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Glossary entry

Russian term or phrase:

отрок/отрочества

English translation:

boy/boyhood

Added to glossary by Michael Sarni
Dec 6, 2020 14:20
3 yrs ago
34 viewers *
Russian term

отрок/отрочества

Russian to English Art/Literary Poetry & Literature
For background, the narrator is 12 years old at the time:

Тот день я считаю последним днем моего детства и первым днем ***отрочества***.
Слово ***отрок*** почти не употребляемо сейчас. По причине всё более нарастающей инфантильности общества в целом и молодой его части в особенности институт отрочества исчез за счёт удлинения беззаботного детского сегмента жизни современного человека.
По крайней мере, такая ситуация сложилась в более или менее развитых странах.

I'm having a hard time with this for 2 reasons. First, it has to be an old-fashioned word meaning preadolescent/adolescent because "отрок" is hardly ever used these days. The second problem is that the author is complaining about today's protracted childhood, whereas in English we talk about protracted adolescence, but I think both are referring to the period in people's lives when they don't have to work.

Your help would be greatly appreciated.
Proposed translations (English)
3 +2 boy/boyhood
4 +2 adolescent / adolescence
3 +2 tween/tweeny/tweener///tweenhood
4 см.
3 lad/adolescence
3 youth
3 multiple options
Change log

Dec 8, 2020 17:01: Michael Sarni Created KOG entry

Discussion

tatyana000 (asker) Dec 8, 2020:
Thank you Thank you, everyone, for this very interesting discussion and your suggestions!
tatyana000 (asker) Dec 8, 2020:
@Boris Shapiro Yes, this is exactly what I wound up doing! I felt obligated to keep "boyhood" because of the Tolstoy reference, and continued using it in the following sentence. To my ear, "boyhood" does sound a bit old-fashioned. We do seem to like gender neutral words these days.
Michael Sarni Dec 7, 2020:
youngster, n. (OED, sans earliest quotes & refs) 3. A child, esp. a boy. Also figurative.

1788 W. Cowper Pity Poor Afr. A youngster at school, more sedate than the rest.
1852 H. B. Stowe Uncle Tom's Cabin ‘Now for the cake,’ said Mas'r George..; and, with that, the youngster flourished a large knife over the article in question.
1886 C. H. Spurgeon Treasury of David The wife is busy all over the house, but the youngsters are busiest at meal-times.
1916 C. A. Stickney Creevey Daughter of Puritans A substitute teacher has no real authority, and youngsters understand that perfectly.
1942 Short Guide Great Brit. There are..youngsters in knee pants..who have lived through more high explosives..than many soldiers saw..in the last war.
2009 N.Y. Times (National ed.) The small patch of concrete in the South Bronx features sliding boards and swing sets, along with a large fountain where neighborhood youngsters frolic happily through the spray.
Michael Sarni Dec 7, 2020:
lad, n.1 (OED, sans earliest quotes & refs) 2.
a. A boy, youth; a young man, young fellow. Also, in the diction of pastoral poetry, used to denote ‘a young shepherd’. In wider sense applied familiarly or endearingly (sometimes ironically) to a male person of any age, esp. in the form of

1709 J. Byrom Let. 14 May in Private Jrnl. & Lit. Remains The other two sizers, one sophister, the other a Lancashire lad of our year.
1717 Lady M. W. Montagu Let. The young Lads..divert themselves with makeing Girlands for their favourite Lambs.
1720 D. Defoe Mem. Cavalier The old Lad was not to be caught.
1794 Sporting Mag. Requesting you as a brother lad of wax to make me some of your tight shoes.
1829 T. Hood Dream Eugene Aram in Gem My gentle lad, what is't you read?
1856 R. M. Ballantyne Snowflakes & Sunbeams What did you say struck you, Harry, my lad?
1871 R. Ellis tr. Catullus Poems Lovely the lady, the lad lovely, a company sweet.
1885 J. Ruskin Præterita All handsome lads and pretty lasses.
Michael Sarni Dec 7, 2020:
youth, n. (OED, sans earliest quotes & refs) 6.
a. A young person; esp. a young man between boyhood and mature age; sometimes, esp. in earlier use, more widely (see quots.). Formerly sometimes (and still in dialect or vulgar speech) pleonastically qualified by young.

1711 T. Hearne Remarks & Coll. Wch was in the eleventh Year of his Age, and yt he was then a very hopefull Youth.
1774 tr. Chesterfield's Lett. Kal. To-morrow..you will attain your ninth year; so that, for the future, I shall treat you as a youth.
1805 Ann. Reg., Chron. Two youths, one 14 and the other 8 years of age, sons of a poor man.
1837 Dickens Pickwick Papers The pot-boy, the muffin youth, and the baked-potato man.
1881 19th Cent. Before she was twenty she wrote verses like other youths.
Michael Sarni Dec 7, 2020:
boy, n.1 (OED, sans earliest quotes & refs) 3.
a. A male child or youth. Also: a son, irrespective of age (chiefly as referred to by members of the immediate family).Sometimes restricted to male children below the age of puberty, or below the school-leaving age.

