APPENDIX 5

The following is a DRAFT of an English translation of Jacob Maydanyk’s Uncle’s Book. Ksenia Maryniak, Lesia Savedchuk, and John-Paul Himka assisted in bringing the words of the bygone era to life.  There were many challenges to translating a comic book written in a macaronic (multilingual) language spoken one hundred years ago. Some of which are yet to be resolved. Unfortunately, the generations that spoke this dialect are no longer with us to confirm the meaning of many terms and phrases common in the vernacular of 1930.  Also, Maydanyk was inconsistent in spelling, and his handwritten text was often illegible. So, at times, the uncertainty of even one letter changed the entire meaning of the text. For fun and to help Understand Uncle Shtif’s language, there is a Glossary provided in Appendix 8.

In addition, the comics format is difficult to translate.  A common issue I the limited space with a dialogue bubble. A translated phrase is often longer than the original language, and the spacing becomes a challenge.  For this draft, rather than replacing the Cyrillic text with English, a choice was made to add English above each bubble in a less constrained layout. The text alignment also provides a direct visual comparison of the two languages.

Another conscious decision was to accommodate each story all on one page, which was achieved by changing the format from landscape to portrait.

Publication is pending following a final edit.

Click on the cover below to begin reading.