Crap online translations and library projects.

[Christine Murray]

I saw this this morning in the London Independent and it brought to mind two things:http://bovary.univ-rouen.fr/

1. Online translation does not always work, the services that come through machines and people who have no empathy
with their subject matter curdle my blood.

2. When someone comes to a work of literature in translation it should be as close as possible to the original
(and better yet people should try to read as much literature as possible in the original):

Think you've read Madame Bovary? You've barely begun - News, Books - The Independent

Thanks to islands for this link :http://www.politics.ie/chat/56360-do...published.html

This issue came up on Poetry Ireland, where we compared some translations of Nagy online to the Hugh Maxton (Dedalus trans)
and the quality of the online translations was so effing bad that we are in effect depriving generations of readers who have not
yet discovered their literature/music/ art through diluting the sense of the artist by mass dissemination of art as product.

Between, By Agnes Nemes Nagy. Trans Hugh Maxton, Dedalus Press ,Dublin, Corvina Press Budapest.,

Reviewed here :http://www.poetryireland.ie/publicat...s/review3.html

[Christine Murray]

I had to remove bits cos I put a factual inaccuracy in bold. I think it wrong to reconstruct the original on the basis of
the censorship of the MSS btw- what went to press, went to press.

Imagine 123 people trying to rejig Finnegan's Wake ffs

Édition des manuscrits de Madame Bovary de Flaubert | Transcriptions | Classement génétique

[islands]

That's a good point. I often use free online translator | frengly.com to get some idea of what's going on in a webpage or piece of text in another language. It's quite handy for that, as long as you don't care about nuances of meaning, or rely on it to convey exactly what is meant.

But to see how it would butcher literature, I put a favourite poem in - Heaney's Postcript. It has pretty simple words and phrasing, so it should have a better chance than most of surviving translations

[COLOR=#375d57][FONT=Times New Roman]Postscript [COLOR=#000000]by Seamus Heaney[/COLOR][/FONT][/COLOR]

[FONT=Arial]And some time make the time to drive out west
Into County Clare, along the Flaggy Shore,
In September or October, when the wind
And the light are working off each other
So that the ocean on one side is wild
With foam and glitter, and inland among stones
The surface of a slate-grey lake is lit
By the earthed lightening of flock of swans,
Their feathers roughed and ruffling, white on white,
Their fully-grown headstrong-looking heads
Tucked or cresting or busy underwater.
Useless to think you'll park or capture it
More thoroughly. You are neither here nor there,
A hurry through which known and strange things pass
As big soft buffetings come at the car sideways
And catch the heart off guard and blow it open [/FONT]

So if you take that and run it through only a few languages - I think I did French, German and Finnish, you get this

And little time to take the time to drive west
of County Clare, along the Côte-Flaggy
September or October, when the wind
and the light work on the other,
so that the ocean on one side
with foam and sequins indoor and between stones
in the surface of a lake lit
gray shale of the soil, the flash flock of swans,
their feathers and poorly ruffling, white on white,
his head perfectly ordered leaders of tomorrow,
Hidden or peak or busy.
It is thought Park or very detailed.
You are not here and not there,
was held back to the familiar and the strange things
smooth rough buffeting came alongside the car
and the heart and believes that the success of open

I mean it's interesting in some ways as an exercise. I like the flash flock of swans for instance, but yes, the poem is butchered in just four clicks of the mouse

[seabhcan]

I mean it's interesting in some ways as an exercise. I like the flash flock of swans for instance, but yes, the poem is butchered in just four clicks of the mouse

I wonder if you did the same for a bad poem would it come out sounding more interesting?

[islands]

Good idea - want to suggest one?

[Christine Murray]

This is the Nagy discussion on PI. I can see that the project above has its merits, there were large sections excised from the book but the disclaimer published at link does little to justify how piecing together a jigsaw can take from what actually went to press (and from the writer)

'Zero Plane', from 'Terraced landscape', by Nagy. - Poetry Ireland Forum

There are two Nagy translations in this thread, the whole poem was also butchered and I cannot help but think that the digitalisation and translation projects have nothing to do with conservation of the originals but disseminating a product that is both inferior to the original and quite possibly wholly different in emphasis: thus depriving generations of the original.

A lot of work goes into original subject and themes both from writers and their translators.

[islands]

OK- I'm procrastinating here. Some random rubbish :

My love is like a rose so sweet,
she walks with dainty, pretty feet;
her hair is tied in rubber bands
she holds my heart in her fair hands;

Becomes ...

My love is like a rose, so sweet,
they are sensitive, beautiful legs,
the hair must be connected to rubber bands,
he has my heart on his right hand;

Hmmmm ...

[Christine Murray]

http://www.internationalpen.org.uk/f...translated.pdf
There's also a homepage on Translation and Linguistic Rights at PEN.

[Christine Murray]

OK- I'm procrastinating here. Some random rubbish :


Becomes ...



Hmmmm ...

I like the second one best (hee hee)

[islands]

Me too! There's a certain stalkerish obsessiveness about the hair must be connected to rubber bands