Does translation matter? For sure, it does. Why, during and beyond the colonial era, the Maxmuller (and others of his ilk) translations made-n-marred the ancient Indian identity. That central to existence translations are!
Yes, errors of/in translations could create havoc, both seriously, and crazily. All of us know the jokes about the Russian translation of the Biblical injunction as "meat is less, but vodka is enough" or the German "Gift", that is, poison, killing the lasvicious senior of a German junior.
Yes, linguistic diversity matters hugely. Yet the historical hierarchisation in this field has been rendered null n void due to the recent technologies such as the AI translators which are quite right for STEM areas.
Anyways, most translations published and sold these days are of the "DIY" variety, even when it comes to the much maligned Humanities ever since the III-B erupted. As for literature, who cares anyways? In a world where the attention span is byte sized and copy-pasting influencers of the AI variety rule the roost, who is going to read hundreds of pages?
Ah, there is another variety of translation, that is, medium wise. There are the audio books that translate tomes in to listen-able versions. Of course, who can how forget the film versions of books which mostly ruin the original. Remember the anecdote of the ass who preferred to chew the book to a reel?
Well, when the real goes the reel way, translation is hardly transcreation. Rather, it is a mere business proposal, right!?!
Pratima@ Yet there are authors and translators true to their inner calling, and that saves the (translation) day.
Quote of the day: "Writers make national literature, while translators make universal literature.” José Saramago thus glorifies translation. No wonder, there are efforts in India to translate from and in to the very many Indian language.
Word of the day: Transliteration Transliteration is the process of writing words from one alphabet or writing system into another based on phonetic similarity (as is typically tried @ WhatsApp), preserving how the words sound rather than what they mean.
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