Israeli MY FAIR LADY and translation problems
Matthew Winn
an unbelievable amount of time listening to the radio, and in the
process I happened across a report on Kol Israel about an Israeli
production of MY FAIR LADY in Hebrew.
They claim that the combination of the language and the culture of the
country in which the show is presented offers no equivalent of Cockney
dialect. Although they would know better than I and I'm hardly in a
position to doubt their word, it seems rather strange that there's no
low-class, low-prestige accent and slang vocabulary available. In
this case they worked around the problem by borrowing on the invented
vocabulary of young children to create their own representation of
ungrammatical London slang. I can't help wondering how well it works.
Has anyone come across similar faking to emulate some aspect of the
source material which doesn't exist in the target culture, and if so,
is it effective or merely jarring?
Matthew
Robert Elisberg
> process I happened across a report on Kol Israel about an Israeli
> production of MY FAIR LADY in Hebrew.
>
> country in which the show is presented offers no equivalent of Cockney
> ...Has anyone come across similar faking to emulate some aspect of the
> source material which doesn't exist in the target culture, and if so,
> is it effective or merely jarring?
This doesn't speak to your question exactly, but --
I have a copy of the original Israeli cast album for "My Fair Lady" done
decades ago, but in Yiddish. Perhaps there's something about that
particular language, as a sort of amalgam of European languages, that
allowed for the Cockney equivalent, or...who knows? But all I can say (and
this is based on not speaking Yiddish) is that the show comes off
wonderfully. Almost identical musical arrangements and a sensibility of the
actors that catches the spirit of the show extremely well. Then again, this
is purely a language matter and would seem to have absolutely nothing to do
with "the culture of the country" mentioned above, since that would be
identical whether spoken in Hebrew or Yiddish.
(Tangetially, I also have the original Italian cast album. Same
arrangements, quite nice, but it doesn't capture the spirit of the show
nearly as well. There's a sensibility that sounds much too romantic for the
misogynist Higgins.)
Side note: both albums use the original Hirschfield/GBS drawing for the
album's cover art. A third version I have -- the German one -- does not use
the drawing, but rather a photo from the production. Interestingly, the
back of the album goes to great length to feature the conductor of the show,
even to the degree of including a photo -- surprising, until you realize
that it's Franz Allers. Obviously, the music of this version is spot on.
The German version works respectably as I recall, though the Israeli one is
still the best of the three by far.
The Plane Guy
Israeli MY FAIR LADY and translation problems
The Plane Guy repies:
I'm sorry but I'm going to p.o. some of you people,. I got book from
the library in which the author reviewed many, many recodings of
musicals. This is the p.o. part-I don't remember the title or the
author, Maybe one of you experts may know which book I'm talking about.
Anyway I was surprised and delighted at how many foregn language
recordings he considered the best recordings. There were many Israeli
cast recordngs that made the best.
R M
I found "Fiddler" in Yiddish a couple of years ago. Certainly _not_ as
delightful as the OBCR, and it _is_ a cultural match, so it's not
against the grain, or anything like that. But, even though I have no
idea what the actual words mean (other than the genreral jist, knowing
well the book/score), I still find it to be effective...more than,
really...I actually love it. Jarred me a bit at first (hearing such
familiar showtunes in Yiddish), but it quikcly grew on me, and now I'm
hooked. It's a really charming version....some wondreful voices, too.
Alex.
Henry Sullivan
Maybe the book The Plane Guy remembers is "The Blackwell Guide to the
Musical Theatre on Record" by Kurt Gänzl. It's in my local library.
Meron Lavie
news:1r9hiusemkoumcf8i...@4ax.com...
Well, we do have such an accent/vocabulary in Israel. It is the accent of
the 1950's immigrants who came from the Middle East (as opposed to the
1920s-1940's immigrants from Europe). However, it would be so politically
incorrect to use that accent to artificially represent the lower class of a
foreign (e.g., British) culture (thus implying that it is the epitome of
international "lower-classedness") that all hell would break loose. For
those of you who don't get much news, Israel has enough problems as it is...
Of course, the "class" of an accent is exceedingly subjective and
artificial. No accent is inherently lower-class. Amazingly enough, the
"lower class" Israeli accent is the objectively historically correct
pronunciation of Hebrew.
