Translation is the communication of the meaning of a source-language text by means of an equivalent target-language text. Whereas interpreting undoubtedly antedates writing, translation began only after the appearance of written literature; there exist partial translations of the Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh (ca. 2000 BCE) into Southwest Asian languages of the second millennium BCE.
Translators always risk inappropriate spill-over of source-languag...
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Quotations About This Subject:
- Translation is entirely mysterious. Increasingly I have felt that the art of writing is itself translating, or more like translating than it is like anything else. What is the other text, the original? I have no answer. I suppose it is the source, the deep sea where ideas swim, and one catches them in nets of words and swings them shining into the boat... where in this metaphor they die and get canned and eaten in sandwiches. ,
- It were as wise to cast a violet into a crucible that you might discover the formal principle of its color and odor, as seek to transfuse from one language into another the creations of a poet. The plant must spring again from its seed, or it will bear no flower -- and this is the burthen of the curse of Babel. ,
- I do not hesitate to read all good books in translations. What is really best in any book is translatable -- any real insight or broad human sentiment. ,
- A great age of literature is perhaps always a great age of translations. ,
- Any translation which intends to perform a transmitting function cannot transmit anything but information -- hence, something inessential. This is the hallmark of bad translations. ,
- There are few efforts more conducive to humility than that of the translator trying to communicate an incommunicable beauty. Yet, unless we do try, something unique and never surpassed will cease to exist except in the libraries of a few inquisitive book lovers. ,
- Humor is the first gift to perish in a foreign language. ,
- God employs several translators; some pieces are translated by age, some by sickness, some by war, some by justice. ,
- Woe to the makers of literal translations, who by rendering every word weaken the meaning! It is indeed by so doing that we can say the letter kills and the spirit gives life.
Awards in this discipline:
- Marsh Award for Children's Literature in Translation ,
- Harold Morton Landon Translation Award ,
- PEN USA Literary Award for Translation ,
- PEN/Ralph Manheim Medal for Translation ,
- PEN Award for Poetry in Translation ,
- PEN/Book-of-the-Month Club Translation Prize ,
- Governor General's Award for French to English translation ,
- Governor General's Award for English to French translation ,
- Stalker Award for Best Translated Novel ,
- Stalker Award for Best Translated Story
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