The translation of cultural words

Abstract

The translation of cultural words is a lexical problem in the classical sense. It mostly depends on how far the source and receiving cultures are from each other, whether there is a word with a similar function in the target language, that refers to the same part of reality as the source language term. I study this phenomenon in literary works, analysing the English and Dutch translations of Sándor Márai’s novel A gyertyák csonkig égnek. The English version, Carol Brown Janeway’s work with the title Embers is based on the German translation. The Dutch version with the title Gloed was made by Mari Alföldy, based on the original. Still, both translations have become very popular in their own target culture.