Documenti di Didattica
Documenti di Professioni
Documenti di Cultura
Translating African-American
Vernacular English into German:
The problem of `Jim' in Mark Twain's
Huckleberry Finn1
Raphael Berthele
University of Fribourg, Switzerland
This paper focuses on the most important problem translators are faced with
when translating Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn into German: how can the
speech of the African-American character Jim be rendered? When translating
Jim's passages substantial problems arise because there is no exact German
equivalent of AAVE. This paper examines both orthographic and other linguistic strategies to dierentiate Jim's voice over the last hundred years. This
historical analysis shows that in most translations before the 1960s, these
strategies downgrade Jim's linguistic and cognitive faculties, depicting his
speech as a grammatically simplied pidgin. More contemporary translations,
however, opt for devices that depict Jim in colloquial and spoken language that
does not carry the same amount of sociolinguistic stigma. Thus, changing
translation techniques shed light on prevailing attitudes toward non-standard
varieties of both German and English.
INTRODUCTION
The fundamental intent of every literary translation is to strive for maximum
equivalence of source text and target text (Catford 1974: 27). However,
translation theory is still grappling with how to dene `equivalence' (Wilss
1980: 156.) or `authenticity' (Meid 1993: 449) towards the original text on
both the denotational and connotational levels. Probably one of the most dicult
tasks for a literary translator is to nd target-language equivalents for dialectal or
sociolectal speech in the source text. This kind of translation engages the
translator's understanding of the complex set of sociolinguistic relationships
between varieties in both the source and the target language. These include:
1. the sociolinguistic relationship of standard and non-standard sourcelanguage varieties;
# Published by Blackwell Publishers Ltd. 2000
108 Cowley Road, Oxford OX4 1JF, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden MA 02148, USA.
589
590
BERTHELE
personal familiarity with these several forms of speech' (Twain [1884] 1988:
lvii). In other words, he identies his dialect use as a deliberate choice motivated
by the goal of literary realism. The authenticity of his regionally rooted Missouri
characters is created and explicitly signaled by written representations of
how they `really' speak.
According to contemporary reviews (Hutchinson 1993: 122), these eorts
were considered successful. Holton's assessment `Mark Twain's representation
of Jim's dialect is certainly extremely well done' (1984: 88) is representative of
many modern evaluations of this aspect of Twain's work. Considerable work
has already been done to locate the dialects in Twain's book (cf. Roulon 1967;
Carkeet 1979; Fisher Fishkin 1993; Southard/Muller 1993), and there is no
consensus about the number of distinguishable dialects in Huckleberry Finn. For
the purposes of this discussion, I will leave aside the question of how accurately
Twain's literary dialect represented 1840 AAVE in Missouri. The important and
undisputed fact is that there is a big dierence between the dialect of black and
white people in Twain's novel.2
The relativity of sociolinguistic prestige
It is possible that what Preston writes about folkloric transcriptions that almost
every respelling (non-standard spelling) makes the reader `feel to be critical of the
speaker' (1982: 322) also applies to literature such as the novel in the scope of
this paper. This is because respellings are a cue for dialectal variation, and
dialectal variation is almost invariably linked to social hierarchy and dierentiation which relegates those who do not speak `the standard' to a lower position.
Yet the meanings of dialectal variation are not limited to the opposition
between `high' and `low' prestige, because dialectal variation is also sociolinguistically linked to other sources of social value than `prestige'. Not only can
non-standard dialects have in-group value (`covert prestige' Trudgill 1972,
1983: 85), but they also obtain value relative to other non-standard forms and
their speakers. In opposition to the `standard', non-standard speech can also
have positive moral connotations, establishing the speaker as `natural', sincere,
without artice. Seen from a normative point of view, almost none of the
characters in Twain's text speak a `pure' prestige variety. I take the position,
therefore, that to understand the meaning of non-standard spellings in a literary
text in general, and in particular, the sociolinguistic meaning of the major
strategies of translating Jim's speech, one must consider them in relation to:
1. the speech of the other characters in the novel;
2. the history of the use of sociolectal, dialectal and stylistic variation in
German literature;
3. editor's or translator's comments in prefaces, afterwords and blurbs;
4. passages in translators' manuals that deal with the translation of dialects,
sociolects or ethnolects.
# Blackwell Publishers Ltd. 2000
591
592
BERTHELE
Jim4
n Niggerhandlah (Harranth)
kriegen-n (Koch)
Kuferladn (Harranth)
isnich (Harranth)
auf 'm (Rathjen)
English
a nigger trader
get him
cooper shop
is not
on the
593
In German literary texts, there is quite a long tradition of rendering sound loss
through spelling. The following two brief examples illustrate my more general
observation that in German-language literature, the use of the loss device
generally characterizes spoken language and colloquial style, and is often (but
not categorically) used for the speech of persons belonging to lower social
classes. Examples 612 are taken from Theodor Fontane's novel Stine, and show
how loss is typically used in realistic literature to represent spoken language
(the examples are all from direct speech uttered in rather informal contexts):
Tokens from the speech of `Lierschen', a lower-class woman (Fontane [1890] 1973a: 175):
SHG
English
6. nich
nicht
not
7. un
und
and
8. is
ist
is
9. Sep'ratschlussel Separatschlussel reserve key
10. grad
gerade
just
Tokens from the speech of `the Count' (Fontane [1890] 1973a: 208):
11. hab
habe
have
12. wie's
wie es
how it
Fontane's novel is set in the Berlin of the late 19th century, and the lowerclass characters show typical features of the local urban vernacular. While
sound loss is used in the examples above to represent the speech of both low and
high-status characters, there are some dierences in the salience of the losses
marked for the person of lower social rank. Examples 11 and 12 in the count's
speech stand for quite conventional and stylistically almost unmarked phenomena such as the apocope of the unstressed 5-e4 and the clitization of the
pronoun `es'. In contrast, the loss of the nal consonant of `nicht' and `und' in
the woman's speech (examples 6 and 7) are less conventional and therefore,
more salient indices of colloquial, `sloppy' and uneducated pronunciation.
