Saulele, Mienulis, Dievulis: Translating Lithuanian Diminutives in Poetry

• In Event: Language and Place-Making

Abstract

“Poetry is what gets lost in the translation,” wrote Robert Frost, a proposition that is mostly true—we need to keep in mind that there are writers whose translations of poems may strike certain readers as being more poetic than the originals. In general, however, there is much that gets lost in translation. Metaphors vary across cultures, and there are words and sounds that exist in one language and not in another. Translating diminutives, words that are formed when the root word is modified by affixing a suffix to denote size and affection, is particularly problematic. Most Indo-European languages utilize diminutives; Lithuanian overflows with them. This abundance can make translating Lithuanian into a target language such as English where productive diminutives are almost nonexistent an almost impossible undertaking.
In this presentation, I will focus on several instances of diminutives in classic Lithuanian poetry. In one example, Rupintojelis (The Pensive Christ) by Vincas Mikolaitis Putinas, the first word of the poem, dievuli (dear little god?), is a diminutive that is central to both the meaning and the ethos of the poem, yet no translation seems acceptable. Another poem whose second word is a diminutive is Kristijonas Donelaitis’ masterpiece Metai (The Seasons). The poem begins with what is perhaps the most famous couplet in Lithuanian poetry. I will discuss how three different translators have handled this couplet, focusing on the diminutive saulele (dear little sun?).

Short Bio

Daiva Markelis is professor emerita at Eastern Illinois University, where she taught creative writing, women's literature, linguistics, and
composition. Her short stories and creative nonfiction have appeared in The American Literary Review, Cobalt, Crab Orchard Review, Cream City Review, Fourth River, Other Voices, Oyez, and Ploughshares, among others, and have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. Her memoir, White Field, Black Sheep: A Lithuanian-American Life, was published by the University of Chicago Press. She received her PhD at the University of Illinois at Chicago; her dissertation dealt with the literacy practices of Lithuanian immigrants at the turn of the 20th century. She is almost finished with an abecedarian memoir about love and Scrabble.

Author

• Daiva Maria Markelis, Eastern Illinois University