Lord of the Rings Fanatics Plaza

I'm just finishing up ROTK in French. This is the first time I've read Tolkien in a language other than English.

It's been interesting to see how some things get translated, and how some things get described.

For instance, Mount Doom is translated as "le mont du Destin", which translates back into English as "the Mount of Destiny." That brings up some interesting lore questions--is there any sense of Destiny in the fact that proto-Hobbits in the forms of Deagol and Smeagol found the ring, another Hobbit kept it safe, and 2 more fulfilled the quest to destroy it? Or is it just a particularly apt translation?

I also found myself more moved by some of the descriptions in French, especially during the Battle of the Pelennor Fields and the approach to Mount Doom. I'm not sure why...just felt weightier? in French.

Has anybody else read Tolkien in translation? If so, have there been any translations that have made you think about things in a different way? Anything that made you wonder about the lore in a different way? Or just going "hey, that's cool"??

I have not read LOTR in translation, but I have read a great many other works in multiple languages, and I find it fascinating. Your examples and impressions pretty well match my own experience. I feel that there is something lost in translation, but also perhaps something gained. It reminds me of a quote I read once (and wrote down so I could find it because I thought it was worth thinking about again) by a fellow named Edward Sapir. He was a contemporary, roughly, of Tolkien, although as far as I know they were not colleagues (Sapir worked in Chicago, mostly). Edward Sapir was a linguistic anthropologist of sorts, and he said:

"The worlds in which different societies live are distinct worlds, not merely the same world with different labels attached."

I think this would apply even to a fantasy world. Le mont du Destin is not just the same Mt. Doom with a different label attached, but to some extent a distinct mountain, because people who speak and read French (and especially those who grow up doing so primarily) actually live in a different world than those who speak and read English.

All of that is hard enough to wrap my brain around even saying, but the problem is then magnified in the context of LOTR specifically because the characters themselves do not all speak the same language! But I think Tolkien tries to reflect something of what Sapir said above when, for example, Gandalf speaks the Black Speech at the Council of Elrond. Reality (somehow, slightly) changes, and not for the better in that case. Or for another example, Moria opens at Mellon, but not at the word Friend. One word changes reality in a way another does not.

Anyway I'm kind of rambling for someone that hasn't even read LOTR in more than one language, but now I really want to so I can give a fuller opinion on your questions. I suspect the answer would be yes to them though.

I'm glad to know I'm not alone! I'm also reading some other works in multiple languages...mainly GRR Martin and Anne McCaffrey and Harry Potter.

Something lost and something gained is a good way to put it. In fact, all of what you're saying makes total sense, especially since I'd not thought of it like that before.

It's all about how place and language and culture are all a lot more intertwined than most people think. We can see that in the differences in English between the UK, Canada, the US and Australia, or in French between France, Quebec, Haiti, etc. I see it a lot in the Aboriginal languages here in Canada--for them, there cannot be a full culture or anything if they don't have a critical mass of people who speak their language.

This is giving me a lot more to think about. I'ill have to look up Edward Sapir to see what he has to say.

That's exactly why I'm reading so much in French, @Tarawen ...to keep up my French language skills. Is also why I'm going through ASOIAF in French and Dragonriders of Pern.
Helps my foreign language skills....and sometimes you stumble on a translated phrase or concept that makes you think "now THAT is interesting"...