In the translation corpus, we see that the apostrophe as a means to indicate
sound loss5 is used to a very varying extent. Many translators do not set the
apostrophe every time sound loss occurs, as Table 1 shows clearly. If sound loss
is frequent in a certain text it can give the type a very unusual appearance, as in
the case of the recent translation by Rathjen:
Table 1: Sound loss in two translations
Harranth
is
s
n
nich
# Blackwell Publishers Ltd. 2000
Rathjen
SHG
English
is'
's
'n
nich'
ist
es
ein
nicht
is
it
a (indef. art.)
not
594
BERTHELE
13. Na ja, weisst, is' so 'elaufen. Die olle Missus 'ch mein Miss Watson die hackt 'n
daue'nd auf mir rum un' 'ehand' 'lt mich ziem 'ich gropp, a 'er hat imme' 'esagt,
dasse mich nie runter nach Orleans v'scherbeln wurd. A 'er 'ch hab 'emerkt, da wa'
'n Niggerhan'ler inner Geg'nd am Rumtreib'n neu'ich, und wird mir langsam
mulmich. (Rathjen, see appendix, 13)
Rathjen makes an extensive use of the loss device, indicating each `loss' with
an apostrophe. This extensive use of sound loss makes Jim's account barely
legible the reader almost has to read the passage aloud in order to understand
it. Signicantly, the consonantal losses (a'er for `aber', 'elaufen for `gelaufen',
'ehandelt for `behandelt' etc.) are not reminiscent of fast, colloquial speech or of
any other variety of German and I could not nd any German literary texts
which make a comparably striking and unconventional use of loss. The density
and rather strange use of orthographic devices here actually generates a very
articial variety, both from the graphical and from the (presumed) acoustic
point of view.
By way of comparison, the passage quoted above appears in Harranth's
translation as follows:
14. Nu, siehsdu, s kam so: Die alte Missus wo Missus Watson is immah hacktsie auf
mir rum und nimmt mich machtich hart ran, hat abah auch immah gesagt, sie
verkauft mich nich nach Orleans runter. Nu seh ich abah schon die langste Zeit n
Niggerhandlah in unsre Gegend, und da hab ich angefangt mit Angst kriegn.
(Harranth, see appendix, 13)
In Harranth's text, the loss device is applied in a more modest way and is not
marked with an apostrophe, which makes his text more legible and uent.
Overall, we can see that while sound loss has been used from the early German
translations onwards, its frequency and salience increases in the more recent
translations.
Reanalysis
Preston (1982: 325) distinguishes between three forms of reanalysis: metathesis (pert' for `pretty'), clitization (kinda) and phrasal groups (godamighty).
Metathesis is quite frequent in Twain's original text (e.g. appendix, 2: awluz).
I did not, however, nd any examples of clitization that go beyond the standard
forms (dey'd'), and there are also no phrasal groups. In the German translation
corpus there are no cases of metathesis, but there are a few tokens representing
respelled phrasal groups (cf. ex. 19, 20). Clitization (ex. 1518) however is quite
frequent in the more recent texts, as the following examples show:
15.
16.
17.
18.
Jim
sagich (Harranth)
hamse (Rathjen)
mit'm (Rathjen)
inner (Rathjen, Harranth)
SHG
sag(e) ich
haben sie
mit dem
in der
English
I say
they have
with the
in the
# Blackwell Publishers Ltd. 2000
595
However, this feature has not been used frequently in the years since Koch's
translation (cf. Figure 1 below). In Schonfeldt's text I found only one token (solls
= `soll es') and it is only with the recent attempts by Harranth and Rathjen that
reanalysis is used more frequently and for more interesting purposes:
22.
23.
24.
25.
Harranth
siehsdu
hacktsie
wos
vonnem
SHG
siehst du
hackt sie
wo es
von dem
English
you see (see app., 1)
she pecks (see app., 1)
where it (see app., 11)
of the (see app., 12)
Modication
The category of `modication' in the corpus is visible in the orthographic
representation of coarticulation and assimilation. Very often modication
occurs together with sound loss or reanalysis (cf. Preston 1982: 325), and
the more frequent the depicted phonological processes are, the more modication results in eye-dialect-like orthographies. Although it is not always
possible to distinguish `standard' modications from `non-standard' ones,
some of the orthographically marked modications in both Twain's original
text and some of the translations index phonological deviation from the
standard pronunciation.
Modication is one of the characteristic features of Twain's spelling of the Jim
passages (cf. appendix): dey = `there'; er = `or'; mawnin = `morning'; doan' =
`don't'; dah = `there'. In the corpus of Twain translations, however, modication
# Blackwell Publishers Ltd. 2000
596
BERTHELE
appears only in the latest texts. It is almost always combined with the
reanalysis/phrasal groups feature.
30.
31.
32.
33.
34.
Jim
vonnem Mord (Harranth)
hamse (Rathjen)
weisste (Rathjen)
inner (Rathjen, Harranth)
gropp (Rathjen)
SHG
von dem Mord
haben sie
weisst du
in der
grob
English
of the murder
they have
you know
in the
coarse
As none of the German translations with the exception of Wurth opts for a
consequent dialect translation of Jim's passages, modication is not used for the
orthographic equivalent of phonetic dierences between German dialects. All
examples quoted above stand for colloquial, maybe quick but denitely nearstandard speech.
