Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam - Translations - Other Languages

Other Languages

• Many Russian language translations have been undertaken, reflecting the popularity of the Rubaiyat in Russia since the late 19th century and the increasingly popular tradition of using it for the purposes of bibliomancy. The earliest verse translation (by V.L. Velichko) was published in 1891. The version by Osip Rumer published in 1914 is a translation of FitzGerald's version. Rumer later published a version of 304 rubaiyat translated directly from Persian. A lot of poetic translations (some based on verbatim translations into prose by others) were also written by German Plisetsky, Konstantin Bal'mont, Ts. Banu, I. Tkhorzhevsky, L. Pen'kovsky, and others.
• In Polish, several collections of Rubaiyat have appeared, including one by Professor Andrzej Gawroński, which is regarded as the best.
• Poet Cornelis Jacobus Langenhoven (1873–1932, author of Die Stem van Suid-Afrika) produced the first translation in Afrikaans. Herman Charles Bosman wrote a translation in Afrikaans published in 1948.
• Eric Hermelin translated the Rubaiyat into Swedish in 1928.
• G Sankara Kurup produced a translation into Malayalam (1932)
• Thirunalloor Karunakaran translated the Rubaiyat into Malayalam in 1989.
• Duvvoori Ramireddy translated the Rubaiyat into Telugu in 1935.
• Maithili Sharan Gupt and Harivanshrai Bachchan translated the book into Hindi in 1959.
• Kantichandra Ghosh, Muhammad Shahidullah (in 1942), Kazi Nazrul Islam (in 1958) and Shakti Chattopadhyay (in 1978) produced translations into Bengali
• D. V. Gundappa translated the work into Kannada as a collection of poems titled "Umarana Osage" in 1952
• Gopal Chandra Kanungo illustrated and translated the book into Oriya in 1954. Devdas Chhotray adapted Edward Fitzgerald's work in Oriya and recorded it in musical form in 2011.
• Thomas Ifor Rees produced a Welsh translation, published in Mexico City in 1939.
• Francesco Gabrieli produced an Italian translation (Le Rubaiyyàt di Omar Khayyàm) in 1944. Alessandro Bausani produced another translation in 1965.
• Fraînque Le Maistre produced a Jèrriais version (based on FitzGerald's 1st edition) during the German occupation of the Channel Islands 1940–1945.
• Robert Bin Shaaban produced a version in Swahili (dated 1948, published 1952)
• Kerson Huang based a Chinese version on FitzGerald's version. Other than that there are altogether 48 translations(partial or complete) into Chinese, the complete list can be found at Baidu Baike.
• In 1990, Jowann Richards produced a Cornish translation.
• Scottish poet Rab Wilson published a version in Scots in 2004.
• Fan Noli produced an Albanian translation, the melody and poetics of which are highly regarded.
• At least four versions exist in the Thai language. These translations were made from the work of Edward FitzGerald many years ago. Their respective authors are HRH Prince Narathip Prapanpong, Rainan Aroonrungsee (pen name: Naan Gitirungsi), Pimarn Jamjarus (pen name: Kaen Sungkeet), and Suriyachat Chaimongkol.
• Haljand Udam produced an Estonian translation.
• The poet J. H. Leopold (1865–1925) rendered a number of Rubaiyat in Dutch.
• The Kurdish poet Hajar translated the Rubaiyat in his Chwar Parchakani Xayam, which is also available as an audiobook in which the narrator sings the verses.
• Armenian poet Kevork Emin has translated several verses of the Rubaiyat.
• The Assyrian journalist and poet Naum Faiq translated the Rubaiyat into the Assyrian language.
• In Finnish language first translations were made by Toivo Lyy in 1929. More recently Jaakko Hämeen-Anttila (1999 and 2008) and Kiamars Baghban with Leevi Lehto (2009) have translated Khayyam in Finnish.
• The earliest translation in Hungarian consisted of a few stanzas taken from the French version of Nicolas, by Béla Erődi in 1919-20. Lőrinc Szabó finalized his translation of the Fitzgerald version in 1943.
• First Czech translator is Josef Štýbr. At first he translated from English (from Fitzgerald's "translations") (1922), after that from original language (1931). Translation from original can be found on Czech wikisource (770 poems). Next translators are mentioned here.
• The first translator into Slovene was Alojz Gradnik, his translation being published in 1955. It was translated again by slovene translator and poet Bert Pribac in 2007 from the French Toussaint edition.
• The first translation of nine short poems into Serbo-Croatian was published in 1920, and was the work of Safvet beg Bašagić. In 1932, Jelena Skerlić-Ćorović re-published these nine, alongside 75 more poems. In 1964, a noted orientalist Fehim Bajraktarević published his translation of Rubaiyat.
• Hồ Thượng Tuy translated from English into Vietnamese (from FitzGerald’s 1st edition) in 1990.
• Nguyễn Viết Thắng produced a Vietnamese translation of 487 rubaiyat, translated from English and Russian in 1995, published in Hanoi in 2003.
• Xabier Correa Corredoira published a Galician translation in 2010.
• Hemendra Kumar Roy translated the Rubaiyat into Bengali.
• Christos Marketis translated 120 rubaiyat into Greek in 1975.
• Srimadajjada Adibhatla Narayana Das (1864–1945) translated the original Persian quatrains and Edward Fitzgerald's English translations into Sanskrit and pure-Telugu. Pandit Narayana Das claimed his translation was more literal than that of Fitzgerald. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ajjada_Adibhatla_Narayana_Dasu
• In Japan, until 1949, more than 10 poets and/or scholars made translations into Japanese. The first complete translation from Persian into the modern Japanese language was made by Ryosaku Ogawa in 1949, which is still popular and has been published from Iwanami Shoten (it is now under public domain and also freely available from Aozora Bunko ). Historically, the first attempt is 6 poems translated by Kambara Ariake in 1908. In 1910, Kakise Hikozo translated 110 poems from the 5th edition of FitzGerald's translation. The first translation from Persian into the classical Japanese language was made by a linguist Shigeru Araki in 1920. Among other various translations, Ogawa highly evaluates Ryo Mori (ja:森亮)'s one produced in 1931.
• Naum Faiq, A prominent Assyrian journalist and author translated the quatrains into Syriac. The translation exist in its manuscript form and remains unpublished.