1711 J. Swift Jrnl. to Stella I find I was mistaken in the sex, 'tis a boy.
1752 S. Johnson Rambler The sailor hated to see tall boys shut up in a school.
1812 Ld. Byron Childe Harold: Ah! happy years! once more who would not be a boy?
1844 A. B. Welby Poems A noble sturdy boy is he, and yet he's only five.
1866 S. B. Warner Word Driven from home, her boy put out of his birthright...
1908 R. Brooke Poet. Wks. The thing must End. I am no boy! I am No boy!! being twenty-one.
1945 E. Waugh Brideshead Revisited That..was Lord Sebastian Flyte. A most amusing young gentleman... The Marquis of Marchmain's second boy.
1989 M. Dorris Broken Cord I continually struggled to understand my little boy as he grew older.
2007 Voice I honestly do feel that my boys are missing out big time on that father figure.
Michael Sarni Dec 7, 2020:
adolescent, n. (OED, sans earliest quotes & refs) A person in the age of adolescence; a youth. Also: an animal at an analogous stage of development.In earliest use with reference to a young horse.

1663 W. Clark Marciano I will assure you, Ladies, he is an adolescent of eximious candor and egregious integrity.
1783 Hibernian Mag. On the Reverse is the Head of an Adolescent, with flowing Hair, and the Cap of Liberty.
1815 W. Taylor Conveying, without indecency, to adolescents many facts concerning the human frame.
1863 Boston Daily Advertiser Harvard..whose morning bell has murdered sleep for so many generations of drowsy adolescents, is at its post.
1903 Amer. Anthropologist With few exceptions the divisions occur in young or adolescent monkeys, occlusion evidently taking place early in life.
1964 A. Nin Collages Within the mature woman a young and virginal adolescent was still sleeping under her first communion and wedding dress innocence.
2001 Oldie Nature wants children to fly the nest, so it has made adolescents so frightful that parents can't wait to kick them out.
Boris Shapiro Dec 7, 2020:
Actually, I myself have kinda thawed towards 'boyhood'. Of course, I'm not qualified to say how old-fashioned it really sounds (though Google Ngram search seems to suggest its usage compared to 'adolescence' is waning, see https://cutt.ly/VhWceIu) to a native ear. What's important here is that you don't need to use 'boy' per se. Substituting 'boyhood' for 'boy' in your second line seems perfectly acceptable to me (def. much more than my previous, more radical suggestion)

Upd: the link is broken, but you can search the Ngram viewer yourself for boyhood vs, for example, adolescence
Michael Sarni Dec 6, 2020:
youngster Many contemporary and obscure words, where a well-known archaic word is clearly required.
Good old Roget suggested: youngster. Archaic enough.
Boris Shapiro Dec 6, 2020:
@tatyana000 I believe none of the options suggested so far would work because of the cultural/linguistic discrepancy.

You might want to play with adolescence vs puberty, the idea being that few people talk about so-called teenagers being fully biologically mature individuals capable of creating a family (and thus, like they did and still do in more traditional societies , expected to provide for themselves), focusing instead on their artificially prolonged quasi-childhood. Though that would, indeed, be a significant (but not uncalled-for) departure that your particular situation might or might not allow, even with an extensive footnote.

Proposed translations

+2
22 mins
Selected

boy/boyhood

Tolstoy’s trilogy Childhood, Boyhood, Youth.
If there is a possibility of inserting (прим. перев), I’d do it, since cultural differences as such that no single English word for отрок will be discerned properly by English readers.

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Note added at 4 hrs (2020-12-06 19:16:47 GMT)
--------------------------------------------------

A version: youngster/boyhood
This is archaic enough to fit the bill.
Note from asker:
Thank you for pointing this out! The author is obviously referencing Tolstoy, and I should at the very least acknowledge it in my translation by using "boyhood" here. I'm not as comfortable, however, using "boy" for "отрок," given the context.
Peer comment(s):
agree IrinaN
1 hr
Thank you, Irina.
neutral Pavel Altukhov : и в переводе будет сказано, что слово boy почти не употребляемо?
2 hrs
In an inevitable translator’s comment an explanation will be given.
agree Boris Shapiro
1 day 6 hrs
Thank you, Boris. Boy: "...Sometimes restricted to male children below the age of puberty, or below the school-leaving age".
Something went wrong...
4 KudoZ points awarded for this answer. Comment: "Yes, "boyhood" is unavoidable given the literary reference. To solve the "boy" problem, I just continued using "boyhood" in the following sentence instead. Thank you!"
6 mins

