Somali Shakespeare Company

[SayidSomal]

Somali Shakespeare Company

The Somali Shakespeare Company is a community-based group that has been established in Sheffield to promote Somali-language theatre and culture. The company was founded on the inspiration of a Somali student at Silverdale School, who declared his intention to translate Romeo and Juliet into Somali. A group of his teachers and fellow students took the idea very seriously indeed, and so The Somali Shakesperare Company was born.

We are currently in the process of abridging and translating Romeo and Juliet, and will be performing the play in the Summer of 2010 at various venues around the country. If you can speak or write Somali, why not join us? See the next column for instructions on how to start your own translation of what we're currently working on, and please read the Director's and Translator's notes to find out more about our production.

[cynical lady]

hahahahahahahahahah

[Jacaylbaro]

I will check with my Sheffield sources ,,,

[-Lily-]

This is very interesting! I wish them luck.

[cynical lady]

Why JB? dont you trust him?

[Faheema.]

OK let's try and see how this works....

 

"A Rose by any other name would smell as sweet"

Ubax mid aan magac kale lahayn, miyuu urtiisu udgoon'an

[SayidSomal]

Originality and literalness

Obviously there would be enormous difficulties trying to translate Shakespeare directly into Somali. There would be issues surrounding symbolism (does a rose smell as sweet in Somali or is some other flower sweeter), wordplay (collar, choler) etc... Therefore we want our translation to embrace originality. Where there is a section of Shakespeare that uses lots of natural imagery, then we should use natural imagery, where Shakespeare is comic we are comic, where he is tragic we are tragic: but that is all. There is no need to feel straight jacketed by an attempt at direct translation.

[SayidSomal]

Poetic Somali

We are going to be translating most of the dialogue in the play into everyday Somali, however, at certain key moments of the play, we are going to be translating into formal, poetic Somali. The Prologue will be in poetic Somali in order to firmly root our production in the poetic traditions of the Somali language. Also, at moments of heightened beauty or emotion, when Shakespeare uses rhyming couplets or other poetic devices for dramatic effect, it would make dramatic and linguistic sense to use poetic Somali.

[Jacaylbaro]

Originally posted by cynical lady:

Why JB? dont you trust him?

No ,,

[SayidSomal]

Everyday Somali

Most of the play will be translated into everyday, or colloquial, Somali. This is because we want young people to be heavily involved in the translation process, and, without several years to set aside for the project, it would be very hard for them (or indeed anyone) to translate Romeo and Juliet any other way. It will also make the dramatic contrast with the deliberately poetic sections more marked, and also be a lot of fun!

[-Lily-]

Faheema, that's caraftiisa and not urtiisa, just like people confuse smell with fragrance.

 

Direct translations don't work in many languages either.

[SayidSomal]

Themes

we have identified seven words/phrases/themes that we would like to emphasise in our translation. These are:

 

Time (running out!)

Fate

Romantic Love

Male Violence

Sun and Moon

Youth and Old Age

Human Fallibility

[NGONGE]

Originally posted by *Faheema:

OK let's try and see how this works....

 

"A Rose by any other name would smell as sweet"

Ubax mid aan magac kale lahayn, miyuu urtiisu udgoon'an

Now try the following in Somali:

 

to be, or not to be: that is the question:

Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer

The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,

Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,

And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;

No more; and by a sleep to say we end

The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks

That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation

Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep;

To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub;

For in that sleep of death what dreams may come

When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,

Must give us pause: there's the respect

That makes calamity of so long life;

For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,

The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,

The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,

The insolence of office and the spurns

That patient merit of the unworthy takes,

When he himself might his quietus make

With a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear,

To grunt and sweat under a weary life,

But that the dread of something after death,

The undiscover'd country from whose bourn

No traveller returns, puzzles the will

And makes us rather bear those ills we have

Than fly to others that we know not of?

Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;

And thus the native hue of resolution

Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,

And enterprises of great pith and moment

With this regard their currents turn awry,

And lose the name of action. - Soft you now!

The fair Ophelia! Nymph, in thy orisons

Be all my sins remember'd.

 

I reckon this will sound even better in Somali.

[Faheema.]

^LoL, I am sure...but you don't actually expect me to translate all that without getting any wonga?

[SayidSomal]

"Frailty, thy name is woman!" translate that Ngonge - i kind of sense it would be kind of thing you would have said in Somali

 

Romeo and Juliet they will only translate - i have booked them for my june event - it should be interesting.