Warwick’s review of Sea, Mothers, Swallow, Tongues > Likes and Comments
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I think that the book is kinda untranslateble in its original form because it heavenly drains from an (artificial) homophony between french and swiss German (mére - Meer). The example you chose with kotzen and fotzen is actually a very conventional example of the problems a translator has to solve and he solved it in a expectable way.
The translator's a she, not a he, and if you think pulling a spoonerism like that out of nowhere is ‘expected’, I can only say you have high expectations! As for Berndeutsch Meer, the fact that it's from French mère is not something that seems untranslatable to me – I mean, anyone not from Bern should have the same experience here (i.e. English speakers are in the same situation as most German speakers on this front).
I don't think she put the spoonerism out of nowhere. Obviously there's a lot of work behind it. I'm just saying she used a common tool in the translators workshop.
It's the text itself that rises my high expectations for unconventional solutiones cause it is extremly creative in the use of language.
I do not really understand your point with mere/Meer cause the obvious problem is that an english-speaker will not have the same associations with the sound of Meer, which evokes the "ozeanic" in the grandma-character and therefore becomes a fundamental part of the novels specific poesis.
Unless the translator doesn't find an exact aquivalent in the (english) language, this core aspect is inevitably lost.
It's not exactly the same of course. But "mere" already means a body of water in English, and it's a fairly common element in words like mermaid, so I think the experience is close enough.
Good point. I didn't know this. If she chose that way, she did a good job.
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Benno
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Feb 14, 2026 08:06AM
I think that the book is kinda untranslateble in its original form because it heavenly drains from an (artificial) homophony between french and swiss German (mére - Meer). The example you chose with kotzen and fotzen is actually a very conventional example of the problems a translator has to solve and he solved it in a expectable way.
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The translator's a she, not a he, and if you think pulling a spoonerism like that out of nowhere is ‘expected’, I can only say you have high expectations! As for Berndeutsch Meer, the fact that it's from French mère is not something that seems untranslatable to me – I mean, anyone not from Bern should have the same experience here (i.e. English speakers are in the same situation as most German speakers on this front).
I don't think she put the spoonerism out of nowhere. Obviously there's a lot of work behind it. I'm just saying she used a common tool in the translators workshop.It's the text itself that rises my high expectations for unconventional solutiones cause it is extremly creative in the use of language.
I do not really understand your point with mere/Meer cause the obvious problem is that an english-speaker will not have the same associations with the sound of Meer, which evokes the "ozeanic" in the grandma-character and therefore becomes a fundamental part of the novels specific poesis.
Unless the translator doesn't find an exact aquivalent in the (english) language, this core aspect is inevitably lost.
It's not exactly the same of course. But "mere" already means a body of water in English, and it's a fairly common element in words like mermaid, so I think the experience is close enough.
Good point. I didn't know this. If she chose that way, she did a good job.
