I'm not sure I can understand the strange juxtaposition of "modern" language with thousand-year-old meter.
Another anachronism I remember: in another otherwise easy to read translation of an antique text (as is, originally written around 2000 years ago) the translator decided to regularly use the word "sadistic" which is constructed from the name of a real person living less than 300 years ago:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marquis_de_Sade
Otherwise, modernizing meter (moving to another, more suitable to the the language of the new version, or even doing away with it if the goal is just to retell the story in a more approachable way, with the acceptance that it would simply be too clumsy in the target language) I consider very acceptable.
Sashimi's been around for a long time. "Gravlax" would've been less alliterative.
[0] It's telling that you put that word in quotes. Stories are things to be told, aren't they?
Hipsters who prefer early Beoƿulf will enjoy http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/Viewer.aspx?ref=cotton_ms_vitel...
I'm of course aware that in both cases for somebody from that time much more would seem "wrong."
ironically, "meaning" as a thing that belongs to a technical dissection of single words/phrases is a fairly modern notion.
I believe it is ancient, the way I remember the texts, the false etymologies of words and names are present even in the Bible. People always loved the stories about how why something is named something, even when the story is false, if it's good, it will be repeated. We are all storytellers.
Exactly because I know "the story of sashimi" that word is for me jarring in Beowulf. It's not only anachronistic for the setting where the story takes place, it is also from the wrong part of the world, implying today's global trade of culinary fashion to that time and place:
"skinny-dipping in a sleeping sea
and made sashimi of some sea monsters."No, but I'll enjoy reading your argument why you are asking that.
Can that be argued? It's not that the "contact" and influence didn't exist, it's just that these specific people wouldn't use that language at that moment of time. The Romans were already on English ground long before Beowulf was written so using Latin words there is still much more acceptable to me -- it doesn't imply some access or historical impossibility that didn't exist.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julius_Caesar%27s_invasions_of...
The same can't be said about sashimi. Again, like in the example of the movies (in other messages), I'm simply not expecting absolute purity, I just find Seiko watches too distracting there.
You may not care about any of that, but my point is a translation into modern English is by definition anachronistic. Avoiding 20th century loanwords like sashimi will not make it authentic, at best it will make the text feel slightly old fashioned, but it would still be wholly anachronistic.
I'm quite sure no Japanese were living there either before or at the time Beowulf was written. That's the difference that I consider jarring, not the fact that the newer language is the language of the translation. Even in English, not all words have the same "weight" -- some simply "sound" new and have certain "modern" connotations and some don't. Some imply origin from one place, some from another, etc. It's simply more complex than "the whole English is newer, who cares" approach.
My favorite example from 1490 is:
"In this book, Caxton tells the story of some merchants from the North of England trying to buy eggs from a woman in the South of England. The northerner uses the word egges, derived from Old Norse, but the Southern woman, who uses the word eyren from the Old English, does not understand. A humorous misunderstanding ensues."