§5. Translating geographical terms

Toponyms are normally transcribed or transliterated: Oxford – Оксфорд, Находка – Nakhodka. Now the tendency towards transcription prevails over the tendency towards transliteration – some decades ago one should render Stratford-on-Avon as Статфорд-на-Авоне, now it is Стратфорд–он-Эйвон. Likewise: Комсомольск-на-Амуре should be rendered Komsomolsk-na-Amure rather than Komsomolsk-on-the-Amur.

Care should be taken to revert to non-naturalized place-names: Beijing is not *Бейцзин in Russian, but Пекин, Leghorn is Ливорно, and Munich is known to Russians as Мюнхен. In rendering, a translator should check all terms in the most recent atlas. Bilingual general and specialized dictionaries may be consulted (especially –English-Russian and Russian-English Geographical Dictionary by M.V.Gorskaya¹⁵⁵). A term found must be carefully checked in monolingual dictionaries.

Transparent local geographical names can be translated by calques: Rocky Mountains – Скалистые горы, Saint Helena Island – остров Святой Елены, залив Золотой Рог – Golden Horn Bay.

Half-calques can be used to translate toponyms with classifiers, such as river, lake, bridge: Waterloo Bridge – мост Ватерлоо, Salt Lake City – город Солт-Лэйк-Сити.

If a toponym is a little-known proper name, it is normally transferred (transcribed) with the addition of some generic information (Dalnegorsk, a small mining town in Primorski Region). Names of states are usually clarified: Seattle, Washington – (город) Сиэтл, штат Вашингтон.

Some toponyms are substituted in translation: Strait of Dover – Па-де-Кале, the English Channel – Ла-Манш. However, it is important to avoid wrong associations in substitution. For example, Приморский край is sometimes translated as Maritime Territory, which sometimes confuses English-speaking receptors mistake it for the Canadian Maritime Province.

Chinese place names are usually written in the Pinyin spelling. If the new Pinyin spelling is so radically different from the traditional spelling that a reader might be confused, it is necessary to provide the Pinyin spelling followed by the traditional spelling in parentheses. For example, the city of Fuzhou (Foochow). Traditional spelling is used for the following place names: Canto, China, Inner Mongolia, Shanghai, Tibet.

§6. Translating published editions

Periodicals are normally transcribed: Financial News – Файнэншл Ньюз, Economist – Икономист. The definite article testifying to the name of a newspaper is not transferred: The Times – «Таймс». Also, the names of periodicals are usually extended: газета «Таймс», журнал «Икономист». Note the difference in the position of the generic name: Asian Business magazine – журнал «Эйжн Бизнес». Transplanting foreign names is one of the latest trends: журнал “Asian Business”.

Titles of literary works are translated: The Man of Property – Собственник. When used in the English text, all notional words in titles are capitalized and either italicized or underlined. More rarely are they written with quotation marks. In Russian, titles are usually quoted in a text.

For pragmatic reasons, a translator can substitute the title. For instance, «Двенадцать стульев» by Ilf and Petrov was translated into English under the title Diamonds to Sit On, so as to make the book commercially more enticing.

It is also necessary to observe literary traditions of a country. The world famous tales «Тысяча и одна ночь» are known in English-speaking countries as The Arabian Nights.

Scientific works in references are not translated. When a work of science is translated from English, the source language title of reference to remains in its original form. When a scientific work is translated from Russian, references to Russian scientists are usually transliterated.

Translated document titles must render the general meaning of the official document, so various translation transformations are admissible: e.g., the British No Hanging Bill is translated by generalizing «Закон об отмене смертной казни», since it spoke of abolishing the death penalty in general.