Hi everyone !
Want to see ( or translate ? ) Ohrvall’s book Om Knutar ( 1916 edition ) ?
Then just go to http://runeberg.org/knutar/
You can get some help here with the words :
Limited to a certain number of words per day ( or for a fee )
http://itolk.com/ http://itolk.com/translation.html
see also http://lexin.nada.kth.se/sve-eng.shtml
Cheers
PS - Anyone know of a text that could be given
the same treatment for easy public access
then do not refrain yourself! ;D
Thanks Charles!
This is huge, for anyone trying to download, it has all the pages photographed rather than scanned. Do you have an index - perhaps there is one there but I do not read the language and so do not know where to start! I’ll go to the web-site and put the word index in and see what comes up in Swedish. Is there another way?
Lindsey
OK - never mind, I have it. Thanks for helping get this into electronic text!
Lindsey
I find it a little less than optimal that the pages are photographed, rather than scanned. Sometimes there is a reflextion and often there is help needed to keep the book open. But it is still much better than not having access to the book at all.
Thanks for sharing it with us.
Willeke
Thats a very cool book. I noticed that it randomly converts to english on pag 21 for a brief moment. perhaps this occurs elsewhere, i didn’t look very throughly…
Maybe i’m ignorant, but i’ve never heard of this book before, can anyone fill me in on its history, for i would love to learn 
“Om knutar” (= “About knots”) by Hjalmar Öhrvall is a small book of 116 pages. Originally published in 1908, re-published in facsimile in 1978. It was an early knot book in Swedish, written with the purpose of spreading knot knowledge. Among other things mr Öhrvall suggested that knots should be taught in school!
A nice little book, I have read it a number of times (borrowed from the library), and one of the few knot books written by someone of a non-nautical background. To the best of my knowledge it is not translated from Swedish into any other language.
Lasse C
Hi!
Actually this is the 1916 ( enlarged) edition and not the 1908 edition original of facsimile. This facsilmile is absolutely useless! Even with a magnifying glass the drawing are undecipherable.
Cheers.
Charles
PS :Lasse what about doing a translation for us ?
Among other things mr Öhrvall suggested that knots should be taught in school!What an idea! (Some time ago a Mensa columnist, what's-her-name, asked for basic things that should be known, and I meant to suggest knots to her (don't recall ever seeing a list published in her column).
A nice little book, I have read it a number of times (borrowed from the library), and one of the few knot books written by someone of a non-nautical background. To the best of my knowledge it is not translated from Swedish into any other language.As Nautile says, there are two versions, and it is the 1916, much larger one, that he has presented. It is perhaps one of the best [i]studies/treatises[/i] om knutar ever? I've heard that Cyrus Day had translations of Ohvrall's works, but don't know if that was by some arrangement special for him, or if one was published. It is a treasure awaiting better exposure. (Pieter van de Griend gives it high praise in his [i][u]Letter to Lester[/u][/i]; Ohvrall verbally presents Ashley's "invention", the Constrictor--as"[i]timmerknut[/i]", but O.'s source isn't known, yet!)
PS :Lasse what about doing a translation for us ? :)Well, there seems to be an interest, anyway. If a translation already exists, there is no point, but if not... Maybe!
Lasse C
Hi Lasse !
Thanks for the proposal ‘on principle’
All myforaging on the Web and all my trawling on the “hidden” web never got me any result, not that absence of proof is proff of absence!
I think that this “translation” either never exist under commercial form or never left any trace, even the highly ressourceful Dan_Lehman could not get a copy or part of a copy.
Urban Legend for all practical purposes.
So if you were kind enough to…
I offer to share in the cost incured and add a donation ( Paypal is no hassle really and almost no cost ) for you to use as you deem fit.
Hey folks ! will some follow suit ?
Kind regards.
Charles / Nautile
PS :
If need be I offer to “host” it on my personal web space
for people to freely download if you do not have disposition of one of yours.
I can send you “bigger” ( more pixels) pictures than
the one on the Net. Just say the word in off forum for your snail mail address.
Old thread I know. But I just had to write this.
