How different? Let’s assume a person A, who is a native One speaker, wrote a book in language One. The book is then translated to language Two, from language Two to Three, from Three to Four until let

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Furqan A.

How different?

Let’s assume a person A, who is a native One speaker, wrote a book in language One. The book is then translated to language Two, from language Two to Three, from Three to Four until let’s say Hundred.

The equally qualified translators don't know each other whatsoever, and have no access to other versions of the book in order to compare their work with them. They only do the translation.

Now, the book in language Hundred is translated, by some other qualified translator, back to One. The book in language Two is translated, by that same translator, also to One. This person has no idea that the two books he’s translating are originally the exact same book. This person speaks language Two very fluently, in addition to his mother tongue, Hundred.

How similar would the results be to each other and to the original book?

Will the ideas and essence be the same because the source is one?

Or we’ll be having two books so different from each other that we no more can tell that they’re of the same source?

If A, who speaks the language Hundred fluently, would read it in that language, do you think he/she would recognize it as their book?

Commentaires · 4

I'm almost sure, that it would be easy to recognize the book, but translation might change "the spirit" of it. You don't have to translate something hundred times to see that. It's enough to read a novel translated by two different people to see this effect. It's hard to avoid some changes in translation because you can't translate word by word, you have to translate whole phrases and every person does it in a specific way. Besides there are some subtle differences between words and are not the same in every language. You can make accurate translation between really similar languages like Slavic languages for example, but it's not possible between e.g Polish and English or Polish and German. When you have two really different languages and you try to translate something sometimes you just add your soul to this translation. ;)

Of course it's only my opinion and professional translators might disagree with it, but this opinion is based on my experiences and if it would be possible I would prefer always read original version of everything. ;) Unfortunately it's not possible to learn every language on this planet, so I just trust translators. ;)

What made you think so deeply like that. What triggers this assumption?

I would say the answer to your questions depends on (1) the quality of translators and (2) what kind of book. Since all translators in your thought experiment are equally (highly) qualified, I'll focus on (2).

If the book is a textbook or technical manual, I would expect Book One and Book Hundred to be very similar. (Let's assume all necessary technical vocabulary exists in all target languages, so the translators don't need to struggle with introducing new technical concepts to their culture.) Book Hundred should be recognizable as Book One.

If the book is poetry or literature, I would expect Book Hundred to be very different from Book One, not recognizable as Book One other than basic essence. (And honestly, many stories have the same "essence.") A few translation norms--trends in the translation choices made by translators no matter language or culture--cause this. These include (1) trying to clarify information, so target texts are usually a bit longer than source texts and (2) translating non-standard language (slang, swearing) as standard language. Translators also translate according to their own culture's social norms, so they will often omit material considered inappropriate or taboo in their own culture: sex, violence, whatever the culture doesn't allow. (If they don't do it, the publisher may insist on it.)

I started an MA in Translation program at the beginning of this year. In the program, we read several papers by Itamar Even-Zohar and Zohar Shavit, two theorists who studied and noted the translation norms that I've mentioned.

Nada, I was reading the same text in four different languages and I noticed subtle differences so I thought if those subtle differences would become significant if more languages are involved.

Małgorzata, thanks for your comment! I was thinking that even a small difference of let's say 1% between two consecutive books could eventually become a significant difference.

"Besides there are some subtle differences between words and are not the same in every language"

That's my point. If we start with a subtle, negligible difference, won't it eventually become so significant that it is not negligible anymore? Maybe 100 consecutive translations still won't produce that significant difference, but how about 1000 or 4000 (There're nearly 6000 languages spoken in the world today)?

Grace, I really like how you make the distinction whether the book is technical or literature. Thanks for your insight!

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