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A common quotation about translation is that it's akin to kissing through a veil. You get the idea, but you miss all the nuances in the exact feel. You know you're kissing a pair of lips, or at least you certainly hope so, but are they softer chap? Positioned into a smile or curled in disgust. Just like with how many licks does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop, the world may never know.
Yet just as the kisser can hopefully lift up the veil to get a better understanding of just whom he is kissing, so too does the translator have numerous tools in order to lessen the thickness of that veil, as it were. Hi there, and welcome to another episode of Southern Demonology. As always, I'm your host, JJ. We just finished up with a phenomenal three-part interview with Victor about three separate encounters he had with what he believes, and for the record, so do I, with the perfectly possessed.
In fact, his new podcast, Trailer Trash Terror, was just released, and I highly encourage you to check it out. Speaking about guests, on April 11th from 9 to 11 p.m. Central Time, I will be the guest host on Paranormal Phil's Talk in the Night. The second hour even allows for guest callers, so be sure to check out that program and even call in and ask a question. Now I will have updated information with links on the website, southerndemonology.com, and on social media.
But today I want to get back to the more academic side of the house and talk about a subject that is near and dear to my heart, and that is translation. And in doing so, we're going to take a slightly meandering path by first going over how I came to languages, then move on to translation philosophies, and finally end up by portraying the work of one man whom many in academia shun, but I've always felt a great fondness for his translations, and that would be E. A. Wallace Budge. Language started off not as my favorite subject.
In high school, I started out by learning Spanish, and for the first time in my life, I encountered a limitation on my memory. See, my brain is a little different. Or so it seems to me, based on numerous books I've read and conversations I've had with others. I don't really have an internal monologue. When contemplating something, there are no words. Now in most books, people, when thinking to themselves, have dialogues or actively think out whatever the topic at hand is. Yet I've never done that. Sometimes I've imitated this behavior, but it's something I actually have to work at.
Over the years, I've wondered if I'm just the oddball or if this type of verbalizing is just spelled out in novels. But at least according to some psychological studies I've read on the matter, it does seem like I'm the strange one in this particular area. Moreover, I really don't strategize when mulling over a problem. I just let my brain work through it until the answer bubbles up from the depths. While this leaves me weak in certain activities like chess, it also means I'm able to intuit an answer fairly quickly. And this plays directly into the non-verbalizing I described above.
Rather than think through a problem, it's almost like I let it materialize in front of me. And what I depend on the most in all of this is my memory. I wouldn't say that I have an audectic or to use the old school phrase of photographic memory. Rather, my brain just seems able to categorize and sort information while retaining the important bits. That's why I rarely ever have to study for an exam. However, vocabulary is an entirely different matter. Learning another language's vocabulary is pure muscle memory.
I can't just let it sit in short-term memory like one might do in cramming for an exam. Rather, for it to be of any use, you have to get it into long-term memory. And I seem to have a particularly bad time of doing that. I started my first language in high school when I decided to study Spanish, and I thought I would be able to breeze through that, but I quickly realized that I had to work extremely hard at vocabulary. I almost felt like my brain had betrayed me. At the end of the day, while I earned good grades in the subject, I graduated with the ability to only say simple sentences.
In fact, when I headed to college, I was eligible to jump straight to Spanish 3, and the professor and the other students spoke in nothing but Spanish. So, needless to say, I dropped that course after the very first class and never looked back. But then I saw my college offered Russian, and that piqued my interest. So I took two years of that. Unfortunately, even though the professor is a genius polygog, able to speak over 30 languages fluently, his teaching skills left a great deal to be desired.
So beyond being able to curse very well in the language, today I only retain the ability to read the Cyrillic alphabet and say a handful of other words. So you'd think I would have listened by now to my past experiences, but nope, and I'm as stubborn as a mule. One day while passing by the bulletin board in the religion building in my college, I saw Rassign advertising biblical Hebrew, and suddenly I had to learn it. And it was that which finally sparked my love of languages. And there's a few reasons for that. First, I love the Semitic language structure.
From its verbal system to the fidel or alphabet, there's just a lot to love. But for me personally, studying an ancient language finally allowed my memory to come into play. I could focus on the patterns of the language and allow dictionaries to play the part of my long-term memory, since the focus isn't on speaking, but rather on reading. So let's turn our attention to translation itself. When one first starts translation, there's not much of an art to it. After all, the aspiring student is simply trying to make sense of the words.
