"People talk about untranslatable words, but in a way, there’s no such thing. It may take three words, or an entire sentence, or even an interpolated paragraph, but any word can be translated. Short of swelling a book into an encyclopedia, however, there is no way of dealing with the larger problem: untranslatable worlds."
"In an interview with The Paris Review, Bill said something very fine: he explained that as a professor at Bard, he was sometimes asked what other departments his classes could be cross-referenced to, and he suggested performing arts. After all, a translation is a performance (whether in another medium or another language) of a written text."
NYT
6 comments:
YHWH disperses them from here over the face of all the earth.
They cease to build the city.
Over which he proclaims his name: Bavel, Confusion,
for there, YHWH confounds the lip of all the earth,
and from there YHWH disperses them over the face of all the earth.
...
Now, this idiom bears within itself the mark of confusion, it improperly means the improper, to wit: Bavel, confusion. Translation then becomes necessary and impossible, like the effect of a struggle for the appropriation of the name... It has for the translator no satisfactory solution. Recourse to apposition and capitalization is not translating from one tongue to another. It comments, explains, paraphrases, but does not translate.
Derrida Des Tours de Babel
They were building a tower to the heavens, an act of hubris. He disperses them, giving them different languages.
I can't tell, is the direct translation of Bavel improper? If so it should stand as written. That is, it's God's viewpoint that should be highlighted, not the inconvenient consequences to self-absorbed Man.
On the other hand, I probably missed the point entirely.
I liked Scarlett Johansson before she became a glamour-puss.
Just the other day, my Hobbit-wife and I watched Blue Jasmine, which was a pretty mediocre movie. But still, it was flattering to salt-of-the-earth people like us.
I didn't care much for Sophia Coppola in The Godfather, Part III. But still, I thought it was wrong when people in the audience applauded when she got shot.
It was funny, true. But still, it was wrong.
You start with the original words and think that is the thing being translated. You will find a word that matches that word, and you do, and say, "what a good boy am I."
In so doing mislead because the word clouds do not overlap.
Grasshopper, the original words are not the thing, the original words were that language's way of describing another real thing. Your job is to use the original language empathetically to get at the real original thing the best you can and tap the feeling that the original language with all its shortcomings attempted to describe, and now you have a chance to use a better language and really describe that original thing, and you may find the original language wanting.
I said something that is printed, "...walking a high wire would be."
Turns out beautiful in asl, acted out like that, but the "would be" is utterly irrelevant, completely English, and fowls the picture. But I put it in anyway, not in the right place, not the textbook way, rather attached to it, where it ended, like a squiggly serif. ["will" + e + d (English past tense, not sign) + "b" for "be"] Jeff understands me, he sees the English and accepts it, okay yeah, future subjunctive, but that is already affected by the precise nod. It's silly to include it. Extra letters attached at the end of a perfectly nice picture that goof it up and clarify nothing. Stupid English that comes out of me, because that is how English is. The rest are looking like, whyTF does he keep doing that? That's him.
When they imitate me back, they add ridiculous unnecessary letters all over the place to be funny and go crazy with past pluperfect "has have had" in ways that I do not do.
So all you needed was the squiggly serif + b + precise nod, but you can't stop yourself from adding +e+d?
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