Original-language names and different translations

[#1 Mercury Adept]

What first made me wonder about this was my search on QBDB for questions about the Kalevala, and noticing that some past tournaments only recognized one answer for some of the names, like only accepting "Pohjola" for where Louhi lives (I was reading a translation that used "Pohjola", "Sariola", and "the Northland" interchangeably; the one I'm reading right now translates "Pohjola" to "North Farm" and "Sariola" to "Sedgy Farm", for another layer of "wow, more alternative names to deal with?!"). Someone who had only read the "North Farm" translation wouldn't have seen the name "Tuonela", either, unless they'd looked at the notes – that's translated into English, too, as "Death's Domain". That player also wouldn't know that "Manala" refers to the same place (at least, that's what I'm given to understand by the other translation). And a moderator who hears an answer of "North Farm" when only "Pohjola" is listed, for example, wouldn't know to accept it if they hadn't also read that translation. So when writing a question about one of these things, what is one to do, short of acquiring every single translation of a work to see if names are translated differently? (This would probably be even more of a problem for certain other works: the Dorothy Sayers translation of the Divine Comedy, for instance, anglicizes everything. Malacoda, for some reason, is called "Belzecue". And there are a lot of translations out there that I don't even know about, that might translate and/or anglicize things yet another way.)

It's weird, though, because if you accept every name that appears in a translation, then you'd basically be giving a player credit for saying "the land of the dead". (Well, you have to have read at least something to have the knowledge to say "Death's Domain" with that exact wording, but it still seems strange to me.) I've read the ACF rules for titles of entire works, but am confused about the same things applying to the names of individual places or people. On the other hand, though, someone could have read enough of the Kalevala to have pretty deep knowledge, but not know the "right" names because they read the "wrong" translation.

Another twist: of the two Kalevala translations I'm familiar with, the one that mostly keeps the Finnish names (the Crawford translation, the one that's on Gutenberg) was apparently translated from the German translation and not the original. Whoever translated it into German inexplicably kept all the Finnish names except that of the guy who kills Lemminkäinen: Märkähattu. I thought his name was actually "Nasshut" (suspiciously un-Finnish-looking as it is, in retrospect) until I got to that part in the other translation and saw him referred to as "Soppy Hat". When asking or answering questions about that guy, would "Nasshut" be an acceptable answer (since it appears in an English translation) or not (because the name itself is neither Finnish nor English)? If those criteria even apply here?

[Sen. Estes Kefauver (D-TN)]

Of course writers should put their best effort into finding as many alternate names for things they write on as they humanly can. If you buzz in and say "Death's Domain" for Tuonela because you happen to have read it that way and it's not on the paper, protest it.

[The Atom Strikes!]

Of course writers should put their best effort into finding as many alternate names for things they write on as they humanly can. If you buzz in and say "Death's Domain" for Tuonela because you happen to have read it that way and it's not on the paper, protest it.

I actually did this at Sun'N'Fun, protesting in favor of my answer of "Seeress's Prophecy" for "Voluspa." I actually proved my point by pulling a copy of the Poetic Edda out of my backpack.

[Maxwell Sniffingwell]

This happens in English, too. If I remember correctly, "the madwoman in the attic" was acceptable for the Bertha Mason question at ACF Nationals, which led the moderator to wonder if he could accept variants like "the crazy lady upstairs."

[yoda4554]

This happens in English, too. If I remember correctly, "the madwoman in the attic" was acceptable for the Bertha Mason question at ACF Nationals, which led the moderator to wonder if he could accept variants like "the crazy lady upstairs."

Well, that's acceptable in that case because the question had a clue that went like, "this title figure of the most famous work by Gilbert and Gubar"; as said work is entitled The Madwoman in the Attic, and not The Crazy Lady Upstairs, there shouldn't be ambiguity there.

[Maxwell Sniffingwell]

This happens in English, too. If I remember correctly, "the madwoman in the attic" was acceptable for the Bertha Mason question at ACF Nationals, which led the moderator to wonder if he could accept variants like "the crazy lady upstairs."

Well, that's acceptable in that case because the question had a clue that went like, "this title figure of the most famous work by Gilbert and Gubar"; as said work is entitled The Madwoman in the Attic, and not The Crazy Lady Upstairs, there shouldn't be ambiguity there.

True. But that's not always something the moderator knows.

[Mechanical Beasts]

This happens in English, too. If I remember correctly, "the madwoman in the attic" was acceptable for the Bertha Mason question at ACF Nationals, which led the moderator to wonder if he could accept variants like "the crazy lady upstairs."

Well, that's acceptable in that case because the question had a clue that went like, "this title figure of the most famous work by Gilbert and Gubar"; as said work is entitled The Madwoman in the Attic, and not The Crazy Lady Upstairs, there shouldn't be ambiguity there.

True. But that's not always something the moderator knows.

How? I'm pretty sure he's right without qualification.

[Maxwell Sniffingwell]

I'm just referencing Quizbowl Cast, Episode 30E.