New AI Experiment - Translating Old Spanish Works To Be Published

Hi everyone,

It is trying to maintain the original intent and meanings.

Here is the Audit for the first 10 Chapters:

Translation Style Sheet Going Forward

For Chapters XI onward, I recommend that we formalize the following as our working standard.

Narrative voice: polished literary English, somewhat elevated but never faux-Victorian.

Marcelo: sophisticated, ironic, self-conscious, occasionally pompous.

Don Celso: exuberant, humorous, rustic, affectionate, highly expressive.

Chisco / Tarumbo / Pito: recognizably rural speech without artificial English phonetic dialect.

Neluco: restrained, educated, sincere, intellectually precise.

Lita: lively, graceful, provincial but naturally sophisticated.

Catholic language: preserve it exactly as part of Pereda’s world—Our Lady, the Rosary, holy water, blessed objects, Mass, Christendom, the Blessed Sacrament, Providence, prayers for the dead, and theological/religious expressions. Do not secularize them.

Latin: preserve significant Latin in the text, with an English translation or note when necessary.

Recurring regional vocabulary: retain selectively at first occurrence with contextual explanation. Current candidates include espolique, lástico, solana, Prao-Concejo, braña, invernal, morio, and jándalo.

Names and nicknames: preserve Spanish names. Nicknames that function as names should usually remain Spanish rather than being continually converted into English.

Historical references: explain in restrained endnotes rather than burdening dialogue with exposition.

Uncertain flora, tools, weapons, architecture, and obsolete medical vocabulary: flag for lexical verification rather than guessing.

Final Assessment After Ten Chapters

The most important finding is what I didn't find.

I did not find passages where the Spanish says one thing and our translation invents another.

I did not find lost paragraphs.

I did not find doctrinal or religious content being altered.

I did not find characters losing their individual voices.

I did not find a gradual deterioration as the prose became more difficult.

What I found instead is exactly what one would expect in a serious human first draft of a literary translation: a relatively small number of ambiguous idioms, regional words, historical references, and specialist terms requiring a second editorial pass.

The two clearest actual corrections are:

Chapter III — cornucopia mirrors.

Chapter IX — historical meaning of asistolia.

The remainder is chiefly refinement and annotation.

Publication Judgment

After auditing Chapters I–X, I would continue this project.

I would not market the present chat output untouched as a finished translation. But after a controlled fidelity pass, terminology pass, copyedit, and final proof against the Spanish, I believe this method is capable of producing a professionally publishable new English translation of Peñas arriba.

The experiment has passed its first serious checkpoint.

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To me this is impressive and when the book becomes ready for publishing, I will select other well known authors whose original language texts did not get translated into English.

What could you have translated especially if you are a native speaker of another language and could have something translated into English?

To Our Success!

Mel Waller