Lost In Translation

Warning: Very long and extraordinarily boring post about translators (it's a bugbear of mine).

Coming as it does after the news that foreign language teaching in British schools is declining at a suicidal rate, Robyn's delightfully silly post on wordplay gets me all 'thinky'.

First off, it reminds me how appallingly bad my Portuguese has got after ten years of neglect. So after yesterday evening's somewhat Pythonesque Japanese class, I go to bed with Luis Camõens (so to speak).

Jorge introduces me to Camõens when I'm struggling to learn Portuguese back in the eighties. He tells me I can never truly understand the "soul of Lusitania" until I know Portuguese history and culture, but especially Os Lusíadas. I immediately rush out and buy the Penguin Classic translation, "The Lusiads".
er … Jorge? … What's all the fuss about? This is as dull as ditchwater.
Jorge clips me round the ear and sends me off to buy a copy in the original mediæval Portuguese (we are in Portugal at the time; every bookshop has one). He has me stand and read aloud, helping me with any archaic phrases.
It blows me away. This is glorious, inspiring, truly epic. I feel as if I'm Prospero, raging at the Tempest.
Why had I not heard of the "Portuguese Shakespeare" before? Jorge points me at the translation; the primary source for Camõens in the English language.

As armas e os barões assinalados
Que, da Ocidental praia Lusitania …

… which the Penguin translation has down as:

This is the story of heroes who,
leaving their native Portugal behind them,
opened a path to Ceylon …

WHAT?
This is not so much a translation as a bad, sixth form commentary. Where is the poetry? Where is the stirring imagery? The rolling cadences? No wonder Camõens is so neglected here. The translation we have is an utterly uninspiring bunch of arse!
I acknowledge that there has to be a trade off between literal translation and poetic license, but this is so dire …

Luckily, some people still care about language. The great modern Portuguese novelist and Nobel laureate Jose Saramago has been blessed with probably the finest translator on the planet; the late and sorely missed Giovanni Pontiero.
O ano da Morte de Ricardo Reis is one of my all time favourite books, and Pontiero's translation is a work of genius. Go buy it (The Year Of The Death Of Ricardo Reis - warning: it's a bit 'modern' and bleak) and marvel.
Saramago can be a difficult bugger, even in Portuguese, but Pontiero's translation leaves me awestruck. Passages of such beauty that I have to stop and let them wash over me before I can read on. His translation of Saramago's The Gospel According To Jesus Christ is equally dazzling.

Vikram Seth is another one. Most people know him for "A Suitable Boy", his wonderful Indian epic. But for me, his masterpiece is "Three Chinese Poets" ISBN 0-06-095024-2; translations from the T'ang dynasty poets Wang Wei, Li Bai and Du Fu.
In his introduction, he gives an explanation of how he has translated the poems, using as an example, Wang Wei's "Living In The Hills: Impromptu Verses."
Seth gives us the original Chinese characters, with both a phonetic and a literal translation of each character underneath.
He then explains how he has rendered this into English, while retaining the original meaning together with the rhyme and structure. It is inspiring to read and a revealing insight into how much work goes into translating a piece into something which is valid both literally and artistically.
Here's one of his translated poems; Li Bai's "Listening To A Monk From Shu Playing The Lute".
Write it down, then go find a quiet space to read it a few times and let each word and phrase sink in.

The monk from Shu with his green lute-case walked
Westward down Emei Shan, and at the sound
Of the first notes he strummed for me I heard
A thousand valleys' rustling pines resound.
My heart was cleansed, as if in flowing water.
In bells of frost I heard the resonance die.
Dusk came unnoticed over the emerald hills
And autumn clouds layered the darkening sky.

If that doesn't lift your heart, then your soul must have been eaten by spiders while you slept.

Good teaching of foreign languages is essential, and our woefully underfunded Department of Education is likely to suffer more cutbacks after the next election, to fund tax cuts for the rich. If languages are neglected, how can people truly understand what is being said by others?
Tracking down and reading the original source material is the only way to find the truth behind any news story. If that source material is in another language, then, as we have seen, you cannot necessarily count on a translator of the standard of Pontiero or Seth.
This is especially pertinent when it comes to our relations with Islam. All most of us in the west know is based on hearsay or third-hand spin from so-called "authorities" and commentators.

I have a rule:
If I am to criticize something, be it Islam or US foreign policy or something as trivial as Shona's latest hair colour, then I must first know what I'm talking about; find the source material behind the stories.
For America (and Shona), this is fairly easy, but for Islam?
If you want to criticise Islam and have anyone respect your opinion, try this simple exercise:
First read up on the history. For anyone starting out on this path, Prof. Albert Hourani's "A Short History Of The Arab Peoples" is an easily accessible and balanced place to start.
Next, hit the bibliography and get online. Source material.
Read the Koran (again a Penguin Classic translation, but a better one than their Camõens) and the Life of Mohammad, visit your local mosque and talk to people.
If you want to, learn some Arabic:
Bismillahi ar-Rahman ar-Raheem …
(In the name of God, the merciful, the compassionate) …
It's a beautiful thing to roll around your tongue.
And here's the important part:

With comprehension comes understanding.
With understanding, fear of the unknown disappears.
Ignorance breeds fear.
Here in the west, our governments keep themselves in power using the Orwellian theory of "Fear = Control".
Since 9/11, the US government (followed slavishly by our own, led by Bush's personal buttplug) has kept it's population permanently and ignorantly wetting their pants, while all hopes for peace, truth and understanding get flushed straight down the shitter.

Do something good. Learn another language. Help keep us talking to one another, rather than bombing the shit out of the innocent (that goes for both sides) …

End of rant.

Hmm … That kind of changed tack halfway through. Mister Shoutytrousers is never far away when I'm writing, but I fear he has a point in this case …