Translation: Machines versus Humans

ProZ Dot Com

Esther Chung and Kim Jee-hee report that "Machines [are] no match for humans in translations" (JungAng Daily, February 22, 2017):

Human translators proved their superiority in the first translation competition with artificial intelligence programs here [in Seoul] on Tuesday. Their translations were significantly better in terms of quality and accuracy.

Whew! After chess masters losing to Deep Blue and baduk (go) players losing to AlphaGo, some feared the next to fall would be human translators, but that was not to be, so my wife and I are assured secure freelance work for some time yet in translating from Korean to English.

Machine translation will get better and better, of course, but that may be a long, slow process, especially for literary translations.

Till then, we translators can use machines for a first approximation . . .

Korean Literature Translated by Sun-Ae and Me: Now Available Online

Published by LTI Korea

Sun-Ae and I recently finished a couple of translations, and these are now ebooks published by LTI Korea, the first being Shin Chae-ho's Dream Sky - as seen above - which begins this way:

It was a day of some month in the year 4240 since Dangun's founding of Gojoseon, or 1907 by the Western calendar. I do not recall if the place was in Seoul, or somewhere abroad, but I saw myself as Hannom seated upon a room-sized flower blooming on a several thousand furlong branch of a Rose of Sharon.

Suddenly, the heavens above opened, a reddish light streamed forth, and there appeared in the sky in the form of soft clouds a heavenly being. He wore the traditional Korean hat gat glowing with splendor, was clad in the traditional Korean overcoat durumagi glowing with even more glorious light, and was seated but wielding a sword of lightning in the right hand. He spoke in a thunderous voice.

"For humans, fighting is the only way to live. If they win, they survive, but if they lose, they die. That is the Lord's order."

This can be read online for free - just click on the title above. The other ebook (or estory) is Yang Geon-sik's Sad Contradiction.

Published by LTI Korea

This one begins as follows:

At dawn, after dreaming a deranged and tumultuous dream and tossing and turning even after waking, I finally got up, but with my head as heavy as if it were being pressed down, and I felt uneasy, with no desire to do anything, so I sat in the room just blankly facing my writing table with its scattering of books. A Japanese edition of Dostoevsky's Humiliated and Insulted, a book I had been reading with pleasure these days, was lying on the table, but having no desire to read it at the moment, I began on impulse to smoke Oryukbon and Asahi cigarettes. Releasing the blue smoke was like letting out a great burp that filled the room and seemed to press my head down even more, almost unbearably. As I stood up and looked briefly out the window, I saw a clear sky. Turning my gaze back to the room, I was struck by the portrait hanging on the west wall – a half-length painting of the Russian literary giant Maxim Gorki. I suddenly felt lightheaded and flopped down onto the floor.

Again, those of you interested in reading more can click on the title above. Already, I can see changes I would make in some of the phrasing. For instance, I'd try not to begin Dream Sky with the word "It" (e.g., "One day in the year 4240 . . ."), and I'd cut the first, very long sentence of Sad Contradiction into two or three sentences (e.g., after "got up" and after "uneasy"). As I noted in my keynote address last June, proofreading a text is a neverending process reminiscent of Zeno's paradoxes . . .

Congratulations to Suh Ji-moon

Suh Ji-moon (Middle) and Other Winners

Winners of 12th Korean Literature Translation Award
Mahmoud Abdel Ghaffar and Cho Hee-sun on Left
Suh Ji-moon in Middle
Im Yun-jung and Maria Kuznetsova on Right
Photo: LTI Korea

My literary friend from my Korea University days, Professor Suh Ji-moon, received a prize for her translation of Kim Won-il's book House with a Sunken Courtyard, as reported by Ahn Sung-mi in "Translation award honors Suh Ji-moon" (Korea Herald, November 18, 2014):

When emeritus professor Suh Ji-moon first began translating Korean literature into English in the 1970s, she used to write by hand or use a typewriter, which required writing and retyping over and over again before submission.