Yet once the language basics no longer pose an issue, the translator has a definite choice in how to convey the translation, which I'm going to refer to as linking. And what I mean by that is how close the translation should be to the source material. On the surface, that sounds like a pretty idiotic question. There should be a one-to-one parody between the two, no? Well, there's been a trend to actively unlink the two, especially when it comes to modern day spoken languages. For example, let's take a recent example from anime.
The winter season just came to a close, and to state it bluntly, it was rather bereft of quality shows, especially when compared to other seasons. Yet there was one that would be a standout hit in any season, and that would be My Dress Up Darling. The title wouldn't lead you to think that, but it was a show with such charm, quality, and overall cuteness that I simply couldn't wait for every Saturday to come around so that I could watch another episode. Besides being awesome, it's also a standout example of unlinking the source material to the translation.
In order to minimize the veil, the translator chose not to do a one-to-one translation, but rather to give the feel of the original Japanese to such an extent that if you had both the English and Japanese scripts placed side by side, you would almost have two entirely different ones. Now, some really liked this, and I will admit in certain cases, it added to the charm the show exuded. For example, when the female lead character made a sound that was unintelligible, the translation became a random string of English letters as if a person had banged their head on the keyboard.
I really liked this effect. Not only was it in line with how the character is, but it also placed it squarely in line with something an English speaker could readily understand. Yet, if one understands Japanese even a little, one of the benefits of watching a subbed anime is to actually learn more Japanese. So not only is it a great way to be entertained, one also gets to learn from it. And this is where the unlinking in My Dress Up Darling becomes dangerous. If the goal is to only preserve the feel of the original, then the source material's importance is diminished.
The translator treats it as unimportant as compared to the finished translation, to the point where they are divorced from one another in a very real sense. It got so bad when watching the show in later episodes that I either had to pay attention to the subs or to the spoken language, for the two were telling a slightly but very distinctly different story. To keep with the veil analogy, it's almost as if the act of kissing is more important than whom you are kissing. If you're getting married to the person behind the veil, then that's going to be kind of a big issue.
Listener might say, sure, but I could maybe see that point, but the source material is just a piece of entertainment. While that might be true, don't think for a minute that this phenomenon only applies to modern languages. Have you ever wondered why there are so many translations of the Bible? To date, there are 105 different English translations of the complete Bible minus specialty translations. And each was created for a very specific reason.
Some attempt to make the Bible easier for English speakers to understand, thereby lessening the importance of the source material in order to attempt to increase understanding. Others seek a precise translation, such as the RSV, Revised Standard Version, which ties the translation as tightly as possible to the source material. These will often provide footnotes to explain why something was translated the way it was, or to provide extra context in order to boost academic understanding. Others simply wish to increase the focus on certain theologies or frankly have some other agenda behind it.
It's funny. You see the same phenomena in the tech world. The one talent that all developers have is the instantaneous ability to badmouth another developer's work. I say that lovingly because as a developer, I have that exact same skill. Let's say that developer A created an application. And let's say that developer A created an application, and it is adopted because, well, it's the only tool like it. Developer B will then come along, note all of the app's failings, and decide to build a better version of it.
Does this mean that the community now has a new app and one that has been deprecated or no longer used? Nope. It means you have two applications. And it won't be long before another developer, developer C, comes along and decides to make yet another application. And that's why you find yet another something, such a common naming convention. For instance, YAML, which is short for yet another markup language, was supposed to be a replacement for JSON. Did it supplant JSON? Nope. It now exists alongside it.
From hearing me speak about all of this, I'm sure you can already guess where I fall on this particular spectrum. I believe in the supremacy of the source material. I like technical translations, for they can help teach you the mindset and pinpoint problematic areas. Genesis 6.2 is the perfect example of this. This passage has bewildered people for centuries and has spawned multiple books of the pseudopigrapha just to attempt to explain it. The passage speaks of the sons of God. Some translations gloss over that by merely translating that as the angels.
But by doing so, so many insights can be lost just by that simple word choice. By minimizing the hurdles, the translator is neglecting the knowledge that lies behind the Hebraic phrase Bene Elohim. At the end of the day, reading or hearing something in English doesn't impart magical understanding of everything the source material covers. The more divorced the translation is from its source, the more you deny the audience of learning what makes the source special or problematic or just bloody interesting.
