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I am looking to translate my stories into as many languages as I can get away with. 🙂 Near the top of the list are French and Esperanto; French because it is our other official language, and Esperanto because I speak it. I suspect the French translation will cost money. The Esperanto translation I can do myself, but I will need someone to check it and make it fluid.

I would also love to have my stories translated into Indigenous languages, such as Anishinaabemowin and Kanien’kéha. I am not certain whether my stories even make sense in an Indigenous context, but I very much want the Indigenous languages to grow and thrive, and I’m willing to put my stories forward if they can help.

After that, the sky’s the limit. The languages I hear around me every day at work — Hindi, Tagalog — are good candidates. The languages of the provincial capital — Cantonese, Mandarin, Italian, to name just a few — are more good possibilities.

And then there are the artistic languages. Artlangs are created by people for various artistic or philosophical purposes, to prove a point, to try out an experiment. One such language is Toki Pona, created by Sonja Lang starting around 2001.

So let’s look at translations. The first work to be translated will be The Lonely Little Fridge, in part because it’s a short children’s book, and it is already written.

French

So far, I have not found anyone who is free to do a French translation. Will I have to go to the commercial market?

Esperanto

The Esperanto translation, “La Soleca Fridujeto”, has been done and published! Detlef Karthaus checked it.

Portuguese

A Portuguese translation, “A Geladeirinha Solitária”, has been done by Joe Bazilio Costa.

Klingon

A Klingon translation, ” ‘ubbogh DeSwarHom bIr”, has been done by Michael Lubetsky.

Anishinaabemowin and Kanien’kéha

I’ve started to make cautious efforts to find out whether there is any interest in translations into these languages.

Anishinaabemowin, known to the English as Ojibwe, is the Indigenous language of the Peterborough region of Ontario, where I was born.

Kanien’kéha, known to the English as Mohawk, is the Indigenous language of Tyendinaga Mohawk Territory, just down the road from Belleville, where Scott Robert Dawson Books is based.

Toki Pona

Recently I got a Toki Pona dictionary to add to the original book I have, so I’m going to make an attempt at translating The Lonely Little Fridge. If it works, I could have a few

Toki Pona has a very regular syllabic structure; to my ear it sounds somewhat Polynesian. This structure enabled Jonathan Gabel to create a graphic writing system called sitelen sitelen (“drawn writing”), which resembles a cross between Mayan hieroglyphics and “puffy” graffiti. It would be nice to have a version of the book in this as well.