Though times have changed, the prominent Korean scholar with a 40-year career in teaching, research and literary translation still admits that translating is difficult, often accompanied by frustration and distress. Yet, it is a fulfilling experience, just like a time-consuming and strenuous search for hidden jewelry.

Now, the 66-year-old scholar has received an award for her efforts. On Monday, Suh won the top prize at the 12th annual Korean Literature Translation Awards for translating Kim Won-il's "House with a Sunken Courtyard" into English. The award is given by Korea’s state-run Literature Translation Institute of Korea.

Ji-moon actually allowed me to take a look at the translation in manuscript, and I could already see its very high literary quality rendered in her excellent translation - plus, the story was enthralling! I encourage everyone to read it!

Moreover, she worked upon the translation at a difficult time of her life, as the article relates, so for acess to the entire article, which gives more details, click here.

Yi Yook-sa: The Vertex

The Vertex
Yi Yook-sa
Translated and Introduced by Sung-Il Lee
Google Images

I had a surprise awaiting me when I stepped into the EPO yesterday, a copy of the poetry book depicted above, personally sent to me by the translator Sung-Il Lee himself - the Beowulf translator I've mentioned before - who wrote these words:

For Professor Horace Jeffery Hodges,
With best wishes,
Sung Il Lee
November 8, 2014

That was very kind of him. I'll have to treat him to a coffee, or a lunch, sometime soon.

Here's one of the poems:

Horse


Disheveled mane,

Eyes that have lost their luster,

Hair standing like chesnut bur -

Ah, horse, weary of a long journey!

Horse, worn with continual whipping!


Languidly drooping,

Tail falling down, as if lifeless,

Yet, hooves glistening in the frost -

Ah, horse, ready to scatter the clouds!

White horse, neighing to the New Year!

Nicely done! Thank you Professor Lee. Written by Yi Yook-sa in 1930, translated into English and published now, in 2014 . . .

Simply in Genius?

Genius at Work
Like the Language of Delirium
Image by Jacob Magraw and Rachell Sumpter
NYT

Joshua Wolf Shenk, writing "The End of 'Genius'" (NYT, July 19, 2014), argues that genius is not individual, despite the shared view of the Enlightenment and Romanticism, whose combined effect is still felt today:

The big change began with Enlightenment thinkers, who sought to give man a dignified, central place in the world. They made man's thinking the center of their universe and created a profoundly asocial self . . . . But it was during the Romantic era that "the true cult of the natural genius emerged" . . . . Today, the Romantic genius can be seen everywhere.

But, argues Shenk, it ain't true:

[T]he real heart of creativity . . . [is] the intimate exchange of the creative pair, such as John Lennon and Paul McCartney and myriad other examples with which we've yet to fully reckon . . . . The elemental collective . . . is the pair. Two people are the root of social experience -- and of creative work . . . . -- most strikingly with Paul McCartney and John Lennon . . . . Why is this? For one thing, given that our psyches take shape through one-on-one exchanges, we're likely set up to interact with a single person more openly and deeply than with any group. The pair is also inherently fluid and flexible. Two people can make their own society. When even one more person is added, roles and power positions harden. This may be good for stability but problematic for creativity. Three legs make a table stand in place. Two legs are made for moving.

Two's company, three's a crowd. Okay, I got it. But I like to see where ideas are stretched to the breaking point, and here's the place:

The pair is the primary creative unit -- not just because pairs produce such a staggering amount of work but also because they help us to grasp the concept of dialectical exchange. At its heart, the creative process itself is about a push and pull between two entities, two cultures or traditions, or two people, or even a single person and the voice inside her head. Indeed, thinking itself is a kind of download of dialogue between ourselves and others. And when we listen to creative people describe breakthrough moments that occur when they are alone, they often mention the sensation of having a conversation in their own minds.

I have italicized and thereby emphasized the phrase "or even a single person and the voice inside her head" because we are here back to the individual genius, even if 'she' is carrying on a conversation in 'her' head. Don't get me wrong. Creativity often does emerge in collaborative pairs. That's how my wife and I work on our translations.

But that's not how I wrote my novella, The Bottomless Bottle of Beer. I worked mostly alone on that, albeit in dialogue with other writers, most dead, but some living.