Looking again for models from German literature, we nd examples of
modication beginning with the realists. In Fontane (cited above), modication
is the third most frequently used orthographic strategy to characterize dialectal
speech or the speech of lower social classes (e.g. haste for `hast du' [you have]
and gehste for `gehst du' [you go] Fontane [1890] 1973a: 177f.).
Eye dialect
Just as in the English original (wuz = `was', Illinoi = 'Illinois', see appendix, 25),
the translator may use a device generally called `eye dialect': familiar words are
respelled in a way that violates orthographic norms but, in contrast to the
strategies mentioned so far, does not reveal any particularities of pronunciation,
style, dialect or sociolect. In this sense `eye dialect' really has `no signicance
whatever to the scientic student of speech' (Krapp 1971: 29). As an
orthographic deviation from the norm, however, eye dialect may well have
signicance for the sociolinguistic analysis of literary speech forms. Eye dialect
can be used to portray characters who are supposed to speak dierently (than
other characters, than the standard language) without really having them
speak dierently. The eect of dierence is limited to the graphic appearance of
the text. This dierence on the spelling surface may not a priori signify a
devaluation of a certain character but is nevertheless subject to sociolinguistic
reallocation. Examples of eye dialect in the translations are:
35.
36.
37.
38.
39.
40.
41.
Jim
abah (Harranth)
Ufah (Kruger)
machtich (Harranth)
mulmich (Rathjen)
wahten (Eger)
duh (Eger)
guht (Eger)
SHG
aber
Ufer
machtig
mulmig
waten
du
gut
English
but
bank of the river
mighty
uneasy
to wade
you
good
# Blackwell Publishers Ltd. 2000
597
This respelling does not resemble any German variety; it may be the
translator's attempt to transcribe an idiosyncratic pronunciation feature in
# Blackwell Publishers Ltd. 2000
598
BERTHELE
the highly decient learner language (see below) he assigns to Jim's character. It
is uncertain if this token is an intended violation of German spelling because all
the rest of Jim's narration is, as far as spelling is concerned, highly accurate.
Another rather enigmatic case is the use of the English spelling for the German
preposition fur:
44. Legen sich Jim in die Schilf for [fur/for] zum Warten. (Koch, see appendix, 14)
I am not quite sure about the intended eect of this transfer from English.
Example 46 probably stands for German-accent pronunciations of the English
word; 47 could be motivated by the original spelling in Twain's text (`genlmen',
cf. appendix, 11). This transfer could be the attempt to introduce some elements
of the source language in the German text to remind the reader of the text's
origins. Alternatively, the misspellings could indicate a speaker who is not
cosmopolitan because he cannot pronounce foreign words properly.
In sum, clear-cut instances of spelling mistakes that mark their speakers as
linguistically decient are rare and haphazard in this corpus. Alone, they are
dicult to interpret; we have to see how they are used in conjunction with nonstandard elements above the orthographic level.
NON-STANDARD ELEMENTS ABOVE THE ORTHOGRAPHIC LEVEL
Lexical features
The category `colloquial words' does not need much further explanation: all
translators more or less frequently choose words that tend to be avoided in
careful speech. Examples are:
Standard spelling
48. zappeldustah (Harranth) zappelduster
49. stocknstr (Harranth)
stocknster
50. verdrucken (Schonfeldt)
English
pitch-dark
pitch-dark
to slip away
# Blackwell Publishers Ltd. 2000
verscherbeln
599
to slip away
to slip away
to og
Jim
und Stromung sind reissend
gewesen (Schloss)
[and the torrent were raging]
sindn ganze (=nominative instead
of accusative) Tag weg (Harranth,
cf. appendix, 15)
Standard Form
und die Stromung ist
reissend gewesen
[and the torrent was raging]
sind den ganzen Tag weg
600
56. gender:
BERTHELE
die Platz (= feminine article
instead of masculine; Schloss)
der Platz
[the place]
601
Standard syntax
Bob macht nur Spass,
schonen Spass! Bob wird
doch den Indianer nicht
iehen lassen, wenn er
auf ihn aufpassen soll!
My translation
Bob only kidding,
nice kidding! Bob
not going to let
escape Indian, if
he must keep an
eye on him!
Bob's speech is not only full of innitives but also exhibits other grammatical
errors such as wrong word order and missing articles. `Bob' in May's novel is
the characteristic loyal, good-hearted but quite dull-witted slave, who makes
everybody laugh with his ridiculous way of talking and acting.
There is another early and particularly revealing parallel to the syntactic
features described here: the play `Weh dem, der lugt', written in the 1830s by the
Austrian poet Franz Grillparzer. A character named Galomir speaks in a way that
parallels strongly the examples cited above (Grillparzer [1840] 1960: 237):
61. Noch einmal rufen. [. . .] Hup! [. . .] Ah! Niemand horen.
[Call again.
Nobody hear.]
Twain
I knowed (see
appendix, 15)
602
BERTHELE
Syntactic features
The most frequently used devices to mark Jim's speech syntactically are
violations of German grammar, in particular, wrong word order and missing
articles:
Jim
63. Ich Berg hinablaufen und
Schi stehlen wollen (NN,
see appendix, 7)
Standard syntax
Ich lief den Berg hinab
und wollte ein Schi
stehlen
English
[steal boat instead of
steal a boat]
Missing articles and wrong word order have a very strong connotation as
features produced by beginning German language-learners.
