Talk:Amos Bad Heart Bull

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"Translation of his name" secn[edit]

    I "by whom?"-tagged the discussion of translating his name, saying in the Reason field:

Is this about one Indian agent, or the predominant pattern, or Federal regulations that recommended using a particular (inadequate) dictionary and/or reading it literally, or Lakotas' lack of insight into the fact that many Lakota metaphors are not echoed by English metaphors?

but {{Vague}} or SYNTH might also have been as appropriate. I removed the recklessly vague citation

New Lakota Dictionary. (Lakota Language Consortium, 2008). ISBN 0-9761082-9-1.

from the sent

Lakota names were frequently translated literally (and thus incorrectly) rather than idiomatically.

since that is either our editor's OR or their paraphrase of an untraceable statement in the work. (Googling on translated literally OR incorrectly OR idiomatically within site www.lakotadictionary.org gives 9 irrelevant hits -- and requiring inclusion of "names" gives 0). What shifted me from objection to removal is the fact that New Lakota Dictionary Online translates "sad" as čhaŋtéšičA rather than čhaŋtéšiče, and says "no match" for the latter as a Lakota word.
    It was too big a mess to leave, and i wrote something less specific about literal translation, that is consistent with what was there and omitted notions of "correct" translation that sounds too dogmatic to be more than the editor reading into something (that a reliable source could have said, more plausibly than what our editor wrote) -- but i hope someone can do a better job than i.
--Jerzyt 21:22, 25 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]