I'm no genius, of course, but Shenk is basically talking about creativity.

Translation: Substance and Flow in the Workshop Last Week

Source: Literature Translation Institute of Korea
Korea Herald

I was somewhat surprised -- but more delighted -- to see an article on translation summarizing the insights of various speakers in last week's translation workshop held in conjunction with the Seoul International Book Fair. The article, by Kim Hoo-ran, was titled "Lost in translation?" (Korea Herald, June 26, 2014) and quoted or paraphrased many speakers, including me:

Horace Jeffery Hodges of Ewha Womans University, who translates as a team with his wife, shed light on the aim of translation: To ensure that the telling of the story flows well in English even as it preserves the meaning of the Korean original.

This paraphrase on my remark comes remarkably close to a quote, for I said this:

Important is that the story flow well enough in English even as it preserves the meaning of the Korean original.

Anyway, that's probably the most sensible thing I said in my keynote address, and I'm proud to have my near words reflected in the article.

For far better advice from other speakers, read the entire article!

Prefatory Remarks to Friday's Keynote Address

Thanking Everyone
Photo by Annie Cho

My colleague Annie Cho attended my keynote address Friday and took a picture to prove she was present, though this photo was a few minutes after I had thanked everybody:

True Translation – Prefatory Remarks

I'd like to offer a few words of thanks:

I'd first like to thank the LTI Korea President, Professor Kim Seong-Kon, for inviting me to give this keynote address.

I'd then like to thank the Literature Translation Institute of Korea itself for its support, not only at today's workshop but also in supplying translation grants to my wife and me over the past few years.

I'd also like to thank the Dalkey Archive Press for its professionalism and its role in publicizing Korean literature.

And I'd finally like to thank everyone in attendance today.

Additionally, I want to let everyone know that my talk is officially intended to focus attention on today’s theme of "The Role of Translators and Literary Agents in Globalizing Korean Literature" but is unofficially intended to be "about educating and nurturing culture and literature translators[, drawing upon my] . . . . experience and ideas about . . . practically working as a translator." Well, I will attempt to carry out both of these serious imperatives, albeit in a lighthearted way that attempts a bit of humor, but I realize that humor often doesn't cross cultural boundaries well, so if I say something that sounds strange, please forgive me, for it was probably meant to be humorous, and please feel free to laugh.

There weren't as many laughs as I'd expected, though Annie says she laughed:

Did you see me? Did you hear me laugh? I think I laughed 3 times. I got there at 10 a.m. and sat in the back and snuck out after the 2nd speaker. Sorry I was unable to say hello or meet your wife! The back of her head looked very nice :)

Great job with the speech! I'll see you next week!

She laughed only three times? Why not three times thirty-three? Annie! You were supposed to set the pace . . .

Schedule for "The 13th International Workshop for Translation and Publication of Korean Literature"

LTI Korea Poster
Click Image to Enlarge

On this coming Friday, June 20, 2014, starting at 9:30 in the morning, the Literature Translation Institute of Korea (LTIK) will hold "The 13th International Workshop for Translation and Publication of Korean Literature" in Conference Room 327 on the third floor of the COEX Convention and Exhibition Center, the theme this year being "The Role of Translators and Literary Agents in Globalizing Korean Literature," and I'm to give the keynote address (10:10-10:40) even though I am hugely ignorant on this theme, as I pointed out, so the LTIK is allowing me to speak "about educating and nurturing culture and literature translators[, drawing upon my] . . . . experience and ideas about . . . practically working as a translator," and I agreed to try despite my not, technically, actually being a translator, though I am one member of a two-member translation team, my wife being the other member and coincidentally the true translator, whereas I'm merely the 'transformer,' as I will note in my 30-minute talk.

Registration is at 9:30 and is free, as is attendance at the lectures, so please attend if you have any interest in the themes mentioned above.

By the way, did you see how long that first sentence was? That'd be hell to translate . . .

