Friday, November 27, 2009


MOUVEMENT ANARCHISTE DU CANADA/CANADIAN ANARCHIST MOVEMENT:
ILS FONT L'ATTENTION EN FRANCE/THEY PAY ATTENTION IN FRANCE:
Ce qui suit est du blog Voix de Faits de ville de Québec. Il est agréable de Molly que les gens en Europe doit reconnaître les progrès que nous avons ont fait ici en Canada. Mon seul problème avec l'article initial de la France est que l'anarchisme au Québec n'a pas commencé avec l'année 2000.
The following is from the Voix de Faits blog in Québec City. It is pleasing to Molly that people in Europe should acknowledge the progress we have made here in Canada. My only problem with the original article from France is that anarchism in Québec did not begin with the year 2000.
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[À signaler] Hostie d’vieux monde ! L’anarchisme au Québec:
Le périodique La Sociale, du groupe lillois de la Coordination des groupes anarchistes (CGA), propose ce mois-ci un survol ma foi fort bien documenté du mouvement anarchiste québécois.
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Hostie d’vieux monde ! L’anarchisme au Québec
Depuis le début des années 2000 le mou­ve­ment liber­taire au Québec reprend force et vigueur. Soit qu’elles le reven­di­quent expli­ci­te­ment dans leurs prin­ci­pes, soit qu’elles le reconnais­sent en pra­ti­que, les orga­ni­sa­tions d’affi­lia­tion anar­chis­tes par­sè­ment la société civile et ten­dent à gagner en visi­bi­lité, mal­gré leur mor­cel­le­ment rela­tif..../...
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...And in English
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[Notice] Fuck*** the old world! Anarchism in Quebec:
The periodical La Sociale, of Lille Group of the Coordination des groupes anarchistes (CGA), offers this month a faithful and well docomentedurvey of the anarchist movement in Quebec.
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Fuck the old world!
Anarchism in Quebec:
Since the early 2000s the libertarian movement in Quebec has once again gathered strength and vigor. Whether they claim it explicitly in their principles, whether they recognize it in practice, the anarchist organizations scattered amongst civil society have tended to gain visibility, despite their relative fragmentation..../...
Read the text
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***MOLLY NOTE:
While I can read French very well (as opposed to how I can speak, write or understand the spoken word) I am often thrown for a loss when I come to translate profanity. "Hostie" refers to the "host" at a Catholic Mass(take it from the ex-catholic Molly). The usage above goes a little bit beyond "damn" in the English language, and I have decided to use the more expressive "fuck" as opposed to the less expressive "screw". Perhaps I am wrong in reading the connotations of this word, and I await correction from a francophone. Profanity can be the hardest thing to translate from one language to another and retain the original connotation as opposed to the denotation. English, despite some of its other disadvantages, is one of the better languages for swearing, I have, however. heard tales that Russian, Hungarian and Italian are pretty good as well. The advantage that English has is that it can combine blasphemy (a big thing in French) with sexual, animal, geneological, scatological and other references, often in one string of invective. Ah, but that's the subject of another rambling post.

2 comments:

Nicolas said...

My feeling is that it would better translate as "fucking old world" instead. In this case, ostie (dont know why the frenchies put and h there) is an adjective and not a verb. Depending on the tone used, damn could be as good as fuck. Actually, ostie is preatty much the first step in the gradation of quebec sacres.

mollymew said...

Thanks Nicolas,
I depend a lot on my Larousse when translating from French. To say the least the usage prescribed by L'Académie française is NOT the way that people actually speak. The Larousse describes "hostie" as a feminine noun. I don't think the gerund "fucking" ("hostier"?????/hosting????) translates well into English in this case so I stuck with the verb, imperative mood.The Larouse (printed in France) can be treacherous. In the English section it translates "fuck" as "baiser". In the French section it translates "baiser" as "kiss". Big difference.
I guess that I am rather ignorant of how to swear in French, especially Québecois French. It's an art that is NOT acquired through a language couse or a dictionary (especially one approved by L'Académie)but only "on the ground". My Larousse doesn't even have an entry for "joual" in either section. Thanks for the correction, and when I do my eventual article on translating profanity I hope you will correct my mistakes there as well.
As to why they leave the "h" in over in France (the bastard is pronounced far less than in English), all that I can say is that L'Académie are a bunch of constipated assholes badly in need of an enema. Hey, I can be really creative with my profanity in English. I really wonder if there is any other country in the world that has something like L'Académie. If, on visiting France, you are told that your Québec French is "not good French" the critic should hear how it's spoken out here in the West by francophones. It puts Newfie English to shame as a dialect.