Some notes on the basque translation of 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland' ('Aliceren Abenturak Lurralde Miresgarrian')
Abstract
In this article, Manu López speaks about his translation into Basque of The adventures of Alice in wonderland, by the English writer Lewis Carroll. Firstly, he gives a short presentation of the original work and provides some background information on it. Afterwards, he comments on previous translations into Basque, and points out the differences which exist between them.
On introducing his own translation, Manu López begins by saying that his version breaks to some degree the small tradition created by previous Basque translators of this book, as his version presents a series of variations which affect even the title itself.
But the most important part of the article covers the difficulties involved in the translation of a work of this type, in which the language itself represents a field of play, in its phonic, morphosyntactic, semantic and pragmatic aspects. On occasions, this forces the translator to make use of explanatory notes which can become excessively tiresome for the reader; in this case, López says that he has tried to find a happy medium, without depriving the reader of the necessary references, but on the other hand has endeavored not to fill the book with notes.
The author concludes his article by emphasising that this book is not a mere childrens story, nor is it exclusively for adults, as some have argued.