lad/adolescence

+
Something went wrong...
3 mins

youth

boy/girl, lad, adolescent

--------------------------------------------------
Note added at 6 mins (2020-12-06 14:26:55 GMT)
--------------------------------------------------

boyhood, pre/adolescence
boyish, juvenescent age, period
Something went wrong...
+2
24 mins

adolescent / adolescence

adolescent / adolescence
Peer comment(s):
agree Frank Szmulowicz, Ph. D. : This is right on the edge of the time period in question.
7 hrs
Thank you, Frank! Have a nice day!
agree Pavlo Astashonok
18 hrs
Thank you, Pavlo.
Something went wrong...
+2
26 mins

tween/tweeny/tweener///tweenhood

As the mother of one middle school-aged daughter (and a younger one who's careening toward her own tweenhood), I know all about drama -- and the ways that stony silences can erupt into tears, or that blossoming maturity can go hand in hand with exasperating stubbornness.

https://www.salon.com/2012/04/04/why_is_tweenhood_so_fraught...

ccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccc
Also tween, tweeny. a youngster between 10 and 12 years of age, considered too old to be a child and too young to be a teenager.
https://www.dictionary.com/browse/tween

ccccccc
The word "tween" is often used to describe an age group of children that are in between being a child and a teenager. These kids are often in middle school and are quickly approaching puberty and all the challenges that come with adolescence.
https://www.verywellfamily.com/what-is-a-tween-3288580
Peer comment(s):
agree Turdimurod Rakhmanov : I think tween is the closest. We can't find the exactly same one.
2 hrs
Thank you, Turdimurod. Have a nice week ahead!
agree svetlana cosquéric : ближе всего по смыслу к "отроку"
1 day 41 mins
Thank you, svetlana.
Something went wrong...
1 hr

multiple options

Here are some mostly outdated terms (at least for the US) to play around with. A number of them have the historical context of being used in reference to young noblemen transitioning into adulthood (I didn’t list all of those instances). Or, you could reference the root of “youth” using the word “younker”: “I consider that the last day of my youth and the first day of my adolescence. The word younker is hardly used now.” Or, “I consider that the last day of my “juvenescence” and the first day of my “adolescence”. The word younker/stripling/etc is hardly used now.” Not quite the same wordplay but it’s a place to start.

younker - a youngster (especially a young man or boy); young nobleman
https://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/younker
https://www.dictionary.com/browse/younker

stripling - boy passing into adulthood
https://www.collinsdictionary.com/us/dictionary/english/stri...

callant- a young fellow; boy; lad
https://www.yourdictionary.com/callant

ephebe- a young man; (Ancient Greece, UK) a youth about to enter full citizenship, especially one undergoing military training
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ephebe
https://www.collinsdictionary.com/us/dictionary/english/ephe...

boychick- a young man; boy
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/boychick

kiddiewink - a boy or girl between birth and puberty
https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/kiddywi...

hobbledhoy- a boy or adolescent youth, especially one who is awkward and gawky
https://www.collinsdictionary.com/us/dictionary/english/hobb...

tad- a small child, especially a boy
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/tad

sprong - child or baby
https://www.dictionary.com/browse/sprog

nipper- a child; small boy
https://www.thefreedictionary.com/nipper

shaveling- a male child from birth to puberty
https://medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Shaveling

whelp- a young boy or girl
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/whelp

juvenescent - young person
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/juvenescence
Note from asker:
Thank you for this very useful list! I do like "stripling"
Something went wrong...
16 hrs

см.

Точного эквивалента этой паре архаичных слов в английском нет. Поэтому надо сделать следующее: не биться головой об стену непригодных синонимов, в этой стене есть дверь: Берем не архаичную, но книжную пару: adolescent/adolescence, которая подойдет идеально, но переводим не "adolescent почти уже не употребляется", а 'adolescent в наше время употребляется реже, нежели раньше" - что есть святая правда. Это сразу решает все проблемы без потери смысла и содержания, и все живут долго и счастливо

--------------------------------------------------
Note added at 1 day 17 hrs (2020-12-08 07:42:49 GMT)
--------------------------------------------------

Не думаю, что простые американские мужики с бабами скажут скорее adolescent, чем teenager
Peer comment(s):
neutral Boris Shapiro : Я бы усомнился в святой правде. Поиск по Ngram viewer говорит об обратном, по крайней мере в книгах. // И даже в сравнении с teenager оно более употребимо. См. Ngram Viewer, ссылка не поместится.
23 hrs
Не абсолютное число упоминаний, а относительно более популярных теперь слов, вроде teenager, и в сравнении с временами, когда интернетом были кумушки
Something went wrong...