Charles La Shure on Yi Kwang-su's novel The Soil

Professor Charles La Shure
Department of Korean Language and Literature
Seoul National University

An acquaintance of mine, Charles La Shure, has written a review of the LTI Korea translation project, "Korean Literature Series for English-speaking Readers" ("Library of Korean Literature," Volumes 1-10, various authors, Dalkey Archive Press, 2013), for the quarterly Koreana (Spring 2014) that mentions Yi Kwang-su's novel The Soil:

The first stage in this project is already complete, with 10 books published in November 2013; the remainder are scheduled to be published in fall this year. The series begins, at least chronologically, with a work that is often considered to be the first modern Korean novel, Yi Kwang-su's "The Soil." First serialized in a daily newspaper in 1932, the novel follows a social activist who attempts to enlighten the farming village in which he was born, bringing those who live there into the modern era. It paints a vivid picture of the social conditions in Korea during the Japanese colonial period (1910-1945), which led World Literature Today to include the work in its list of 75 Notable Translations of 2013.

I think Charles meant to say that The Soil is "considered to be [one of] the first modern Korean novel[s]," the consensus among Korean literary critics being that Yi Kwang-su's earlier novel Heartless is actually the first modern Korean novel.

No word on the quality of the translation, so I suppose that means Charles didn't hate it . . .

The 13th International Workshop for Translation and Publication of Korean Literature

SIBF Logo 1

For interested readers who live in or near Seoul, here's where and when I'll be giving the keynote address -- "True Translation? - Ignōrō et Ignōrā́bō!" -- for The 13th International Workshop for Translation and Publication of Korean Literature taking place on June 20th in the 2014 Seoul International Book Fair:

Keynote Speech
Horace Jeffery Hodges
Professor, Ewha Womans University
"True Translation? - Ignōrō et Ignōrā́bō!"
Coex Conference Hall 327ABC
June 20th, 2014 - 10:10-10:40

Registration is earlier, 9:30-10:00, followed by the opening address by Kim Seong-Kon (President - LTI Korea / Professor - Seoul National University), after which I speak. The rest of Session 1 (Moderated by Ryoo Bo Sun, Professor - Kunsan University) is as follows:

10:40-11:10 - Panel 1. Jean Noël-Juttet (Translator, LTI Korea Translation Academy): "Is Literary Translation an Occupation?"

11:10-11:40 - Panel 2. Andrés Felipe Solano (Writer, LTI Korea Translation Academy): "The Translator as Traitor"

11:40-12:20 - Discussion / Question and Answer - Students of LTI Korea Translation Academy - Sophie Bowman, Loïc Bouchendhomme, and Diana Jang

There will then be lunch, followed by an afternoon session. The overarching theme for the workshop is "The Role of Translators and Literary Agents in Globalizing Korean Literature."

If there are any alterations in this schedule, I'll make sure to post them here.

Brief Post on My Upcoming Keynote Address

KLTI Logo

I sent the KLTI a draft of my keynote address for next week on the 20th, and after a long weekend, I heard from them:

Thank you for your text. It's very interesting!

That message was a relief, for I was actually a bit concerned that my lighthearted talk might be vetoed, but I gather that they weren't surprised.

They must read this blog and thus know what to expect . . .

The Experience of Translating: "Ignōrō et Ignōrā́bō!"

Malcolm Whittaker, Artist
May 29th, 2014
The Guardian

As already noted, I've been asked to give a keynote address at the 13th International Workshop for Translation and Publication of Korean Literature and to speak on the Role of Translators and Literary Agents in Globalizing Korean Literature.

I now have a working draft that I've titled "True Translation?" The draft so far takes 25 minutes to deliver, though I've been allotted 30.

Here's what I've been working on as the Introduction to my talk:

When the LTI Korea asked me to give this keynote address at today's workshop on the role of translators and literary agents, I protested that I really don't know anything about literary agents. Nor particularly about their role in globalizing Korean literature. Nor, I admitted, am I truly a translator. My wife Hwang Sun-Ae is the translator. She is the one who translates Korean into English. I'm simply the "transformer." I transform her English translation into more idiomatic English. I suggested that my wife were better qualified to give this talk, but no, the LTI wanted me. I therefore infer that my ignorance performs some important service here today. 

