Translation
How is it even possible? Haven't you ever wondered?
I'm making my money - at least part of it - by translation, or, more precisely, adaptation of commercial ads, and I'm still wondering.
Even the simplest, most common words have different etymologies in different languages.
For example, English "letter" (as graphical symbol) comes from similar words in french and letter that has possibly originated from greek "diphthera" - "tablet," with change of d- to l-. Very early on it is tied with written documents, e.g. letters. (Source here.)
In Latvian, "letter" is "burts", which has originated from a family of words with meaning "to conjure", "to do magic"; it can actually be translated as "conjured" in specific cases. We do not think of it every day, very likely most of language users aren't aware of this double meaning, but the meaning is there. Our name for letter as a document is "vēstule", which basically means "message" (we have name "vēsts" for messages that aren't necessarily written in a letter format).
And this is just a simple word, easy to translate. This blog entry by Louise Marley prompted me to look up name "werewolf". In English it doesn't actually mean "was a wolf". As i found out in Wikipedia, the name "most likely derives from Old English wer (or were) and wulf. The first part, wer, translates as "man" (in the sense of male human, not the race of humanity)." In Latvian, it's a similar, maybe a wee bit more poetic "vilkacis" which means "wolf-eyes" (curiously enough, the tradition states that it has human eyes in its wolf form). But in Russian, the general term for werewolf is "о́боротень" or "перевёртыш" which means "the one turning/changing into something" and thus not implying the wolf form as necessary.
The majority of words have similar discrepancies in meanings - not even mentioning the sound of these words that is important in perception too, as well as common usage of these words. If you have a slight discrepancy in every word you translate, how is it possible to convey the meaning of text from one language to another? (And it is possible, I've seen it, and it still strikes me as miracle.)
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Susan Brown says:
Translation IS miraculous.
Translation IS miraculous. When it's well done, the translation still carries some feel of the original language--when I read Garcia Marquez in English, it still feels like someone is talking to me in Spanish, just because of the way the words are arranged. My hat's off to you for being able to change writings from one language to another and still end up with the same product. Susan
Ieva Melgalve says:
Haha, yes, even if the
Haha, yes, even if the product is only hygienic pads, it's still blasted hard sometimes. :)
Susan Brown says:
On that note, I spent two
On that note, I spent two years in Japan and one of my favorite memories is of coming across some tissues with the words, "For Your Snot!" emblazoned on the box. Uh oh! Susan
Ieva Melgalve says:
That must have been a
That must have been a favourite purchase for tourists :)
This reminds me of somebody wondering what the heck "Ped Xing" meant, sure it must be Chinese but why put it over pedestrian crossing in huge green letters? So you don't even have to translate to get confused :)