[xmca] Really Correct Translations - subthread

In response to Bella's statement concnerning a "really correct new translation" of the 15 volumes of Vygotsky's writings, I can't resist.
   
  Also since the problem of translation is a perpetual concern here, and as a person who constantly confronts the difficulties of translation in my everyday life, I'd like to offer Lawrence Ferlenghetti's comment made while defending his thesis (a translation of Baudelaire I believe) at the Sorbonne in the late 1940s. I've changed one word to fit the contemporary world (wives for partners).
   
  Translations are like partners,
  The faithful ones aren't beautiful
  and the beautiful ones aren't faithful.
   
  Of course one could claim that beauty and truth (correctness) are different but I personally am not so sure and am perhaps an increasingly irreconciliable relativist. I think one only begins to speak another language when one stops attempting to translate back into a language already spoken. With so many polyglots on xmca I'm sure others could provide perspectives on this.
   
  Paul
   
   
   
  

bella kotik <bella.kotik@gmail.com> wrote:
  As perhaps some of you know, Vygotsky's family is preparing for publication
a 15 volume collection of his works which will include the archive
documents. Then the really correct new translation would be needed.
Bella Kotik-friedgut
_______________________________________________
xmca mailing list
xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca

       
---------------------------------
Be a better pen pal. Text or chat with friends inside Yahoo! Mail. See how.
_______________________________________________
xmca mailing list
xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
Received on Sat Dec 1 18:11 PST 2007