Yet one cannot assume that a technical translation is enough, for the words themselves may not encompass the meaning. One of the more famous lines that typify this is the Japanese phrase skigai kire desne. On the surface, the phrase simply means the moon is beautiful, right? However, it actually comes from a supposed conversation between a famous novelist, Sosuke Natsumi, and a student.
When he observed the student trying to translate the phrase I love you, he supposedly said that the Japanese would never use such a direct and vulgar declaration, but would instead hint at it with the moon is beautiful, right? To wrap up this particular topic, let's take a look at a man who kind of exemplifies the technical translator in my mind, E. A. Wallace Budge. Budge was born on July 27, 1857, in Cornwall, England. Before the age of 10, he had become interested in ancient languages, but he left school at the tender age of 12 to work for W. H. Smith, which was a bookseller.
However, in his off time, he continued to study Hebrew and Syriac. He would often take his lunch times and study at St. Paul's Cathedral. The organist there saw the boy's dedication, and after reaching out to a member of Parliament and a former prime minister to talk about Reach, he was able to raise the funds to send the aspiring scholar to study at Cambridge. There, Budge studied Hebrew, Syriac, Classical Ethiopic, that's actually how I came to know of the man, and Arabic, all the while independently studying Akkadian.
Budge went on to have an illustrious career at the British Museum, a place that had inspired him as a boy, and was a much sought-after dinner guest due to his wide travels in the Middle East and humorous anecdotes. He was eventually knighted in 1920 for his efforts in Egyptology. I always felt an affinity for Budge, ever since I read some of his translations. Not only were translation styles similar, but he too had an interest in the paranormal and had had quite a few friends who were in the Ghost Club of London.
To this day, I still own a copy of Budge's translation of the Laphophysetic or the Book of Righteousness. He also called it the Ethiopian Book of the Dead, which is rather fitting since he had an extreme interest in the topic and even did a translation of the Egyptian Book of the Dead. To give you an idea of Budge's translation style, let me read to you a passage from the third prayer of the book. He also called it a spell.
It starts off with the standard saying of Basema Ob We Wald We Manfas Kadus Achado Amluk, which is in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, the one Lord. Nothing shall attack the dead body for whom this writing shall be recited on the last day. On the day of judgment of Gog and Magog, those who have defiled the law of God and those who bring forward corrupt speech shall say, I am Christ, the Son of the Living God, and all those who are sinners will believe him.
Christian folk will say, We believe in the name of Jesus Christ, in the Son of God, and of the Father, and in the Son, and in the Holy Spirit. And Elias shall preach unto all Christian people, and they shall believe in Christ the Son. And whosoever believeth in the Son of Satan, Antichrist, Christian Mark, shall be condemned to punishment in the place of torment. And whosoever believeth in Jesus Christ, the Son of God, shall never enter the place of torment. He shall be held worthy and shall walk in the Holy Spirit. God saith, I am the God of the heavens and the earth.
The king Not Nile, Nathaniel, question mark, shall himself go. Go about the Christian shall lament. The Tonic, the fountain of glory and life. This is he who shall ride the horses of life on the day of rewards and judgment. And on that day the sun shall become black, and the moon shall become blood. In that day, show mercy and have compassion upon me, thy servant Walda Mikael. For clarification, the word Walda is simply classical Ethiopic for son of. Overall, I do love his translation style. It depicts the tone and formulaic writing of the original.
However, did you note the question marks I spoke of? These are actually in his text. And that is not an outlier. Budge never did care to carefully consider his translations, nor if the text he was translating from should be the one utilized. For example, is there a more definitive version out there? Rather, he just ran with what he had. And this unfortunately has led to many in the academic community to point to Budge as the guy not to imitate. As James Peter Allen, an Egyptologist, wrote, Budge's books were not too reliable when they first appeared, and now are woefully outdated.
Nevertheless, I still hold Budge at heart, not just for our shared interests or in our tendency to overwork, but as I too have earned a few sideways looks in academia. I still remember professors wondering if I was in the right place in Harvard after they heard my southern accent. So that's my take on translation. I honestly just scratched the surface, and the translator I picked to illustrate technical translation may not have been the best, but I couldn't bring up the topic and neglect good old Budge.
Everyone has a favorite, even if that favorite is more of a cautionary tale than a shining beacon of light. Thank you for listening to Southern Demonology. Find us online at Southern Demonology.com where you can find all of our social and podcasting links. Also, if you have a moment, please feel free to rate this podcast and leave any encouraging feedbacks that you may have. As always, I am JJ and it has been a pleasure getting to talk to you today.