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Star Wars Episode 4 To Be Dubbed In Navajo

Posted by timothy on from the that-is-one-complicated-language dept.

New submitter Unixnoteunuchs writes "Coming to a theater in Window Rock in the Navajo Nation on July 4, 2013, Star Wars Episode 4 dubbed in the Navajo language. This is the first time a major motion picture has ever been dubbed in a native American language. This effort will help the Navajo nation preserve its cultural heritage in its language, a complex and beautiful Athabaskan tongue heavily reliant on adjectives and compound words. Listen to this article and how 'computer' and 'droid' would translate."

22 of 155 comments (clear)

  1. Diplomatic blunder? by paiute · · Score: 5, Funny

    Dub in Navajo.

    Show it in Japan.

    Just to piss them off.

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    If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
    1. Re:Diplomatic blunder? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      Nah, the big diplomatic blunder would be to dub it in Navajo then show it in India.

    2. Re:Diplomatic blunder? by jitterman · · Score: 4, Funny

      Oh so close to haiku :)

      Dub in Navajo
      Show it to the Japanese
      Just to piss them off

      --
      For conscience is the wound, and there's naught to staunch it
    3. Re:Diplomatic blunder? by paiute · · Score: 3, Funny

      Dub in Navajo
      Show it to the Japanese
      Popcorn on the floor

      --
      If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
    4. Re:Diplomatic blunder? by coalrestall · · Score: 2

      That's the correct number of syllables--5-7-5.

      What's missing though is a reference to a season. A haiku must have a season. Everybody forgets this part...

  2. Preserve Cultural Heritage by Sean_Inconsequential · · Score: 4, Insightful

    How does dubbing a movie that has nothing to do with Navajo culture help preserve Navajo culture? Not trying to troll, I am asking honestly. It seems a bit insulting, the insinuation being that the whole of their culture is distilled down to their native language.

    1. Re:Preserve Cultural Heritage by Mystakaphoros · · Score: 5, Informative

      How does dubbing a movie that has nothing to do with Navajo culture help preserve Navajo culture? Not trying to troll, I am asking honestly. It seems a bit insulting, the insinuation being that the whole of their culture is distilled down to their native language.

      Not trolling at all-- that's a good question. My thought is that limiting the use of Navajo to the ceremonial marginalizes it to be used only in ritual form. By finding "everyday uses" for it, such as in movies, people form a much more functional use for the language.

    2. Re:Preserve Cultural Heritage by PolygamousRanchKid+ · · Score: 5, Funny

      By finding "everyday uses" for it, such as in movies, people form a much more functional use for the language.

      ". . . may the horse be with you . . . use the horse, Luke, use the horse . . ."

      --
      Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
    3. Re:Preserve Cultural Heritage by Nidi62 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Will Navajo even have words for space ships, robots and laser beams...?

      They were able to adapt it for use describing different types of tanks, airplanes, ships, bunkers, machine guns, calling in artillery and air strikes, etc. I think they can do ok.

      --
      The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
    4. Re:Preserve Cultural Heritage by Mystakaphoros · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Did english have words for space ships, robots and laser beams 100 years ago?

      And English even stole the word "robot" from Czech!

    5. Re:Preserve Cultural Heritage by fermion · · Score: 2
      According to a radio show I listen to Hebrew, with was only a liturgical language for much of the Common Era, was revived, in part, by Eliezer Ben Yehuda after he was inspired by reading a hebrew translation of Robinson Crusoe. Use in popular media will standardize and spread a language. For instance English was much less of fixed language prior to the time of Shakespeare. By the Mid 17th century,many words were added and the structure more fixed into what we speak now, in part due to Shakespeare standardizing the grammer. Some of this was done by the first truly influential dictionary in 1755.

      Which is to say that simply by the processing of translating a play this could form a basis for Navajo as a modern language.

      --
      "She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
    6. Re:Preserve Cultural Heritage by Joce640k · · Score: 3, Interesting

      The problem with translating (eg.) "R2" as "little white metal man who whistles" is that it takes much longer to say.

      When you're dubbing a movie the dialog has to keep up with the action.

      --
      No sig today...
    7. Re:Preserve Cultural Heritage by bickerdyke · · Score: 2

      I never knew "R2" means anything like that in any language. Guess I have to take a few more english classes....

      --
      bickerdyke
    8. Re:Preserve Cultural Heritage by tompaulco · · Score: 3, Informative

      By finding "everyday uses" for it, such as in movies, people form a much more functional use for the language.

      ". . . may the horse be with you . . . use the horse, Luke, use the horse . . ."

      Despite the popularity of picturing Indians with horses, there were no horses on the American continents until they were brought here by the Europeans.

      --
      If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
    9. Re:Preserve Cultural Heritage by CastrTroy · · Score: 2

      And yet the French manage to dub movies quite often. Most DVDs in Canada are sold with a French (and often Quebec French) language track. I'm not sure how they manage to do it, seeing as how much longer most of the text on signage and product packaging becomes so much longer when translated.

      --

      Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
    10. Re:Preserve Cultural Heritage by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      Despite the popularity of the horseless pre-Columbian era, it is a fact that the ancestors to horses evolved on the American continents:

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_of_the_horse

    11. Re:Preserve Cultural Heritage by xclr8r · · Score: 2

      How does dubbing a movie that has nothing to do with Navajo culture help preserve Navajo culture? Not trying to troll, I am asking honestly. It seems a bit insulting, the insinuation being that the whole of their culture is distilled down to their native language.

      Not trolling at all-- that's a good question. My thought is that limiting the use of Navajo to the ceremonial marginalizes it to be used only in ritual form. By finding "everyday uses" for it, such as in movies, people form a much more functional use for the language.

      I did a paper on Native American Religions. One thing I discovered is that the Cherokee nation has assisted Apple in creating syllabry to be utilized in Appe’s mobile and computer operating systems.
      American Indians and the Mass Media p.222

      --
      Beware of those who profit off the docile and persecute the unbelievers.
    12. Re:Preserve Cultural Heritage by Joce640k · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I live in Spain and see a lot of dubbed movies and sometimes the Spanish/English dialog is completely different.

      It took me a while to figure out why, ie. because some Spanish translations have simply too many syllables to fit. When this happens they rewrite the dialog to fit.

      --
      No sig today...
    13. Re:Preserve Cultural Heritage by orzetto · · Score: 2

      I think both "space" and "ship" are words from long before 100 years ago...

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      Victims of 9/11: <3000. Traffic in the US: >30,000/y
    14. Re:Preserve Cultural Heritage by h4rr4r · · Score: 2

      Funny how we don't read those on slashdot, heretic!

  3. How about a Siouan language? by T.E.D. · · Score: 4, Interesting
    It would be interesting to see it dubbed into a Siouan language, cheifly because Lucas' The Force is a nearly identical concept to their own Wakonda, which was the basis for most Siouan tribal religon. If anything, The Force translates better into Siouan languages than into English.

    It is diflicult to formulate the native idea expressed in this word ... Wakonda that is the permeating life of visible nature -- an invisible life and power that reaches everywhere and everything and can be appealed to by man to send him help.

    You quite often see this translated as "Great Spirit" or "Great Maker", and treated as if it was merely a quaint native term for the Judeo-Christian God.

  4. Re:Please stop this. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    Haven't the Native Americans been punished enough by the white man's foolery as it is?

    If R2D2 is translated to "short metal thing that's alive", couldn't "Stormtrooper" be translated to "white man"?