Double negation is another syntactic feature found in the corpus. In German,
as in English, it is a way of intensifying negation associated with archaic or
dialectal speech. In most Swiss German and southern German dialects, for
instance, double negation is still quite common especially in certain idiomatic
phrases. In SHG, however, it is no longer current (cf. Drosdowski 1984: 644;
Helbig/Buscha 1991: 527; Zifonun, Homan and Strecker 1997: 857).
65. Da sa' 'ch mir, 'n Flooss is', was ich brauch; das macht nam'ich keine Spur'n nich'.
(Rathjen, see appendix, 20)
66. Hab aber kein Gluck nich gehabt. (Schonfeldt, see appendix, 27)
As in the case of non-standard past tense forms, the use of double negation
has very similar sociolinguistic connotation eects in English and in German,
but only three translators take advantage of this parallel (cf. Figure 1).
A regional syntactic feature used in two more recent translations is the
relative clause with the dialectal `wo' instead of one of the SHG pronouns `der,
die, das' etc:
Jim
Standard syntax
Twain, see appendix, 10
67. sie in jedm Boot, wo in jedem Boot, das every skift dat went 'long
vorbeikommt
vorbeikommt
(Harranth)
This use of the `wo'-pronoun is a marker of southern dialects in the Germanspeaking area. Although it is a violation of SHG grammar, its use has none of
the `pidginized' connotations of most of the morpho-syntactic errors attributed
to Jim in the translation corpus.
# Blackwell Publishers Ltd. 2000
603
The bold text in example 68 means, that Huck guessed from Jim's narration
what had happened. Jim is presented as someone whose verbal output is hardly
intelligible and must be made accessible through guessing. In some translations
Jim's account is simplied or shortened, and Walter Keiler in 1927 even omits it
completely without any replacement.
In some cases, the translators add details to Jim's narration. But when they
do, it is mainly to generate an eect of simple-mindedness:
69. Wenn armes Jim laufen mit die Fusse, Hunde werden nden seine Spur. (Schloss)
[My translation: If poor Jim walk with his feet, dogs would track him.]
Here the translator Marie Schloss has Jim express the self-evident fact that he
usually walks with his feet. In a clear example of racist attribution of stupidity to
Jim, Henny Koch has Jim think that African-American people are not seen at
night (Jim refers to himself in the 3rd person):
70. Er denken, Nacht sein schwarz, Jim sein auch schwarz, werden also nix gesehen.
(Koch)
[My translation: He think, night be black, Jim be black, too, will not be seen.]
Jim's thought cannot be found in the source text (cf. Appendix) and its addition
therefore is an enormous liberty of the translator.
FROM COGNITIVE DEFICIT TO SOCIOLINGUISTIC DIFFERENCE
The evolution of translation strategies
As we have seen in the previous sections, it is very dicult to assign
unambiguous meanings to translation variants. We have to take into account
the complex sociolinguistic relationships between non-standard and standard
varieties as well as the semiotic layers of the relevant literary texts. There is
quite a wide range of possible sociolinguistic interpretations for a specic
linguistic feature. However, as demonstrated above, some translation devices
are both added by the translator (they have no equivalents in the source text)
and are clear-cut signs of the translator's devaluation of Jim's speech. These
features are mainly situated on the morpho-syntactic and syntactic levels:
# Blackwell Publishers Ltd. 2000
1997 Rathjen
1995 Harranth
1980 NN
1978 Schonfeldt
1966 Beheim-Schwarzbach
1970 Helmstaedt
1963 Kruger
1950 Weseloh
1944 Eger
1921 Steindor
1927 Keiler
1913 Schloss
Colloquial Words
BERTHELE
1890 Koch
604
Regional Words
Dialectal Syntax
Double Negation
Eye Dialect
Sound/Syllable Loss
Reanalysis
Modication
Spelling Mistakes
Congruence Mistakes
Genus Mistakes
Case Mistakes
Innitive Language
Missing Articles
Reported Speech
Figure 1: German editions and their use of linguistic features for Jim's speech.
If a given translation uses a certain feature it is marked with a `+' sign in the
corresponding column: The bold horizontal line separates linguistic features
that create dierence in the upper part from linguistic features that unambiguously create decit in the lower part. The shaded lines indicate the features
on the level of spelling; the other features are above the level of spelling
violations of number and gender congruence, wrong case markers, innitive
language, wrong word order and missing articles. Evidence from German
literature makes it very clear that these devices do not simply serve to situate
a character on a certain level in the sociolinguistic stratum, but also brand that
character as being `other' as well as decient (cf. Dumont's foreigner talk and
`the stupid Galomir').
# Blackwell Publishers Ltd. 2000
605
On the contrary, orthographic depictions of dierence are not always as clearcut indices of cognitive decit; only spelling mistakes play this role unambiguously. In all other cases, respellings can index (relatively neutral) regional
linguistic dierences or (ranked) sociolinguistic dierences. Here we nd ample
evidence in German literature that the frequency of non-standard orthography
correlates positively with lower social strata. The use of sociolinguistically lower
registers certainly responds to the quest for `equivalence' between source and
target text. In Twain's ctional world both Jim and Huck belong to lower social
strata, and have only very rudimentary educations. While it is certainly true
that cognitive decits are often stereotypically attributed on the basis of low
social status, I argue that social standing and intellectual (and even moral)
worth are not necessarily represented as congruent in particular texts.
Figure 1 sums up the diachronic use of the features analyzed in this
contribution. The shaded columns represent two translations which either
completely skip Jim's narration (Keiler) or transpose it entirely into reported
speech (Helmstaedt).7 The gure shows quite clearly that the earlier translations
mainly use decit features whereas more recent translations (cf. Harrant's and
Rathjen's text) favor the dierence features.
