Such an ugly name: Winnie-The-Pooh

"A writer living among people who speak a language different from his own discovers after a while that he senses his native tongue in a new manner."  Czesław  Miłosz in "To begin Where I Am".

Well, many of us living outside our native country and using our second language on the daily basis share this experience. We start actually listening to what we are saying when speaking in our own tongue. We start weighing words, we compare them with the same words in other languages and we ask ourselves: Do I like it more in Polish, or in English/French/Spanish/Portuguese/ Italian/Russian/German. 

I collect titles in the languages I once "licked", as we say in Polish. It started with a nice family story. My born in England cousin Hania first knew the adventures of the famous teddy bear created by Alan Alexander Milne in the congenial Polish translation by Irena Tuwim. One day Hania came from school sobbing: Mama, the English stole our Kubuś Puchatek and gave him such an ugly name, Winnie-The-Pooh. The five-year old girl was absolutely right, Winnie-The-Pooh is an ugly name compared to Kubuś Puchatek. The Polish name is such that you love the toy bear before even you start reading the books. 

I collect titles. Take Dostoevsky's "Преступление и наказание" (Prestupléniye i nakazániye)  - "Crime and Punishment" in English, "Zbrodnia i Kara" in Polish, "Crime et Châtiment" in French, "Crimen y castigo" in Spanish. 

Prestupléniye i nakazániye - both words seem too lengthy for what they denote. Prestupléniye does not suggest a crime or a murder, rather a misdemeanour, an offence. Polish Zbrodnia suggests a fast brutal action, like taking off somebody's  head with one swift movement of an axe. Similarly, nakazániye. To me the Russian word does not sound severe enough while Polish Kara suggests punishment which is final, irrevocable. The French Châtiment, on the other hand, carries a promise of something pleasant and it's not ominous at all. 


Now, take Jane Austen's "Pride and Prejudice", "Duma i Uprzedzenie" in Polish, "Orgullo y prejuicio" in Spanish. Jane Austen liked alliterations. They are lost in translations. "Sense and Sensibility" has more luck, at least in some languages: "Rozważna i Romantyczna" in Polish, "Sentido y sensibilidad" in Spanish. 

(to be continued)