[Loch-Ruadh] Fw: OT--Jabberwocky, in Japanese...Jabuwakku Mono Gatari

[Steve Rourke]

I couldn't resist passing this one along.

Dohmnall


> Culled from the Steps, one of the An Tir mailing lists...
>
> Subject:
>         [STEPS] Jabuwakku Mono Gatari
>    Date:
>         Thu, 18 Jul 2002 12:54:01 -0700
>    From:
>         Andrew Kildow <bardingham at yahoo.com>
>      To:
>         steps at antir.sca.org
>
>
>
>
> Hey, Steppers.
>
> This started out as a letter to Lady Grainne. It was
> promised at Honey War just past, but it got to be so
> involved and so deep that I decided to share it with
> everybody.
>
> I happened to be waxing introspective at this Honey
> War, and James the Obscure asked me what I was
> thinking about. I told him that I was just considering
> my contributions to the Arts of An Tir. "Both of
> them,' I said, "are Jabberwocky in German and
> Jabberwocky in Japanese."
>
> I've taken some mild criticism for doing Jabberwocky
> in any form lately. Alright, then. I admit Jabberwocky
> is somewhat less than strictly period. That is why I
> choose rather to concentrate on what we used to call
> its "periodesque" qualities, those useful elements of
> story and design that make not-really-period poetry
> and songs into good, solid bardic fare. Sir Walter
> Scott and J.R.R. Tolkien have both been good to me at
> bardic, and no bardic I know of has been the worse for
> their input, I assure you. If I still seem to be
> straining things past reason to include Lewis Carrol,
> at least grant me that a kid grabbing a sword and
> going on a quest to rid the community of a monster
> (through feats of mayhem) is medievally plausible.
>
> Originally, as fully set out elsewhere in my bardic
> writings, Jabberwocky in German was a joke. I found a
> copy of it in "The Annotated Alice,' and it suited my
> humor to try floating it past my audience as a dry and
> dusty epic in some Germanic language or other. This
> come on, of course, is made believable by the An
> Tirian Audience's grim acceptance that I have, and
> will again, dredge up something brutally authentic
> from the Dark Ages. The joke was so much fun the first
> time. It was so much fun it got asked for. Then it
> passed into lore. Last year, when I got to Pennsic, I
> got on site and someone said, "Do Jabberwocky in
> German."
>
> You all can thank my brother housecarl, Sven Redbeard,
> Baron of Blatha an Oir, for the newest mutation of my
> Jabberwocky gag. Mistress Isolde, I believe, asked him
> if he would ask me to do Jabberwocky in German for a
> Twelfth-Night bardic show. He said he thought I was
> probably tired of doing that, but he'd ask. Well, he
> asked. Then he said, "But I was thinking, you should
> do it in Japanese." I made some truly excellent
> excuses why I couldn't translate such nonsense into
> Japanese, but history proved me wrong. I can. I did.
> Then I found out there's already a Japanese
> Jabberwocky on the web. I think mine is both
> linguistically and literarily faithful though, and as
> a translator, I get author credit.
>
> The only less good part is, I really want to perform
> it in Japanese garb, and do the Kabuki thing with it.
> Alas, such gift as I have is with words, and not with
> needle and thread. I'm sorry for the culture shock
> that seeing an Angle spout Japanese must cause. If it
> will help you, think of David Bowie's words, "Ziggy
> really sang, screwed-up eyes and screwed-down hairdo,
> like some cat from Japan."
>
> Without further ado, then, I give you Jabberwocky, and
> a lesson in Japanese so you can all read it.
>
> ----------------------------------------
>
> Hey ho! Kermit the Skald, here! Yaaaaaayyyyy!
>
> Sorry about that. Anyway, here's Jabberwocky, in
> Japanese, as translated by myself and edited by a
> friend of mine, Kazuko Tanaka.
>
> Nota bene: Japanese has three writing systems. They
> are usually mixed all together, depending on the
> situation. In ancient times, Japanese scholars admired
> Chinese civilization, and borrowed their writing.
> Kanji (kanji<'Han (dynasty) + ji (letters)'), as the
> Japanese called the characters they borrowed, are used
> to this day, and are seen to reflect the education of
> the person writing or reading them. The characters are
> standing for Japanese words that can be symbolized by
> them. The sounds of Japanese are based on syllables.
