[Alex Pepple]

Dear Eratosphereans,

¡VIVA LA MÚSICA!

The theme of this year’s Translation Bake-off is SONGS. This will be a double-blind event, judged by the Top Secret Distinguished Guest (TSDG) Yodeler! Participants will be translating songs from other languages or dialects into English. Note that for the main event, the English translation must be singable to the tune of the original words. If the original tune has been lost, as in the cases of Sappho and King David, later musical settings of the original words are acceptable. Also, musical settings of poems not originally composed as songs (e.g., mélodies and lieder) are acceptable.

The Bake-off Staff is reasonably confident that the educational and non-commercial nature of this event falls under the Fair Use provisions of copyright law. We will attempt to make entries invisible to search engines so that the audience is limited to the Eratosphere community. However, please be aware that if you chose to translate a song that is not in the public domain, and you have not secured the permission of the copyright holders (lyricist and composer), there is a possibility that your entry may be removed at their request.


DATES:

Noon (Pacific Daylight Time) on at St. Jerome’s Day—Wednesday, September 30, 2015 noon (PDT) Saturday, October 31—will be the deadline for our main event, and also the beginning of the three secondary events (which will kill time while our TSDG Yodeler deliberates for a week).

The main event finalists, with commentary by the judge, will start being posted the morning of Wednesday, October 7 Saturday, November 7. The number of finalists will not exceed twelve.

The deadline for the three secondary events is noon (Pacific Daylight Time) Tuesday, October 13. Voting for the popular favorites of both the main event and the secondary events will open at noon (Pacific Daylight Time) Wednesday, October 14, and will close at noon (Pacific Daylight Time) Sunday, October 18.

The traditional grumbling over time zones, the tardiness of Bake-off staff, etc., will run throughout the festivities.


PRIZES:

For the main event, one prize per translation will be awarded to the TSDG’s top three picks and to the popular vote’s top three picks. (I.e., even if someone’s translation is in both top threes, that person will win only one prize, not two.)

For each of the three songs in the secondary events, the popular vote’s top translation will win a prize. (If someone is the winner for more than one song, that person will receive a prize for each winning translation.)

Each prize will consist of the winner’s choice of a book from the Able Muse Press catalog, courtesy of Able Muse / Able Muse Press.


THE MAIN EVENT:

Please send ONLY ONE ENTRY AS MANY ENTRIES AS YOU CAN MANAGE for the main event. All of the following components must be sent TOGETHER to the email address by Wednesday, September 30 noon (PDT) Saturday, October 31:

1. Your name (it will be removed before it is sent on for judging) and the names of the song's lyricist and composer.

2. Your promise not to complain when a singer provided by the Bake-off performs your English translation a cappella, and perhaps somewhat differently than you had in mind. Having all the entries performed by the same singer will help the entries remain anonymous. (A PDF of sheet music of the original would be appreciated, but it is not required.)

3. A very brief note about the original author and/or composer, the context or cultural significance of the song, or any other information you think may be interesting or helpful.


4. The written text of your English translation.

5. The written text of the original.

6. A link to the original in performance. Ideally, it will be the same version of as the provided text; if not, please note any variants.


7. A literal English prose crib, showing the word order and syntax of the original, and providing alternate meanings of ambiguous words or phrases. PLEASE NOTE that presenting someone else’s prose translation instead of your own prose crib is NOT ACCEPTABLE because a.) it is not your work and b.) it will not give non-speakers of the original language—i.e., the vast majority of your readers here—enough information about which word is doing what. PLEASE ALSO NOTE, while you are composing your literal English prose crib, that http://wordreference.com provides excellent dictionaries for multiple languages, and also has online forums in which you can sometimes ask native speakers for help with tricky idioms. Google Translate is unreliable. You have been warned.

THE SECONDARY EVENTS:

Three songs will be provided by the TSDG Yodeler for translation the morning of Wednesday, September 30. Each is considered a separate event, and participants may choose to enter all, some, or none of them. Entrants may enter each event as many times as they wish, so long as each of their entries is substantively different.

A thread for each song will be posted to the Distinguished Guest board, providing the original text, literal English prose crib provided by the Bake-off staff, links to the original in performance, and contextual notes.

Each secondary event may have its own unique rules; for example, one of the songs must be translated in such a way that the English translation fits the tune of a DIFFERENT song than that of the original.

Entrants will add their singable English language translations of each song to its own thread. An extra point will be awarded to each secondary event translation for which the entrant provides a link to that English text in sung performance, regardless of the musical merit of said performance.

Entries may be edited and re-edited until the threads are locked on at noon (Pacific Daylight Time) on Tuesday, October 13.

Enter one, enter all!

Cheers,
...Alex