[KS] Translating Ong

Brother Anthony ansonjae at sogang.ac.kr
Sun May 24 19:11:40 EDT 2009


Y. Jones wrote:
'Hopefully some you will be able to help.'

As I indicated in my previous reply, in order to help we really do need to have the complete sentence and some indication of the context in which it occurs (ie who is speaking or writing? in what tone? to whom?). Two elderly friends might use it to address one another, in a sort of 'dear old friend' tone, but in other contexts we would need to stress the 'respect' by something like 'Father' (as in "You are old Father William") and although I suppose Gari's 'gaffer' might sometimes stand a chance (but only if it is a fairly low-class villager) like 'old cobber' / 'old codger' (leading downwards toward 'old git' and the magnificent lines in a Kevin O'Rourke translation of a Shin Kyong-Nim poem, "The poor bugger drank all the time / a lunatic on the loose; / eventually he died.")  I assume that here the word is being used in a fairly serious, respect-stressing context, where 'Old Kim' or 'Old Master Kim' or 'Elder Kim' would be more suitable.

Still, I see a need to set the Ong question in the context of all such 'terms of relationship' words that make life impossible for us in translating Korean dialogue  -- starting with 'Onni' 'Nuna' and 'Hyong', especially when used to address someone who is not a blood relative. We just don't do that in English, and having young female factory workers (for example) adressing each other repeatedly in phrases like 'Oh yes, elder sister . . .' is just not on the cards

So please, give us some more precise information, so we can help

Br Anthony
Sogang University, Seoul
http://hompi.sogang.ac.kr/anthony/









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