Re: [wolfrunners] Languages & SF/F (fwd)

From: "Thomas R. Wier"

> Yoon Ha Lee wrote:
> > My Russian teacher really tried to impress on us that you can't always
> > directly translate words. For an example, she would write Russian words
> > up on the board and give the English "equivalent". *Then* she would tell
> > us what the word *really* means--all the connotations and nuances that
> > come from being a Russian. Direct translations are nearly impossible.
> Well, "usually" only in proportion to the abstraction that the word is
being
> used as a label for.  There is, on the contrary, usually no problem in
> translating words like "mother", "sun", "grass", etc., since most language
> groups have similar notions about what those entail.
I find this argument interesting, since you said earlier:

>1) "Languages", as such, do not exist. When we say we are speaking English,
what we >are really saying is that the kinds of speech we are using are
similar enough to allow >mutual intelligibility.   In fact, we all speak
slightly differently, with our own forms of >language that themselves are
different from one point in time to another.

There seems to be a philosophical/practical schism about translation here
which is utterly fascinating. Yoon Ha's comments state the philosophical
dilemma that "direct translations are nearly impossible." You refute with
the comments with a "Well, yeah, but there are times when we can get damn
close." This, in contrast with your earlier comment that even within a group
that presupposes it's speaking the same "language", mutual intelligibility
is mercurial along temporal, societal, generational, etc...continua, that
even the term "language" is dubious. From the philosophical standpoint, Yoon
Ha's on point and you're refute misses the mark: When I think "grass" in
English, I think lush green stuff, manicured lawns, something to sit on and
picnic. I think "cao3" in Chinese (a 'direct' translation), and I think of
wild grasses, unruly, something you want to blacktop immediately, and, on
the positive side, something with medicinal properties. Are these the same
words? From the practical standpoint, "grass" translates as "cao3" and vice
versa, and if a Chinese person reads "grass" in an English novel in
translation, s/he may well know enough about Western culture to whip up the
appropriate enough image. I can read Dostoyevsky in translation and
appreciate the genius (though from the philosophical side [and often heard
during academic thesis arguments], "You miss so much by not reading the
original"). Your refute, then, works.

Having done translation work on less nuanced writing than novels, I tend to
lean on the practical side, but I regard with keen interest the
philosophical side. In other words, it's fascinating to contemplate whether
a tree makes a noise in the forest if no one's around to hear it or whether
we all see "blue" the same way, but I still need to go out and chop wood or
make my living room furniture match the wallpaper.

Kou