Vladimir Nabokov

NABOKV-L post 0023147, Sun, 29 Jul 2012 21:15:39 -0300

Subject
Re: [Fwd: Re: zhiletka]
From
Date
Body
Look what Google offers on "zhiletka" (its Zemblan, not Russian?)

Message-Id: <9107261442.AA06471@BU.EDU>
Date: Fri, 26 Jul 91 10:40 EDT
From: Ronald Hale-Evans <EVANS@binah.cc.brandeis.edu>
Subject: Zemblan: a vocab and references
To: conlang@buphy.bu.edu


Greetings, all--

I have two goodies for you. One is a set of two pointers to more information on
Zemblan, the constructed language from Vladimir Nabokov's *Pale Fire* (a
hilarious, moving, and provocative book--read it or be exiled) and the other is
a rough, incomplete vocabulary of Zemblan that I put together. I've decided
not to reinvent the wheel (hate to use a cliche', but I've decided not to
reinvent the wheel (... so I'm not going to work any more on reconstructing
Zemblan till I chase down these references and discover what's been done.
Enjoy!

*******************

Here are the pointers:

author = "John R. Krueger",
title = "Nabokov's Zemblan: A Constructed Language of Fiction",
journal = "Linguistics: An International Review", #31, May '67, pp.44-49

author = "Ronald E. Peterson",
title = "Zemblan: Nabokov's Phony Scandinavian Language",
journal = "Vladimir Nabokov Research Newsletter", #12, Spring '84, pp.29-37

*******************

And here's the vocab (page numbers refer to the Berkley paperback):

-ka: (diminutive?)
-ula: little?
alf: elf
alfear: uncontrollable fear caused by elves, p.94
Alfin : Elfin?
alkan: hungry, p.202
belwif: beautiful woman
berg: mountain?
bin: been
Blenda: ?
bogtur: ancient warrior, p.72
bore: farmhouse, p.92
bote: destroyer (bane?), p.179
Bregberg:
bret: chess
buch: book
buchmann: a little pillar of library books, p.107
Cap Turc: Cape Turk?, p.137
cap: cape?
Catkin: "in Catkin week" -- ?-king
Conmal: p.162
coramen: crude strap used by two peasants, p. 90
crapula: hangover, p.106
dett: child
dett: child
dirst: thirst
dirstan: thirsty, p.202
drungen: bramble-choked footpaths, p.164
ebanumf: ebony parts
est: is
eto: that
Falkberg:
fear: fear
fufa: sweater, p.95
garl: girl
gev: give
goliart: court jester, p.165
grados: tree, p.60
grum: groom
grunter: mountain farmer, p.93
Gut: God, p.202
harvalda: "the heraldic one", type of butterfly (monarch?), p.114
hotinguens: tight, short shorts, p.80
id: it
if: weeping willow
ik: his? also ?
indran: without (outside)
ivur: ivory
izba: hut?
kamer: chamber
kamergrum: chamber groom, p.71
kin: king
Kinbote: King-?
kinbote: king-destroyer, p.179
komizars: commissars, p.78
Kongs-skugg-sio ("The Royal Mirror"): a 12th-c. Zemblan literary work, p.47
kot or: what is the time? ("what hour?"), p.92
kot: what
kumpf: compass
lan: long
lev: live(d)?
lil: lily? lilies?
lumbar: lumber
lumbarkamer: lumber room, p. 88
mag: make, p.202
Mandevil, Mt.: Mt. Devil's Heap?
mann: pile, heap
mid: with
min: mine
minna: darling
minnamin, darling-mine, p.202
mira: mirage
miragarl: mirage girl, p.70
moskovett: "bitter blast"? a wind, p.110
mowntrop: dirt road? field? p.165
Mt. Glitterntin:
muder: mother
muderperlwelk: iridescent cloudlet (mother-of-pearl-cloud), p. 76
mujik: peasant? p.120
Mutraberg:
muwan: mow (the field next to a barn)
narstran: a place in Hell? a hall?, p.143
natt: night
nattdett: child of night, p.68
Nattochdag: Night --- ?
nippern: domed hills, p.95
nitran: within
onhava-onhava: far, far away, p.171
onhava: far away
or: hour, time
Oswin Bretwit: Oswin? Chess-mind
pa: peacock
Paberg: Mt. Peacock, p.95
pel: tail
perl: pearl
Pern: Satan, the Devil, p.202
phantana: fountains
promnad vespert mid J.S.: evening walk with J.S.
promnad: walk, p.57
putti: boys? p.73
ragh: revenge
raghdirst: thirst for revenge, p. 54
Rodnaya: (in "Rodnaya Zembla", p.62) = ?
romaunt: romance, p.199
roz: roses? rose?
rusker sirsusker: Russian seersucker suit, p.183
rusker: Russian
sam: silk
sampel ("silktail"): a Zemblan crested bird, p.45
shalk: knave
shalksbore: knave's farm, p.139
shargar: puny ghost, p.155
shoot: chute
shootka: little chute, p.148
sirsusker: seersucker suit
situla: toy pail, p.82
snew: four
stana: hundred
stein: stone
steinmann: a heap of stones erected as memory of ascent, p.94
tas: yew
teste: ?, p.184
Thurgus: ?
Timon Afinsken: Timon of Athens (Shakespearean play), p.84
trem: dream
tremkin: dream-king, p.70
tri stana: three hundred
tri: three
turc: Turk?
uf: to?
ufgut: adieu, p.185 (lit. "to God")
ut: and
vebodar: upland pastures, p. 90
verbalala: camels
vespert: evening, p.57
votchez: father
war: were?
welk: cloud
wid: with
wit: intelligence, mind
wod: would
wodnaggen: a wood and brick (?), half-timbered Zemblan house, p. 52
wodo: would have? would?
yeg ved ik: i know not, p.87
zhiletka : (in "zhiletka blades") = razor (lit. "little Gillette")




