Translating a Non-Standard Variety of Russian Into Italian: The Case of the Odesan Language
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.46991/TSTP/2025.5.1.027Keywords:
translation, language interference, Odessa language, Odessa stories, Isaac BabelAbstract
This paper aims to illustrate how a non-standard Russian variety is translated into the Italian language, by analysing some literary works. The analysis focuses on the so-called ‘Odesa language,’ a contact variety of Russian that originated in the city of Odesa at the end of the 18th century. This variety of Russian spoken in Odesa differs from the other varieties of Russian, as it emerged in a multilingual and multicultural space and shows several influences and calques from the languages present in the city. The results of this contact are found at all linguistic levels and can be attributed mainly to the strong presence of Yiddish and Ukrainian substrates. Considering that the language of Odesa displays different non-standard features, it may be challenging for any translator to convey certain linguistic structures. Therefore, I suggest that a successful translating practice should acknowledge the influence of other languages and thus resort to a third language as a mediating language to translate from one language into another. Focusing on the literary works of Isaac Babel, in particularly on Odessa Stories, I will try to show how the linguistic features of the Odesan language are displayed in the Italian translation. In order to do this, I will use three different Italian editions of Odessa Stories, comparing them with the Russian one. Furthermore, I will try to figure out which Italian edition is more adherent to the Russian original and which conserves the non-standard nature and the typical grammatical constructions of the Odesa language.
References
Amal, Al Shunnaq. 2019. “Aspects of Translating through Intermediate Languages.” Studies in Translation, 5 (1): 123-147.
Babel, Isaak. 1988. Racconti di Odessa [Tales of Odessa]. Translated by Franco Lucentini. Collana Scrittori tradotti da scrittori 25 [Writers Translated by Writers Series 25]. Torino: Einaudi.
Babel, Isaak. 2006. “Odesskie Rasskazy” [Tales of Odessa]. In Sobranie sočinenij v četyrech tomach [Collected Works in Four Volumes]. Moskva: Vremja.
Babel, Isaak. 2012. Racconti di Odessa [Tales of Odessa]. Edited by Rossana Platone. Collana Classici moderni [Modern Classics Series]. Milano: BUR.
Babel, Isaak. 2022. Racconti di Odessa [Tales of Odessa]. Translated by Gianlorenzo Pacini. Mondadori. Oscar moderni.
Bakuntesv, Anton. 2011. “Odessa Language” as Communicative Phenomenon.” In Zhurnalistika i kultura russkoj rechi [Journalism and the Culture of Russian Speech] 2: 42-53. Moscow.
Berruto, Gaetano. 1987. Sociolinguistica dell’italiano contemporaneo [Sociolinguistics of Contemporary Italian], pp. 123-134. Roma: La Nuova Italia Scientifica.
Cavagnoli, Francesca. 2012. “Tradurre la letteratura: fra negoziazione e compromesso” [Translating Literature: Between Negotiation and Compromise]. Letteratura e letterature [Literature and Literatures], 6: 85-94. Pisa-Roma: Fabrizio Serra Editore.
Cavagnoli, Francesca. 2014. “Translation and Creation in a Postcolonial Context.” In Language and Translation in Postcolonial Literatures, edited by S. Bertacco, pp. 165-179. London and New York: Routledge.
Cavagnoli, Francesca. 2017. La traduzione letteraria anglofona. Il proprio e l'altrui - English e englishes. Gli autori postcoloniali di lingua inglese [Anglophone Literary Translation. The Own and the Other – English and Englishes. Postcolonial Authors Writing in English]. Milano: Hoepli.
Cinque, Guglielmo. 1977. “The Movement Nature of Left Dislocation.” Linguistic Inquiry, 8(2): 397-412.
Doroševič, Vlas. 1895. Odessa, odessity i odessitki (očerki, nabroski, eskizy) [Odessa, Odessans (Essays, Sketches, Drafts)]. Odessa: Izdanie Ju.
Fiorentino, Giuliana. 2018. La variabilità linguistica. Temi e metodi della ricerca [Linguistic Variability. Themes and Methods of Research]. Roma: Carocci editore.
Grenoble, Lenore. A. 2015. “The Sociolinguistics of Variation in Odessan Russian.” In A Convenient Territory: Russian Literature at the Edge of Modernity. Essays in Honor of Barry Sherr, edited by J. Kopper, and M. Wachtel, pp. 337-354. Bloomington: Slavica Publishers.
Grenoble, Lenore. A., and Kantarovich, Jessica. 2022. Reconstructing Non-Standard Languages a Socially-Anchored Approach. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. https://doi.org/10.1075/impact.52
Herlihy, Patricia. 1986. Odessa: A History, 1794-1914. Cambridge: MA, Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute.
Kabanen, Inna. 2008. Johdatus Odessan Kielen Erikoispiirteisiin (Vvedenie v osobennosti odesskogo jazyka) [Introduction to the Special Features of the Odessa Language (Introduction to the Features of the Odessa Language)]. Master’s Dissertation. University of Helsinki.
Kabanen, Inna. 2010. “Odesskij jazyk: bol’še mifa ili real’nosti?” [Odessan Language: More Myth or Reality?]. Slavica Helsingiensia, 40: 287- 298.
Kabanen, Inna. 2021. “Odessan Courtyard as a Symbol of Humor and Nostalgia on Russian Television.” Russian Journal of Communication, 13 (1): 62-76.
Kabanen, Inna. 2021. “The Art of Speaking Odessan: Isaac Babel’s Odessan Phraseologisms as Fixed Units of Linguistic Art in Tele-cinematic Context.” Mova, 35: 102-110.
