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Mike Aubrey October 7, 2009 Language, Translation

Truths about Translation #1-3

  1. Language is complicated.
  2. Two languages together are twice as complicated squared.
  3. Translation only accentuates #2.

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6Comments

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  1. 1
    judithweingarten on October 8, 2009 at 2:14 am
    Reply

    An old friend of mine (quite literally: she had been a librarian for the League of Nations)once defined a bilingual person as ‘someone who made mistakes in two languages’.

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  2. 2
    Carl W. Conrad on October 8, 2009 at 3:57 am
    Reply

    True about translation, no doubt; not so sure about “transation.”

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    • 3
      Mike Aubrey on October 8, 2009 at 7:48 am
      Reply

      Ah, but had you noticed that “translations” didn’t agree with “accentuates”?

      It was a game: see how many of my typos can you notice.

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      • 4
        Scripture Zealot on October 8, 2009 at 2:54 pm
        Reply

        I’m addicted to that game. It’s internet-wide for me.
        Jeff

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  3. 5
    Nathan Smith on October 8, 2009 at 7:51 am
    Reply

    I think we need a more nuanced approach than “twice.” Perhaps some friends in the comparative or statistical linguistics fields can work up a formula for determining difficulty of translation which takes into consideration degree of cognate relation, etc. 🙂

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    • 6
      Mike Aubrey on October 8, 2009 at 8:11 am
      Reply

      How about we use the same method used for quick and dirty conversions from Celsius to Fahrenheit: double and add 30?

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