HORSE COAT COLORS IN THE EPIC: PROBLEMS AND PECULIARITIES OF TRANSLATION

Abstract

The paper is devoted to the analysis of translations of the names of the horse coat color in the epic text and the possibilities of a translator in this field. The sources of the material for the study are the texts of epic tales published in the academic series “Epic of the Peoples of the USSR” (at present “Epic of the Peoples of Eurasia”) and “Monuments of Folklore of the Peoples of Siberia and the Far East”. The high level of scientific edition of these publications makes it possible to use them for theoretical justification.

The name of the horse coat color is an important feature of the epic style: the color serves as an individual characteristic of the horse, in some cases the color of a horse is its name, it also can describe its origin. Two ways of translating horse coat colors are investigated: the following to accepted professional terminology and the free approach to the choice of vocabulary. The study of examples of horse colors shows that they do not always correspond to real ones. The horse in the epic text has a lot of supernatural properties and abilities, so his color can be different from the colors of real horses. With this in mind, the author comes to the conclusion that the translator does not need to strictly follow to professional terminology – the use of a wide range of color significations is not only possible, but also better suits the aims of translating a folk text. However, it makes sense to know the basics of horse breeding terminology and to observe some principles of denomination of horse colors adopted in the Russian language: not to use the words “black, brown” – instead of them it is better to use “crow, sorrel, bay”, to use with care the word “blue”.

As a rule, the designation of a horse color consists of two words, the first of them, according to our conclusions, denotes a shade of the main color named by the second word. In the paper methods of translation of colors used for the description of a horse color are studied, and offered are variants of translation, most corresponding to the style of the epic. The ways of translating the horse colors are one of the methods of representing the epic style of the original in the translation and preserving the artistic features of the epic.

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