TRANSLATION
A creative, not an academic exercise
VASANTHI SANKARANARAYANAN
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A look at the act of translation and what it involves.
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IN a multi-lingual country like India, the government as well as educationists are now recognising the importance of translation from one regional language to another and from all regional languages to an international language such as English. The establishment of The National Translation Mission under the large umbrella of National Knowledge Commission bears evidence to the government's recognition of this need.
Internationally known publishers such as Oxford University Press, Penguin India Ltd, and Indian publishers such as Katha, National Sahitya Academy and National Book Trust have published several translations from regional Indian languages to English. The importance and recognition given to "translation" by the Government as well as publishers may motivate many individuals to don the mantle of translators. Their understanding of the qualifications required to be a translator is generally a post-graduate degree in English (the target language) and reading/writing/speaking knowledge of the regional Indian language (the source language). This may work out in the case of fairly simple or direct texts but not in the case of complex and layered texts. It requires more than a basic or even technical knowledge of the two languages in question.
Definition
This forces us to look into the act of translation and what it involves. Translation by common definition is "expression of the sense (finding the equivalence) of the word or the text in another language". But this is a very simplistic definition. A mere finding of an equivalent or word expressing almost the same sense would result only in literary or word-to-word translation. These translations may miss out on the innumerable meanings one word can have in a language and may mislead the translator who does not know the context in which it is used. For example: the word Karal in Malayalam means the liver, the heart, the mind, the breast and the lungs. The same word is used in romantic or poetic parlance as a form of address means beloved, precious or dearest. So, understanding the context in which a word is used in the source language is a primary requirement of translation.
There is also the problem of dialects that are specific to a language; in Malayalam the dialects used by communities such as Namboodiris, Syrian Christians, Muslims, Ezhavas, Dalits, Tribals are very different from the literary or even ordinarily accepted conversational Malayalam. Besides, there is a considerable difference in the Malayalam spoken by people in the North, South or middle Kerala. Also, Malayalam consists of words of Tamil as well as Sanskrit origin.
Taking all these problems into consideration, it is felt that a dictionary or a thesaurus would only provide a preliminary knowledge of the meaning of words and how to go about finding equivalents for them in another language. Therefore, apart from a working knowledge in the two languages, the translator should have specific knowledge of the history and development of the two languages, the socio-political and cultural history, customs and habits of the place from which the source text originated, and even the uses to which language is put in the source as well as target language. A translator becomes in effect a historian, a sociologist, a culture specialist and, above all, a creative writer. An instinct, which develops through constant use, and a talent, which is initiated through experience, serves well in the act of good translation.
Act of trans-creation
It is now clear, that one has to move away from the dictionary meaning and definition of translation and think of it as an act of "trans-creation", an act of creating a new language through extension of the target language to accommodate the subtleties of the source language. In effect it is the creation of a "parallel" or "hybrid" language, which original users would consider very different from what is "good" or "correct" in the target language.
There may be words from the source language (untranslatable words) such as "Dharma" or "Karma" with glossary explanations. A special effort has to be made to give the sound of words and phrases from the source language and keep its flow. All this has to be done without completely breaking or changing the structure and construction (grammar, syntax, usages, phrases) of the target language. A smooth flow in the target language, which also manages to reflect the flow of the source language, is ideal for translation. It is an act of mediation between two languages, which are very unlike one another in structure and construction. In that sense it is an in-between language, a language negotiated by observing the essentials of both languages. It is this mediation or negotiation, which makes translation a creative exercise.
Till recently translation was not recognised as an independent creative expression. It was always treated as a "necessary appendage" to the source text to establish communication with people who do not know that language. Communication in another language may be a necessary function of translation, but, with growing stress on translations as academic study, and the discrimination between good and bad translations, the creative aspect of translation is coming to the forefront. The translator has started feeling a sense of "ownership" to the translated text, so he/she is bound to take pride in the act of translation and change it from a mere academic to a creative exercise.
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