--
FYI
Meron Lavie
la...@net2vision.net.il
NOTE: THERE IS NO "2" IN MY REAL EMAIL ADDRESS: ANTI-SPAM!!!
efrex
> an unbelievable amount of time listening to the radio, and in the
> process I happened across a report on Kol Israel about an Israeli
> production of MY FAIR LADY in Hebrew.
Btw, a recording is available at Footlight Records, and I think it's
fantastic... easily one of the best Israeli cast recordings out there.
>
> They claim that the combination of the language and the culture of the
> country in which the show is presented offers no equivalent of Cockney
> dialect. Although they would know better than I and I'm hardly in a
> position to doubt their word, it seems rather strange that there's no
> low-class, low-prestige accent and slang vocabulary available.
Well, contemporary Hebrew has so many accents that very few of them
are associated with class structure. They did make a distinction
between Liza's guttural "r" sound and Higgins's rolling "r" (which is
more common in Hebrew amongst native French speakers, I believe, and
definitely sounds less harsh.)
In
> this case they worked around the problem by borrowing on the invented
> vocabulary of young children to create their own representation of
> ungrammatical London slang. I can't help wondering how well it works.
It works amazingly well. "The Rain in Spain" translated as "Barad
Yarad B'Drom Sfarad Ha'Erev" (lit. "Hail fell in southern spain this
evening")... each word has the troublesome "r" sound, the translation
is close enough, and they even got three of the four rhymes in!
> Has anyone come across similar faking to emulate some aspect of the
> source material which doesn't exist in the target culture, and if so,
> is it effective or merely jarring?
>
As I'm most familiar with Israeli recordings, I'll mention some
examples of this from that aspect:
1) The Israeli Les Miserables has some very interesting things going
on in "Master of the House:" There aren't any real obscene terms in
Hebrew (most Israelis therefore know at least a handful of George
Carlin's "little seven words" in English), and the "Thinks he's quite
a lover but there's not much there" line became "Plays 'polo' but
finishes quickly" (I didn't know that "polo" was a euphemism, but Mme.
Thernadier doesn't strike me as the euphemistic type)... it still
works, though (Israeli's may not do dirty language, but bawdy humor is
always welcome)
2) the Israeli Cabaret has to try to find Hebrew antisemitic
statements; I don't know if they did "Tomorrow Belongs to Me" (it's
not on the recording), but in the tag line "If You Could See Her" the
word "Jewish" is translated "Jude" (the German word, rather than the
Hebrew "yehudi"). Good choice, and it makes the song ending all the
more jarring
3) Believe it or not, the weakest Israeli cast recording that I've
heard so far is "Fiddler." Yiddish stylings just don't translate well
into Hebrew. "If I was a Rothschild" doesn't do it for me, as just one
example.
I worked on a Hebrew version of "Rent" for my own amusement, and
didn't even come close to figuring out how I'd handle "La Vie Boheme."
:)
Great post! I hope to hear what others have to bring to the mix.
Elan
ifrex AT aol DOT com
Dan Sternberg
news:7720-3D2...@storefull-2394.public.lawson.webtv.net...
> I found "Fiddler" in Yiddish a couple of years ago. Certainly _not_ as
> delightful as the OBCR, and it _is_ a cultural match, so it's not
> against the grain, or anything like that.
I got that CD for my parents as an anniversary gift. I do understand Yiddish
and I can honestly say that not only is it a cultural match, some of the
jokes are funnier (based on word repetitions) and the music is a perfect
match. The latter is no small feat. I also got the German CD with the same
Tevye (Shmuel Rodensky) and it doesn't work as well. A shame.
-Dan
ZiggyBway
"My Fair Lady" which borrowed extensively from the version which played in
Israel. Of course this was high school so we didn't really explore the
possbilities of developing a lower class Hebrew slang and instead, Doolittle &
Co. simply intoned their Hebrew with a cockney accent and Higgins (me) and
Pickering intoned their Hebrew with a proper British accent. Not terribly
creative, but the show went over quite well. For those who know Hebrew,
definitely check the recording out as the rhymes in "Why Can't the British" and
"Hymn to Him" are absolutely astounding in a number of places.
