When one language dominates the terminology
“Kiss your Julys goodbye,” someone told me a few years ago when I started watching professional cycling. He was right. The Tour de France is upon us and now, along with WordPress, my e-mail, and a translation I’m reviewing, I have two browser tabs dedicated to today’s 4th stage, a 30 km individual time trial in Cholet, France.
Along with the competition, I love the history and lore of this 105-year old event. Take Eugène Christophe’s 1913 ride over the Pyrenees, a time when Tour rules forbade giving assistance to riders. Having broken his front fork, Christophe carried his bike down a mountain to a blacksmith and repaired the bike himself, only to get hit with a time penalty because a boy had been seen helping him pump the bellows!
Cycling is one of those things, like cuisine and couture, that grew up in Europe and centered in France. And now, many cycling terms are French: tour, peloton, étape, prime, soigneur, directeur sportif, domestique, etc.
Now some of these terms have English equivalents, for example peloton = main field; étape = stage. Yet the French terms dominate even in races outside France. And other terms like tour, soigneur and domestique have never been translated to anyone’s satisfaction.
We cannot call the Tour de France the “Ride of France.” And “Spin Around France” would be taking the grueling three-week event a bit lightly. A soigneur has some of the duties of an athletic trainer but often takes care of food, clothes and even massages. Domestique — literally “servant” — is the term for cyclists on a team that help their leader win the race by pacing him, giving him a wheel, carrying water bottles, etc.
Thus it would be inappropriate to translate many of these words. Because I know something about the sport, I would know which words to render into English and which to leave alone. Yet I certainly can’t say the same for cuisine, and when it comes to couture I’d be totally lost.
5 responses so far ↓
1 Chris // Jul 8, 2008 at 10:25 pm
Even in Germany it’s called the “Deutschland Tour”. A domestique is called either a “Domestik” or a “Wasserträger”, which is “water carrier” - a direct translation from the actual term used in French. Even jersey is “Trikot”, but French uses “maillot”, right?
You could make the argument that English is especially prone to borrowing, but I think it has to do more with ‘traditional cycling countries’ and countries that entered competitive cycling late by comparison. Germany, England and the US are definitely not traditional cycling countries. But countries like Belgium and Italy are.
In Dutch (or Flemish) you have “trui” for jersey, “ronde” for tour, “knecht” for domestique and “algemeen manager” for directeur sportif. Dutch also has a very different word for the almost universal term “cyclo-cross”, namely “veldrijden” or ‘field riding’. I’m not sure about the Italians but I know at least that tour is “giro” and jersey is “maglia”.
2 Glenn // Jul 8, 2008 at 11:01 pm
Thanks for adding some nice cycling details from around Europe!
Yes, the French use maillot (pronounced “My-O”), but Trikot comes from the French “tricot” meaning knitwear.
Interesting that although Americans know the Tour de France by its French name alone, the Giro and Vuelta (both the words and the events) are unknown to most of us, hence the existence of “Tour of Italy” and “Tour of Spain” in English.
On the same note, I wonder if any baseball terms have been translated in countries where it’s become a big sport — Japan, Korea, Dominican Republic, Cuba, etc. — or if they use all of our words.
3 Janine // Jul 9, 2008 at 11:08 am
A similar situation exists with golf terminology as many golf terms are not translated into Spanish, perhaps because the game originated in Scotland. Golf clubs are “palos de golf” and the name for tees is not translated. Apparently a hole in one deserves its own appellation (hoyo en uno), but Mulligans and Finnegans remain true to their roots and used in Spanish as well.
4 Glenn // Jul 9, 2008 at 11:28 am
Janine,
Thank you for reading! And for the golf terminology.
I’ll bet that Mulligan was some golfer ; )
Glenn
5 Untranslatable words | yndigo // Jul 14, 2008 at 11:47 am
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