>Ceci dit il faut remarquer que Tolkien a choisi de parler de peuple et meme de races [...]
le problème est que les personnes qui jugent Tolkien ne l'ont jamais lu, du moins en anglais : d'une part "race" n'a pas les mêmes connotations en anglais et en français ; d'autre part, les contresens auxquels invite la traduction française me semblent assez nombreux : l'exemple de "noiraud" est assez clair, je crois.
je copie ici un extrait de l'article que nous avons écrit avec David Riggs & Daniel Lauzon, à propos de la réception de Tolkien en France (il sera publié en mars dans l'ouvrage de Th. Honegger, une version française développée est prévue pour l'année suivante) :
[...] But one has to ask if the French translation may (unwillingly) have given some weight to these misinterpretations - for instance by translating “race” (of Dwarves, of Men, of Elves …) by the literal race, which has a pejorative connotation in French; but there were a few occasions when a translator of F. Ledoux’s skill should have been more careful.
For example, he uses “noiraud” (S 94) to translate “black-like” (FR 100) , an adjective used by the Gaffer in his description of a Black Rider. Ledoux uses the same term again (S 95) for “a black chap” (FR 101) and (S 113 and 114) “this black fellow” (FR 123 and 125). This is inexact, since the blackness refers only to the way the Black Rider is dressed (the Gaffer and Farmer Maggot could not have seen anything else) ; this is unwarranted, because it unnecessarily translates various English expressions by a sole French noun ; this is also dangerous because noiraud refers to someone “very dark-skinned or dark-haired” and is a synonym of moricaud, which is a racist term! The French translation should have been something similar to “il était tout noir” or “un type en noir,” which both clearly refer only to his clothes. We are not saying that Ledoux was acting consciously, but rather that a translation, thirty years later, may, in another context (i.e. the rise of extreme-right in France), acquire a meaning which alters the original text and allows the possibility of grave misunderstandings.
je crois qu'il est inutile d'épiloguer sur ce sujet, du moins ici. les débats par mail sont, par définition, sans fin.
Vincent