Thread: Martin Luther King - I have a dream

Martin Luther King – I have a dream

Dear people, dear translators, could you help me with the original text of the greatest Kings’ speech ever been done? I am translating it to my native language for educational purposes, so I want translation be brought to infinitive perfection. There are some parts I am needed to be learned about more. Before we start, please visit:
http://www.americanrhetoric.com/spee...haveadream.htm

Now, let’s start:

1| At first, please make me clear about these words for these people living in America:

- Negro / the Negro
- Negroes / the Negroes
- black / the black / the blacks
- black people / the black people
- colored people

Could you line up these words according to their softness, starting from the most euphemistic to the most undignified one?

And could I be answered why probably Martin Luther King is using the word „Negro“, but not Negroes in his speech? May be for an effect of pars pro toto (rhetoric figure when the gross is changed with the part)? And why it is written by capital letter? Are in your lounge all types of races written by capital letter (e.g. Mustic...)? Thanks for this.

2| I have no idea how to translate this into my native language, however the same word exist in our lounge, but in this sentence it cannot be used in the way I thought:

Originally Posted by Martin Luther King

And so we’ve come here today to dramatize a shameful condition.

Could you explain me it in other way, please? Thanks for this.

3| Word a promissory note make me angry. I am not able to sleep… still shouting “promissory note, promissory note, promissory note” out of my dream. I guess it means something like engaged note. Am I right? Say I am not for my better sleep:

Originally Posted by Martin Luther King

When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir.

Thanks for this, guys.

4| Especially my hairs are getting a color of grizzly, when I do not exactly know how to be this translated:

Originally Posted by Martin Luther King

This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the "unalienable Rights" of "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

- maybe right for happy being, being with happiness, without problems (being meant as life)?

5| Do the word vault means hiding-place or the special panzered place to keep money in which is called…hmmm…I have just forgot synonym for this.

Originally Posted by Martin Luther King

But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation.

Thanks, my friends.

6| Any explaining for this word in this context?

Originally Posted by Martin Luther King

This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism.

Thank you, fellow-citizens of Luther’s native state.

7| Sweltering = not calm, full of fight or what else? Invigorating = calm or weak or what else?

Originally Posted by Martin Luther King

This sweltering summer of the Negro's legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality.

I am glad to know you, “good-soulded-beings”.

8| Hatred = ?*” !;”…ehm…very nice sounded word, isn’t it? But WHAT does it mean, please?

Originally Posted by Martin Luther King

Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred.

9| Inextricably = Nice to write, worse to read and the worst to translate.

Originally Posted by Martin Luther King

And they have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom.

10| Is this meant really?

Originally Posted by Martin Luther King

You have been the veterans of creative suffering.

What does creative mean in this context?

11| Are words interposition and nullification connected with Hitler’s idea of Uberman und total solution of Jews’ question?

Originally Posted by Martin Luther King

I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of "interposition" and "nullification" -- one day right there in Alabama...

12| All flesh = sight, scent, taste… in this way?

Originally Posted by Martin Luther King

...and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together."

13| Struggle together = fight against smb or smt together?

Originally Posted by Martin Luther King

With this faith, we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.

Thanks for this.

14| And finally, nice to sing, but at first nicer to know about what:

Originally Posted by Martin Luther King

And this will be the day -- this will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with new meaning:
My country 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing.
Land where my fathers died, land of the Pilgrim's pride,
From every mountainside, let freedom ring!
And if America is to be a great nation, this must become true.
And so let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire.
Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York.
Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania.
Let freedom ring from the snow-capped Rockies of Colorado.
Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California.
But not only that:
Let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia.
Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee.
Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi.
From every mountainside, let freedom ring.

Pilgrim's pride = any legend about Pilgrim and his pride?
curvaceous slopes = die kurve ???
molehill = a little hill everytime made when the mole is coming to !see! the blue, color of sky?

15| Gentiles = ?
the words of the old Negro spiritual: = …?

Originally Posted by Martin Luther King

...we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual:

16| Devotees of civil rights = not sure, something as keeping the civil rights?

Originally Posted by Martin Luther King

There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, "When will you be satisfied?"

17| American dream = I think I know what it is...American dream, American pie… but have ever been this mentioned in any official doctrine, I do not know, maybe as other things in American Constitution? Who has started to use American dream and what does it contains (besides liberty, freedom and independence).

18| At last, the end: When the words slums and a ghetto is heard by you, native speakers, how do you understand it? What I mean: a ghetto has a italian origin according to the little street where one kind of people were holded, so is this word understood as the foreign? Because If you say slums you understant the word or its expesion? Because slums has become international expresion for poor areas of big-cities. And I have two ways how to translate it: like the word slums or I can write its expresion. Do you know what I mean? How it sounds to you? (I guess, for native speakers are word and expresion closly connected, but...who know)

Thank thee for consultations, sirs.

Originally Posted by Martin Luther King

My Fellow-citizens, Thank You A Lot