I did the transcription from the images to digital text for the pages that wasn’t already done. And borrowed the book as a reference where the photo’s were … substandard. Afterwards I proofread all the pages. Runeberg just want the text searchable, and I want to make a “new original”. Thusly I finished the work as they want it, brought the lot down for postprocessing. By now, I have a complete book in the form of a pdf. Every comma and dot ought to be placed as in the original (1916 edition). Of course, bugs slip through.
The text is also saved as ODT. I photographed all the images and cleaned them up for inclusion. Sadly, there are some question to the copyright of the images. They are drawn by ?hrwalls daughter. One woman with that name died (fairly anyway) recently. If she is the one, I have not found out.
It is my intention to translate it … some day (to english). His language is of old times and really tedious to read in large amounts. But I will get there, eventually. That is, if no one does it before me. I am not actively working on it.
And I also worked on proofreading of it; did about one fourth of the book. It had been passed through OCR software, but imho it would be about the same to type it from scratch. Some of the “already proofread” pages had errors that could only be seen by someone familiar with the subject. Anyway, I think it is in good order now.
As for translation, not a project for me right now. Maybe I could translate into Spanish later.
Then you are probably the one who laid the foundation that I stood upon. Yes, the OCR was indeed horrible. It sucked the energy out of me. But now it’s done … that far.
Inkanyezi & Wed,
this is the best thing/news I’ve read in a long time!!
Many bravos, three cheers, and thanks to you
both for what you’ve done (and might further do) !!!
I see evident difficulties in translation, similar to those we have of defining terms for parts of knots. In Swedish, there are several different words for “knot”, some of them rather specific, while other languages don’t have corresponding terms. I won’t say they are missing totally, but maybe not used in the same way. Swedish borrowed mostly from Dutch, and that’s why we have the word “knop” (Dutch: knoop), which nowadays is used indifferently for knots, while Ohrvall points out that those are made from the opened up strands, to differentiate them from “stek” (Dutch: steek), knots that are made with the whole rope.
In fact, the word “knut” that Ohrvall uses is scorned nowadays by people with any marine connection. I myself use the words as Ohrvall suggests, but very often people “correct” me for using the “wrong” word (knut). Some of the text thus is not easily translatable. Then it also comes to the names of knots, which are very different in different languages.
I think that it might not be possible to pass these discussions in the book without comprehensive translator’s notes. Anyway, everything cannot be translated directly.
I just put in an hour on the files. cleaning images and formatting text. Inkanyezi is spot on. My original goal was to translate it to modern Swedish. and ancient plus modern English. We’ll see how far I am in ten years …
I feel it is a job that has to be, should be, done for the sake of putting things right before the world ends. It doesn’t mean it’s not a tedious job though. It can’t be stated enough: the language is atrocious.
Though it is impossible to correctly translate this garbage, here’s a small tidbit. It took me a while to find a passage that didn’t contain really specific horribleness:
De nyss n?mnda f?rs?ken s?tta visserligen knutarna p? v?l str?nga prov, emedan i praktiken s?llan s? m?nga ryckningar och dragningar ?t olika h?ll f?rekomma och emedan d? de flesta ryckningarna torde str?cka och ?tsamsa desamma; men de ?ro likv?l av intresse, n?r det g?ller att bed?ma knutarnas relativa s?kerhet under s?rskilt ogynnsamma f?rh?llanden.
Those just aforementioned trials put of course the knots on well harsh tests, although in practice seldom such many twitches (jerks) and pullings to various ways (different directions) occur and while then the most twitches should stretch and tense thesame: but they art as well of interest, when it comes to evaluate the knots relative security under especially unpleasant circumstances.
You can breath in now … I suppose the sentence makes no sense, as it is pulled from it’s context. When it “cometh” to names that are derived from local sources, it really turns to a bugger of a beast. I suspect that there will have to be a good set of pointers to the Swedish language included.
When I get that far, I will have questions. Right now, I have to amend my earlier post. I didn’t get around to insert all the pictures and the pdf was not made back when I stopped in November 2009. Now I remember why I stopped …