And just to add my $0.02 on the Les Miz front, the Israeli recording is one of
my faves of the many versions of Les Miz I own -- it's no wonder that Dudu
Fisher was one of Cameron Mackintosh's all-time favorite Valjeans. One of the
best pure singers the show has ever seen.
Ziggy
R M
delightful as the OBCR, and it _is_ a cultural match, so it's not
against the grain, or anything like that.>>
<<I got that CD for my parents as an anniversary gift. I do understand
Yiddish and I can honestly say that not only is it a cultural match,
some of the jokes are funnier (based on word repetitions) and the music
is a perfect match. The latter is no small feat. I also got the German
CD with the same Tevye (Shmuel Rodensky) and it doesn't work as well. A
shame.
-Dan>>
I wish I could find a good Yiddish instructor to learn the lingo
(probably as easy as finding a present-day buddha...). I always found
the sound of the language to be more engaging and colorful than,
perhaps, any other language. Not at all surprised that the humor comes
off so well. And I'm glad to hear so, Just wish I could understand so!
Funny what you say about giving it to your folks. I certainly hope they
enjoyed it. I made a tape for my dad, who knows Yiddish, and who loves
the show, but he rebuffed it. What the hell, he's a putz. (And not
because he didn't like it--he's just a putz, in general, and he doesn't
even know this group exists, so I'm safe, here--he's a pretty scary
dude, but he's on his last leg, and we're all _trying_ to bring him a
bit of peace--with frustrating futility--but that's another story....).
Alex.
Matthew Winn
> It works amazingly well. "The Rain in Spain" translated as "Barad
> Yarad B'Drom Sfarad Ha'Erev" (lit. "Hail fell in southern spain this
> evening")... each word has the troublesome "r" sound, the translation
> is close enough, and they even got three of the four rhymes in!
In the broadcast they did actually mention that line, but didn't say
what it meant. The rhyming and rhythm certainly sounded effective and
felt very close to the English version, but as I didn't understand a
word of the language I couldn't be sure how it would come across to
its intended audience.
Thanks for all the details.
Matthew
Meron Lavie
grammatical error in the Hebrew in this posting. It should be:
"Barad Yarad Bi'Drom Sfarad Ha'Erev"
--
Meron Lavie
la...@net2vision.net.il
NOTE: THERE IS NO "2" IN MY REAL EMAIL ADDRESS: ANTI-SPAM!!!
"Matthew Winn" <mat...@mwinn.powernet.co.uk> wrote in message
news:q3voius6apnnre4nj...@4ax.com...
Faye Rhonda Newport
Re: Israeli MY FAIR LADY and translation problems
It works amazingly well. "The Rain in Spain" translated as "Barad Yarad
B'Drom Sfarad Ha'Erev" (lit. "Hail fell in southern spain this
evening")... each word has the troublesome "r" sound, the translation is
close enough, and they even got three of the four rhymes in!
This comment (and this thread) takes me back some thirty-mumble years to
the dear old days in Camp Ramah (Glen Spey (sp?), NY -- long gone) and
our home-translated musicals. The first MAN OF LA MANCHA I ever saw was
in Hebrew, as well as my first live PETER PAN.
Most memorable, however, was my own first appearance in a "real
musical" as a mustachioed member of the Policemen's Chorus in Gilbert
and Sullivan's SHOD'DEI PENZANCE. I still remember bits and pieces of
the tongue-tangling lyrics, and the fact that the Major-
General's song was presented in English.
But best of all, the musical director was unable to find a singable
Hebrew word or phrase meaning "paradox". After much perspiration, came
inspiration -- he had the Pirate King and Frederick sing about "Zug
B'arvazim" - "A Pair of Ducks"! And the song is indelibly engraved on
my memory in just this form.
Yours in nostalgia,
~~~Rhonda
P.S. - Hi, Drummboat! Thanks for the kiss-up, er, the kind words
<demure smile and fluttering of eyelashes>.
ZiggyBway
Truly the most enjoyable post I've read on here in a long time -- now a lapsed
Jew, but raised Orthodox with 12 years of yeshiva to show for it and veteran of
any number of musicals in translation. "Zug Barvazim" is about the funniest
thing I've ever heard. If you like that though, you check out "Der Yiddisher
Pinafore" -- frankly, I don't speak Yiddish (though I'm fluent in Hebrew) but
even without a working knowledge of the language it's impossible to miss how
ingenious the translation is.
