The Art of TRANSLATION

The Art of TRANSLATION

After working in media industry for 15 years and teaching Cinema for 12 years I have come to a conclusion, language cannot be stored in a dictionary.

I differ with the thesaurus, as it claims to give exact synonyms and antonyms. Every word has its own meaning and life. Every person when use any word it has a bit different intentions and it connotes the slightly different.

Every language has a beauty, while using the words; we unfold, manifold or undo the beauty. Today I have chosen a word ‘fool’. Let us see how many synonyms we find for it. We often call a person ‘fool’ for doing something idiotic or a naïve person who is easily tricked.

 Dunce - a person who is slow at learning; a stupid person.

John Duns Scotus a Scottish theologian and scholar his followers were ridiculed by 16th-century humanists and reformers, who referred to them as ‘dunces’.

 ‘Ignoramus’ - was the approval given by a grand jury on the prosecution’s insufficient evidence for to warrant the case going forward. The modern sense of ignoramus reflects the character in George Ruggle’s 1615 comedy Ignoramus, which satirizes the sheer ignorance of lawyers.

Dullard - is an old-fashioned word for a dumb person. Who need to explain on how to sit in a chair, it is also in Middle Dutch word dullaert, from dul (‘dull’).

 Drongo - is a Australian and New Zealand English word, it is insulting like  "idiot" or "stupid fellow". This usage derives from an Australian racehorse of the same name (apparently after the spangled drongo, Dicrurus bracteatus) in the 1920s that never won despite many starts.  According to Merriam Webster it is a stupid or unimaginative person.

 Klutz -it has Yiddish origin klots, meaning ‘wooden block’, klutz refers to someone for clumsy, awkward, or foolish nature.

 Little Witham – it is a pun, several villages in Lincolnshire and Essex called ‘Witham’. Someone from ‘Little Witham’ is credited for their stupidity. ‘Witham’ has been used to refer to someone ‘witless’ or a fool.

Silly Billy - was clown common at fairs in England during the 19th century. It was very common in London as a street entertainer, along with the similar clown Billy Barlow. This depicts an act of a person playing the part of a fool or idiot, impersonating a child and singing comic songs. It is attributed to people named William. According to Urban Dictionary it is strictly speaking a derogatory term.

Nincompoop - a foolish or stupid person. It has a Latin roots,  Latin legal phrase non compos mentis "insane, mentally incompetent" (c.1600), Slang definition A fool or stupid person 

Blockhead - The OED puts it best: ‘A wooden head, a wooden block for hats or wigs; hence, a head with no more intelligence in it than one of these, a blockish head’. Ouch, A foolish person.

Dunderhead – a person how use no brain, or Blockhead. There are many wonderful-sounding words like dunderhead, chucklehead, knucklehead, muttonhead, puddinghead, thickhead, airhead, and pinhead. They all carry same meaning.

Dumbo - a stupid person. This term is made out of dumb + o. It was popularized in the 1950s by the Disney film Dumbo. Poor cartoon elephants!

I have got a referential quote on this occasion, While teaching translation in class, I first make read this quote to my students.

“There is no such thing as a perfect, ideal, or 'correct' translation. A translator is always trying to extend his knowledge and improve his means of expression; he is always pursuing facts and words.”
Peter Newmark, Manual De Traduccion / A Textbook of Translation

When I studied Salman Rushdie for my PG, I came across his following lines,

“The word 'translation' comes, etymologically, from the Latin for 'bearing across'. Having been borne across the world, we are translated men. It is normally supposed that something always gets lost in translation; I cling, obstinately to the notion that something can also be gained.”
Salman Rushdie wrote in Imaginary Homelands: Essays and Criticism 1981-1991

I read books, news paper and compare the news from different press, medium and language. Once I met world renowned linguist Dr. Sumit Paul and he shared what he learned from his mentor Umberto Eco at Oxford. “Translation is the art of failure.” 

Last week when a small girl of 3rd standard asked me on ‘translation’ I explained it to her with the words of Mark Twain “The difference between the right word and the almost right word is really a large matter it’s the difference between lightning and a lightning bug”

Lately when I was doing a research on the propaganda, I dug out the WWI and WWII propaganda strategies. I find out the lines of Friedrich Nietzsche, “To use the same words is not a sufficient guarantee of understanding; one must use the same words for the same genus of inward experience; ultimately one must have one’s experiences in common.”

While writing and predicting on US election and European political developments I find out Noam Chomsky aptly wrote on language.  “Language is a process of free creation; its laws and principles are fixed, but the manner in which the principles of generation are used is free and infinitely varied.”

Urdu the sweetest language of subcontinent, Urdu has its three ‘F’ Faiz, Firaq & Faiz who rules Urdu literature. Ahemad Faraz , Faiz Ahmad & Firaq Gorakhpuri.  Faiz Ahmad once said on translation, “The first rule of translation: make sure you know at least one of the bloody languages!”

To call it a day, I would love to share couple of proverbs

Russian Proverb - a “Translation is like a woman: if she is faithful, she is not beautiful; if she is beautiful, she is not faithful.”

Italian Proverb - “Translator, traitor.”