Church name
English translation: St X's (church)
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| 15:20 Feb 28, 2013 |
| French to English translations [PRO] Religion / "Church of" or " 's Church" ? | |||||
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|  Selected response from: Tony M France Local time: 01:15 | ||||
Grading comment
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| 4 +5 | St X's (church) |
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| 5 +3 | depends |
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Answers
22 mins confidence: 
peer agreement (net): +3
peer agreement (net): +3depends Explanation: What form you use depends upon both the context and the nature of your intended audience. A general Anglophone audience cannot be expected to know what "église" means --though they may be able to figure out what is meant by the context. If you are translating from French into English, then clearly "Church of Saint Pierre" is no good. You have not given us the context. Tony's "left after St. Mary's" is fine, albeit quite informal. "The church of St. Peter" is what you mean --though "St. Peter's church" is o.k., if awkward. Again, it depends upon the context and audience. In Chartres (my area of expertise) there is an ancient Benedictine abbey (now a parish church) which is dedicated to St. Peter. In the 17th c. it started to be called, "St. Pe`re," and is still referred to as that in all of the guide books and much of the scholarly literature as well. When I am referring to it in my scholarly writing --or communications with other scholars-- I like to call it "the church/abbey of St. Peter," because *that* is what it was, throughout the Middle Ages. A somewhat special instance, perhaps, but to my ear, "the abbey of St. Pere" just doesn't sound right. -------------------------------------------------- Note added at 2 hrs (2013-02-28 17:25:28 GMT) -------------------------------------------------- Of the possibilities you give, I would prefer "[the] Church of St Mary" and "[the] Church of St George." Though, again, the context is important --should we ever be blessed enough to know the context. -------------------------------------------------- Note added at 2 hrs (2013-02-28 17:50:39 GMT) -------------------------------------------------- Note to Tony: Your suggested "Cathédrale de Saint-Etienne = St Stephen's Cathedral" is medievally correct --those folks actually thought of the church as *belonging* to the saint (along with all the property which belonged to their church). But, I would, in most contexts (there's that dratted word again), prefer to say "the cathedral of St. Stephen." And, "it might be Saint-Étienne Cathedral, if it actually is the one in the city called Saint-Étienne!" is Right On, if an instance of an occurrence which is somewhat limited. Alas, St. Martial is not at all the same guy as St Martin, at least not in France (and not even in darkest England, I would guess). The former was most important around Limoges; the latter around Tours (among other places). This brings up a good point, however: while it is true that most Saints can be translated from the French form of their name to the English form (Pierre > Peter; Marc > Mark; Luc > Luke; Etienne > Stephen, etc.), there are some who cannot, because their names simply do not occur in English. The Martial above is a case in point --definitely *not* = Martin. For instance, there is a [church of] St. Quintin in Beauvais (and also a cathedral dedicated to him in the *town* of Saint Quentin), a [church of] St. Yved in Braine, of St. Eutrope in Saintes, etc., all of whom are not blessed with equivalent English names. Just to add to the confusion, there is a Gallo-Roman virgin martyr, most famously venerated at Conques (but who also owned a minor church in Chartres), named Sainte Foi. As a general rule, I very much prefer using the English form of all Saints' names whenever possible (and the older, original form, like Peter rather than Pere), but in this case I don't like "Saint Faith" at all --even though the translation is a literal one and there is, indeed, a female name "Faith" in English. There are exceptions to every "rule" and, to my mind, "the church of Ste. Foi of Conques" is one of them (note that I also, inexplicably, prefer to keep the "Ste." form of the feminine French --go figger). -------------------------------------------------- Note added at 2 hrs (2013-02-28 17:54:03 GMT) -------------------------------------------------- [misspelled "Quentin" the first time around, above. I *hate* it when that happens.] |
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