The service performed is perhaps to demonstrate that even an ignoramus like me can work on a translating team. As for the true experience of translating, here is my motto: "Ignōrō et Ignōrā́bō!"

What does that motto mean? I don't know and I'll never know! I'm not a translator!

Translating Teams = Teams of Translators?

Wanting to Go Insane, Yet Unable
미쳐버리고 싶은, 미쳐지지 않는
Yi In-seong

I've blogged before about Jean Bellemin-Noël and Choe Ae-young, a translating team who translate from Korean into French, hence the above image of Interdit de folie, their translation of Yi In-seong's novel Wanting to Go Insane, Yet Unable (미쳐버리고 싶은, 미쳐지지 않는), a work that has not yet been translated into English.

I first read of this translation team in an article by Claire Lee for the Korea Herald, "French-Korean duo shares art of co-translating," and I found it interesting because she interviewed the two translators and presented a summary of their working method:

Together, the two have developed an original, effective process of co-translating. First, Choe translates the entire Korean text to French, with a long list of footnotes that contain explanations of cultural context, synonyms of major words, and alternative ways of interpreting the text. Bellemin-Noël then revises the first draft and rewrites the text into more refined French, taking Choe's footnotes into consideration. Then the "talk" begins. "From this stage we wouldn't use my first translated draft at all," Choe said. "We'd discuss extensively comparing the original Korean text and the second translated version which has been revised by Dr. Bellemin-Noël, for the final copy that would compromise the two drafts."

Bellemin-Noël said though the two discuss their work in a "cheerful mood" 90 percent of the time, the mood can get very tense for the remaining 10 percent. "I try to keep the original context of the Korean text as much as possible while Dr. Bellemin-Noël brings the perspective of French readers," Choe explained. "This process requires a lot of compromising and tough decisions."

I quoted these words in that earlier blog entry, then presented the similarities and differences between their method and the process by which Sun-Ae and I proceed:

This description of their process interests me for its similarities and differences with the process that my wife Sun-Ae and I work through in our own translation efforts. Moreover, according to Claire Lee, "Bellemin-Noël has almost no knowledge of the Korean language," which I find quite heartening, personally, since I'm in the same position of ignorance. Anyway, our process is somewhat different. Sun-Ae has a doctorate in German literature but translates into serviceable English that gets better with each passing year. I rework her translation, trying to reword it with an ear to literary quality in English. Sun-Ae then reads my reworked version, checking for mistakes of understanding on my part, which she and I then discuss. Afterwards, I re-read the text carefully, listening for awkward expressions, which I rework. Sun-Ae re-reads after that, checking again that the translation remain true to the original Korean, and we discuss any difficulties.

What strikes me as a significant difference between our method and theirs is the degree of informality to ours. I think that ours is less formal because we're a married couple and work five feet apart at desks facing one another, an arrangement that allows us to query each other any time either of us encounters a translation problem.

Perhaps you can understand why I generally don't call myself a translator. I think of myself as a "transformer," for I take the English text given to me by Sun-Ae and transform it into a literary English text. But I notice that Choe calls Bellemin-Noël "my co-translator," and the author of the article, Ms. Lee, refers to Choe and Bellemin-Noël as "Korean-French translators."

The point that comes home to me is that since Bellemin-Noël can be called a "translator" despite the fact that he "has almost no knowledge of the Korean language," then perhaps I can also pose as a translator . . .

Translating: A Never-Ending Task!

One of Zeno's Paradoxes
"Are we there yet?" Zippy the Pinhead
The Sylmar Scribbler

Striving for the perfect translation, like proofreading to eliminate every error, is a never-ending process reminiscent of Zeno's Paradoxes: one gets closer and closer to the aimed-for translation, yet never arrives. Sometime before August 22, 2013, I had worked out what I considered a final version of the following passage in Yi Kwang-su's novel The Soil:

The train was running on the steel bridge of Salyeoul Village. "Salyeoul! How lovely is that name!" Sung looked down at the water flowing under the bridge. Dark water still wore the summer night. As his eyes followed its course upstream, the milky-white fog of the valley, more typical of early autumn, grew visible. Over the moisture-soaked ground and over the softly murmuring water, the white fog was spreading, one of the most evocative beauties of nature.

