On Wed, 9 Nov 2005, Beth and Bob Matney wrote: > There is quite possibly a translation problem as English is not the > author's native language. The question lies in the terms "crochet" and > "needle", after all, knitting "needles" don't have holes in them > either! The possibility exists that the term "needle" as used here, > may have been used instead of the American English "crochet hook".
It strikes me that if only the textile is extant, than there's no way of knowing what the instrument was that made it, except by extrapolation from the product. So, it doesn't make sense that the author would have been describing a specific needle/hook/etc. It may simply be that in the original source, the language requires specifying "technique done with a needle" as a means of describing the particular technique, without any implication that the instrument was extant. A Danish-speaking costume scholar has pointed out to me that there are far fewer words in Danish than in English -- something like only one-fourth, IIRC -- and in turn, many of the costume terms she is accustomed to using in English have no equivalents in Danish. So, it's possible that in the source language, the way of specifying naalbinding would be something like "a looping method done with a needle" as opposed to another sort of looping method. If the word for "looping method" is the same for several different methods, then a translator (or an English-speaking scholar struggling to read the original paper) might easily end up with a literal, word-for-word translation such as "crochet made with a needle," which is quite confusing in English and perhaps not representative of the actual meaning of the phrase in the source language. I'm not intending to speculate that's what happened here, simply to point out that when dealing with translation of technical terms (particularly from a Scandinavian language to English), it's wise to be very suspicious of terminology. There's probably no way to be certain from the English, and you are on the right track to order the original sources. However, you may also need a textiles expert who is a native speaker of that language to tell you what the source phrase means in reality, not just word-for-word! Bear in mind that the NESAT papers are recent, and the scholars currently active. They are often quite receptive to courteous queries. Of course the scholar who cited the works may not have seen the original textile pieces, and may simply be taking the word of the quoted papers -- and because you've got a secondhand reference, there may be more than one level of translation involved! -- but it's quite possible that the scholars who made the original papers are still available and accessible as well. I would also encourage you to contact Anne Marie Haymes, an American researcher who is a naalbinding specialist and has seen many of these items. (Anne Marie is also active in the SCA under the name of Sigrid something-or-other.) She is a professional translator as well as a textile expert and may be able to help you with the source documents even if she isn't familiar with the specific finds. She is well aware of the frequent miscataloguing of naalbound examples in museums and is always on the lookout for specific examples. --Robin _______________________________________________ h-costume mailing list h-costume@mail.indra.com http://mail.indra.com/mailman/listinfo/h-costume
