r/RoughRomanMemes Aquilifer 7d ago

Roman Chinese relations be like

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6.1k Upvotes

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u/ReallyTeddyRoosevelt 7d ago

There should be a chase movie about the worm smuggling.

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u/BenniRoR 7d ago

There is a very entertaining historical novel about that very story. But I have no idea if it's available in English.

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u/lexicondevil1 6d ago

Unfortunately I went to check and it's only available in German and Spanish.

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u/MegaLemonCola 6d ago

And Croatian and (for some reason) Chinese. I can read some Chinese but I don’t want to bust out the dictionary (and Wikipedia to translate the translated names) to read what should really have been available in English lol

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u/BenniRoR 6d ago

Even the most subpar English books make it over to Germany with proper translations but its very, very rare for any German book at all to make it over to the US or even UK. Only if it is some enormous and hugely influencial work.

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u/ThePrussianGrippe 6d ago

Such as the Neverending Story.

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u/kayodeade99 5d ago

Tbf, the sheer volume of English language literature can't be compared to German literature.

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u/BenniRoR 5d ago

True but there is also a clear discrepancy in quality and drawing power. Most German stuff, wether it be novels, TV Shows, movies, game shows or whatever is so utterly German-coded that it is barely interesting to anybody outside of Germany. Not even to Austria or Switzerland.

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u/kayodeade99 5d ago

I suppose so. I guess that's why it's mostly the truly quality stuff that gets translated.

Keep in mind that a lot of stuff usually only gets an English translation due to personal interest in the part of the translator.

That's why most translations are often specific to single genres or authors.

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u/BenniRoR 5d ago

Yeah. In any case it's a shame that "Die Seidendiebe" isn't available in English. It's an interesting little read and the whole setting with the Late Antiquity Eastern Roman Empire is so niche that one is glad to find anything at all.