This shift in translation features coincides with a change in the tone of
translators' prefaces and afterwords. Whereas the blurb of a reedition8 of
Schloss' translation characterizes Jim as the `Einfaltiger Neger Jim' (`simpleminded Nigger Jim'), by the 1970's attitudes seem to have changed. In a preface
to the 1978 translation by Schonfeldt, the editor explicitly informs the reader
that this novel is to be read as an `appeal against slavery and disdain for
African-American people' (Schonfeldt 1978: 305).9 Similar statements can be
found in the blurb of a reedition (1979) of Lore Kruger's translation.10 As a
consequence of this anti-racist and anti-discriminatory interpretation of the
novel, Schonfeldt has Jim speak a close-to standard German variety (cf. the very
few `+'-signs in the corresponding column in Figure 1). This of course comes
with a considerable loss of linguistic diversity. If Jim is no longer to be
discriminated against, he can also not be distinguished linguistically any longer.
Huck's voice as a quasi-standard
In order to understand the history of the translation of Jim's AAVE in German,
we must go further than the classication of the orthographic and linguistic
features found in the translation corpus. In this section, I assess the nonstandard features attributed to Jim through a comparison with the way the
speech of Huck Finn, the main character of the novel, is translated. This
comparison is particularly important because Huck is the rst-person narrator
in the novel, which means that his voice is the dominant one in the book.
Huck's variety is therefore the quasi-standard inside the ctional world of
Twain's novel. Deviations from Huck's `standard' can be sociolinguistically
more prestigious, like the speech of the few characters who speak (or try to
# Blackwell Publishers Ltd. 2000
606
BERTHELE
speak) a near-standard variety (e.g. Miss Watson, Judge Thatcher), but Twain
very often uses such higher styles to make fun of the `better' people.
In this comparison of the translations of Jim's and Huck's speech, there are
two main issues; dierences in the distribution of decit-features in Huck's and
Jim's speech and the (quantitative) role played by non-standard spelling in the
translations. There are some inevitable diculties involved in the operationalization of a concept like `decit-index'. Since decit features are predominantly
located in the morpho-syntactic system, we have to create variables on the basis
of how many phrases/sentences involve violations of German grammar. If we
apply such an approach to the corpus, we nd that in all translations up until
1966 and in 1980, close to 100 percent of Jim's utterances have some sort of
grammatical violations. Huck's speech displays only some negligible and
sporadic grammatical violations.
Since this kind of measure for both Huck and Jim would be invariant until the
very recent translations, I decided to do without the decit-index for Huck Finn
and to create a dierent variable only for Jim, referring to the matrix in Figure 1.
If all of the eight `decit-generating' strategies are used in a certain translation,
Jim gets 100 percent, if none is to be found, he gets 0 percent.
The second kind of operationalization of decit measures the proportion of
non-standard spelling in Huck's and Jim's passages. The variable is constructed
on the basis of how many words11 (of all words in the analyzed passage) contain
non-standard spellings. The translations which skip or paraphrase Jim's narration (Keiler 1927 and Helmstaedt 1970) had to be removed from these
descriptive statistics. Figure 2 shows the development of the three variables.
At rst glance Figure 2 shows that non-standard spelling does not appear
very frequently in the more modern translations. It is interesting, however, that
607
even at the low level seen in 1913, 1921, 1944 and 1963 there is a clear
dierence in frequency between Huck and Jim. In 1921, 1944 and 1963 it is
Jim who has higher values. In 1913 Jim's spelling is almost perfectly in
agreement with the norm and it is Huck who shows more non-standard
spellings. Simultaneously the course of the `decit'-line leaves no doubt about
the strategies used to linguistically characterize Jim.
The two latest translations, from 1995 and 1997, show an important
increase of the use of non-standard spellings as well as obvious dierences
between Jim and Huck. The rst translation which shows a little more nonstandard spelling compared to the `decit tradition' is Kruger's text from 1963.
In 1997 Jim deviates in a drastic way from Huck's (and certainly all the other
characters') non-standard-spelling rate. As the `decit'-line shows, this is the
rst text to completely abandon the decit-strategy and it is very probable that
the expansion of other linguistic dierences in this text is in part a compensation
for the loss of such a salient feature of distinction. Although there are no
`perfect' continuous lines, Figure 2 shows that translators gradually turn away
from the decit features and use more and more respellings.
This change in translation strategies corresponds quite well to the (admittedly
spare) recommendations made by translation handbooks. For example, Fritz
Guttinger (1963) advocates translating literary dialects with a variety very
close to spoken standard language, based on his view that translations of
dialectal speech into the dialects of the target language inevitably results in
inadequate local stereotypes (Guttinger 1963: 189; for very similar claims see
Levy 1969: 101; Diller/Kornelius 1978: 82; Graf/Schonfeld 1983: 89). This
philosophy is consistent with the eect of most of the features in the upper half
of Figure 1.
In 1983, a workshop organized by the European translation committee
focused explicitly on dealing with `Black American English' (Graf/Schonfeld
1983). This workshop led to the production of a glossary with AAVE lexemes
and corresponding standard English paraphrases. In this document, AAVE is
denitely no longer seen as a decit-variety. Several translation strategies are
weighted against each other and the participating translators seemed to give a
light preference to the choice of a colloquial, slangy German which can be
located in the `Ruhrgebiet', the important center of heavy industry in Germany
(Graf/Schonfeld 1983: 89). This solution gives the German parallel to AAVE a
clear proletarian overtone, and it is probably not too far from Harranth's and
Rathjen's translation attempts.
