Transliteration

“ In those cases where a character enters "seated" or "asleep," I have substituted the verb "appear" for the verb "enter"; yet I am not sure that this concession to realism is wise.
The system of transliteration which I have adopted is intended to render the pronunciation of proper names as simple as may be to the English reader. The consonants are to be pronounced as in English, [3] the vowels as in Italian. ”

“ It is impossible to translate a proper name into another tongue without absurdity. It must be transliterated. Yet there is constant fascination for translators in the work of translating these proper names, trying to make them seem more vivid. It is quite likely, though it is disputed, that proper names do all go back to simple meanings. But by the time they become proper names they no longer have those meanings. The only proper treatment of them is by transliteration. ”

“ Original works written in French, German, English, etc., by modern Greek authors may be treated in the same way if their authors have not become French, German, or English by residence and literary labors, in which case they should be entered under the French, German, or English forms which they have chosen for their names, with cross-references, if necessary, from the Greek supplement to these names. If, however, transliteration is attempted the following table of equivalents may be used:
When Hindus themselves transliterate their names, use their form, whether or not according to our rules. ”

“ Thomas’s excellent Dictionary of Biography continues to give his support to what we believe is an obsolescent system of transliteration.
Nor should the consonantal sound in judge be rendered by the English dg, nor the French dj, nor the German dsch, but by j alone. Likewise the consonantal sound in she is not to be written after the French style, ch, or as the Germans do, sch. The sound which the French transliterate by j we must express by zh (e.g., Nizhni Novgorod) . Tz is best to use in Semitic and Slavic names, and ts in Japanese and Chinese. ”

“ For example, there is a proverb in German: "Quand le cheval est sellé il faut le monter;" in French there is a proverb: "Quand le vin est tiré il faut le boire." Well, a translator who would translate quand le cheval, etc., by quand le vin, etc., is an ass, and does not know his business. In translation, only a strictly classical language should be used; no word of slang, or even word of modern origin should be employed; the translator's aim should be never to dissipate the illusion of an exotic. ”

“ French translation is the only translation; in England you still continue to translate poetry into poetry, instead of into prose. We used to do the same, but we have long ago renounced such follies. Either of two things—if the translator is a good poet, he substitutes his verse for that of the original;—I don't want his verse, I want the original;—if he is a bad poet, he gives us bad verse, which is intolerable. Where the original poet put an effect of caesura, the translator puts an effect of rhyme; where the original poet puts an effect of rhyme, the translator puts an effect of caesura. ”

“ We shall now seek the signs of literary relativity, not in the comparison of different species ofliterature, nor in the different characters of men and women in various stages of social life, but in that effort to transfer the thoughts expressed in the language of one social group into that of another, which we call translation. How far is accuracy of translation possible? It is clear that both in prose and verse there are difficulties in the way of the translator sometimes insurmountable. ”

“ In some cases, indeed, it is possible to combine strict adherence to the original text with graceful language and harmonious metre in the translation, but in a large number of instances the translator has to sacrifice one language or the other. He has to choose between being blamed by the purist who will not admit of any expansion in the ideas of the original writer, or being accused of turning the King's English to base uses by the employment [Pg 234] of doubtful rhythm or cacophonous expressions. ”

“ Impartial and honest critics have recognised the difficulties under which scholars labour in translating, often for the first time, ancient texts, whether Greek or Sanskrit. It is easy enough to translate a text, after it has once been translated; it is easy even to improve in a few places on the translations of the first pioneers. But to translate for the first time an ancient text, badly edited or not yet edited at all, is a totally different thing, and those who undertake it have a right not only to the indulgence, but to the gratitude of all who come after them. ”

“ Many of the reformers and most of their disciples imagined ‘translation’ to be the root of the evil, and so translation in every shape or form was banned; there must be no bilingualism at all, and so the mother-tongue must be excluded from the course, the lessons must be conducted entirely in the foreign language. ”

“ In the Translation he has endeavoured, as much as in him lay, to convey the meaning and sentiments of his original: in doing of which, he may perhaps be thought sometimes too literal; but if the meaning be conveyed, surely the error is on the safest side; for many of our translations may with much more propriety be called paraphrases than translations; and at least in the Translator's opinion, it is much better to err in keeping rather too closely to the text, than by studiously avoiding the appearance of literality, to render the sense both obscure and unintelligible. ”

“ Unfortunately for this theory, it is the ordinary English reader who is going to decide what he thinks of a foreign author given to him in translation; he, and no one else, is the man who must be satisfied. And you can satisfy him only by remembering constantly that a translator is an interpreter and guide. It is not enough for him to know exhaustively the meaning of the original, but he must also realise the limitations of his English audience and foresee what portions of a foreign-work will be unintelligible for other reasons than that of a foreign tongue. ”

“ One might just as well say "no prose translation can give the sense and spirit of the original; it can only substitute the sense and spirit of the words and phrases of the translator's language;" and then, these two assertions balancing each other, there will remain in the metrical translator's favor, that he may come as near to giving both the letter and the spirit, as the effects of the Babel dispersion will allow. ”

“ I long to know languages, not so much to be able to speak them, as for the far greater joy of being able to read the many beautiful works of foreign authors in their own tongue. Is it not true that never mind how good a translation may be, it is never so fine as the original? That is always stronger—more charming. ”

“ Every translator, of course, buys the publications of every other translator to chuckle over his failures or—let us do them justice—to applaud heartily and generously the happy dexterity which conquers a difficult passage. Then, too, even scholars who have Homer and Horace at their fingers’ ends, who think in Latin and dream in Greek, who dare to take liberties with the digamma and speak disrespectfully of the second aorist—even they to whom the best translation of a classic is as corked claret? ”

