Sounds of Nature

[Lake]

天籁

 

远山浮天外

鹭鸶徘徊一鉴开

陶笛奏万籁

 

tiān lài (pin yin)

 

yuǎn shān fú tiān wài

lù cí pái huái yí jiàn kāi

táo dí zòu wàn lài

 

Sounds of Nature

 

Mountains float afar

Egrets hover, mirror pond

Ocarina sings

 

 

春天话语

 

谁踢落雪袄

冰凌坠滴声声娇

听嫩绿浅笑

 

chūn tiān huà yǚ (pin yin)

 

shuí tī luò xuě ǎo

bīng líng zhuì dī shēng shēng jiāo

tīng nèn lǜ qiǎn xiào

 

Whisper of Spring

 

Who kicks off soft snow

Drips, drops, sound of icicles

Naked green giggles

 

.

[Aleksandra]

Ah Lake, so this is your poetry in your language. I love it.

I love this line:

远山浮天外

I can see now, how the difference is. How shorter is in your language. You can post your English translations if you want, as a poems in the other topics too. But here is wonderful when we share the poems in its original version and language.

Both haiku are wonderful.

Thank you so much for posting this. And Lake if is not a trouble for you, can you make a third version too, in the Latin alphabet, so we can try to read it in the Chinese language and see how it sounds? If you don't mind of course dear.

 

Aleksandra

[tonyv]

These are wonderful, Lake. Thank you for sharing them in the World poetry forum.

 

I'm impressed that you observed the traditional 5-7-5 syllabic meter in the translations of these haiku. Having never seen a haiku written in Chinese characters, I noticed a pattern I never had a chance to observe before: there are five characters, seven characters, and five characters respectively in the three lines of each haiku. Is each character always a syllable? I had read that Asian languages are syllabic (as opposed to English, which is accentual), and (if my conclusion is correct) seeing the way your poems appear on the page is helping me to conceptualize the effectiveness of syllabic poems written in syllabic languages ...

 

Tony

[goldenlangur]

Hi Lake,

 

Aleksandra is right - the Chinese version seems more compact than the English. Your first haiku is picturesque and particularly love the detail Ocarina sings

 

 

The playful final line in the second haiku is delightful

 

 

Much enjoyed. Thank you.

 

 

 

 

goldenlangur

[Lake]

Alek,

 

Thanks for your interest in its pronunciation. I'll see if I can get the tones above each word. I have to say though the meanings in the two versions are very close, but they don't match exactly word by word. Since it's my work, I took the liberty to play with the words around to fit in two languages.

 

Thanks as always for your encouragement.

 

Best,

 

Lake

[Lake]

Tony,

 

Thanks for your close reading and I think your observation is correct.

 

there are five characters, seven characters, and five characters respectively in the three lines of each haiku.

 

You are so right. When I post the pronunciation ( we call it pinyin) up there, you can see I also tried to use the rhyme at the end of each line. This won't happen too often especially if you have to retain the same meaning in another version. I'm just lucky this time.

 

Is each character always a syllable?

 

Yes, it is. Though a lot of times one character can be paired with another ( and they are often pronounced together) to produce a similar or different meaning.

 

I'm not an expert in linguistics, so I may not be able to answer all your questions.

 

One more thing: the four tones is the most difficult part for a westerner to master, which is not only difficult to pronounce but may cause misunderstanding if tones are used incorrectly in spoken language. Here's a link re the four tones.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinyin

 

Hope it helps a little.

 

Thanks much!

 

Lake

[Lake]

Golden,

 

I'm pleased how you read the two haiku, which I wrote a while ago, quite different than what I write now, I think.

 

Yes, the Chinese version looks so compact, that's probably one of the reasons some of the Haiku experts claim in order to keep the brevity, to achieve that aha moment, English haiku should reduce to no more than 10-12 syllables. There are still English haiku writers stick to the strict form, holding it as the trade mark of haiku.

 

Thanks for the read and insightful comment.

 

Lake

[Aleksandra]

Thank you Lake for posting that what I wanted to read dear. I am exercising the reading now :). Very interesting and so different. I am glad to have this here.

 

Thanks

 

Aleksandra

[worm]

I’m very much impressed by the perfect match.

The Chinese version in Japanese haiku uniform, strikes me with its aesthetics of classical literature.

 

They are god-given gifts lake!