> These are seen a little differently than English
> syllables. 'Tokyo,' for example, is pronounced
> 'to-ky-o,' with 3 syllables. In Japanese, it's really
> 2 syllables, 'to-kyo.' 'To' (like 'toe') and 'kyo'
> (like 'k+yo').
>
> The other 2 writing systems are for writing the
> syllables. They are called 'hiragana' and 'katakana.'
> Hiragana is very cursive and round-looking script.
> Hiragana is used for writing Japanese without kanji,
> especially for children. Even when kanji are used for
> all of the words in written Japanese, hiragana is
> still between them for conjunctions, and tacked onto
> them for verb tenses and such. If you see a lot of
> Chinese characters, but there's script too, it's
> educated Japanese. Hiragana may have come before
> kanji; I don't know. Katakana, however, was developed
> from kanji. Katakana is used for telegrams, foreign
> words, like English ones, borrowed into Japanese, and
> comic-book-type sound effects. It's used whenever
> clarity of meaning or pronunciation is more important
> than style.
>
> Japanese can also be written in Roman letters, or
> 'romaji.' This is handy for English speakers.
>
> There are the 5 basic vowels in Japanese, no more, no
> less. A (like 'ah' in 'bah') I (like 'ee' in 'jeep') U
> (like 'oo' in 'spoon') E (like 'ay' in 'hay') O (like
> 'o' in 'bone') The set of syllables that make up a
> syllabic language is called a 'syllabary.' Both
> hiragana and katakana write the following syllables:
>
>  A   I   U   E   O
> Ka  Ki  Ku  Ke  Ko
> Sa  Shi Su  Se  So
> Ta  Chi Tsu Te  To
> Na  Ni  Nu  Ne  No
> Ha  Hi  Fu  He  Ho
> Ma  Mi  Mu  Me  Mo
> Ya  --  Yu  --  Yo
> Ra  Ri  Ru  Re  Ro
> Wa  --  Wu  --  Wo
> N
>
> You may notice 'n' by itself at the bottom. This is
> 'syllabic 'n',' for words that end in 'n' alone. There
> are also 'heavy syllables,' based on the 'y' line:
>
> Kya -- Kyu -- Kyo
> Mya -- Myu -- Myo
> Rya -- Ryu -- Ryo
>
> There are others, but now you can see them.
>
> The syllabary is read left to right, top to bottom.
> The 'm' line, for example, is read just like the
> English words, "ma" "me" "moo" "may" "mow"
>
> In Japanese, the 5 vowels, A, I, U, E and O always
> sound the same. They never change their sounds.
> Sometimes they take twice as long to say, though, and
> then they're called 'long vowels.'  If there are two
> identical vowels side by side, it means you say that
> sound twice as long. Whenever Japanese is written in
> Roman letters, the vowel can be doubled like in one of
> the kanas, or a straight horizontal line can be put
> over a single vowel to show it's doubled. In e-mail,
> it's easier to double the long vowels.
>
> Consonants can be doubled, too, and again, like the
> vowels, it just means that the sound happens longer
> (compare the 'kk' in 'bookkeeper').
>
> I've copied Jabuwakku in Roman letters, below. For
> words that would use katakana, the English nonsense
> ones, I'll use all caps, so you can see them as
> clearly as you would in kana-written Japanese.
>
> Mukashi, BURIRIGU no toki ni,
> SURAIJI no TOOBU wa, GIMBERU-GIMBERU de
> UEBU ni asonde imashita.
> Zembu no MIMUJI no BOROGOBU-tachi wa ita,
> MOMURASSU wa, minna de, AUTOGURAIBU shimashita.
>
> JABUWAKKU no koto wo, musuko ni iite.
> Kamitsuku ha! Surudoi tsume!
> JIABBU-JIABBU dori ni, ki wo tsukete,
> FURUMIASU BANDAASUNACHI ni, chikayoranaide.
>
> Musuko wa, BORAPPORU no katana wo motte itte,
> nagai jikan ookina teki wo sagashimashita.
> Sore kara, TAMU-TAMU ki no shita de,
> kare wa, shibaraku, tatte omoimashita.
>
> Kare ga tatte omotta aida,
> JABAWAKKU wa okota.
> TARUJI no mori wo toote,
> BURA-BURA to kimashita.
>
> Bassa! Bassa! Hashi kara, hashi made,
> BORAPPORU no katana wa SUNIKKA-SUNAKKU to oto wo
> tateta.
> Koroshita mama de, GARAANFUshite,
> atama wo motte kaete ikimashita.
>
> "Hontoo ni, JABUWAKKU wo koroshimashitaka?
> Aa, Soo desu ka? Aa soo desu ka?
> Banzai! Banzai!" to tachi agarimashita.
> Chi chi wa, nikkori to waraimashita.
>
> Mukashi, BURIRIGU no toki ni,
> SURAIJI no TOOBU wa, GIMBERU-GIMBERU de
> UEBU ni asonde imashita.
> Zembu no MIMUJI no BOROGOBU-tachi wa ita,
> MOMURASSU wa, minna de, AUTOGURAIBU shimashita.
>
> c. 2001 Andrew Kildow
>
>
> --
> Ulfredsheim household member, An Tir
> http://www.currentmiddleages.org/ulfredsheim/index.html
> http://www.currentmiddleages.org/tents


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