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maramahan:
bluebeardsbride:
sexualsexual:
bluebeardsbride:
cannot believe I have to say this but when you are posting a translated literary work, include the name of the translator! translation is hard work, often thankless, and it is also just as much a creative act as writing a novel or delivering a lecture.
and also, to do otherwise is highly dishonest! translation is an art highly dependent, first and foremost, on interpretation. no two translations will be the same! no translated work can mirror the original text exactly, no more than we can rebuild Babel. when you read Crime and Punishment in English, you are not only listening to the voice of Dostoyevsky— you are listening to the voice of the translator. credit them! you would not have access to the work otherwise; you owe the translator a debt.
Sounds kind of bold to say it’s as hard as writing the novel itself ?
it’s not bold if you view translation as a creative act. I don’t know if you speak another language, but if you do you probably know that nothing is ever directly translatable. let’s take a simple example of English to German— languages which are closely related.
in German, if I want to say I am hungry I will say ‘Ich habe Hunger’. most literally, this would be translated as ‘I have hunger’. so you have an immediate difference from English. but you don’t translate it as ‘I have hunger’ because this is not said in English. in German, hunger is something you have. in English, it is something that describes you.
let’s say you are reading a book in German. in the book, a six year old child says ‘Ich habe hunger’. you would not translate it as ‘I have hunger’ because six year old children do not speak like that in English (unless they’re messing up the grammar— but this context is absent in the original German). so the translator might translate it as ‘I’m hungry’, because they are not only bound by literalism— they are bound by meaning and context.
but let’s consider this again. maybe one of the main themes of story is about the physicality of hunger. ‘I’m hungry’ does not emphasize its physicality. in German, hunger is something you have. in English, it is something that describes you. there’s an immediate difference there— possession (you have hunger like you would have a physical thing). so perhaps, with this context, the translator might choose to translate the child’s words as ‘I have hunger’ because it is important to stay faithful to the theme.
translation is dependent on interpretation. how you interpret the word—its meaning, its context— will change how you translate. and interpretation is a creative act.
for further reading recommendations, I would read Ilya Kaminskly’s “Of Strangeness That Wakes Us” and Anne Carson’s “Variations on the Right to Remain Silent”. I have other recommendations as well, if you are interested, but both of these essays touch on the necessary creativity of translation.
As a novelist who has studied Ancient Greek, take it from me — translating is JUST as hard (if not harder) and the translator makes a heck of a difference
For example— here’s a bit of The Iliad translated by one Samuel Butler:
“Old man,“ said he, “let me not find you tarrying about our ships, nor yet coming hereafter.”
And for comparison’s sake, I dug out my old class notes to give you MY translation:
“You geezer, I don’t wanna find you loitering around my boats now or ever again!”
Both translations are technically accurate and convey roughly the same meaning, but the two versions are very much not the same
maramahan:
bluebeardsbride:
sexualsexual:
bluebeardsbride:
cannot believe I have to say this but when you are posting a translated literary work, include the name of the translator! translation is hard work, often thankless, and it is also just as much a creative act as writing a novel or delivering a lecture.
and also, to do otherwise is highly dishonest! translation is an art highly dependent, first and foremost, on interpretation. no two translations will be the same! no translated work can mirror the original text exactly, no more than we can rebuild Babel. when you read Crime and Punishment in English, you are not only listening to the voice of Dostoyevsky— you are listening to the voice of the translator. credit them! you would not have access to the work otherwise; you owe the translator a debt.
Sounds kind of bold to say it’s as hard as writing the novel itself ?
it’s not bold if you view translation as a creative act. I don’t know if you speak another language, but if you do you probably know that nothing is ever directly translatable. let’s take a simple example of English to German— languages which are closely related.
in German, if I want to say I am hungry I will say ‘Ich habe Hunger’. most literally, this would be translated as ‘I have hunger’. so you have an immediate difference from English. but you don’t translate it as ‘I have hunger’ because this is not said in English. in German, hunger is something you have. in English, it is something that describes you.
let’s say you are reading a book in German. in the book, a six year old child says ‘Ich habe hunger’. you would not translate it as ‘I have hunger’ because six year old children do not speak like that in English (unless they’re messing up the grammar— but this context is absent in the original German). so the translator might translate it as ‘I’m hungry’, because they are not only bound by literalism— they are bound by meaning and context.
but let’s consider this again. maybe one of the main themes of story is about the physicality of hunger. ‘I’m hungry’ does not emphasize its physicality. in German, hunger is something you have. in English, it is something that describes you. there’s an immediate difference there— possession (you have hunger like you would have a physical thing). so perhaps, with this context, the translator might choose to translate the child’s words as ‘I have hunger’ because it is important to stay faithful to the theme.
translation is dependent on interpretation. how you interpret the word—its meaning, its context— will change how you translate. and interpretation is a creative act.
for further reading recommendations, I would read Ilya Kaminskly’s “Of Strangeness That Wakes Us” and Anne Carson’s “Variations on the Right to Remain Silent”. I have other recommendations as well, if you are interested, but both of these essays touch on the necessary creativity of translation.
As a novelist who has studied Ancient Greek, take it from me — translating is JUST as hard (if not harder) and the translator makes a heck of a difference
For example— here’s a bit of The Iliad translated by one Samuel Butler:
“Old man,“ said he, “let me not find you tarrying about our ships, nor yet coming hereafter.”
And for comparison’s sake, I dug out my old class notes to give you MY translation:
“You geezer, I don’t wanna find you loitering around my boats now or ever again!”
Both translations are technically accurate and convey roughly the same meaning, but the two versions are very much not the same