-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: Robin in Pale Fire]]
Date: Fri, 13 Jan 2006 15:33:58 -0800 (PST)
From: Jerry Friedman <jerry_friedman@yahoo.com>
To: Vladimir Nabokov Forum <NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU>
I apologize if this shows up twice.  I didn't get an
acknowledgement of my first attempt.
It depends on which robin we're trying to translate.  The
point of the passage in _Pale Fire_ is that the American
robin, /Turdus migratorius/, isn't that much like the
European robin, /Erithacus rubecula/.

A good way to translate species names is to look up the
scientific name and then search for it on Russian pages.
For the European robin, Google turns up
(zaryanka, in case the
Cyrillic doesn't come
through) as well as malinovka (and some pages in Bulgarian,
for some reason).

For the American robin, it gives
(stranstvuyushiy drozd) and
(migriruyushchiy drozd), and maybe some other names
that I didn't recognize as names.  This must be the
one Savely Senderovich means below.

Does the Russian translation work well?  I don't think
the American robin is any more "gross" than a thrush
(which I assume is what "drozd" means), and I would
think they both consume "long, sad, passive worms" with
equal "gusto".  This might be a good place for the
translator to take a liberty.

Jerry Friedman


According to dictionaries, 'robin' means 'maliniovka', but but in
factmalinovka is not at all like robin, it is small bird with a thin,
tendervoice. Robin is closer to Russian 'drozd', and S. Il'in makes
sense translating it so. S. Senderovich