The Linguist

www.ciol.org.uk 18 The Linguist Vol/56 No/2 2017 dialect. This is hardly surprising – reading in the other direction, I've noticed that German translations of British books rarely seem to reproduce dialects. However, it was clear that for the English translation to succeed, it would be key to create believable voices for everyone – from David, the shy Cambridge alumnus, to Aileen, the housekeeper who has never felt the need to leave the glen where she grew up. As a result, I decided very early on to use Scots English for Lord and Lady McIntosh and Aileen. Creating character dialects Scots English (or Scottish Standard English) exists on a spectrum with Scots, a West Germanic language variety. It has a distinct phonology from English and draws on Scots vocabulary, but is closer to English grammar and orthography than to those of Scots. (There are exceptions though: Scots English often uses the present participle where English would use the past, for example.) The vocabulary of Scots English varies across different regions, and writing in both Scots and Scots English can be fraught, as the Scots language lobby is vocally protective of the varieties, which have long been minoritised. This wasn't the first time that I've translated into Scots English – I did so when translating an extract from Arno Camenisch's The Last Snow. The context was rather different though: in The Last Snow, Scots words stand in for Swiss German, recreating Camenisch's multilingualism. In The Peacock, I was translating the British characters 'into' their own dialects and producing a linguistic diversity which doesn't exist in the original. FIT FOR A LAIRD The translation of Herrenhaus had to be carefully considered: 'castle' seemed appropriate, as they are dotted across the Scottish countryside. Eilean Donan Castle is pictured (below) FEATURES Why Annie Rutherford added linguistic diversity to her translation of The Peacock, and how she approached the Scots text I t's a strange thing: as a reading public, we think nothing of British novels set in Botswana, France or Brazil – and yet with translated books there's an expectation for them to function as ambassadors for the countries they're from. When we come across a translated novel set in the UK, we find ourselves startled, at best. So when I told people I was translating a novel set in Scotland, I got some baffled reactions. "You're translating into… which language?" people would ask. Isabel Bogdan's The Peacock was a bestseller and booksellers' favourite in its native Germany. The comedy of errors is set over the course of a bankers' team- building weekend at a dilapidated castle in a "little glen at the foot of the Highlands". Bogdan's familiarity with the region is evident in her playful descriptions. Nonetheless, translating the book into English posed various challenges that the author didn't face in the original – as the publisher, Katy Derbyshire, acknowledged when she originally approached me. "I want the Scottish characters to sound Scottish and the English to sound English (and the Polish to sound Polish), and I want the humour to work in English," she explained. The novel brings together characters from various backgrounds – geographically and also in terms of age and class. Lord and Lady McIntosh (who own the castle), their housekeeper and the Polish estate manager are joined by investment bankers from London, who are accompanied by a cook and a young team-building facilitator. There is little differentiation between the characters' voices in the original and certainly no use of Authentically different

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