CONCLUSION
To conclude, I will reect on two issues: authenticity in translation of dialect
and degrees of stigma in non-standard representations of dialect speech. The
more recent translations show that there are always tensions and trade-os for
the translator who wants to `authentically' render novels in which dialectal
# Blackwell Publishers Ltd. 2000
608
BERTHELE
609
and other strategies that index social dierence also stereotypically stigmatize
some speakers. But in fact in Twain's novel and in the translations
stereotypes are often turned on their heads, and there is no correlation between
speaking well and being intelligent or morally upright. Critics agree that Jim is
the only moral grown-up in the novel (cf. Fisher Fishkin 1993: 79.), and all
German translations studied here are faithful in their representation of Jim's
moral worth. This returns us to an earlier point: that evaluations of the stigmagenerating potential of particular orthographic and other linguistic representations have to be made within specic sociolinguistic, historical and textual
contexts.
NOTES
1. Acknowledgement: I wish to thank Alexandra Jae and Harald Fricke for their very
valuable comments and suggestions, and the `Schweizerisches Jugendbuch-Institut
Zurich', particularly Mrs. Villiger Abogso Fouda, who was extremely helpful for
nding many various German translations of Twain's Huckleberry Finn.
2. Strictly speaking this dierence between African-American and white characters is
undisputed only for the phonological level, cf. Fisher Fishkin's (1993) critical study
of Huck's `black voice'.
3. One of the latest translations is Wurth's (1997) Alemanic dialect text. This as far
as I know rst dialect translation in the German-speaking world is not easily
comparable to the `standard' German texts and has therefore not been taken into
account in the current contribution (for a detailed analysis cf. Berthele [in print] ).
4. All examples given here can be found in Jim's utterances in the analyzed passage
and for every example the corresponding translator's name will be given in brackets.
5. cf. Drosdowski (1996): Regel 13, p. 23f.; Drosdowski (1984): 195, p. 120.
6. This generalized use of innitives can be found in the talk of the informants in
Frischherz (1997), all of which are persons seeking political asylum in Switzerland.
7. After having detected this unexpected strategy I chose another passage in order to
look for the means of translation. It turns out that both texts give Jim a highly
decient voice similar to the texts by Koch or Schloss. I decided however to keep to
exactly the same passage for all translations because of the very striking and
meaningful fact that it is also possible to give a character as little speech/voice as
absolutely necessary.
8. Exact date unknown, probably in the 1950s, Atrium Verlag Zurich.
9. `Man kann und sollte das Buch als einen Appell gegen die Sklaverei und die
Missachtung der Schwarzen lesen.'
10. `[. . .] ist die scharfe Kritik Mark Twains an den zeitgenossischen Verhaltnissen in
den amerikanischen Sudstaaten, an Rassendiskriminierung und Sklavenhaltung
unuberhorbar.'
11. As a word I counted every printed unity located between two blanks or of course
between blanks and punctuation marks.
610
BERTHELE
REFERENCES
Berthele, Raphael. In press. Vom Mississippi an den Oberrhein. 100 Jahre Nigger-JimProblem und seine vorlauge Losung durch einen Alemannen. In Werner Konig (ed.)
Beitrage der 13. Arbeitstagung zur alemannischen Dialektologie in Augsburg. Tubingen:
Niemeyer.
Carkeet, David. 1979. The dialects in Huckleberry Finn. American Literature 51: 315332.
Catford, John Cunnison. 1974. A Linguistic Theory of Translation: An Essay in Applied
Linguistics. London, New York: Oxford University Press.
Diehl, Erika, Helen Christen, Sandra Leuenberger, Isabelle Pelvat and Therese Studer.
2000. Grammatikunterricht: Alles fur der Katz? Untersuchungen zum Zweitsprachenerwerb
Deutsch. Tubingen: Niemeyer.
bersetzung.
Diller, Hans-Jurgen and Joachim Kornelius. 1978. Linguistische Probleme der U
Tubingen: Niemeyer.
Drosdowski, Gunther (ed.). 1984. Duden Grammatik der Deutschen Gegenwartssprache.
Mannheim, Leipzig, Wien, Zurich: Dudenverlag.
Drosdowski, Gunther (ed.). 19931995. Das grosse Worterbuch der deutschen Sprache in
acht Banden. Mannheim, Leipzig, Wien, Zurich: Dudenverlag.
Drosdowski, Gunther (ed.). 1996. Duden Rechstschreibung der deutschen Sprache. 21., vollig
neu bearbeitete und erweiterte Auage. Mannheim, Leipzig, Wien, Zurich: Dudenverlag.
Fisher Fishkin, Shelley. 1993. Was Huck Black? Mark Twain and African-American Voices.
New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Frischherz, Bruno. 1997. Lernen, um zu sprechen sprechen, um zu lernen. Diskursanalytische Untersuchungen zum Zweitspracherwerb turkischer und kurdischer Asylbewerber in
der Deutschschweiz. Freiburg, Switzerland: Universitatsverlag.
Graf, Herbert and Eike Schonfeld. 1983. Black American English. Vorlauges Glossar und
andere Arbeitsergebnisse einer Fortbildungstagung. Straelen: Straelener Manuskripte.
bersetzens. Zurich: Manesse
Guttinger, Fritz. 1963. Zielsprache. Theorie und Technik des U
Verlag.
Helbig, Gerhard and Joachim Buscha. 1991. Deutsche Grammatik: Ein Handbuch fur den
Auslanderunterricht. Berlin, Zurich: Langenscheidt.
Holton, Sylvia Wallace. 1984. Down Home and Uptown. The Representation of Black Speech
in American Fiction. Rutherford, New Jersey: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press.
Hutchinson, Stuart (ed.). 1993. Mark Twain. Critical Assessments. Volume II: Contemporary Reviews; Creative Writers' Responses. The Banks, Mounteld: Helm Information.
