Invented Culture Relay 1
Invented Culture Relay No. 1
A number of past invented language relays have involved texts that became garbled in translation through processes that can only be understood as cross-cultural mix-ups. A language spoken by a star faring race in torch 3 of a relay, followed by a language spoken by a stone age race whose star system is hidden from the rest of the universe by gas clouds is a situation almost begging for hilarious cultural mistranslation!
It was decided in the Summer of 2020 that we should actually undertake a translation game that not only involves the study and translation of a text in an invented language, but that special emphasis should be made with respect to the cultural context of each successive torch. Thus was born the idea of the Conculture Relay.
THE RULES
Unlike “traditional” conlang relays, this relay recognizes the difficulties of translation from one culture to another. There are two situations: (1) The incoming text (plus conculture) references acultural concept or activity that can only be paraphrased or described at length in your conlang/conculture; (2) The text references a cultural concept or activity that is totally incomprehensible in your conculture and hence untranslatable.
- For (1), use a paraphrase in your conlang for your translation, but surround it with single-angle brackets (< … >).
- For (2), use an English translation in your conlang text, but surround it with double-angle brackets (« … »).*
Each time you do this, please write a note that describes the reason for the difficulty. Compile all of these notes into a “cultural footnotes” document.
Here’s how the relay works:
1. You will receive the “relay torch”. That is an email from the previous conlanger in the relay, and that email will contain:
- a. The text in the previous person’s conlang.
- b. A (partial) lexicon of that conlang, a (partial) grammar of the conlang, and a (partial) ethnography/description of that conculture. These may be a complete description of the conlang, or an abridged version, but it will be enough to translate the text.
- c. (optional) Some helpful language notes to help you translate from the incoming conlang text.
2. You translate the received text into English (or your L1).
3. You then translate that into YOUR conlang.
4. You send your translation (#3) to the next conlanger in the relay, together with a (partial) lexicon, a (partial) grammar, and a (partial) ethnography/description of your conlang/conculture, and optionally helpful translation notes.
5. You also send the above to the “torch master” together with:
- a. Your translation into English (or your L1) from #2 above.
- b. A translation of the text you created (#3) into SMOOTH English (or your L1).
- c. Your “cultural footnotes” document [see * above].
- d. And, if you wish, an audio file of you reading YOUR conlang text. NEITHER of the English/L1 translations, nor your cultural footnotes, EVER is sent to the next conlanger.
You will have a time slot of 3 or 4 days assigned to you. If you receive the torch early then you have extra time. If you miss your deadline, you will be skipped, and the torch master will send the previous relay torch to the next person in queue.
If you find, in advance, that a conflict will prevent you from being active during your assigned time slot, you can swap with another participant if they agree. Please arrange this privately and inform the torch master. If you find that you must cancel, then please inform the torch master.
At the very end, the torch master will post EVERYTHING on some webpage somewhere.
Format Note: Please convert text files into Adobe PDF if you can. If not, then Microsoft DOCX orplain text is acceptable. Audio files must be MP3. The lexicon, grammar, and conculture description can be files or links to your website
THE RELAY PAGE
