The Pleasures and Challenges of Translating Historical Slang and Dialect… I have translated short stories, sample chapters and even poems from German before, but Nightingale & Co by Charlotte Printz was my first attempt at tackling a full-length novel. When I first read it, I thought it would be a fun and quick translation project, but the reality proved somewhat different. While it was indeed great fun, it ended up being much more difficult than I expected.
The first challenge was the 1961 setting, well before I was born, so I had to research the many historical references to films, music, food and drink from that period. I also had to be careful to avoid making the 1960s slang spoken by the protagonists sound too contemporary, so I was constantly checking if some expressions or words were already in circulation in English back in the early 1960s.
The most challenging aspect of all, however, was finding the best equivalent for the infamous Berliner Schnauze. This term, which literally means ‘Berliner snout (or gob)’ is used to describe both the particular dialect of Berlin, as well as their attitude. Berlin natives are no-nonsense, forthright people, honest to the point of rudeness, but also quite humorous and sarcastic – ‘schlagfertig’, as the rest of Germany would say, quick-witted or (literally) ‘quick to the punch’. It’s a city steeped in its working-class roots and shows disdain for anything perceived as too pretentious – perhaps the closest in the UK might be ‘Scousers’. Berliners are also typically very fast talkers, and alter the sound of some consonants so that they can rattle on at an even faster pace, for example using ‘y’ sound instead of hard ‘g’ sound, as in ‘jut’ (pronounced yuut)’ instead of ‘gut’ for ‘good’
Traditionally, the Berliner dialect is spoken by less educated, working-class people, so it used to be a useful class distinguisher historically. There was also an East-West division in the 1950s and 60s in particular, with most schools in West Berlin insisting that their pupils speak proper ‘Hoch Deutsch’, while East Berlin was more willing to emphasise the supremacy of the working-class in its society. In Nightingale & Co he author uses Berliner dialect to emphasise the differences in her characters’ backgrounds, between the ‘correct’ German spoken by Carla and her mother, or Alma Hochbrück and her family, and the carefree dialect full of puns and double entendres spoken by Wallie and Bruno.
It was important to somehow preserve this distinction in the English translation and my first instinct was to opt for a bit of a regional accent in English. There is a precedent for translating Swiss German into Glaswegian (Pedro Lenz translated by Donal McLaughlin), but the dialect in Nightingale & Co was not quite as dramatic or distinctive. Besides, I had two additional problems in attempting a Scouse rendering of Berliner Schnauze
- I don’t really know Scouse myself, so the potential for getting it wrong despite research was astronomical
- For a global audience reading in English, it would have become nearly impossible to understand
Besides, I have to admit that as a reader I get quite irritated when I have to wade through paragraphs of attempts at transliteration of regional accents. Please, authors, just leave it to us readers to imagine it! And since Charlotte Printz does just enough, but not too much in terms of suggesting the use of dialect, I ended up doing the same. A few more casual or slangy expressions, some contractions, all hinting at a more laid-back attitude.
Here is a quick example from the opening chapter, when Carla rushes to the Brandenburg Gate to find her aunt and has an encounter with an attractive security guard. She asks where she can find the police, and he replies: ‘Bin ick dir nich jut genuch?’, to which she replies, to match his dialect: ‘Nee, Ihnen kann keener.’ The literal translation would be: ‘Am I not good enough for you?’ (with all the consonants altered), and her reply would be ‘No, none can be [‘better than you’ is implied].’ But that would have been a bit unnatural, and couldn’t quite capture the charm and fun of that exchange. So, after much hmming and haaing, my translation ended up as follows:
‘Ain’t I ace enough for ya?’
‘No, no, none as ace as you!’
Not quite the perfection I hoped for, but hopefully giving you a bit of a better introduction to these two charming characters. As the Berliners would say: ‘Allet juut’ – all’s well that ends well!
Nightingale & Co by Charlotte Printz, translated by Marina Sofia, published by Corylus Books, is already available as an e-book and will be out in paperback on 1st February 2025.
https://corylusbooks.com/portfolio/nightingale-and-co/
