In my thesis, I focus on Dante’s neologisms in the Slovenian translations of The Divine Comedy. The starting point for my exploration is the article by Ghino Ghinassi on the Treccani portal Neologismi, where all currently known neologisms and their explanations are collected. Before analysing individual neologisms, in the theoretical part I discussed about translation studies and translation itself, about Dante and his literary creation, and the general characteristics of Slovenian translations of The Divine Comedy. This magnum opus by Dante is a foundational work of Italian literature and has been translated into numerous languages. Researchers have written a plethora of studies on it. Slovenian researchers have examined specific features of the translations, but no one has specifically dealt with the translations of neologisms in all Slovenian versions. In this thesis, I endeavoured to encompass the complexity of translation and translation studies, and possible translation solutions, focusing mainly on word-formation innovation in The Divine Comedy. The practical part of the thesis allows us to read Dante’s thoughts in different versions simultaneously, which clearly shows the intricacy and intertwining of everything I wrote in the theoretical part. The primary aim of this thesis is to highlight the diversity of translation solutions, upon which I have provided brief commentary, rather than to offer a detailed analysis of all translations. For a more extensive analysis, many more factors would need to be considered, as translations were created at very different times, and consequently, the Slovenian language has changed considerably.
After cataloguing the Slovenian translations of Dante’s neologisms in The Divine Comedy, it became evident that translators felt the original author’s word-formation innovations could be omitted in translation without significantly impacting the Slovenian audience’s understanding. If Slovenian translators were to create new words, they still would not have the same status as Dante’s neologisms in Italian. Nevertheless, it is also possible that translators were unaware that they were dealing with neologisms, or they found it irrelevant and only wanted to convey Dante’s message, where his word-formation innovation was treated (if at all) as something secondary.
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