traduzione in Inglese

Hello, my translation is intended to be a modern interpretation that can easily be read by any English speaker with minimal jargon/antiquated language. After reading your critique, I changed "must" to "should" in my fourth line for consistency. With that said, I still think your translation misses many things:

"Branch-runes you must learn" misses the connotations of "skaltu." Derivatives of "skulu" exist in many modern Germanic languages as well. For an everyday example, I often see "skal du kontakte din administrator" in Danish, which translates to "[you should] contact your administrator." Most Danish into English translations just omit the "you should" part entirely as it is not necessary to convey the polite command. The reader knows "please learn" is directed towards them, so adding "you" is not required to get the point across.

Adding on to that, "skal" has a polite connotation to it. It implies the politeness of "please" without actually using the equivalent of that word ("venligst" in this case). If you wanted a less polite and more urgent version, you would say "må du kontakte din administrator" in Danish. In Old Norse, I would perhaps translate "þarftu" or "máttu" as "you need" or "you must" rather than "skaltu." The translation you published with "branch-runes, learn," misses the polite suggestion that you should learn them: it is not something you must do or something that is forced upon you.

I feel like "if a healer you would want to be" is the same thing as "if you want to be a healer." Nevertheless, if you want to have an issue with my translation, I will critique yours. Why are you changing the wording to be even less fluent? In this context, I am assuming "vilt" is the 2nd-person singular of "vilja," which is "to want." You could translate it as "if you would like to be a healer" or "if you wish to be a healer," but "if a healer you would want to be" comes off as highly non-idiomatic.

I'll skip the third line. However, I want to add I was also considering translating it as "and know how to take care of wounds." However, I went with "treat" as even if it is not a direct translation, it gets the message to the reader.

"On the bark you should carve" has a second-person the original text does not possess. "Á berki skal þær rísta" has the word "þær" in it, which I believe refers back to "limrúnar." There is no "you" here. "Rìsta" is in the infinitive, and I assume "skal" is referring to "þær" which refers to "limrúnar." If it were in second-person (thus being "you"), it would be "skalt." Moreover, in your published translation, you use "write" instead of "carve," which has a very different connotation. Yet, you used a translation from another website, so I will not add anything further.

"And on trees that be" is not a good translation. "Baðmi" is literary for trees, and "viðar" is a declension of "viðr," which is used for trees, wood, timber, and anything that is or came from a tree. "That be" omits "viðr," and seems like a cop-out for a word for which you did not feel like finding a suitable translation. As long as people realize that runes will be carved into a tree, the translation is functional.

"With boughs to the eastward bent" or "With boughs to the eastward bent" misses the connotation of "lúta." I feel like the original text seeks to poetically give the trees some personality, maybe to show spirituality. "Those who bow down" was an attempt to capture the original spirit of that: imagery of trees like worshippers submitting to something superior, bending eastward. I'm fine if you have an issue with it, though, as it maybe was not the best translation. Of course, you can also debate my interpretation; yet, that was the aura I felt from the text that influenced my translation.

In this case, I was using "þeim" as a pronoun. I have not really seen it used as anything else. So I would certainly not translate it as "with" to refer back to the trees in the preceding line. I had translated "limar" as "limb" originally then "branch;" nevertheless, I ended up changing it to "bough" after seeing that was a prevalent translation for "limar" as well. As long as people are aware that it refers to a tree part.

Finally, my issue lies with your translation being non-idiomatic. I know my translation sounds like a translation, but your translation sounds like someone striving to be literal, and it misses the point of why somebody would use a translation: to understand a text.

English is SVO these days rather than SOV. It is acceptable for translation into an older variety of English, but I was aiming for a modern and functional translation. To say there are a "few things wrong" is a bit objectionable as there are a few things wrong with your translation as well. No translation is ever going to be perfect, especially for poetry. As I said, I was unsure about how I put some things, but ultimately, I felt it was good enough to get the point across.

Additionally, this is from a culture that really does not exist anymore. Sure, there are some "pagans" and their descendants, but they are not authentic to that period. Sadly, we cannot ask the author what their intentions were. So the best any modern translator can do is do research (with mild guesswork) to produce something that can capture enough of the meaning of the text.

I hope I was able to explain myself. If you have any additional questions, comments, or would like to debate further, feel free to respond. :)

EDIT: I realized while I was rewording this, a sentence got moved to the wrong paragraph. It was modified for fluency.