Kalmykova, V. V. 2015. “Tayna tretyey stolitsy, ili Yugo-zapadny veter v moskovskoy literature (k voprosu ob odessko-moskovskom tekste)” [The Secret of the Third Capital, or the Southwest Wind in Moscow Literature (On the Issue of the Odessa-Moscow Text)]. In Moskva i “moskovskiy tekst” v russkoy literature. Moskva v sud’be i tvorchestve russkikh pisateley: Sbornik nauchnykh statey. Tom Vypusk 8 [Moscow and the “Moscow Text” in Russian Literature. Moscow in the Fate and Creativity of Russian Writers: Collection of Scientific Articles. Volume 8], pp. 67-77. Moscow: Moscow State Pedagogical University.
Kantarovich, Jessica, and Grenoble, Lenore. 2017. “Reconstructing Sociolinguistic Variation.” Proceedings of the Linguistic Society of America, 2 (27): 1-15.
Karpenko, Yuri. 1991. Yazyk i stil’ proizvedeniy I. E. Babelya, Yu. K. Oleshi, I. A. Il’fa i Ye. P. Petrova: sb. nauch. tr. [The Language and Style of the Works by I. E. Babel, Yu. K. Olesha, I. A. Ilf, and Ye. P. Petrov: Collection of Scholarly Papers]. Kiev: UMK VO.
Mečkovskaja, Nina. 2006. “Russkij jazyk v Odesse: včera, segodnja, zavtra” [The Russian Language in Odessa: Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow]. Russian Linguistics, 30 (2): 263-281.
Mirzoeva, Leila. 2016. “Peculiarities of Indirect Translation from English into Kazakh via Russian language.” The Turkish Online Journal of Educational Technology, Special Issue for INTE, 2.
Mustajoki, Arto. 2013. “Raznovidnosti russkogo âzyka: analiz i klassifikaciâ” [Varieties of Russian: Analysis and Classification]. Voprosy Jazykoznanija [Problems of Linguistics], 5: 3-27.
Newmark, Peter. 1988. A Textbook of Translation. New York: Prentice Hall.
Ścibior, Agnieszka. 2019. “‘I Have a Couple of Words I Need to Tell You.’ Of Yiddishisms in Isaac Babel’s The Odessa Stories and Polish Translation.” Studia Litteraria Universitatis Iagellonicae Cracoviensis [Literary Studies of the Jagiellonian University in Kraków], 14 (2): 111–121.
Sicher, Efraim. 2012. Babel’ in Context: A Study in Cultural Identity. Boston: Academic Studies Press.
Sicher, Efraim. 2015. “Odessa Time, Odessa Space: Rethinking Cultural Space in a Cosmopolitan City.” Jewish Culture and History, 16 (3): 221-241.
Sindoni, Maria Grazia. 2016. “Tradurre le varietà diglossiche dei Caraibi: l’inglese e il creolo nei romanzi di Beryl Gilroy e Curdella Forbes” [Translating Caribbean Diglossic Varieties: English and Creole in the Novels of Beryl Gilroy and Curdella Forbes]. In Sfaccettature della traduzione letteraria [Facets of Literary Translation], pp. 154–168. Artemide.
Stepanov, Evgenij. 2004. Rosijs’ke movlennja Odesy: Monohrafija [Russian Speech of Odessa: A Monograph]. Odesa: Astroprynt.
Stepanov, Evgenij. 2013. Russkaja gorodskaja reč’ v polilingvokul’turnom prostranstve Odessy [Urban Russian Speech in the Polylingual and Cultural Space of Odessa]. Kiev: Odessa National University Named After I. I. Mechnikov.
Stepanov, Evgenij. 2019. “Some Remarks on Lingual and Extra-lingual Peculiarities of Odessan Urban Speech.” Mova [Language], 31: 32–37.
Stetsyuchenko, Aleksej, and Ostashko, Aleksandr. 1999. Samouchitel’ poluzhivogo odesskogo yazyka s kommentariyami, dopolneniyami, tolkovym slovaryom [A Self-Taught Tutorial of Half-Living Odessa Language with Comments, Additions, and Explanatory Dictionary]. Novoye Vremya. Moscow-Odessa.
Tanny, Jarrod. 2011. City of Rogues and Schnorrers: Russia’s Jews and the Myth of Old Odessa. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Torresin, Linda. 2022. Tradurre dal russo. Teoria e pratica per studenti italofoni [Translating from Russian: Theory and Practice for Italian-speaking Students]. Milano: Hoepli.
Treccani. Enciclopedia dell’Italiano. 2010. “Verbi fraseologici” [Phrasal verbs]. Accessed September 27, 2024. https://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/verbi-fraseologici_(Enciclopedia-dell'Italiano)/.
Verschik, Anna. 2003. “O russkom jazyke evreev” [On the Russian Language of the Jews]. Die Welt der Slaven [The World of the Slavs], 48: 135-148.
Verschik, Anna. 2007. “Jewish Russian and the Field of Ethnolect Study.” Language in Society, 36 (2): 213-232.
Vitale, Serena. 2007. “La ‘dolce rivoluzione’ di Isaak Babel’” [The “Sweet Revolution” of Isaak Babel]. In I. Babel’, Tutte le opere [Collected Works], edited and introduced by A. Dell’Asta, translated by G. Pacini. Milano: Mondadori.
WordSense Online Dictionary. n.d. Accessed September 27, 2024. https://www.wordsense.eu/
Zeleneckij, Konstantin. 1855. O russkom jazyke v novorossijskom krae [On the Russian Language in the Region of New Russia]. Odessa: Odessa Educational District.
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2025 Francesco Bressan
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