Ives, Sumner. 1971. A theory of literary dialect. In Juanita V. Williamson and Virginia
M. Burke (eds.) A Various Language. Perspectives on American Dialects. New York: Holt,
Rinehart and Winston. 145177.
Konig, Werner. 1989. Atlas zur Aussprache des Schriftdeutschen in der Bundesrepublik
Deutschland. Vol. I and II. Ismaning: M. Hueber.
Krapp, George Philip. 1971. The psychology of dialect writing. In Juanita V. Williamson
and Virginia M. Burke (eds.) A Various Language. Perspectives on American Dialects. New
York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston. 2229.
bersetzung. Theorie einer Kunstgattung. Frankfurt a.M.:
Levy, Jiri. 1969. Die literarische U
Athenaeum Verlag.
Meid, Volker. 1993. Literaturlexikon. Begrie, Realien, Methoden, Bd 14. Guthersloh/
Munchen: Bertelsmann Lexikon Verlag.
Preston, Dennis R. 1982. 'Ritin' folklower daun 'rong: Folklorists' failures in phonology.
Journal of American Folklore 95: 304326.
# Blackwell Publishers Ltd. 2000
611
Richter, Matthias. 1995. Die Sprache judischer Figuren in der deutschen Literatur (1750
1933): Studien zu Form und Funktion. Gottingen.
Roulon, Curt Morris. 1967. The Dialects in Huckleberry Finn. PhD dissertation, University
of Iowa.
Roulon, Curt Morris. 1971. Geographical delimitation of the dialect areas in the
adventures of Huckleberry Finn. In Juanita V. Williamson and Virginia M. Burke
(eds.) A Various Language. Perspectives on American Dialects. New York: Holt, Rinehart
and Winston. 214221.
Siebs, Theodor. 1969. Deutsche Aussprache: Reine und gemassigte Hochlautung mit
Ausspracheworterbuch. Herausgegeben von Helmut de Boor. Berlin: W. de Gruyter.
Southard, Bruce and Al Muller. 1993. Blame it on Twain: Reading American dialects in
`The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn'. Journal of Reading 5: 630634.
Trudgill, Peter. 1972. Sex, covert prestige, and linguistic change in the urban British
English of Norwich. Language in Society 1: 179196.
Trudgill, Peter. 1983. On Dialect. Social and Geographical Perspectives. Oxford: Blackwell.
bersetzungswissenschaft. Probleme und Methoden. Stuttgart:
Wilss, Wolfram. 1980. U
E. Klett.
Zifonun, Gisela, Ludger Homann and Bruno Strecker. 1997. Grammatik der deutschen
Sprache. Berlin: W. de Gruyter.
Primary literature:
Square brackets indicate the year of the rst edition. For translations of Huckleberry Finn
into German the year of their rst publication is given in the reference. Sometimes I was not
able to get hold of these rst editions of the respective translations, the year of publication of
the examined later editions is given in square brackets at the end of the references.
Dinter, Artur. [1918] 1921. Die Sunde wider das Blut. 15. Auage Leipzig und
Hartenstein.
Fontane, Theodor. [1890] 1973a. Stine. In Peter Goldammer, Gotthard Erler, Anita Gloz
and Jurgen Jahn (eds.) Theodor Fontane. Romane und Erzahlungen in acht Banden.
Volume 5. Berlin, Weimar: Aufbau Verlag. 174269.
Fontane, Theodor. [1890] 1973b. Mathilde Mohring. In Peter Goldammer, Gotthard
Erler, Anita Gloz and Jurgen Jahn (eds.) Theodor Fontane. Romane und Erzahlungen in
acht Banden. Volume 7. Berlin, Weimar: Aufbau Verlag. 418522.
Grillparzer, Franz. [1840] 1960. Weh dem, der lugt. In Peter Frank and Karl Pornbacher
(eds.) Franz Grillparzer. Samtliche Werke. Ausgewahlte Briefe, Gesprache, Berichte.
Volume 2. Munchen 19601965: Carl Hanser Verlag. 183256.
Kraus, Karl. [1926] 1986. Die letzten Tage der Menschheit. Frankfurt am Main.
May, Karl. [1894] 1983. Old Surehand I. Reiseerzahlung. Reprint der ersten Buchausgabe von
1894. Bamberg: Karl May Verlag.
Raabe, Wilhelm. [1867] 1964. Der Schudderump. In Peter Goldammer and Helmut
Richter (eds.) Wilhelm Raabe. Ausgewahlte Werke in sechs Banden. Volume 4. Berlin:
Aufbau Verlag. 373737.
Raimund, Ferdinand. [1834] 1960. Der Verschwender. In Friedrich Schreyvogl (ed.)
Ferdinand Raimund. Samtliche Werke. Volume 1. Munchen: Winkler. 507598.
Twain, Mark. [1884] 1988. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. (The Works of Mark Twain.
Volume 8.) Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press.
Twain/Beheim-Schwarzbach. 1966. Die Abenteuer des Tom Sawyer und Huckleberry Finn.
Munchen: Wilhelm Heyne Verlag. [1980].
# Blackwell Publishers Ltd. 2000
612
BERTHELE
Twain/Eger. 1944. Huckleberry Finn's Fahrten und Abenteuer. Zurich: Schweizer Druckund Verlagshaus.
Twain/Harranth. 1995. Die Abenteuer des Huckleberry Finn. Hamburg: Cecilie Dressler
Verlag.
Twain/Helmstaedt. 1970. Huckleberry Finns Abenteuer und Fahrten. Balve: EngelbertVerlag.
