>And I also remember
>someone on this list said that it is not true that languages like Italian
>and Spanish need more words than Anglo-Saxon languages in general to express
>the same concept... which is not correct.
More that different languages are more or less economical at different
moments. So, endings indicatiing size (in Spanish -ito or illo or even
itillo, small, or -ote, large) or gender and number often eliminate the
need for a string of adjectives. But sometimes create problems of cultural
difference or politics.
Here's a translation of a poem by Lezama:
THEY PASS THROUGH THE NIGHT
At midnight a station wagon
filled with musicians
rattles old stones
shot through with silver
like the ones I saw
when I entered Taxco.
The fat actress
and the scrawny romeo
fall by accident against the door handle–pretentiousness,
and they tear out their hair--
screams and bells,
the flush of a cheek,
slide to the roar of the piss
of swimming horses, parasols
above their inflated haunches.
Terrestrial brown
and violet flashes
boast of the bouncing
that the street light once deciphered.
A vacant house,
theatrically empty,
invigorates the passing musicians.
And there beyond the car’s window
a covetous arm’s apostrophe lingers
frosted with various feathers.
The great hall clock chimes in,
bumping into the raucous laughter
of those musicians sunk
in their ball-fringed pillows.
Time’s tassels,
creative as Montecristo’s pistols
or the river’s deflated sperm sacs.
And the cock?
It spread its legs
pointed its finger
and crowed
in the glow of a cigarette.
The line "the fat actress" translates "la cómica gorda. Cómica can also
mean comedienne, in its sense as dramatic actress or as stand-up. But in
the US women who act have taken to calling themselves "actors," and
"comedienne" has become at best an ostentation. Little choice here--the
information conveyed by the translation at a minimum has to contain gender
and profession. What would one say, "the fat woman actor who might be funny?"
Similarly, "galán enlombrizado," translated as "scrawny romeo."
Enlombrizado is a neologism based on "lombríz," "worm." I'm guessing that
it's meant to mean something like scrwny and smarmy. Galán means a
heartthrob (Elvis was a galán), a leading man, a lover, a boulevardier. So
it suggests that he plays opposite the cómica, as well as being something
of a player (in his own eyes) and her lover. All in the one word. Given
the chain of theatrical metaphor in the poem I chose "romeo." It at least
conveys smarminess and his sense of his own prowess. The intended comedy I
hoped would be contained in the picture of Jack and Mrs. Sprat that's also,
it seems to me, being conveyed, but only if one reads enlombrizado to
contain scrawny.
Translating romance languages I often wish that English, rather than
eliminating the genders of most nouns ages ago and currently attempting to
get rid of the remainder, had gone in the other direction. Maybe it's time
to regender English. And while we're at it, let's restore the thee-thou form.
Mark
|