Re: Untranslated notes (was: Poll by Email No. 7)

--- Boudewijn Rempt wrote:

> Any university-educated Dutchman should be able to read scientific English,
> French, German and Dutch. And, depending on his field, Russian, too.
... or any other language. The reader of an article about the use of a certain
word in the works of a certain Chinese poet may very well be supposed to know
Chinese, as well...

> > At least English-written articles never quote in another language (when they
> > have a bibliographic note about an article in another language, the part of
> > the article which is interesting is paraphrased rather than quoted).
>
> Which is a sure way of mis-representing the source, and therefore should be
> frowned upon. It makes the quoting paper worthless.
That is an exaggeration, I think. For my doctoral thesis I used mainly Polish
and Ukrainian sources, while it was written for people who knew Russian, but none
of the above. As a result, I was forced to translate my quotes; I made up with an
extensive endnote apparatus.

> Translations always lie, without any exceptions. If you quote someone, you
> should use his or her _exact_ words. Translations of quotes should be
> relegated to footnotes, if the author thinks them necessary at all. Giving
> only the translation, or even mainly the translation with the original
> in a footnote is a clear mark of respect for the original author.
You mean: disrespect. But I don't agree with that, anyway. Much depends on the
integrity (or: clumsiness) of the translator. I am fully aware, that if anything
I ever wrote were to be published abroad, it ought to be translated somehow.

> And, frankly, I'd expect someone interested in acquiring certain knowledge to
> do the groundwork necessary, learning a language, if necessary.
When I worked in Poland with a Dutch correspondent, I noticed, that the vast
majority of his colleagues covering Poland didn't know the language at all.
They relied completely upon English translations provided by the government on
the one hand, and what their fellow correspondents said on the other. As a result,
they had not the faintest idea about what was really going on, and didn't even
care much. What they wrote, was basically what everybody knew already and liked
to re-read once more...

Jan

=====
"You know, I used to think it was awful that life was so unfair. Then I thought,
wouldn't it be much worse if life were fair, and all the terrible things that
happen to us come because we actually deserve them? So, now I take great
comfort in the general hostility and unfairness of the universe." --- J.
Michael Straczynski

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