Anthroponyms and phytonyms in Latvian literary fairy tales and their translation in Lithuanian : ("Flowers: fairy tales" by Anna Sakse)

LTReikšminiai žodžiai: Antroponimai; Fitonimai; Grožinės pasakos; Latvių literatūra; Lietuviškas vertimas; Lietuviški vertimai; Literatūrinė pasaka; Anthroponym; Latvian literature; Literary fairy tale; Lithuanian translation; Phytonym.

ENLithuanian readers can enjoy the translations of fairy tales by the Latvian authors Kārlis Skalbe, Anna Sakse, Margarita Stāraste, Imants Ziedonis and Juris Zvirgzdiņš. Literary fairy tales and their translations make interesting material for study; also, it is intriguing to consider how texts written for Latvian children are perceived by Lithuanian children. The aim of this study is to find out what language conformities and peculiarities have been taken into consideration in the process of translating Latvian literary fairy tales into Lithuanian. Attention is focused on one of the proper name groups – anthroponyms, as well as appellatives related to them - phytonyms. The study material includes the cycle of fairy tales “Flowers: Fairy Tales” by Anna Sakse and their translation into Lithuanian (translator Renata Zajančkauskaite). The study has been carried out by contrastive analytical, descriptive and interpretation methods. Mainly fairy tales with certain discrepancies between the anthroponyms and phytonyms in the source and target languages were selected for the present analysis.The analysis allows to conclude that the anthroponyms and phytonyms used by the author reflect the cultural environment of various countries of the world. Anna Sakse links anthroponyms with phytonyms either directly (the words can be either actual people’s names or personified appellatives) or in a more or less indirect manner. In the translated fairy-tale texts the reader can find the same anthroponyms and/ or phytonyms as in the source text, however, one can identify also cases of cultural substitution. Sometimes the choice of a different personal name can be justified by the fact that the gender of the word differs in Latvian and Lithuanian, and therefore a literal transfer is not possible. The cycle contains fairy tales that have been translated into Lithuanian not because their phytonyms match but because of the development of the plot or associations implied. [From the publication]