I envy you your Arabic! I wish I were better at languages, and could learn one just for the joy of reading in it; alas, it is as much as I can manage to learn languages I need, without adding ones for fun.
I'm not sure, though, that I'd go quite so far as to say I had DNW reaction to Burton and Galland, at least in this context - considered as accurate translations, I was very glad to replace them (as you say, some interesting choices), but considered as possible texts for Yuletide, they’re an interesting historical part of the dissemination and reinvention of the stories. Sometimes I don't stick to it, but mostly I try to ask for stuff for Yuletide where my interest is in seeing what another writer makes of something. So in this case, if I end up with an assigned writer (or a writer of treats!) who has one of the more accurate modern translations (from either the Egyptian or Syrian tradition as their own interests dictate), or even better, the ability to read the original, that is pretty much all shades of wonderful, and I’d be absolutely delighted, but if I'm assigned to a writer who's only read, or only has access to, something based on Galland or Burton, I'm not going to be the sort of demanding recipient who insists they go find a different translation, and I expect to genuinely enjoy seeing what they make of it - neither are precisely the Kitaab 'alf layla-wa-layla, but they are perhaps part of the Thousand and One Nights, in a wider sense that includes its history in Europe, and that has also, I think, the potential to be the source of interesting stories. (Although, despite my normal desire to leave writers a free hand, I really do hope no one copies Burton’s style too closely, though realistically I don’t think there’s much chance of it.)
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2014-10-28 10:37 pm (UTC)I'm not sure, though, that I'd go quite so far as to say I had DNW reaction to Burton and Galland, at least in this context - considered as accurate translations, I was very glad to replace them (as you say, some interesting choices), but considered as possible texts for Yuletide, they’re an interesting historical part of the dissemination and reinvention of the stories. Sometimes I don't stick to it, but mostly I try to ask for stuff for Yuletide where my interest is in seeing what another writer makes of something. So in this case, if I end up with an assigned writer (or a writer of treats!) who has one of the more accurate modern translations (from either the Egyptian or Syrian tradition as their own interests dictate), or even better, the ability to read the original, that is pretty much all shades of wonderful, and I’d be absolutely delighted, but if I'm assigned to a writer who's only read, or only has access to, something based on Galland or Burton, I'm not going to be the sort of demanding recipient who insists they go find a different translation, and I expect to genuinely enjoy seeing what they make of it - neither are precisely the Kitaab 'alf layla-wa-layla, but they are perhaps part of the Thousand and One Nights, in a wider sense that includes its history in Europe, and that has also, I think, the potential to be the source of interesting stories. (Although, despite my normal desire to leave writers a free hand, I really do hope no one copies Burton’s style too closely, though realistically I don’t think there’s much chance of it.)