Lediana Paja (USA) "Translation: The Key of Cultural Globalization"

Lediana Paja (USA)

Translation: The Key of Cultural Globalization

The origin of the translation starts since the times of the Roman civilization where a special importance was given to the transformation, assimilation or acceptance of the Greek ancient culture.

Cicero writes that "I have translated as an orator and not as an interpreter of the text, separating the terms in that way so they should not seem alien for the nature of our language.

According to him, the text should be a synonym of the driving force, of the pampering and transmission of the original in the other form in the most rigorous way possible.

The biblical translations tend to get away from the Cicero thought being based more on the criterion of the rigorous stability of the transformation of a word from a language to another.

Luter in his translation of the bible (1522-1534) respects the criterion of Saint Jerome, staying faithful to the original, but being aware that in some places he should need to make a compromise to make this process realizable. The humanists and the European translators of the Renaissance period based on the symmetry, rationalization, balance of antic culture, thought that the translate should not only acknowledge the language of the original in which the part is transported, but even the stile, rime, phraseological words, the meanings of allegoric expressions, the syntax relations and etc.

"No word of a language is totally the same (in the sense) with the word of another language", wrote Wilhelm Von Humboldt, but all languages comprise the means to express everything.

Apart the faithfulness to the original, the translator needs the unification with the part in a passionate way in that level as it will seem "like the author has written the part in the language of the translator", states Humboldt.

The same thing is later expressed even by Anthony Burgess (1917-1993), where according to him: ""Translation is not a matter of words only: it is a matter of making intelligible a whole culture".

Milan Kundera, the famous Czech-French writer has been quoted a lot for his famous expression: “Common European thoughts is the fruit of the immense toil of translators. Without translators, Europe would not exist; translators are more important than members of the European Parliament” or said it differently from a more naive viewpoint, if the art of translation would not exist, we people not only would not have the possibility to acknowledge the global culture with the pearls that characterize it, but would be isolated in our primitive shell of knowledge.

Nowadays, the technology of translation has been simplified considerably thanks to the search engines, different software or programming, we could make a translation of any part in a very short time. But, this does not mean that the problem of the translation has already launched its signal of agony. On the contrary! If we would accept that reason is what divides human beings from animals, while perception and sense if what divides human beings from technology, maybe we come at the deduction that translation now belongs only to the human mind and no technological invention could replace the 'colors' that a text bears in another language, with the same temper, feeling of artistic extension.

Translating means you have to find the 'recipe' of ARN to achieve and make possible the transcription in the most perfect way.

The finding of the recipe represent an art of its own, because it requires special abilities to make this miracle happen.

The reproduction of a part, clone requires a creative talent and an authentic culture. Nietzsche, at the Transformation of all values admits that the world could be considered as a piece of art that generates itself and afterwards he says that "the artist phenomenon is transparent"... the effect of the art pieces is that of causing a spiritual state, which creates the art piece, so deliration.

The most essential thing in art is the perfection of existence, the generation of perfection and completeness. The artist even as a translator should manage to bring the essence of the part and transmit its message, reconfiguring it in many cases to make the part one and not separated from its structure.

A dilemma raises here which is linked with the style of the writer and with the person that takes on the duty to transpose its part in another language. There are not few cases when the translator has made possible that a part is liked perhaps even more than in the original language as there are many cases that a part might seem in its original language brilliant and may come out in something without 'taste' in the translated version.

The transmission of the style of the writer in translation is impossible, because every man wants to create its own style, which distinguished it from the others and makes it unique. If such a thing would happen I would consider the translation a miracle. The transmission of the style is not the only problem that the translator must face.

The lack of certain expressions in the language in which is translated and vice versa, issues these that will make bigger the request to attract new products and keep in constant pressure.

The folkloric expressions exist in the culture of all people, which are inherited and are impossible to be translated in other languages and even if such a thing would happen they would not have any sense.

In the way of the conception of a part, of its recreation in another language, a translator should be considered an artist, where he manages to connect his style with the structure of the author he translates. But, if he manages to transmit the style of the writer, then the way is paved to the miracle.

The other dilemma is linked with the originality of the translated part; the spectic dualism that follows the ritual of translation and which has to do with the structure of the writing. Can the constructing structure of the part be transmitted if it is almost impossible to transmit the style of the writer? I want to explain this dilemma with two simple examples: first has been taken from the preface of Anna Karenina of Tolstoy and the other from love letters by Gustave Flaubert; where both writers will agree in the conclusion that the Homer's part in the ancient Greek language seems like a real pearl. In a kind of way the structure of the part has been transmitted, but not its 'aroma' or as Borges said: “The original is unfaithful to the translation". This is the reason, which explains the fact that many parts are preferred to be read in the language they are conceived to be written.

I could not cut like with a knife the miracle from the art in the translation, but what I can say is that when the translation accomplished its mission and transmits all those values, structure and esthetic of a part, those are forms that continuously replace each other and make possible the enrichment and regeneration or even the creation of values, especially the literary ones.

The translation is very important because through it we learn about the existence of the world, people, cultures and their inheritances through the centuries, but at the same time is the key to change this evolution. Every part that gets translated bears in itself mystery, magic, message and an inner or outer leitmotiv that pushes you always toward new boundaries of different worlds at the search of the continuous perfection of the language, cooperation, evolution etc. The translation is the art that will keep alive the culture of all people, the magic of the word and mind of human beings and the perfect exchange of cultures and builder of the relations among them, which start first of all from the recognition.

*Cicerone "De optimo genere oratorum", Italian translation of G.Tissoni "Qual è il miglior oratore", part of the book “La teoria della traduzione nella storia e Siri Nergaard, Milano, Bompiani, 1993, page. 57-58.

*Luther "Sendbrief vom Dolmetschen", translation in Italian by V.Vinay "Epistola sull'arte del tradurre", published at “La teoria della traduzione nella storia” Page. 108.

*A linguistic cocktail (a critique of Multi-Lingual Advertisements in the English Press) by Dr. Felix Mosses

*The Transformation of All values, Nietzsche, fq. 55, 73

*The Language Journal, December 2009

*Borges and translation by Efrain Kristal, fq. 6