note <\/a>on translation in general, and specifically a translation
\n into Spanish
\n of a work by one of his favorite poets, Derek Wolcott. This got us thinking,
\n again, about the difficulties and delights of translations, as well as
\n the whole question of multilingualism as part of the human experience.<\/p>\nAs a linguist and language teacher, the Dowbrigade has thought long
\n and hard about the power of words, and the primal force of The Word,
\n which, whispered by God into the ear of mankind at the dawn of time,
\n started the whole evolution of consciousness and civilization that delivered
\n the
\n human
\n race from
\n the company of beasts into the light of progress and development we are
\n experiencing today.<\/p>\n
A word, any word, is much more than a sound that carries meaning. The
\n key to the power of a word is that it caries a different and idiosyncratic
\n meaning for every person that hears or uses it, depending on their history,
\n education,
\n emotive associations and mood at the moment it enters their mind. This
\n is the timeless problem and the promise of magic facing those who deal
\n in the currency of words. When a novelist or poet uses a word,
\n the only thing of which he can be certain is that NO ONE who reads or
\n hears
\n it
\n will have
\n exactly the same reaction, associations or response in their mind
\n as the author. In each case, the word will reverberate in a personal
\n echo chamber, the shape and flavor of the echoes determined by the intricate
\n overlay of every time and every context in which they have heard the
\n word before.<\/p>\n
This infinite variation in temper and tonality is multiplied exponentially
\n when individual words are strung together in longer units to convey complex
\n and multidimensional messages; phrases, sentences, stories or statements.
\n Then, the individual words meld together, combine and collide and bounce
\n off of each other, suggesting and eliciting associations, streams of
\n thought
\n and
\n emotion,
\n juxtaposing
\n areas
\n of memory
\n and
\n mental activity which perhaps had never touched each other directly before.<\/p>\n
In this sense, any writing, or speech, is a sort of translation, from
\n the internal linguistic landscape of one human being to another. Given
\n the astounding diversity of our inner lives, is it any surprise that
\n different interpretations and misunderstandings are the rule rather than
\n the exception?<\/p>\n
When moving from one language to another, the differences in memories,
\n resonances and cultural cues evoked are magnified and multiplied. The
\n mysteries of the origins of modern languages are a source of discussion
\n and disagreement among linguists and anthropologists everywhere.
\n Almost all cultures which have been studied have some variation on the
\n Babel myth: that at some point in the misty dawn of civilization all
\n peoples spoke a single, universal language, and that a cataclysmic cultural
\n event resulted in the fragmentation of our linguistic heritage. Whether
\n this is an echo of an actual event or an allegory for the transmigration
\n and differential evolution of cultural groups is open to debate, but
\n the universality of the myth speaks to the importance of language diversification
\n in the lives of tribes and nations from prehistory to the present.<\/p>\n
This diversification has both positive and negative influences and effects
\n on our modern linguistic heritage. On the minus side, the proliferation
\n of mutually unintelligible language groups makes communication, the sharing
\n of ideas, stories and knowledge a nightmare of misunderstanding and mutual
\n alienation. Not only literature and art, but science, politics and commerce
\n are made immeasurably more difficult due to our inability to understand
\n our neighbors or counterparts in other parts of the world.<\/p>\n
On the plus side, the variety of existing languages enriches the human
\n experience and adds colors and tones to the pallet of human expression.
\n Fluency in multiple languages allows a person to examine the world in
\n different ways, to find an increased number of solutions to common problems,
\n and to view the world from a variety of perspectives. In this sense the
\n aggressive and chauvinistic monolingualism of most of the population
\n of the United States is one of the major obstacles to the emergence of
\n true global understanding and the search for a way out of the traps of
\n national prejudices and discrimination, and their bastard children,
\n fear, hatred and warfare against those seen as different or alien.<\/p>\n
Returning to the theme of translations, it should be clear that the
\n job of a translator is much more than plugging in a distinct set of vocabulary
\n and grammatical rules. It involves truly understanding the underlying
\n meaning and mood of a piece of language, and the ability to interpret
\n and reformulate it in a completely different system of expression.<\/p>\n
A really good translator needs to be as much of a creative artist as
\n the original author, maybe even more. A translation cannot be seen as
\n the informational or artistic equivalent of the original work; rather
\n it is an interpretation, a commentary and an original aesthetic effort.
\n It is a mistake to evaluate a translation as "better" or "worse" than
\n the original. It may have a more immediate or impactful effect on any
\n particular reader, due to the experiences and sensibilities
\n they share with the translator, and their agreement or disagreement
\n with the translators understanding
\n of the underlying message encoded in the original work.<\/p>\n
This process of reinterpretation and idiosyncratic variation has a long
\n and storied history in the evolution of human culture. Many times longer
\n and more complex than the history of literature is the history, and pre-history,
\n of storytelling, which anthropologists refer to as "oral history". For
\n thousands of years before the development of written language, stories,
\n epic poems, myths and tribal histories were told and retold, around fires
\n and on open hearths, in anticipation of and following hunts and battles,
\n feasts and ceremonies, by people huddled in caves or tents or wandering over
\n open terrain in search of sustenance and survival. <\/p>\n
The tellers of
\n these tales were honored and respected figures in their groups, often
\n elders, wise
\n men,
\n spiritual
\n leaders or mystical figures. Each time they retold their stories, and
\n especially as they were bequeathed from generation to generation, the pace,
\n focus, vocabulary and interpretation varied according to the situation, the
\n immediate cultural necessity, or the altered state of consciousness of the
\n teller. This tradition continues to this day in the isolated pockets
\n of vestigial human organization anthropologists love to study, for the clues
\n and insights they provide in how we came to be what we are today.<\/p>\n
So lets acknowledge and appreciate the difficult and invaluable work done
\n every day around the world by this group of truly creative artists and champions
\n of intercultural communication. A good translation can not only preserve
\n and transmit the ideas and emotions of a respected writer into a foreign
\n language, it can actually find and express facets of a work that may never
\n have otherwise come to light, even in the minds of the original authors.<\/p>\n
inspiration from Ion’s Blog<\/a><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Our esteemed cyber-vecino, Ion, has posted an extremely interesting note on translation in general, and specifically a translation into Spanish of a work by one of his favorite poets, Derek Wolcott. This got us thinking, again, about the difficulties and … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":299,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1443],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2339","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-esl-links"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dowbrigade\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2339","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dowbrigade\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dowbrigade\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dowbrigade\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/299"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dowbrigade\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2339"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dowbrigade\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2339\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dowbrigade\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2339"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dowbrigade\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2339"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dowbrigade\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2339"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}