Talk:The Knight in the Panther's Skin

Untitled
It is amazing story, I like it man!!!!!!!!!!

Title translation problem
The title is translated incorrectly. I think, it was an awkward translation in Russian and then the English translation picked it up from here. No need to repeat the same mistakes. For one thing, the original (aka Georgian) title mentions no "Knights". Bear with me. In Georgian the title is “Vefxistkaosani”. The word is made of two separate words (such constructs are common in Georgian). "Vefxvi" means tiger (not Panther, Georgian language does not even have a word for panther), “tkavi” means pelt (not skin, there is a subtle difference between two).


 * I agree with the fact that there is no mention of a knight (Georgian q'ma vassal, knight under control of a feudal lord) in the title of the poem. However, the title is actually Vepxist'q'aosani. [f] is not a phoneme of Georgian, only appearing in Laz and, IIRC, Svan. As well, my Georgian dictionary, written by the native Georgian speaker Besiki Sisauri, lists t'q'avi as one of three Georgian glosses for skin, so I think the distinction is more or less moot when translating into English. And from what I've seen of the illustrations to the mediæval manuscripts of Vepxist'q'aosani, the skin that the man wears is clearly a leopard's skin, not a tiger's. As such, I have no problem with the alternate, and also very common title "The Man in the Panther's Skin" (and since there is no Georgian word for "panther", doesn't it stand to reason that the word vepxvi tiger might be used to refer to panthers as well?). thefamouseccles 08:45, 30 Jan 2006 (UTC)

The suffix “osani” adheres to ownership, to the owner of these items. It might sound very obscure for a structured language, such English, but this kind of construct is quite legal for Georgian. E.G. consider the word “shavosani”. It is generated from the word “shavi” (black) and means “the bearer of black”. Depending on the context, it could mean someone who wears black dress, carries black armor or (if used as a figure of speech) is deeply distressed. So, the word “vefxistyaosani” (btw, an unequally masterful poetic jewel) means: “The Owner of Tiger Pelt”. Or to make it more medieval sounding – “The Master of the Tiger Pelt”. The closely (and IMHO justly) resonates with Tolkien’s world famous trilogy title. "The Knight in the Panther's Skin" is as bad as something like "The midget who wore the ring" would've been.

I would not be so adamant about the title, have I not actually read the bloody poem. The motif of tiger pelt is deeply engrained throught the whole thing and has various philosophical implications. It does not just mean "Dude, where's my cool tiger's thingy!". One of the finest scenes in this creation, the scene where a beloved pair of a lion and a tiger turns against each other and fights to death, the scene where the restless wonderer encounters their pity and kills them out of sheer mercy, clearly demonstrates the point.


 * In Lithuanian it is translated like "The Hero in the Tiger's Skin". Thought, I think "Panther" here is clearly more appriciated. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Submixster (talk • contribs) 11:47, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

meaning of the "book"
This book of life is one of the best literarian masterpieces in the medieval age. Plsease add this —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.196.122.141 (talk) 19:56, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

The number of languages that the poem was translated
In total :49 languages,see the article: The Knight in the Panther's Skin in georgian language, all the languages are listed there. The languages are:  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.64.211.223 (talk) 11:16, 28 January 2011 (UTC) Azeri, Belarusian, Arabic, Abkhazian, Greek, Bulgarian, German, Hebrew, Spanish, Esperanto, Estonian, Tatar, Turkmen, Turkish, Japanese, English, Icelandic, Italian, Finnish, Catalan, Latin, Luxembourgish, Molodovit, Mongolian, Dutch, Ossetian, Polish, Ukrainian, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Slovak, Armenian, Persian, Swahili, Welsh, Uzbek, Hungarian, French, Kurdish, Kazakh, Kyrgyz, Swedish, Czech, Chinese, Hindi, Mingrelian language, Chuvash language. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.64.211.217 (talk) 18:03, 3 May 2010 (UTC) I'm going to list the languages in alphabetical order. Any objections? Erusse estelinya (talk) 18:47, 14 June 2011 (UTC)