That sounded pretty good, I thought, but sometime between the crafting of that passage and August 22, 2013, I had second thoughts, as I then admitted to in a blog entry:

For instance, take this part: "Salyeoul! How lovely is that name!" I'd now be tempted to remove "is": "Salyeoul! How lovely that name!" Or rewrite these words: "Dark water still wore the summer night." I might now try: "The dark water was still clothed in summer night." I could do much the same with every line. From: "As his eyes followed its course upstream, the milky-white fog of the valley, more typical of early autumn, grew visible." To: "As his eyes followed the watercourse upstream, the milky-white fog of the valley, more typical of early autumn, grew visible." And from: "Over the moisture-soaked ground and over the softly murmuring water, the white fog was spreading, one of the most evocative beauties of nature." To: "Over the moisture-soaked ground and over the softly murmuring water, the white fog was spreading, a most evocative beauty of nature."

Combining these, along with still other alterations, including small changes in already altered phrases, I had this:

The train was crossing the steel bridge near Salyeoul Village. "Salyeoul! How lovely that name!" Sung looked down at the water flowing under the bridge. The dark depths were still clothed in summer night. As his eyes followed the watercourse upstream, the milky-white fog of the valley, more typical of early autumn, grew visible. Over the moisture-soaked ground and over the softly murmuring water, the white fog was spreading, a most evocative beauty of nature.

Unfortunately, by the time I turned in this revision, the deadline for editing had passed. I kicked myself mentally for being so tardy! I have since grown more philosophical about the changes, for you will see how my experience begins to recall Zeno's -- and what could be more philosophical than that? -- for I find myself wanting to keep reworking the passage, e.g., "Salyeoul! How lovely the name!" And this: "As his eyes followed the watercourse upstream, the valley's milky-white fog, more typical of early autumn, grew visible." And maybe this: "Over moisture-soaked soil and softly murmuring water, the white fog was spreading, a most evocative beauty of nature." These changes provide us with another slightly revised passage:

The train was crossing the steel bridge near Salyeoul Village. "Salyeoul! How lovely the name!" Sung looked down at the water flowing under the bridge. The dark depths were still clothed in summer night. As his eyes followed the watercourse upstream, the valley's milky-white fog, more typical of early autumn, grew visible. Over moisture-soaked soil and softly murmuring water, the white fog was spreading, a most evocative beauty of nature.

Is that better or worse? At a certain, albeit uncertain point in such revisions, distinguishing aesthetically among them becomes difficult, if not impossible.

Translating "übersetzen"

False Friend
Gift = Poison
Google Images

As an aside, I must confess that I do, in fact, have some experience with translation . . . from German into English!

The German word for "translate" is "übersetzen," which even to English speakers who've never studied German looks like "over-set" -- the German word itself echoing "translate" as "transfer," i.e., "carry across."

I am able, undoubtedly, to carry a book (or any relatively light object) across an indeterminate distance and "set" it "over" there. I can therefore translate German into English (though, oddly enough, not English into German, despite the books being no heavier).

My wife, however, reminds me that "übersetzen" as "translation" is a verb with an inseparable prefix, thereby remaining 'übersetzen' rather than "setzen" some object "über"!

The connection between the abstract and concrete meanings, is therefore, potentially overdrawn . . .

Translation: It's a Cinch!

Cinch
Keeps the writer secure during translation!
Wikipedia

Unexpectedly, I discover that I am a translator after all! I also learn some intriguing things along the way:

translation, n. Etymology: from Old French translation (12th cent. in Godefroy Compl.), or from Latin

The term "translation" comes earlier than I previously thought, and perhaps directly from the French, if not the Latin, as may be portended in Frédéric Godefroy (1826-1897), Complément du dictionnaire de l'ancienne langue française et de tous ses dialectes du IXe au XVe siècle, the dictionary cited above. In any case, the term "translation" has various meanings, a couple of which apply to me -- though most don't . . . or not yet, anyway:

I. 1. a. Transference; removal or conveyance from one person, place, or condition to another.

Why, I could do that! But the devil is in the details:

Specifically: The removal of a bishop from one see to another; in the Church of Scotland, the removal of a minister from one charge to another; also, the removal of the body or relics of a saint to another place of interment.

