Skip to main content

translation - Why are 'Geser' and 'Zavulon' transliterated to Gesar and Zabulon?


In the original Russian version of the Night Watch series, I believe the heads of the Moscow Night and Day Watches are called Гесер and Завулон respectively. (I don't actually have a copy of any of the books in Russian, but I've picked up this information from DVK's answers about the books, in which he includes both Russian text and his own English translation.)


In the English translations I've been reading, the names are rendered as Gesar and Zabulon, although a more literal transliteration of the above names written in Cyrillic would be "Geser" and "Zavulon". What is the reason for this deviation from a letter-by-letter transliteration? As far as I can tell, "Gesar" and "Zabulon" are no easier to pronounce in English than "Geser" and "Zavulon", nor is there any hidden meaning in any of these names which is apparent to the English-speaking eye.


Why were their names translated to Gesar and Zabulon rather than Geser and Zavulon?



Answer



NOTE: 2018/02 - updaed the answer with more WoG/canon info on the name origins.




The origin of the name is Old Testament as per the author's off-line interview on rusf.ru; after the 10th son of Jacob:



Происхождение имени Завулон... Это один из двенадцати сыновей Иакова, последний из шести сыновей, рожденный Лией, родоначальник-эпоним одного из "колен Израилевых"...


The origin of name Zabulon... He is one of the twelve sons of Jacob, the last of the six sons born by Leah, the eponymous progenitor of one of the twelve tribes of Israel



English versions of Old Testament/Bible spell the name of 10th son of Jacob as Zebulun, using a typical for such transliteration latinized/English "B", and therefore the translators were indeed correct in a way by using "B" instead of "V".


Please note that this is a well known language pattern (albeit in reverse): you see a Christian Biblical name with a "B", which is translated into Russian biblical text with a "V" (possibly due to Greek translation). For example, Nebuchadnezzar got turned into Greek Ναβουχοδονόσωρ, and Greek β maps out to Russian "в" which is a "V" not a "B", resulting in Russian name "Навуходоносор".



The origin of the name is of Mongolian and Tibetian hero/god (Гэсэр) - as discussed at length in my answer here.



And English version of the mythological name is indeed Gesar.


I'm pretty sure either "a" or "e" version is plausible since the phoneme used in original mongolian is listed as "ə" which can be transliterated as either one.


As a note, the name is ambiguously transliterated even into Russian - I have seen versions of "Гесэр", "Гесер" and even "Кесар"


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

harry potter - Do the Kwikspell courses work?

In Harry Potter we are introduced to Kwikspell course in The Chamber of Secrets (and never hear about it again). We see Filch taking courses, presumably by mail. The descriptions of Kwikspell make me think it is for people who are weak in magic (kind of like how Neville was supposed to be when he was younger), but had magic in them nonetheless. However, Ron's comments later in the chapter make it sound like it is mainly for Squibs to learn magic. However, it is strongly implied through out all the books that Squibs are essentially Muggles, and will never be able to do magic. How then is a Kwikspell course supposed to work? Do we have any information to know if it works at all? Is it a scam? An answer from any level of canon is welcome. Answer Kwikspell courses are (probably) useful to some wizards, but not to squibs. The Kwikspell course literature comes with two testimonials. Madam Z. Nettles of Topsham writes: ‘I had no memory for incantations and my potions were a family joke...
Post a Comment
Read more

futurama - How much time is lost in 'Time Keeps on Slippin''

In time Keeps on Slippin' , Farnsworth creates a basketball team which he matures by abusing Chronitons. This leads to time skipping forward by random, but ever increasing amounts. How much time was skipped in this way? Answer Unfortunately, I don't think a good estimate can be made for this, for two reasons: Many of the time skips move forward by an indeterminate amount of time. At one point, the Professor mentions localized regions of space skipping forward much more than others. We then see two young boys on the street below complaining about having to pay social security, only to suddenly become senior citizens and start complaining about wanting their money. Thus, each individual could have experienced a different amount of time skippage.
Post a Comment
Read more

star wars - What "exactly" happens when someone turns to the Dark Side?

When I saw the original Star Wars saga as a kid, the concept of the Dark Side imprinted in me was quite simple. You did a bad thing, so you're a bad person so you go to the Dark Side and keep doing bad things. Now, obviously this doesn't hold true in reality. In my mind it is perfectly reasonable for Luke to kill the Emperor and Vader and then just flee the Death Star and rejoin the Alliance. After all they are at war, those are enemy officers that have captured him and are taunting him by threatening with death of all loved ones and the whole operation was intended to kill the Emperor anyway. The same would hold true for Anakin. He could have killed Mace Windu to save the Chancellor and Padme but that doesn't mean he's going to then go mad and kill all Jedis including children. It doesn't add up from a merely psychological point of view. He had a set of objectives and that made him want to keep the Chancellor alive (quite valid by the way, Mace Windu is quite clums...
Post a Comment
Read more

languages - Do we ever see written English in the Star Wars films?

In Empire Strikes Back , we see a transcription of what R2's beeps and bloops mean, but it's not English (sorry for the low quality, it's from the 2004 DVDs): I'd assume it's what Basic looks like when written, but is there some point in the the Star Wars films we see written English instead? (This sort of spun off from a discussion in How do people understand astromech droids? .) Answer At one point there was English but it has been phased out in subsequent versions of the films. Chris Gould at DVD Active did a comparison of all versions of each of the Star Wars films, and in his comparison of Episode 4 , there are a couple of screenshots showing how the power gauge for the Death Star tractor beam was changed. I imagine there are probably more to be found in his other comparisons but I haven't got around to reading those yet.
Post a Comment
Read more