THE 2008 Translation Prizes

Our friends in the Literary Saloon say that I might give some 'lowdown' on this week's Translation Prizes.

As the TLS 'frontman' (never been called that before) I am supposed to be reporting from 'behind-the-scenes' too.

The fights, the rows, the sandwiches, the chunky charm of Louis de Bernieres and the delightfully expensive short story he read as his lecture?

Well, how about this?

The organisers always give the frontman a speech to read.

No one could remember unaided all our beloved sponsors, each of our multi-lingual judges, the sole winners, the joint winners, the commended runners up and the order in which they get their white envelopes.

But when I began on stage on Monday night I went 'off message'.

I somehow couldn't say that there was a prize, as written on my card, for translation into THE Greek.

Why THE Greek?

Why not just Greek?

Then it was THE Italian and THE Spanish and THE Arabic and so on. Why?

So I just asked the audience.

It's not wise to stray from the script at a time like this but heck.

We long ago stopped talking about THE Sudan, THE Ukraine, and THE Lebanon.

Some problem, I think, with resonances of imperialism.

Are these definitely articled languages in the same sort of category?

We classicists might talk of the Greek of Sophocles to compare it to the Greek of Plato but not otherwise.

We translate from Latin not from THE Latin.

One of our winners, for a magnificent translation from the Italian of Luciano Erba, was Peter Robinson (together, above) who suggested that we use the definite article for individuals because each writer genuinely does have his or her own definable language, an  'idiolect', as it is known.

But that still does not help me with THE Italian as a whole.

Is it an archaism?

Does anyone know?

Ok. It's not much of a 'lowdown' but there we are.

Our TLS preview with the full list of winners is up on line now. Thanks to the Literary Saloon for the prod needed for us to do that.

It was a great evening at the South Bank Centre - with a wonderful range of readings, the whispering intimacy of Ian Fairley's Paul Celan, the public resonance of John Dent-Young's Luis Gongora.

Plus a story about translation from De Bernieres better than most of the lectures on the subject I've heard.

Everything of interest that night was in front of the scenes and not behind them.

Comments

[susie]

People do still talk and write about THE Lebanon, Sudan etc. In today's Guardian there is an article on a photographer who has been visiting in THE Yemen.
http://tinyurl.com/6fltok
One wonders whether this accords with the Guardian style book.

[Terry Collmann]

But if we didn't talk about translations from "the" language, we wouldn't have had Elizabeth Barrett Browning's beautiful in-joke "Sonnets from the Portuguese", where "Portuguese" refers to Robert Brownings nickname for the dark-haired poetess.

[Susan Balée]

Very interesting, and a topic I've actually dealt with as a copy editor. I favor the "the," and I'm not sure why. Perhaps R.H. Cline's comment explains it. Also, I noticed when the newspaper I worked for switched from "The Congo," to "Congo." Without the article, it didn't sound right to me. It would be like calling Conrad's novel "Heart of Darkness" rather than "The Heart of Darkness."

Odd, these things, these lingual tics that won't fade with time. All just marks upon our neurons, yet so compelling.

[R. H. Cline]

I believe that the definite article preceding the name of a language is a vestige of the longer phrase "the x language." For example, "the Italian language" becomes "the Italian." However, I don't think that the use of "the" in such a manner is very common these days. Without the article readers (and listeners) will know that you are referring to the language and not a random, anonymous Italian, Latin, etc.

[Clayton Burns]

This is such a compelling subject that I intend to spend several days (and nights) composing my theories.

Sir Peter might find interesting a collation of John Gray's inspired commentary in The Globe and Mail Oct 1st with the simplistic if not infantile whimpering of Joseph Stiglitz on the same page.

Who was it--John Barry--has not asked me a single question about my explanation (for him) of the need for Intelligence doctorates in the US. One does not want to expect too much.

On Georgia, on everything, John Gray, in "America's global fall from grace," in The Globe and Mail today, has it 100 per cent right.

What you learn about Americans in International Relations meetings is just how distracted they are, as a result of their baby-like educational system. The thumb sucking days are over.

Any day now, I'm going to get a response from Cambridge on my post about the "rant" of Blunkett, which Mary was incisive in explaining.

Soon Orion will be back anyway. Somehow it makes human affairs seem puny.