-----Mensagem Original-----
De: Nabokv-L
Para: NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
Enviada em: domingo, 29 de julho de 2012 18:00
Assunto: [NABOKV-L] [Fwd: Re: zhiletka]




-------- Original Message -------- Subject: Re: zhiletka
Date: Sun, 29 Jul 2012 13:04:20 -0700
From: Mike Marcus <mmkcm@COMCAST.NET>
To: <NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU>
CC: Mike Marcus <mmkcm@COMCAST.NET>



Alexey wrote:
"re zhiletka: Let me repeat that it means "waistcoat." We never called a safety razor "zhiletka!" "

Has anyone pointed out that the word itself appears in Pale Fire:
"Some of the pranksters were much younger than the King, but this did not matter since his pictures in the huts of mountain folks and in the myopic shops of hamlets, where you could buy worms, ginger bread and zhiletka blades, had not aged since his coronation."?

Waistcoat blades? Ouch!

What is interesting is the list of consumer products available in the "myopic shops of hamlets" (whenever Nabokov uses the word hamlet, you know that some allusion to either that play, Shakespeare, or Elizabethan theater is imminent.) Yet they are definitely marginal consumption items, hardly cheese, bread, milk -- "worms, ginger bread and zhiletka blades". In Act IV, scene iii of Measure for Measure, Pompey, procurer/pimp for brothel keeper Mistress Overdone is in prison, and recognizes amongst the inmates many of her erstwhile customers:

" ...First, here's young Master Rash; he's in
for a commodity of brown paper and old ginger,
ninescore and seventeen pounds; of which he made
five marks, ready money...."

This refers to a fraudulent practice whereby the moneylender would supply his debtor with a loan comprising part cash and part goods, or commodities, but the moneylender would inflate the alleged value of the commodities for which, when he came to sell them to realize ready cash, the debtor would raise but a fraction of what he anticipated. Lute-strings and gray paper were examples mentioned by Nashe. Fletcher & Massinger in 'The Spanish Curate', included ginger bread (as does Nabokov); this listing is from a will:
"I do bequeath ye
Commodities of Pins, Brown-papers, Pack-threads,
Rost Pork, and Puddings, Ginger-bread, and Jews-trumps,
Of penny Pipes, and mouldy Pepper, take 'em ..."

Such seems to have been Nabokov's template, the enumeration of predominantly expendable articles. Worms are integral to Hamlet, however: the glow worm which begins to "pale his ineffectual fire", the worms associated with Polonius' murder; and the graveyard scene, with "my Lady's Worm's" skull (Oxfordians know that worm in French is ver). Nabokov was definitely taken with the 'ver' combination; perversely so.

The joke concerning the picture that does not age shows up in 'Bigarrures: or, The pleasant and witlesse and simple speeches of the Lord Gaulard of Burgundy' by Estienne Tabourot, which was published in French in 1586. Shakespeare's contemporary George Chapman used some of the jokes from Bigarrures (though not, I think, this particular joke) in his 1602 play Sir Gyles Goosecappe.

Why are the shops myopic?





.

Google Search the archive Contact the Editors Visit "Nabokov Online Journal" Visit Zembla View Nabokv-L Policies Manage subscription options Visit AdaOnline View NSJ Ada Annotations Temporary L-Soft Search the archive

All private editorial communications are read by both co-editors.

Search archive with Google:
http://www.google.com/advanced_search?q=site:listserv.ucsb.edu&HL=en

Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu
Visit Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
View Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm
Visit "Nabokov Online Journal:" http://www.nabokovonline.com

Manage subscription options: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/








Attachment