Language Renewal and Translation in the Context of the Estonian Cultural Movement ”Noor-Eesti”: an Analysis of Villem Grünthal-Ridala’s Translation Cover Image

Keeleuuendus ja tõlkimine Noor-EEsti kultuurilise utoopia raames. Villem Ridala tõlgitud "Süütu" näitel
Language Renewal and Translation in the Context of the Estonian Cultural Movement ”Noor-Eesti”: an Analysis of Villem Grünthal-Ridala’s Translation

Author(s): Daniele Monticelli
Subject(s): Language and Literature Studies
Published by: SA Kultuurileht
Keywords: Estonian; translation theory; language renewal; translation; ”Young Estonia”; emotion vocabulary; Ridala; D’Annunzio; paradigm; syntagma

Summary/Abstract: The article deals with the role of translation in Estonian language renewal, which took place in the context of the revolution brought about in the Estonian culture by the movement ”Noor-Eesti” (”Young Estonia”) in the early 20th century, and was mainly promoted by Johannes Aavik and Villem Grünthal-Ridala. The first part of the article develops a model of the relationship between language renewal and translation, taking as a guideline the slogan of ”Noor-Eesti”: ”Let us be Estonians, but let us become Europeans too”. This relationship can be interpreted in terms of ”processual inseparability”, insofar as the renewal of the Estonian language presupposed translation (and reception) of European literature, while this translation in turn presupposed language renewal. The second part of the article presents a close analysis of Ridala’s translation of D’Annunzio’s ”L’innocente”, published in 1913. The analysis focuses on the words denoting emotions in D’Annunzio’s original and their equivalents in the Estonian translation. It points out the high degree of morphological and lexical innovation employed by Ridala and highlights his continuous experimentation with different equivalents developed during the course of the translation process.

  • Issue Year: XLIX/2006
  • Issue No: 06
  • Page Range: 477-490
  • Page Count: 14
  • Language: Estonian