GLF and the issue of translation:

Translator and Translated

" Mark Antony:

Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears;

I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him;

The evil that men do lives after them,

The good is oft interred with their bones,

So let it be with Caesar ... The noble Brutus

Hath told you Caesar was ambitious:

If it were so, it was a grievous fault,

And grievously hath Caesar answered it ...

Here, under leave of Brutus and the rest,

(For Brutus is an honourable man;

So are they all; all honourable men)

Come I to speak in Caesar's funeral ...

He was my friend, faithful and just to me:

But Brutus says he was ambitious;

And Brutus is an honourable man….

He hath brought many captives home to Rome,

Whose ransoms did the general coffers fill:

Did this in Caesar seem ambitious?

When that the poor have cried, Caesar hath wept:

Ambition should be made of sterner stuff:

Yet Brutus says he was ambitious;

And Brutus is an honourable man.

You all did see that on the Lupercal

I thrice presented him a kingly crown,

Which he did thrice refuse: was this ambition?

Yet Brutus says he was ambitious; …"

- Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare

(Mark Anthony's speech is one of the finest examples of suggestive meaning or Davanitarta (suggestive meaning) in a text in English literature)

In this week's column, I would like to discuss issues facing the translation industry against the backdrop of the Galle Literary Festival (GLF) of 2011 and the session on translation entitled Translator and Translated.

The GLF session Translator and Translated featured Ranjini Obeysekere and Liyanage Amarakeerthi and was moderated by Tissa Jayatilake. He introduced two panellists and said that Ranjini Obeysekara as one who has received her entire education in English, while Liyanage Amerakeerthi received his education in Sinhalese and both have developed interests in Sinhalese and English later on. It was also clear that the moderator, Tissa Jayatilake had his education in English medium (Subject to correction).

One of the fundamental issues arising from the session Translator and Translated is that whether one who is proficient only in one language or in other words, could a monolingual simply claim that she/he is a translator? What would be the quality of the translated work by such a translator?

A cardinal principle that a translator should bear in mind is that the original text (in Source Language) is from one literary culture and the translated text (in Target Language) will belong to a different literary culture. That difference among European literary cultures such as English, French, German and Spanish may be lesser than the one between Sinhalese literary culture and English or other European literary cultures. Naturally, the translation from non-European language to European language and vice versa will be far more difficult and cumbersome than a translation from one European language to another.

Suggestive meaning in a text

During the session, Ranjini Obeysekere and Amarakeerthi Liyanage explained briefly how they came into translations and how they have developed a passion for Sinhalese and English respectively. Among other things, Ranjini Obeysekere said though she had received her education entirely in English and she had been exposed to Sinhalese literature during her childhood and that she acquired her knowledge of Sinhalese only by reading. She stressed the point that it is not necessary to study a language and almost all language skills could be acquired through passionate reading. Though the statement may be accurate to a certain extent, it is polemical given the fact that one should master languages in order to be a skilful translator.

According to Amerakeerthi, he has considered translation as a pertinent means to acquire English language skills. However, the question remains why Amarakeerthi was chosen to represent Sinhala writers or poets at GLF 2011 for that matter. In this regards, I would like to quote form Malinda Seneviratne who wrote a column last week on this particular session.

"It is a pity indeed that even in their condescension, the GLF-people didn't see fit to invite people like Gunadasa Amarasekera, Siri Gunasinghe, Ashley Halpe, Lakshmi De Silva, Gamini Seneviratne and others of that generation equally conversant in Sinhala and English (I am sure there are Tamil equivalents too), familiar with a wide range of literatures and writers of repute. If they wanted to go 'younger', they could have drawn people like Udayasiri Wickramaratne (poet, novelist and dramatist), Rajitha Dissanayake (dramatist), Prasanna Vithanage (film-maker and dramatist), Jayantha Chandrasiri (film-maker, dramatist) or others in the university system who could speak to relevant issues."

At the conclusion of the session, a question was asked whether it is possible to translate Davanitarta or suggestive meaning in Sinhalese text into English. Having translated Davanitarta as resonant in English, panellists dodged the question whether 'resonant' in one language can be translated into another. Mark Antony's famous speech in William Shakespeare's Julius Caesar is one of the finest examples of Davanitarta or suggestive meaning in English literature. It is the way in which Mark Anthony delivers the speech which changes the meaning of the text from one which praises those who achieved power to one which is against them.

Another issue which dodged off was the selection of texts from source language for translation. Given the present English translations of some of the Sinhalese novels and poems, it is pertinent to ask the question why these Sinhalese trash should ever be translated into English. A dirty clothe with scars cannot be washed to remove its scars whether it is washed in a remote village in Kurunagala or at a laundry in the USA.