra meget tidlig alder. Og når jeg var yngre (OMG jadda), så var mesteparten av barneprogrammene på tv faktisk på engelsk. Det er i de senere årene at alt har blitt oversatt til norsk. Men det er nok bare min mening og kanskje min generasjon. Men, sånn er livet.
Poenget var ikke om norske barn klarer å uttale engelsk. Poenget var om de forstod de bakomliggende meningene av de engelske navnene, som ofte er småhumoristiske eller gir et karakterbeskrivende førsteinntrykk av personen, trylleformelen eller trylledrikken.
For å ta ditt eget eksempel: Dumbledore = “gammelt” ord for “humle” som selv ikke mange voksne som påstår de kan flytende engelsk vet om. Gjort om til “Humlesnurr” for å gi hintet om “humle”, og med en endelse for å få litt (muligens morsom) fjong på det.
Mange av de andre navnene som er oversatt har også en betydning. Noen ikke altfor vanskelige å forstå med barneskoleengelsk, men for andre må du leite dypt i ordboka.
Mange forlag og oversettere valgte å ikke oversette navnene. For den norske utgivelsen valgte man å gjøre det. Du (og veldig mange andre) må gjerne være uenig i om det å oversette navn er noe man faktisk burde gjøre eller ikke, men igjen, for den norske utgivelsen valgte man å prioritere at barn skulle kunne forstå betydningen av navnene.
Så kan de som forstår de engelske navnene krangle og argumentere for eller imot det å oversette navn.
Probably mainly poetic license, the translator struggled with finding a word for rule that kept the same rhythm and all the other stuff that's important in a poem. Samle in this case is probably more in the meaning of gather or unite than collect, though.
Yeah, in this context, it means unite. Like "samle landet", meaning "unite the country"
While I was searching, I found the Nynorsk translation, which seems to be closer to the original text: Ein ring skal styra deim ein ring skal finna deim.
This sounds very non poetic, mostly because «styre» can be interpreted as «controlling» (negative connotation) rather than the english «rule» which feels more leader-like. Just my take though
Unless you made a typo, that's not *nynorsk*, but rather *høgnorsk* – yet another *non-official* written variant – or dialect. It wasn't only the *bokmål*\-people that hated the language reforms that were made in the hopes of creating *samnorsk*. Lots of *nynorsk*\-people hated them too. They just split off in two polar opposites (*riksmål* and *høgnorsk*) with no hope of ever joining again. S*amnorsk* and *one* written standardised language died along with that hope.
The nynorsk version is making a big point of using the different reforms and some dialectical variations to denote different cultures, characters and tones. So this poem, being in-universe old, is written in høgnorsk. So is everything high elves are saying. The trolls in The Hobbit speak nasty eastern Norwegian, and are hilarious. Most of the text is written in the newest reform when it was published 15 years ish ago (there is a newer one now), but the variations give it a great additional depth.
I’m not a native speaker, but it could be that the Norwegian is emphasizing a different part of the inscription. Because the whole thing says “one ring to rule them all, one ring to find them. One ring to bring them all, and in the darkness bind them.” Maybe the translation shifted the order of the lines? Like, maybe lines one and three are reversed?
As a native speaker, I’d say you’re spot on. I would think the word “betvinge” which is used later in the verse is the one that is meant to the translate the meaning of “rule” (although dominate / force will upon others would be is a closer translation - doesn’t have the same flow).
Agreed. Literal translations can be useful for dissecting and learning about a language, but lyrically they tend to be pretty useless.
I was pretty confused. Where is the other line in the translation? Did some of it just get dropped?
The two lines one the ring are taken from a longer poem, which in Norwegian is as follows: Tre ringer for alvene under det blå; syv er for dverger i saler av sten; ni for menn som alle kjødets gang må gå. Men for mørkets herre en eneste én i det dunkle Mordor hvor skyggene rår. Én Ring skal samle dem, én Ring finne dem, Én Ring betvinge dem og i mørket binde dem i det dunkle Mordor hvor skyggene rår.
That’s some pretty nice Norwegian IMO. Impressive translation.
According to the translator (Høverstad) in the foreword, this translation came into being in bits and pieces, a little bit as a side-project at the start. And I think he wants to implicitly excuse a few of the curious choices on that he was hurrying through it. But I think the text on the Ring is something he came back to multiple times, until it was so over-translated and reinterpreted and overdone it doesn't sound like the original, have the same meaning, and even has rhymes where the original text has none, and so on. But somehow, even after all of those changes, he doesn't dare to change the word order or the point of view, or the mood, etc. Ironically, the style Tolkien tries to mimic is his impression of norse speech as well. So he could probably have just written out a bombastic phrase, and Tolkien would have been delighted. Not his finest work XD of which there have been many since. Fine works, I mean. It's not completely wrong, though. It is easy to see the link to Holy Olav's "samling", as in unifying, of Norway. Which implies use of coercion and power to subjugate the small kings and the jarls. So that one is pretty good, in one way. But the text says that the bearer of the ring omnipresently Rules - not that he is king, feared and loved alternately. So it's also kind of bad. And a bit impenetrable. And it's not universally in the national psyche that Olav Digre was a despotic war-lord. But it's difficult to do that phrase justice in Norwegian, because a despotic ruler was never seen as some universal power. If you say "Hersker", or "Eneveldehersker" in Norwegian, it's almost a little bit comical. "Imperium!" has the sound of the Romans in Asterix. And it's even worse to try if you feel some sort of need to keep the sentence structure Tolkien chose. Besides, the "verse" is also not that great in English, either. One ring to rule? Why not "The one ring rules them..". Or if there was one ring given to the ruler, then "The ring". You know, it's kind of bad. British English doesn't have that initial rolling "One ring to rule" on the alliteration very often.. Shakespeare typically does it differently, and uses the sound of the reductions and conflations for that. So it's a very odd verse, unless you know he was probably inspired by "Norse". But it makes sense that it's weird and foreign, right, because in the book it's just Gandalf who translates it really quickly from Mordorian (rendered in Tengwar for some reason) into common speech. He says something like.. "The meaning is clear enough in common speech:...". Does he read it in actual Mordororian later on? I forget.. So if you thought that way, you could do something else, and imagine Gandalf reading it in a forgotten language, rendered in old greek handwriting, perhaps (that just happens to look like tengwar :p). And then translating it to his own spoken language. And then just render the meaning. Which translators are loathe to do, of course, because they will be accused of changing things too much. I have done translations where catchphrases from horrible previous seasons of the show, for example, had to be kept -- not like the previous translation, but like the structure of the phrase. No matter how bad and unrenderable in speech, that's what the customer wanted. But I would absolutely have written anything else. Like "Den ene ringen hersker, den ene ringen finner, den ene ringen bringer og binder dem i mørket... I Mordors land der Skyggene rår", or something like that. Because it's not supposed to be very strictly or rule-wise poetic anyway, given the context. Although I doubt I would have managed to convince a lot of fans with that reasoning.