Best,
ziggy
Faye Rhonda Newport
Re: Israeli MY FAIR LADY and translation problems
From: zigg...@aol.com (ZiggyBway)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Thanks, Ziggy! I've forgotten most of my Hebrew (except the prayers and
songs, of course), but in working with seniors I've been learning more
Yiddish than my parents ever taught me. (How else could they have had
private talk in front of Der Kinder?)
I haven't seen "Der Yiddishe Pinafore", but, as Activity Director in a
large non-profit Jewish nursing home in North Jersey, I was able to
contract that same company to bring in "Der Yiddishe Mikado" one year,
and a Yiddish "Penzance" (I forget *their* title) the next.
Highlights included, in MIKADO, a "Tit-Willow" in which the refrain was
"Oy Vey's Mir, Oy Vey's Mir, Oy Vey's Mir" (which, of course. became a
sing-along by the second repetition) and, in "PENZANCE", a
Major-General's song in which the actor eventually threw up his hands
and launched into a rousing rendition of "Rumania!" -- a famous
Yiddish vaudeville comic turn all about eating, drinking, "digga digga
dum" and "zetz!" (Need I tell you how much the alta kakkers loved it?)
I guess when a thing just doesn't translate, it might as well
immigrate.
~~~~~~~~~~
Laila tov, (Schlof gezunt)
Tzipporah-Rachael (Faygah-Ruchel)
aka - "The Bird-Lady"
Bill
<< P.S. - Hi, Drummboat! Thanks for the kiss-up, er, the kind words
<demure smile and fluttering of eyelashes>. >>
..........................
Back atcha, Rhondababe!
"A Pair of Ducks" --- very funny!
Drumm
CyberMole
the "To," "Cc," and "Newsgroups" headers for details. ]]
In article <da64bfb9.02070...@posting.google.com>, efrex
<if...@aol.com> wrote:
> Matthew Winn <mat...@mwinn.powernet.co.uk> wrote in message
> news:<1r9hiusemkoumcf8i...@4ax.com>...
> > Having spent most of last week off work with a back injury I've spent
> > an unbelievable amount of time listening to the radio, and in the
> > process I happened across a report on Kol Israel about an Israeli
> > production of MY FAIR LADY in Hebrew.
>
> Btw, a recording is available at Footlight Records, and I think it's
> fantastic... easily one of the best Israeli cast recordings out there.
> >
> > They claim that the combination of the language and the culture of the
> > country in which the show is presented offers no equivalent of Cockney
> > dialect. Although they would know better than I and I'm hardly in a
> > position to doubt their word, it seems rather strange that there's no
> > low-class, low-prestige accent and slang vocabulary available.
>
> Well, contemporary Hebrew has so many accents that very few of them
> are associated with class structure. They did make a distinction
> between Liza's guttural "r" sound and Higgins's rolling "r" (which is
> more common in Hebrew amongst native French speakers, I believe, and
> definitely sounds less harsh.)
Israeli Hebrew has a direct parallel (in sound) to Cockney English in
one sense: the Tel Aviv accent some consider chic and others consider a
target for pointed humor drops the "h" sound at the beginnings of
syllables, just as Cockney English does, and sometimes even adds the
"h" sound at the beginning of syllables which open with vowels, again
as Cockney English does.
The comment elsewhere in this thread, but not quoted here, about how
politically explosive it would be to present the accent of those Hebrew
speakers whose ancestry is in Arabic speaking countries as "lower
class" is well taken. It would ignite an uproar and would probably draw
unfavorable comment on television and in the Knesset.
I don't understand the comment on Liza's guttural "r" versus Higgins's
rolling "r," though I know the recording. The trilled "r" (as heard in
Arabic) is the sound native to Hebrew; the uvular "r" used in Israel
today is of European origin and is heard in Galician Yiddish and in
many dialects of German.
The funny thing is that that sound was probably once part of Hebrew but
was associated with a different letter: the 'ayin. There were once two
ayin sounds in Hebrew, one which survives but is not always pronounced
by all speakers (along the accent lines one paragraph back) and one
which survives in Arabic as "ghayin" but doesn't survive in modern
Hebrew. When the Greeks heard the city name "Akko," they heard a
different sound from what they heard in "Gomorrah," though both are
spelled with the same letter in Hebrew.
