lost in translation

ok some while ago i wrote this essay abt the importance of learning languages other than english. for some intra- sch competition. dunno wat happened to it. anw... some thoughts tt i put down then hv recurred to me arnd now. i had written smth abt the sapir-whorf theory (tho i hear its been disproved, but its still interesting... and id like to believe that some of it makes sense), and now is the time to extend the idea and examine other permutations. if we take understanding of various languages to enable one to better represent the world (if we do disbelieve that it doesnt help our understanding of it at all..) at least, then wat happens if we do not have so many languages at our disposal? well i suppose the opposite would happen. u wld hv a world view, well and gd. but i suppose it wldnt be as flexible, and ur ability to express ur perspectives wld be less malleable than if u had multiple languages at hand. an intuitive example wld be when u cant express urself in one language (or at least not as accurately as u wld like), when another just fits. of course this probably can be overcome by widening ur vocabulary, or in the worse case, inventing ur own words to signify what is lacking in the existing lexicon (but then it wld hv to adhere to the rules of ur language, otherwise ud arguably be making a dialect; then again, wats the difference?) 

so well, assuming that u only know one language, and u still (obviously) dont want to miss out on works in other languages in whatever media, ur only option is to translate. now therein i feel is a problem which is worthy of contemplation.

ok the idea here revolves around languages and their conversion into other languages. and, of course, as in how data inevitably gets lost during transfer, syntax and obviously sense (and mebbe style and other stuff) get lost during this process, too. (oh i hvnt read the bk or watched the movie of this title. its just apt for the discussion and im not relli alluding to them cos i hvnt read/watched them)

well translations are rampant these days, what with the improved technology and hence efficiency of translating media. the fact that more people are receiving better educations probably also contributes to a (i hypothesize) increase in translations. we cld also argue tt languages r constantly being invented [(as in totally different languages, not dialects or slangs, or watever derivations.) though u can argue tt languages are dying somewhere in africa or china...] and so more translation is needed. anw, the bottom line is that, with translation comes loss of material, and this is (definitely?) a bad thing. 

the purpose of translation is to allow the work to reach a wider audience. we've seen this with the Bible, and we now see it with things like anime and korean soap operas. would the world (or at least the people not versed in the means of communication) be worse off without a processing body to change unintelligible words into meaningful ones? i think so. however, we must be conscious of the fact that these works often (if not always?) become worse off themselves, even as they extend their reach to more people. ok this is not going to become a discussion whether expansion of target audience justifies or even promotes translation which comes with its corruption of original material. rather, this is just interested in examining the nature of the corruption. 

ok, i suppose everyone can figure this out for themselves, but im jus gonna list the probable cases and some examples. firstly, translation affects the meaning of the words of the language. we are all aware of connotations and associations. these are the word's own relationship to fellow members of its lexicon. replace it with another word from a different language and u distort meaning by failing to fully copy its relationship. while some words are relatively easier to translate being more common and of (perhaps) a simpler idea in both languages, many are not. we are all aware of the dangers in mistranslating wat someone says. like in tennis recently, venus and serena got into the finals and a fellow russian competitor said it was a "family decision" or smth along those lines tt hinted at a conspiracy of not playing fairly but deciding on the result before hand. this was later corrected. ok i noe there r better examples, but this will suffice. i guess this result of translation has obvious dangers. u can incite riots and even wars with the right mistranslation (haha). things also get sticky in the religious sense. as if holy writs were not ambiguous enough, u hv to translate them frm their original language and, furthermore, translate them in many different versions. now interpretation of agreed texts are complicated enough, differentiating them probably doesnt make things any easier. though i dun see much immediate problem in this. though it should be said that u cant get the most of out smth u read if u cannot fully understand what its implying. religion, if nothing else, shld be the place u dun wanna go wrong, and where more knowledge is obviously a good thing (u noe, theres a saying that goes smth like: half knowledge is more dangerous than none.. or smth. u noe wat, its probably translated...) 

here i shall digress and make an aside abt the Bible. its the world's bestseller, so it shld be mentioned, if not being the most relevant to this topic. i suppose everybody's aware of how preachers sometimes throw greek words at u frm the Bible and make themselves sound impt and how their subsequent explanations of the text seem so obvious - after making the necessary connotations and associations with the alternative translations or the etymology of wdv word they illuminated. heh. well heres an interesting idea. some say the Bible was written in English. which means to say, it doesnt matter tt it was written in greek or hebrew or whatnot, because ultimately its being most widely read in English. which i find an interesting idea really...

anyway, translation also hinders the appreciation of a text. i suppose this affects verse more than prose as verse seems to be more interested in craftsmanship. u noe, stuff like rhyme, alliteration, wordplay (which imo, is one of the hardest to translate. u noe how cry in english can mean to shout or to weep? yea its the same in jap wif the word nake apparently.. but how many language can u keep this consistent. and if u use phrases, or less common words... well good luck), rhythm, texture (consonance, assonance), syllable count, line length, stanzas.... the list goes on. u cant possibly manage to recapture the brilliance of the original language wif translation. and i dunno if the people who try to should be commended or pitied and laughed at. if u read translations of literary texts, and they hv notes (which they shld, if not ur pretty much losing out on alot), u tend to see alot of comments "resists translation". well heres an example, aura in greek means breeze, and is also a female name. the translation given was zephyr, which can arguably be a girl's name too. but u kinda lose the "a" sounds... uhh. ya stuff liddat. frm what i have read tho, i tink its highly commendable of translators to still keep to the syllable count (often) and to even try to recreate the effects of the original meter. ah well. i wld bring up the examples, but im lazy. haha guess i didnt do too great a job substantiating my arguments. 

anw the conclusion of this matter is that u lose much in translation. so wat can be done? well.. go learn the original language! sure, easier said than done. in parting, i'll jus leave an anecdote of this guy called Joseph Needham. i read an article abt him in the papers quite some time ago. anw hes this british guy who went to china and lived there and wrote a bk on its development of civilisation. well not relli a bk. a massive 15 volume collection or smth. anw i guess tts cool in itself. but i quote "A polymath in the best British tradition, Needham was a talented linguist who could mentally translate his manuscripts from English to French and back" um actually he supposedly translated, edited, translated back, and etc. mentally in an armchair. hm. ok my aspirations..