Oh. That doesn't specifically apply to me, but it might include me if it can refer to secular affairs -- and why not? -- but here's an early ecclesiastical instance:

a 1350 St. Stephen 211 in C. Horstmann Altengl. Leg. (1881) 30 Of þat ilk translacioun / Es named "saynt Steuyn inuencioun".

That reference is to Carl Horstmann's Altenglische Legende, which describes the transference of the martyred St. Stephen's body from one place to another, apparently through miraculous means. I could certainly transfer a body from one place to another -- though only non-miraculously, and I wouldn't enjoy the task. But what's next?

b. Figuratively: of non-material things. translation of a feast (Eccl.), its transference from the usual date to another, to avoid its clashing with another (movable) feast of superior rank.

Hmmm . . . I don't believe I'm qualified to do that sort of translation. Nor the next:

c. Removal from earth to heaven, originally without death, as the translation of Enoch; but in later use also said figuratively of the death of the righteous.

I can't even do that by non-miraculous means! And I'd just as soon not deal with the next sense of translation:

d. Medicine: Transference of a disease from one person or part of the body to another. Now rare or obsolete

Rare or obsolete? Good to hear that medicine has made such great advances. As has science generally, so let's allow the next type of translation to pass with a bare mention:

e. Astrology

Finally, one type of translation I might be able to handle without needing divine assistance:

f. Physics. Transference of a body, or form of energy, from one point of space to another. motion or movement of translation: onward movement without (or considered apart from) rotation; sometimes as distinguished from a reciprocating movement as in a wave or vibration.

I believe I'm qualified for that, though I might need some technical apparatus to transfer energy. But transferring a 'body' would be a cinch -- the term "body" here denoting any sort of material object, and not specifically a corpse. A book, for instance, and in this sense of "translation," I have 'translated' many, many books in my life. You can do it, too! And already have . . .

As with the other etymological entries these past several days, these examples above are found in the Oxford English Dictionary (Vol. 2, 1971, 266ab).

Translation: Etymology

Interbrand
June 20, 2013

Perhaps an inquiry into the roots of "translation" will help me think about how to prepare for my upcoming keynote speech. I say "roots," for there are two parts to the word "translate":

Middle English translaten, from Old French translater, from Latin trānslātus, past participle of trānsferre, to transfer : trāns-, trans- + lātus, brought

I have this from the Free Dictionary, which credits The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language (Fourth Edition, copyright ©2000, by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved). I know what "brought" means, but what about "trans-"? Let's revisit the Free Dictionary:

trans- 1. a prefix meaning "across," "through," occurring orig. in loanwords from Latin, used in particular to form verbs denoting movement or conveyance from place to place (transfer; transmit; transplant) or complete change (transform; transmute), or to form adjectives meaning "crossing," "on the other side of," or "going beyond" the place named (transmontane; transnational; trans-Siberian).

The word "translation" is a noun formed, I assume, from "translate," for with respect to the meaning of translating from one language to another, the verb predates the noun in English by about 40 years:

a. 1300 Cursor M. 232, Þis ilk bok it es translate / In to Inglis tong to rede. (OED, Vol. 2, 1971, 265c)

[Translation: {T}his same book is translated / into the English tongue to read.]

The noun form isn't found until about 1340, as previously noted. I therefore infer that the noun form in English derives from the verb, so the "trans-" of "translation" means "across" or "through" (not "crossing," "on the other side of," or "going beyond"). The verb "translate" thus literally means "to be brought across," so the noun "translation" therefore means "something brought across."

A somewhat fuzzy etymology, as the image above suggests . . .

