Hard Nut to Crack

The world of the translator is rife with mismatches, bizarre phrases and uncomfortable equivalents. We have already looked at the concept of collocational transference in a previous blog entry (click here). However, the linguistic world is awash with strange constructions that provide the translator with hours of laborious strain, hair-wrenching frustration, but sometimes gleeful linguistic sport.

An interesting phrase is the Polish mieszanka studencka which is the well-known and popular mix of peanuts, hazelnuts, cashews, almonds and raisins. A logical equivalent would be student mix, however, this term does not exist in English.

The Polish mieszanka studencka probably stems from the German Studentenfutter or, perhaps even from the authentic English equivalent student food (also brain food) which in the British version of the ‘recipe’ may also contain brazil nuts and walnuts. However, there is a slight problem as student food also has a rather negative connotation implying cheap and/or microwaveable/canned food typically eaten by British university students.

Another possible equivalent is what is sometimes known as a trail mix which hikers, walkers and backpackers take along with them on their trails. An innovative linguistic concoction is the word gorp which is a backronym of the words Good Old Raisins and Peanuts which would probably be a rather favourable translation of mieszanka studencka.

Thus, we could use student food, trail mix or the innovative gorp.

Neologisms

The creation of new words is one of the most natural things in the (linguistic) world. It is what keeps the linguistic organism fresh and full of vitality. As presented in a previous post on New Words the renewal of linguistic tissue is a wonderful phenomenon.

With a change in the political system and entry into the European Union, Poland is experiencing major political, economic, social and psychological upheavals and it comes as no surprise that new lexcial items are forcing themselves into the vacuum left by the fall of social-realism and other now defunct social and political phenomena.

Of great interest are words like Gadu-Gadu (the internet messenger) or Spychologia (an attitude among people who constantly ‘pass the buck’). Obviously, proper nouns and company names are not translated, but ideas such as Walkie-Talkie and pass-buck-ability come to mind.

The politician Janusz Palikot in an effort to promote his weblog has embarked on an advertising campaign that makes use of some fascinating neologisms. These include: pyskusja (= ‘pyskować’ + ‘dyskusja’), odwkurzacz (= ‘odkurzacz’ + ‘wkurzać’), paplament (= ‘paplać’ + ‘parlament’), cudzogłupstwo (= ‘cudzołóstwo’ + ‘głupstwo’) and nielękarka (= ‘pielęgniarka’ + ‘nie lękać’). The neologisms reflect a particular approach to life and in an effort to understand this approach a translation of these words may be revealing:

pyskusja ~ disgussion
odwkurzacz ~ dumb-downer; zone-outer
paplament ~ howliament; growliament; borliament; papliament
cudzogłupstwo ~ adultawry; stupidility
nielękarka ~ nofearlette

Wikilisation of Knowledge 2.0

The phenomenon that is Web 2.0 and editable webpages including sites like Wikipedia has far surpassed the dreams of those people who developed them. However, the use of editable webpages and pedia websites has thrown up vast possibilities and also a multitude of epistemological problems.

The concept behind Web 2.0 is that the internet is taken to a new level. This includes advanced social networking through blogs, fora, podcasts, RSS feeds and of course wikis.

Wikis and editable databases are vast stores of knowledge that are set up, organised and edited by internet users. These users come together to create folksonomies, user-generated taxonomies which categorise the content found therein. However wonderful this all might seem as the realisation of the dream of Tim Berners-Lee, we must remember to take these wiki sites with a proverbial pinch of salt. Why?

As comprehensive as they are, it must be remembered that the majority of wiki sites are produced by amateurs and not professionals or experts which leads us to ask the question of whether the translator can rely on such encyclopedic entries, articles and definitions. A host of fora and editable glossary sites have cropped up on the internet but who is to say which term is correct. An illustration might be of use here. Perhaps we are curious about the translation of the phrase spółdzielnia mieszkaniowa into English. We check within an editable glossary site and we find four possibilities:

housing cooperative, building cooperative, housing association and building society

Due to the fact that wikis are in essence one of the only truly democratic ‘institutions’ in existence, which means a multitude of voice is always present, it is difficult to decide (especially for the novice translator) which of these equivalents is the ‘correct’ one. In procedural terms, more definitely means less. Plurality does not equal sweet polyphony but rather cacophony. We are overloaded with a variety of meanings and often have no way of verifying which is the more ‘accurate’ or ‘appropriate’ equivalent.

The wikilisation of knowledge has opened up and revolutionised our concept of encyclopedic/dictionary approaches to knowledge. Imagine a paper dictionary in which entries can be deleted, edited or altered - this is exactly what has happened. What Bill Gates termed as the ‘democratisation of knowledge’ can also be interpreted as an epistemological free-for-all.

Quantity vs. Quality. On the one hand, we can argue that truth is always objective and cannot be expressed by the masses. On the other hand, who is to say that a truly democratic approach to truth/knowledge is not the way forward. Whichever approach is taken, the translator and language specialist must be fully aware of these choices and the consequences of each.

Odd Collocations

It is strange how collocations work in different languages.  When considering collocations, idioms and set phrases in Indo-European languages then the common root is often Latin which has given birth to hundreds of idioms, proverbs and the suchlike. Translation often becomes difficult when trying to transfer a metaphor or collocation over to another culture. It is worth looking at a few examples here.

In English, we might say “birthing an idea”, “the author gave birth to some great characters”, we might also say “give birth to a concept”. (Examples taken from corpus evidence)

Similarly, in Polish we might hear “pytania rodzą się”, “rodzą się uczucia”, “rodzą się znaki pytania”, “rodzi się koncepcja” or “rodzący się opór mniejszości”. (Examples taken from corpus evidence)

The above examples may not be so difficult to translate, but what happens when we hear a phrase like “rodzić kamień” when a person is admitted to a hospital with kidney stones. We would of course not say “to birth a stone” - this would sound odd. In English we talk of “passing a stone”.

