måndag 3 mars 2008

Translation "Colors of the Wind"

Ok, I translated the Swedish version, and I have comments at the end:

You think I don't understand you
You've seen so many places
Yes, I guess you have
You know how everything's supposed to be
And despite that, I'm thinking:
There's so much more knowledge than you think

You think you own the earth/the land you stand on
That everythings turns to your property whereever you go ashore
But mountains and trees, yes everything that's around you
has a life, has a spirit, has a name
You think that the ones you want to call human beings
Are supposed to look and think like you
But if you follow paths/footprints you've never seen before
you can learn with your heart right here and now

Have you heard a wolf that cries beneath the light of the moon?
A bobcat turns to a constellation on your cheek
Can you sing out loud with all the voices of the mountains?
Can you paint everything with colours in a wind?

Come run the hidden trails in the forest
Come taste sweet berries of the sun and earth
Come enjoy the abundance of nature
Everything you see has a worth without words/that cannot be measured in words
An boundless/unlimited world for us and everyone else
and every small existence/life shall be a friend
forever we will belong to eachother
in a circle/cycle of nature without ending
here we see it (-the circle..)

How high has the tree strenght to reach
If you cut it down
who can then give you an answer?

And you'll probably never hear the wolf underneath the light of the moon
Because no matter what colour we have on our cheeks
we have to sing out loud with all the vouces of the mountains
have to paint everything with colours in a wind
You can own this landbut it will not come to life until you learn
to see that there are colours in a wind.

OK. A lot of words are just more beautiful in Swedish: Moonlight (I tried with the light of the moon, but it's just not the same), and also footsteps, constellation, ”sing out loud”, ”cut something down”, abundance is also a beautiful word in Swedish, which can be translated into ”riches far beyong imagination” not that poetic, but the meaning of the word is something like that.

I don't like that the sarcastic ”ignorant savage”-part disappeared.. but it just didn't work in Swedish.
I also think that ”the earht is just a dead thing you can claim” is a very interesting part in the english version, because the earth is not property. But ”property” will do in Swedish. Sorry if everything's not 100% accurate, but I've had an exam today.

Anything you disagree on? Or do you have any comments? Do I really have to put in the English version aswell? Feel free to comment.

Love Ellie

To all my Swedish readers: My twin brother commented a Disney song on You Tube and claimed that the Swedish version of "Colors of the Wind" was much better than the English one. And, of course, a bunch of people commented "I wanna know why! Pleeease!" and all these answers dropped into my (e-)mailbox, since he was logged onto my account. So, I did what I do best: I gave them an answer. But I didn't figure out how I culd post all of it on You Tube, so I put it up on my blog. And that's it. Now I just have to leave a comment on You Tube, assuring that they find my post..
Right, and my exam did go fairly well "Sprachgeschichte" (History of language) isn't all that fun, but it's easy. Take care.

1 kommentar:

Anonym sa...

"underneath the light of the moon" would be better translated as "Under the moons light" not as correct in English I admit, but closer to the Swedish text.