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Pen
Colonial Settler
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February 03 2003
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 Posted - January 07 2018 : 8:47:10 PM
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I saw LOTM in a theater back in 1992, and to this day, there are two things that I still don't understand.
The scene where Hawkeye asks Duncan to translate English to French for him drives me nuts. Why didn't Hawkeye (and by extension, Uncas and Chingachgook) speak French? I'm pretty sure everyone around them at least had some understanding of the language, even if most spoke English.
The other thing is, where/what charater was Colm Meany in the film??
The friend I saw LOTM with and I are both compulsive credits-readers. We saw his name and looked at each other and said, "Colm Meany, where?"
Pen
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Fitzhugh Williams
Mohicanland Statesman
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July 17 2005
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Posted - January 08 2018 : 08:44:17 AM
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Think about this. George Washington grew up in Virginia society, had a European fencing instructor, who spoke French, (and all fencing commands to this day are in French), and yet at Fort Necessity he was unable to understand any French, and could not distinguish between the French word "assasin" and the English work "assassin". All verbal contact was done through his interpreter, Von Bramm. So LOTM was really very faithful to that scenario.
And practically, spoken French is very different from textbook French, and I can only imagine how a Huron would have spoken it. If one is very familiar with French, then they have a much better chance of getting it right. |
"Les deux pieds contre la muraille et la tete sous le robinet" |
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Monadnock Hiker
Colonial Militia
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Fitzhugh Williams
Mohicanland Statesman
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Posted - January 10 2018 : 08:19:09 AM
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| Also, in the Jesuit Relations you will see some native words spelled with an "8" as if it were a letter of the alphabet. This is because the French were trying to faithfully represent the sound of the native words and they had no letter of the alphabet that duplicated that sound. They thought the closest thing to it was their word for "eight", which is "huit". So they used the letter/number "8" to represent that sound. But an English speaker would never pronounce "huit" like a Frenchman, so the entire thing is lost in translation. |
"Les deux pieds contre la muraille et la tete sous le robinet" |
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richfed
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Posted - January 13 2018 : 3:30:53 PM
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| As far as the Colm Meany part goes, if my memory serves correctly, apparently his role was cut from the final version of the movie. EXCEPT that you hear his voice barking orders to the small detachment of British troops who are ambushed in the forest as they are escorting the Munro sisters to Fort Edward. |
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Pen
Colonial Settler
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February 03 2003
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Posted - January 16 2018 : 03:01:20 AM
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Oh, so I'm *not* losing my mind, then :)! Thanks for that, Rich!
Also, thanks for the answer to my other question, Fitz! I didn't know about the French translations.
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richfed
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Posted - January 20 2018 : 3:13:06 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by Pen
Oh, so I'm *not* losing my mind, then :)! Thanks for that, Rich
Apparently, I am, though. I meant Fort William Henry, of course. |
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Couple of things really bugging me about LOTM
