A query on translation

[jbor]

on 17/4/03 9:51 AM, Cyrus at cyrusgeo at netscape.net wrote:

> Well, the Longman Pronunciation Dictionary (which I often resort to when
> translating), has all the above pronunciations except "yee jing", but
> says the standard is "ee ching", which is consistent with Pynchon's ear
> as is evident from the pun, and also with the rendering of the word in
> Greek. My solution was to use the verb "tsimbane" for the feet (meaning
> in this context to itch, to tingle, to sting) as "i-tsingbane" (the
> Greek language does not differentiate between the "ts" and "ch" sounds).
> The result is not very pretty, but it works, i.e. the reader understands
> the pun intended.

The thing with translating a text, particularly a literary text, into a
second language (even with reading a text) is that there is a process of
interpretation which happens before the text gets reinscribed. I would
imagine that most translators are fluent to near native-speaker proficiency
in both the original language and the target language, so that should never
be an issue. But there are things like tone and mood and narrative voice, as
well as more technical things like symbolism and imagery, irony, puns and
wordplay, colloquialisms and idiomatic language, topical local references
and even the significance in the way people use different words or forms of
address to greet one another in different cultures, rhythm and rhyme and so
forth, which just don't transliterate between languages. And so the
translator does need to be both creative and to make interpretative
decisions in rendering the text anew. For mine, translating a text is almost
as great an achievement as the composition of the text in the first place.

best