True Translation: Translating Knausgaard's Struggle

Karl Ove Knausgaard
Photo by Chester Higgins Jr.
The New York Times

I've previously blogged on Knausgaard, but my reason for re-blogging is more limited this time. I've just read Liesl Schillinger's review -- "His Peers' Views Are in the Details: Karl Ove Knausgaard's 'My Struggle' Is a Movement" (NYT, May 21, 2014) -- and she observes in passing:

If you are an author, editor or critic, chances are you are lining up for [the book] . . . . If you are a lay reader, you may not have heard of Mr. Knausgaard; or if you have heard of him, you may have put off tackling the books, daunted by their Proustian bulk and uncertain of what that menacing title holds in store. ("My Struggle," or "Min Kamp" in Norwegian, is "Mein Kampf" in German -- the title of Hitler's notorious manifesto.)

Interesting that the translation of Min Kamp into English is the literal My Struggle rather than the far more resonant Mein Kampf. The question I have is this: Is My Struggle a true translation? Had there been no Hitler and thus no such book as Mein Kampf, then My Struggle would have been a perfectly true translation of the title.

But there was a Hitler and a Mein Kampf, a title that Knausgaard was obviously playing upon in choosing Min Kamp, so perhaps a better, truer translation would have been Mein Kampf. Native speakers of English would recognize the title and catch the allusion. Or maybe not. They might assume it were the work by Hitler. Nobody would buy it other than racist wingnuts! (It would be a bestseller.)

Maybe the best solution would be to title it Min Kamp, as a Norwegian would. That would cast a pall and light a fire, the truest translation thus being no translation at all! The allusion would have been preserved in the play on the title Mein Kampf, but the title would also be different enough for potential readers to distinguish the two.

Or one could title it My Jihad . . .

Let's try Google Translate!

Google Images

I'm still thinking about what to say in my keynote address since I don't know Korean but have to say something about translation . . . so I'm thinking, maybe Google Translate can help, so let's see:

Let's try Google Translate!

Google Translate renders this in Korean as:

의 구글 번역 해보자!

Let's see what Google Translate does in rendering that into English:

Let's Google Translate!

Now, back into Korean:

의 구글 번역하자!

And back into English:

Let's Google Translate!

Ah, have we reached stasis? Behold:

의 구글 번역하자!

Why, yes, we have!

Thus, "Let's try Google Translate!" means "Let's Google Translate!" -- and "의 구글 번역 해보자!" means "의 구글 번역하자!"

If only Sun-Ae and I had used this Google helper in translating Yi Kwang-su's novel The Soil!

Translation: word-for-word and sense-for-sense

Richard Rolle of Hampole
Wikipedia

In getting ready for my keynote address at the upcoming Seoul International Book Fair, I looked up the meaning of translation, and in the Oxford English Dictionary, I found the meaning of "translation" and the word's first occurrence in English with this meaning:

The action or process of turning from one language into another; also, the product of this; a version in a different language. a 1340 Hampole Psalter Prol., In Þe translacioun i folow Þe lettere als mykyll as i may. (OED, Vol. 2, 1971, 266b)

Wikipedia informs me that "Hampole" refers to Richard Rolle of Hampole, a wandering hermit who translated the Psalter, a collection of psalms from the Old Testament, from Latin into English, though the spelling is not quite our modern alphabet, and there's also that odd word "mykyll" (though some might recall it from Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet), which means "much" (a word to which it is etymologically related).

Hampole is saying, "In the translation, I follow the letter as much as I may" -- in other words, literal translation, which I also have done with his words -- though he quickly adds:

And Þare i fynd na propire ynglis i folow Þe wit of Þe worde, swa Þat Þai Þhat sall red it Þaim Þare noght dred errynge.

Literally, this says, "And there I find no proper English, I follow the wit of the word so that they that shall read it, them there not dread erring." But here, the literal rendering fails us, so we ought to follow the "wit," i.e., the sense: "And where I find no proper English, I follow the sense of the word so that those who read it need not fear to err."

We thus see Hampole working with two implicit theories of translation: word-for-word and sense-for-sense. The former would never work between Korean and English!