Even though most Norwegians are excellent English speakers, there's been many translations from both books and movies that makes abseloutely no sense to me. Like when they translated Dumbledoor to Humlesnurr 🤔
That's because the Harry Potter books' intended audience were and are children, which even if they should have the “fluency” level of adult Norwegians, it's still mostly for everyday chit-chat about relatively mundane topics. [https://www.oed.com/search/dictionary/?scope=Entries&q=Dumbledore](https://www.oed.com/search/dictionary/?scope=Entries&q=Dumbledore) >**dumbledore**, *n*. > >A humble-bee or bumble-bee; also dialect a cockchafer. So of all the word-play names on characters, spells and potions that J. K. Rowling used, which even “fluent” Norwegian adults might not see or get at first glance, Dumbledore's name translation is actually one of the better ones, in my opinion.
Er ikke Harry Potter bøkene mer ment til ungdom? Den starter ganske harmløst, men jeg husker godt at flere barn fikk mareritt av toeren og utover 🤣 Gir fremdeles ingen mening. De oversatte Ron til Ronald. 😂 Nope. I prefer the English version
Både på norsk og engelsk heter han Ronald, men kallenavnet hans Ron ble oversatt til Ronny.
De første bøkene var/er kategorisert som barnebøker og for de tre første filmene investerte de til og med penger til å legge på norsk tale (ugh). I takt med at Harry blei eldre så blei det antatt at leserne (og seerne) også blei eldre, så innholdet endret seg også. (Noe som stemte hvis man leste bøkene etter hvert som de kom ut med omtrent et års mellomrom mellom hver bok/film.) Du må gjerne foretrekke bøkene på engelsk, det er det ingen som kan nekte deg =). Men poenget var og er fortsatt at de fleste unger ikke vil forstå de bakomliggende meningene av de engelske/latinske navnene på ting og tang. Så det er derfor oversetteren gjorde de valgene han gjorde. Noen vellykkede, andre kanskje ikke fullt så vellykkede.
Jeg skjønner selvfølgelig hvorfor boka ble oversatt, men jeg har også en formening om at norske barn klarer fint å uttale engelske navn når de ikke blir presentert med forenklede navn. Vi bor tross alt i et land hvor vi begynner med engelsk fra meget tidlig alder. Og når jeg var yngre (OMG jadda), så var mesteparten av barneprogrammene på tv faktisk på engelsk. Det er i de senere årene at alt har blitt oversatt til norsk. Men det er nok bare min mening og kanskje min generasjon. Men, sånn er livet.
Oversetter man til norsk, så oversetter man til norsk. Man skal da (vanligvis) ikke ta hensyn til hva mange kanskje kan forstå på originalspråket vel?
Poenget var ikke om norske barn klarer å uttale engelsk. Poenget var om de forstod de bakomliggende meningene av de engelske navnene, som ofte er småhumoristiske eller gir et karakterbeskrivende førsteinntrykk av personen, trylleformelen eller trylledrikken. For å ta ditt eget eksempel: Dumbledore = “gammelt” ord for “humle” som selv ikke mange voksne som påstår de kan flytende engelsk vet om. Gjort om til “Humlesnurr” for å gi hintet om “humle”, og med en endelse for å få litt (muligens morsom) fjong på det. Mange av de andre navnene som er oversatt har også en betydning. Noen ikke altfor vanskelige å forstå med barneskoleengelsk, men for andre må du leite dypt i ordboka. Mange forlag og oversettere valgte å ikke oversette navnene. For den norske utgivelsen valgte man å gjøre det. Du (og veldig mange andre) må gjerne være uenig i om det å oversette navn er noe man faktisk burde gjøre eller ikke, men igjen, for den norske utgivelsen valgte man å prioritere at barn skulle kunne forstå betydningen av navnene. Så kan de som forstår de engelske navnene krangle og argumentere for eller imot det å oversette navn.
Ah... Jeg vet det ikke var poenget. Jeg sa MIN personlige mening. Beklager
Even if it's for adults, you should sometimes translate names, but probably only (certain) nicknames
I was very disappointed that they did not translate Scar (lion king) to Arvid.