“ And what is a translation of modern German into modern English compared with a translation of ancient Sanskrit or Zend or Chinese into any modern language? It is an undertaking which, from its very nature, admits of the most partial success only, and a more intimate knowledge of the ancient language, so far from facilitating the task of the translator, renders it only more hopeless. Modern words are round, ancient words are square, and we may as well hope to solve the quadrature of the circle, as to express adequately the ancient thoughts of the Veda in modern English. ”

“ The translator who makes verbal literalness his chief care ‘will’, says a writer in the National Review whom 33I have already quoted, ‘be appreciated by the scholar accustomed to test a translation rigidly by comparison with the original, to look perhaps with excessive care to finish in detail rather than boldness and general effect, and find pardon even for a version that seems bare and bold, so it be scholastic and faithful’. ”

“ A translator who writes in verse must of course claim the liberty of altering the form of the expression over and over again, but the substituted expressions ought to be in keeping with the author's style, and on the same plane of sentiment as his. It is beyond the province of a translator to attempt the task of "painting the lily." But it is easier to lay down correct principles of translation than to observe them unswervingly in one's practice. ”

“ CHAPTER XI OF THE TRANSLATION OF IDIOMATIC PHRASES.—EXAMPLES FROM COTTON, ECHARD, STERNE.—INJUDICIOUS USE OF IDIOMS IN THE TRANSLATION, WHICH DO NOT CORRESPOND WITH THE AGE OR COUNTRY OF THE ORIGINAL.—IDIOMATIC PHRASES SOMETIMES INCAPABLE OF TRANSLATION.
While a translator endeavours to give to his work all the ease of original composition, the chief difficulty he has to encounter will be found in the translation of idioms, or those turns of expression which do not belong to universal grammar, but of which every language has its own, that are exclusively proper to it. ”

“ You cannot hear five sentences without feeling that you are listening to a dead or foreign language. To put it into good current English you have to translate it, and the task of translation is as hard, and requires as much study and practice, as that of translating Greek or Hebrew. The language of the pulpit and of religious books is a dialect to itself, and cannot be used in common life or common affairs. If you try to apply it to anything but religion, it becomes ridiculous, and a common kind of wit consists in speaking of common things in pulpit phraseology. ”

“ On the whole, however, though the distinctive contribution of the period is the plea of the renaissance scholars that a reasonable faithfulness should be displayed, the comment of the mass of translators shows little grasp of the new principles. When one considers, in addition to their very inadequate expression of theory, the prevailing characteristics of their practice, the balance turns unmistakably in favor of a careless freedom in translation. ”

“ He must ascertain with precision to what class it belongs; whether to that of the grave, the elevated, the easy, the lively, the florid and ornamented, or the simple and unaffected; and these characteristic qualities he must have the capacity of rendering equally conspicuous in the translation as in the original. If a translator fails in this discernment, and wants this capacity, let him be ever so thoroughly master of the sense of his author, he will present him through a distorting medium, or exhibit him often in a garb that is unsuitable to his character. ”

“ Even in the first perusal of ä work in any foreign language which we understand, we are apt to attribute to it more excellence than it really possesses from our own pleasurable sense of difficulty overcome without effort. Translation of poetry into poetry is difficult, because the Translator must give a brilliancy to his language without that warmth of original conception, from which each brilliancy would follow of its own accord. But the Translator of a living Author is encumbered with additional inconveniences. ”

“ For him a foreign language is only his own, with another vocabulary; and so, when he does a piece of translation, he carefully replaces on his paper each word of his English text by one of the equivalents that he finds for it in his dictionary, rarely failing to choose the wrong one, as I have already said. ”

“ It is much to be regretted that the French translator, in accordance with the literary licence of an age in which the principles of the art of translation were perhaps less generally understood than at any known literary epoch, should have thought himself entitled to deal with the original text in a manner which in the present day, more strict upon the question of fidelity and local colouring, would certainly have been visited with the severest reprobation. ”

“ One would have to think about a keg "full of" beer or a purse "full of" money. So I translated it: "You gracious one". This way a German can at last think about what the angel meant by his greeting. Yet the papists rant about me corrupting the angelic greeting—and I still have not used the most satisfactory German translation. What if I had used the most satisfactory German and translated the salutation: "God says hello, Mary dear" (for that is what the angel was intending to say and what he would have said had he even been German!) ”

“ According to his theory, then, as we gather it from these volumes, translation is not paraphrase, is not interpretation, is not imitation, but is the rigorous rendering of word for word, so far as the original difference of idioms permits. Its basis is truth to the form as well as to the thought, to the letter as well as to the spirit, of the text. The translator is like the messengers of the Bible and Homer, who repeat word for word the message that has been confided to them. ”

“ It is more convenient to discuss the details of such cases in another context, but any general approach to the theory of translation in Middle English literature must include this consideration. If we are not in possession of the exact original of a translation, our conclusions must nearly always be discounted by the possibility that not only the subject matter but the comment on that subject matter came from the French or Latin source. The pronoun of the first person must be regarded with a slight suspicion. ”

“ We have observed, in the preceding part of this essay, that poetical translation is less subjected to restraint than prose translation, and allows more of the freedom of original composition. It will hence follow, that to exercise this freedom with propriety, a translator must have the talent of original composition in poetry; and therefore, that in this species of translation, the possession of a genius akin to that of his author, is more essentially necessary than in any other. ”