> In
> > this case they worked around the problem by borrowing on the invented
> > vocabulary of young children to create their own representation of
> > ungrammatical London slang. I can't help wondering how well it works.
>
> It works amazingly well. "The Rain in Spain" translated as "Barad
> Yarad B'Drom Sfarad Ha'Erev" (lit. "Hail fell in southern spain this
> evening")... each word has the troublesome "r" sound, the translation
> is close enough, and they even got three of the four rhymes in!
I think the Hebrew translation of MY FAIR LADY only works occasionally,
in lines like the one cited above. Too often, it merely renders
Higgins' English as stilted and high-falutin' Hebrew reminiscent of the
stilted translations of childrens' works to which the writer refers. I
read Hebrew (from Biblical to medieval to modern) fluently; the single
body of literature I find almost impossible to get through is
childrens' literature, perhaps because modern childrens' literature in
other languages was rendered into Hebrew by the revivers of the
language about a century ago, and they had no model of more natural
children's literature upon which to base their work. Imagine the work
of J.M. Barrie as if it had been written by G.B. Shaw, and you'll get
the effect.
The Yiddish version of MY FAIR LADY comes across less as stilted, but
as more an adaptation of the material to Yiddish sensibilities and
humor than a translation. It somehow has more life than the Hebrew
version, though.
>
> > Has anyone come across similar faking to emulate some aspect of the
> > source material which doesn't exist in the target culture, and if so,
> > is it effective or merely jarring?
> >
>
> As I'm most familiar with Israeli recordings, I'll mention some
> examples of this from that aspect:
>
> 1) The Israeli Les Miserables has some very interesting things going
> on in "Master of the House:" There aren't any real obscene terms in
> Hebrew (most Israelis therefore know at least a handful of George
> Carlin's "little seven words" in English), and the "Thinks he's quite
> a lover but there's not much there" line became "Plays 'polo' but
> finishes quickly" (I didn't know that "polo" was a euphemism, but Mme.
> Thernadier doesn't strike me as the euphemistic type)... it still
> works, though (Israeli's may not do dirty language, but bawdy humor is
> always welcome)
The LES MISERABLES translation is a pretty good one; not all shows are
translated that well.
>
> 2) the Israeli Cabaret has to try to find Hebrew antisemitic
> statements; I don't know if they did "Tomorrow Belongs to Me" (it's
> not on the recording), but in the tag line "If You Could See Her" the
> word "Jewish" is translated "Jude" (the German word, rather than the
> Hebrew "yehudi"). Good choice, and it makes the song ending all the
> more jarring
>
> 3) Believe it or not, the weakest Israeli cast recording that I've
> heard so far is "Fiddler." Yiddish stylings just don't translate well
> into Hebrew. "If I was a Rothschild" doesn't do it for me, as just one
> example.
The funny thing here is that THAT IS the original line (title, really)
by Sholem Aleikhem on which "If I Were a Rich Man" was based. The
Broadway production team were worried about the show being too ethnic -
and many producers and angels did not participate on those very
grounds.
Also, there had fairly recently been a lawsuit that probably seemed to
set a precedent in New York: Chock Full of Nuts had run a TV and radi
commercial with the line, "Better coffee Rockefeller's money can't
buy," and after litigation the commercial was altered to "Better coffee
a millionaire's money can't buy."
To anyone who knows the very sophisticated Yiddish stories of Sholem
Aleikhem on which FIDDLER ON THE ROOF is based, it's clear that the
Broadway musical was simplified (or dumbed down, depending upon your
point of view) to make it less ethnic and more universal. This was
before the Six Day War, which radically altered Jewish self-perception
and the public attitude toward Jews in the United States.
>
> I worked on a Hebrew version of "Rent" for my own amusement, and
> didn't even come close to figuring out how I'd handle "La Vie Boheme."
> :)
Notice that "La Boheme" is called "La Boheme" in Israel...
Interesting comments, Elan!
Dan Sternberg
news:24801-3D3...@storefull-2217.public.lawson.webtv.net...
>(Need I tell you how much the alta kakkers loved it?)
Now I know what I'll call my pet Cocker Spanial! Alter!!!
-Dan