What is the best (or least bad) translation of The Kalevala?

What is the best (or least bad) translation of The Kalevala?

>asking a literature-related question on Veeky Forums in 2017

>tfw finn
Finnish is the root language of all languages

I've heard that the Oxford edition is at least respectable.

But, to get the most out of it, read it in finnish. Doesn't even matter if you don't understand a word, just listen to how it sounds to the kalevala tune.

btw, why are you interested in Kalevala? Through norse sagas or just otherwise?

i have the edition published by oxford translated by keith bosley
i didn't realise there was more than one published english translation

which / one?

The Otava translation seems to be the closest to original text, though I don't know if it sounds that good in english

also, what are the prices

This really makes it clear how hard it is to translate something like this. Makes u wonder how much is lost.

>zoo - eläintarha

a pretty stupid thing to include imo since eläintarha is just eläin + tarha = animal pen/farm/ranch which is how a lot of the words have been made in the language instead of just loaning (German also has a lot of similarly created words which spawn these stupid ass memes)

>The Otava translation seems to be the closest to original text
Really? It seems like they tried to make it rhyme, which would normally make it worse. And it diverges clearly from the other three. Are those three just plain worse?

Also karu seli is clearly just carousel. Sure it sounds like another word; we have homophones too.

A lot of this reeks of Finnish circle-jerking which amounts to "lol our language isn't Germanic how wacky are we?".

>mad he can't into a wacky language

Don't misunderstand me, Finnish is interesting af, but these memes are simply memes.

>memes are simply memes

but the bosley is closest in intent. this is supposed to be a passage about telling stories of brotherhood and derring-do. the magoun version especially makes it sound like a prelude to gay porn

feels great to be a Finn

Admittedly karuselli is a stupid example as it's just a loan word that happens to sound like two other words that mean something entirely different. Other than that all the meme words in that picture are real

>being such a moukka you don't even know Finnish in 2017

Hungarians do it too, so do Icelanders. Not every language is like English where you just import a shitload of loan words

Pic related is my copy, published by Otava 1985 and illustrated by Björn Landström
My very, very literal translation (not keeping up with intent or meter; just the words):

Mind of mine does, my brain thinketh
to depart to sing, to say my words
familyhymn to spout, kinhymn to sing.
The words melt in my mouth, the talks drop
hurry to my tongue, break apart on my teeth.

Brother dear, my friend, my beautiful partner of growth!
Depart now with (me) to sing, have with (me) a word
after we've got together, come from two ways!
Rarely we get together, get along with the other
on these poor border(land)s, wretched lands of the North (Pohjola)

Let us hit hand to hand, fingers between fingers
to sing good, to put our best
to hear those golden, to know the willing
in the youth rising, in the nation growing:
those same/received words, hymns tuned
from the belt of old Väinämöinen, from under the forge of Ilmarinen
from the head of fair Kaukomieli, from the bow of Joukahainen
from the end of the fields of North, from the heaths of Kalevala

The reader is to note that almost every time the "North" is mentioned in finnic mythology, it refers to a place (In a non-magical sense, Ostrobothnia [In finnish Pohjanmaa = Northern land], which used to cover much of northern Finland) and not merely a direction.
One thing that is definitely lost in translation are the names, for example the names in text related: Väinämöinen used to be a god of water of sorts, his name means "large river" (Wide, deep and calm river = Väinä [-mö -nen]), Ilmarinen used to be a god of air (Air = Ilma [-ri -nen]), Kaukomieli (Far-mind) a.k.a. Lemminkäinen (Love, favorite = Lempi [-minkä -nen]) was constructed by Lönnrot by fusing multiple characters of finnic folklore and Joukahainen (Large in stature: Joukea [-hai -nen])
-nen ending is the finnish diminitive and the middle part is usually just filler to make the name sound better; these names are still in use in different forms. Väinö, Väinämö, Ilmari and Jouko are very casual names for men.

>living in a frozen waste with expensive alcohol
>national history is being constantly raped by Sweden or Russia
>the only valuable contribution to world culture is 1 meme composer
>feels great to be a Finn

I tried to compare these with the original finnish one. It's hard to say which of those is best, because as you can see they highlight different aspects of the poem. I think that you could choose the one which rhymes because it contains the essential content as well as the others and it sounds little the same as finnish one. Rhyme is very important since Kalevala is based of folk lores that the ancient poem singers have sang and the story is anyway created by Lönnrot based on the poems he gathered. Otava is finnish book publisher and the tranlation by Eino Friberg could be best because he is a native finn but he made he's career in Harvard.

What are fight scenes like?

There's a lot of asking help from gods and doing magic, I think the most violent stuff is outside fighting for exmaple when Untamo tries different ways to kill Kullervo as a child and when Ilmarinen's wife is killed by wolves and bears