Translation is all about transfer and communication, emotion and understanding but good translation is all about delicacy, refinement and precision.

Language Imperialism

Power and the will to dominate pervade everything, our hearts, our minds, our consciousness and even our language. It is probably safe to say that those who dominate usually do this through the medium of language. As we all know, the most powerful country on the Earth is undoubtedly the United States of America and the most influential language in the world is of course English, American English. But does this correlate with the actual statistics? It might be useful to take a look at a breakdown of the world’s top native languages i.e. those with the greatest number of native speakers (various sources):

1. Mandarin 700 million
2. English  355 million
3. Spanish 350 million
4. Hindi  337 million
5. Portuguese 203 million
6. Bengali 196 million
7. Russian 145 million
8. Japanese 128 million
9. German 101 million

Unsurprisingly, Mandarin Chinese comes top with both Hindi and Bengali being in powerful positions (Poland is 24th on the list). However, does this tell us anything about linguistic imperialism? It is only when we begin to look at the number of second-language speakers do we see the correlations between power and language appear:

1. English  1.5 billion
2. Russian  110 million
3. Spanish  70 million
4. German  60 million
5. French  60 million

English is leaps and bounds ahead of all the other languages. Obviously, for translators and linguists these are important figures and tell us a great deal about the most influential languages in the world.

It is safe to say that English is the language of diplomacy, business and science. From this point of view, those who possess the know-how that is English will be able to share in the opportunities this world language gives. With this in mind, we may be able to foresee the future focal points of the global economy. Time for more statistics - let us look at the number of English language speakers in non-native English states:

1. India  100 million
2. Nigeria  43 million
3. Philippines 37 million 

Perhaps it will be India (and the Indian sub-continent) that will lead the way in the years to come. With this vital skill in their hands (and mouths) the need for language-training and translation is negated. The same, of course, cannot be said of China which experts believe to be the new up and coming power. However, without this communicative ease - possessed by countries such as India, Pakistan, Nigeria, the Philippines, Zimbabwe and Singapore - can the manpower of China also match the manpower and linguistic know-how of these nations?

New Words

A fascinating phenomenon is the birth of new lexical items in a language. With this also follows the creation of new lexical sets, lexical bundles (as Biber might say) as well as collocations and idioms. This is of great import for translators as the good translator should also be a linguistic observer and commentator. He/she should know what is happening to a language and why this is happening.

Most of the new births are connected to science and technology as well as philosophy and ideology. When a new field is created, a new invention made, a new gene found, a new device manufactured or doctrine developed language has to follow suit and describe it. One of the problems for translators is the fact that this is usually undertaken in the language in which the discovery is made and that happens to be - more often than not - English. For non-English speakers this is a problem.

Often the new word that is created has Latin or Greek origins (mainly because of tradition and the feeling that these Classical language are in some way more scientific than the others). Then it is borrowed into another language. So we find a Latin word borrowed or created within a particular field (in the English-speaking world, for example) that is then borrowed (or borrowed and then morphed) into yet another language.

Often the name that is tagged onto a new object is pseudo-Latin or Greek and sounds classical. Take, for example, the unofficial name of the trans-Neptunian planet 2003 UB313 - Xena. What might have been a more appropriate name for this outermost of quasi-planets is Xenial (pertaining to hospitality and relations with friendly visitors).

Sapir, Whorf - eat your heart out!

We are all fashioned by the language we speak, or rather, we are moulded by the consequences of growing up and living in a particular cultural sphere. Life is a serious of choices; all of them equally important in the grand scheme of things. But what, for example, happens when we touch another language? Our options expand and we become privy to another cultural sphere. Maybe an example would work well here. If, for example, one speaks English and Polish then one is open to two cultural spheres. But what happens when one begins to learn, let’s say, Arabic. Then another cultural sphere opens up and another range of opportunities reveals itself. If one continues to go down this path, one is shaped - to an extent - by the new cultural sphere and the opportunities attached to that sphere. If, however, one decides not to continue down this new path, then the opportunities change. They do not necessarily decrease, but they deepen within another sphere. All interesting stuff…

Regionali [s/z] ation

It’s something that’s always been a bother. What does you do with a particular form if you want to write to and for a particular audience. The problem doesn’t concern the banal US-UK battle of what to do with your s or z or whether to end the word with ‘tre’ or ‘ter’ in words like “metre” or “centre”. No, there are far more complicated issues involved here. What do you do if you’re writing for a semi-educated audience. What do you do if you are part of the ‘prol’ yourself? Does the translator tone things down? Do you keep a stable style throughout? These issue become more complicated when the translator begins to realise that he or she is just as important a component as the audience he or she is writing for. What happens if your political alleigances lie elsewhere? Ethics? What ethics?! You only live once!

Pearls of Wisdom

Don’t you just love set phrases? Why “Pearls of Wisdom”? Why not “Tears of Wisdom” or “Drops of Wisdom” or even “Fire of Wisdom”? We might even be able to speak of “Pearls of Joy”, “Pearls of Doom” even “Pearls of Wrath”. What is it that sets a liquid phrase into a solid mould? What is it that makes the molten-hot words slowly cool into a form that will remain unchanged for several years - a millenium in lexical terms? Words love to liquefy, change and transform, but every now and again we see a snap-shot of what the language used to be and not what it is now. We see phrases like, well, “goodbye”, which is a derivation of “god be with you” and think about how important religion once was. This is incredibly important for the translator, who has to be aware of language, etymology and culture. It’s not enough to understand a word or phrase, a translator has to ‘know’ a word, really ‘feel’ the word in its context to be able to transplant it into the other language and culture.