Gimlé

Dorothea Salon responded to my cry for help regarding the issue of translating names. She neatly summarises the possibilities, what approaches are generally available.

And as I was thinking about this I ran across a post in Jonathon Delacour’s weblog.

The post discusses the “lang” HTML attribute, the CSS2 attribute selector and how, when coupled with the “title” HTML attribute you can provide the original language word, the English language translation and semantically correct language information all in one go, along with popups of the translation in the browsers that support it.

So I slapped together a page collecting what little I’ve translated so far of Gylfaginning, using the lang attribute along with the title attribute wherever I felt like it.

For the most part, I think it works. The only thing I’m still thinking about is what it should look like.

But anyway, head off over to the new Gylfaginning webpage and have a gander.

And here’s an short example:

Then Astall says: “Earlier, Niflheimur was made. Many ages before the creation of earth, and there in its middle lies a well named Hvergelmir. From there rivers flow so named: Svöl, Gunnþrá, Fjörm, Fimbulþul, Slíður og Hríð, Sylgur og Ylgur, Víð, Leiftur. Gjöll is the one closest to the gates of Hel.”

Chapter five is proving a tad more difficult, which of course means that the entertainment value of translating it goes up exponentially.

It’ll be up eventually.

Baldur Bjarnason.
Clifton, Bristol.

You know when a single tune sticks in your brain?

How, over a few minutes, hours or days even, the same song keeps echoing through your mind.

Have you ever thought how, maybe, just maybe, the span of days during which the tune intrudes, encrouches, crawls all over your brain is really an illusion?

That the five minute duration of the song is reality, and the tune’s whispers in your mind is reality trying to regain control, wrest you from the intricate fantasy world your diseased mind has created and is playing out in hyperspeed, frantically trying to outrun the hard grey mundane.

Like that moment, just after you jump, when you think that you might, you just might, be able to fly.

But ground hits you, and you fall back into life.

With the tune still there, whispering sad things into your minds’ ear.

Those days were real after all.

I’ve had Tom Waits rattling in my brain for three days.

Three days I sometimes wish were only a fantasy played before my minds’ eye.

And the earth died screaming
While I dreaming
Well, the earth died screaming
While I dreaming
Dreaming of you.

There was thunder
there was lightning
And the stars went out

Earth Died Screaming—Tom Waits