Proper Names Translated into Russian.

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Proper Names Translated into Russian. - By: Mathew Petrenko, Posted on: 2008-02-21

Interpreters into Russian are often heard say that proper names are often transliterated rather than translated from English. It is not surprising, as experience shows that it is actually put into practice. And yet, there are some proper namesthat seem to violate this rule of thumb.

An example are expressions that in part are made of a proper name and the other part of it are regular words. Here we speak of eponymous vocabulary. Before we go into this question of eponymics any further, let us look and discover the notion of the lexical unit called eponym and its variations in the science of the language. All words inEnglish and Russian can be segmented into two big groups: proper names and appellative names. If you have a grasp of ancient Greek, you may know that the lexical unit “eponym” means “naming” or “giving the name”. For ancient people eponyms were people,deities or heroes, whose legendary names were employed to give names to villages, families and various objects, as well as officers (e.g. archonts, consuls). In the period of a couple of centuries, the meaning of “eponym” expanded to include not only the personal name, but also other objects that shared some metaphorical similiarity.

At present, students of linguistics use the term “eponym” to speak of a word that has stopped working as a proper name and now functions as a regular regular noun. Hence, we deal with 3 individual components of an eponym:

1. being or object

2. proper name

3. common word.

When a translator deals with an English text, they should assume the background competence of the English text intended audience and the degree of competence of the Russian audience. The connotation of eponym arises out of the etymological background. As Russian and English languages have dissimilar cultural past, there are non-similar ways in which proper namesturn into eponyms. The primary issue related to eponymisms is the subject of their etymological transparency which is a hidden feature depending on the cultural competence and encyclopedic knowledge of Russian native audiences. Here the question pops up: how should a translator handle eponyms? There is no doubt about the fact that such eponymisms as lolita "a sexually attractive young girl" or a superman “a man with exceptional physical or mental ability, with strong integrity" are etymologically transparent both to English and to Russian audiences so performing Russian interpretation of them does not lead to any problems.

Similar situation can be said about the eponymisms that have lost their transparency in both languages. (e.g.: Adonis who was named after a handsome guy adored by both Aphrodite and Persephone and murdered by a boar, or badminton that got its name from Badminton in the South West of England, Duke Beaufort’s country seat, where people started playing it). However, the situation is more difficult to figure out if a particular eponym is transparent in English, and hence it has some symbolic implication, and the case of Russian languge it fails to cause any response from native speakers who do not connect the common word and its lexical meaning with a suitable eponym. As you may observe, not all eponyms make translators think hard. Those that are non-transparent, do not cause any difficulties in Russian translation at all.

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