Twain/Keiler. 1927. Abenteuer des Tom Sawyer und Huckleberry Finn. Leipzig: ZenithVerlag Erich Stolpe. [1928].
Twain/Koch. 1890. Abenteuer und Fahrten des Huckleberry Finn. Stuttgart: Robert Lutz
Verlag. [1892].
Twain/Kruger. 1963. Huckleberry Finns Abenteuer. Zurich, Koln: Benziger Verlag.
[1979].
Twain/NN. 1980. Tom Sawyer und Huckleberry Finn. Wien: Tosa Verlag.
Twain/Rathjen. 1997. Abenteuer von Huckleberry Finn. Zurich: Hamanns Verlag.
Twain/Schloss. 1913. Die Abenteuer des Tom Sawyer und Huckleberry Finn. Berlin:
Williams and Co. Verlag.
Twain/Schonfeldt. 1978. Huckleberry Finns Abenteuer. Wurzburg: Arena Verlag. [1995].
Twain/Steindor. 1921. Huckleberry Finns Abenteuer und Fahrten. Berlin: Ullstein.
[1922].
Twain/Weseloh. 1950. Tom Sawyer und Huckleberry Finn. Fahrten und Abenteuer.
Hamburg: Adam Reitze Verlag. [1960].
Twain/Wurth. 1997. Abenteuer vom Huckelberry Finn, in s Alemannische gschmuggelt vom
Wendelinus Wurth. Gutach: Drey Verlag.
Wassermann, Jakob. [1908] 1996. Caspar Hauser oder die Tragheit des Herzens. Munchen.
APPENDIX
Jim's account
In Twain [1884] 1988: 53f.
(1) Well, you see, it 'uz dis way. (2) Ole missus dat's Miss Watson she
pecks on me all de time, en treats me pooty rough, but she awluz said she
wouldn' sell me down to Orleans. (3) But I noticed dey wuz a nigger trader roun'
de place considable, lately, en I begin to git oneasy. (4) Well, one night I creeps
to de do', pooty late, en de do' warn't quite shet, en I hear ole missus tell de
widder she gwyne to sell me down to Orleans, but she didn' want to, but she
could git eight hund'd dollars for me, en it 'uz sich a big stack o' money she
couldn' resis'. (5) De widder she try to git her to say she wouldn' do it, but I
never waited to hear de res'. (6) I lit out mighty quick, I tell you.
(7) I tuck out en shin down de hill en 'spec to steal a skift 'long de sho' som'ers
'bove de town, but dey wuz people a-stirrin' yit, so I hid in de ole tumble-down
cooper shop on de bank to wait for everybody to go 'way. (8) Well, I wuz dah all
night. (9) Dey wuz somebody roun' all de time. (10) 'Long 'bout six in de
mawnin', skifts begin to go by, en 'bout eight er nine every skift dat went 'long
wuz talkin' 'bout how yo' pap come over to de town en say you's killed. (11)
Dese las' skifts wuz full o' ladies en genlmen agoin' over for to see de place. (12)
# Blackwell Publishers Ltd. 2000
613
Sometimes dey'd pull up at de sho' en take a res' b'fo' dey started acrost, so by de
talk I got to know all 'bout de killin'. (13) I 'uz powerful sorry you's killed, Huck,
but I ain't no mo', now.
(14) I laid dah under de shavins all day. (15) I 'uz hungry, but I warn't afeard;
bekase I knowed ole missus en de widder wuz goin' to start to de camp-meetn'
right arter breakfas' en be gone all day, en dey knows I goes o wid de cattle
'bout daylight, so dey wouldn' 'spec to see me roun' de place, en so dey wouldn'
miss me tell arter dark in de evenin'. (16) De yuther servants wouldn' miss me,
kase dey'd shin out en take holiday soon as de ole folks 'uz out'n de way.
(17) Well, when it come dark I tuck out up de river road, en went 'bout two
mile er more to whah dey warn't no houses. (18) I'd made up my mine 'bout
what I's agwyne to do. (19) You see ef I kep' on tryin' to git away afoot, de dogs
'ud track me; ef I stole a skift to cross over, dey'd miss dat skift, you see, en dey'd
know 'bout whah I'd lan' on de yuther side en whah to pick up my track. (20)
So I says, a ra is what I's arter; it doan' make no track.
(21) I see a light a-comin' roun' de p'int, bymeby, so I wade' in en shove' a log
ahead o' me, en swum more'n half-way acrost de river, en got in 'mongst de
drift-wood, en kep' my head down low, en kinder swum agin de current tell de
ra come along. (22) Den I swum to de stern uv it, en tuck aholt. (23) It clouded
up en 'uz pooty dark for a little while. (24) So I clumb up en laid down on de
planks. (25) De men 'uz all 'way yonder in de middle, whah de lantern wuz.
(26) De river wuz arisin' en dey wuz a good current; so I reck'n'd 'at by fo' in de
mawnin' I'd be twenty-ve mile down de river, en den I'd slip in, jis' b'fo'
daylight, en swim asho' en take to de woods on de Illinoi side.
(27) But I didn' have no luck. (28) When we 'uz mos' down to de head er de
islan', a man begin to come aft wid de lantern. (29) I see it warn't no use fer to wait,
so I slid overboard, en struck out fer de islan'. (30) Well, I had a notion I could lan'
mos' anywhers, but I couldn't bank too blu. (31) I 'uz mos' to de foot er de islan'
b'fo' I foun' a good place. (32) I went into de woods en jedged I wouldn' fool wid
ras no mo', long as dey move de lantern roun' so. (33) I had my pipe en a plug er
dog-leg, en some matches in my cap, en dey warn't wet, so I 'uz all right.