• Welcome to Religious Forums, a friendly forum to discuss all religions in a friendly surrounding.

    Your voice is missing! You will need to register to get access to the following site features:
    • Reply to discussions and create your own threads.
    • Our modern chat room. No add-ons or extensions required, just login and start chatting!
    • Access to private conversations with other members.

    We hope to see you as a part of our community soon!

Lost in translation

SomeRandom

Still learning to be wise
Staff member
Premium Member
So this year I’m attempting to sort of “branch out” in my reading. By that I mean I want to read some authors who are considered “revolutionary/influential/classic” in some form or another but in countries that are not considered Western. A sort of “decolonisation of the bookshelves” as it’s known.
So presumably these books on my upcoming TBR shelf will not be in my native tongue, I was curious to see what you guys think makes a good translation of a text.
I have read translations I didn’t care for in the past (Butler’s translation of the Odyssey.) But I can’t quite articulate why I didn’t like it and why I prefer say the Fagles translation.
Edith Grossman’s translation of Don Quixote seems to be considered the gold standard of that particular book (and I loved the hell out of it, so I won’t argue.)
But what makes that better than other translations?
Discuss as you like
 

Audie

Veteran Member
So this year I’m attempting to sort of “branch out” in my reading. By that I mean I want to read some authors who are considered “revolutionary/influential/classic” in some form or another but in countries that are not considered Western. A sort of “decolonisation of the bookshelves” as it’s known.
So presumably these books on my upcoming TBR shelf will not be in my native tongue, I was curious to see what you guys think makes a good translation of a text.
I have read translations I didn’t care for in the past (Butler’s translation of the Odyssey.) But I can’t quite articulate why I didn’t like it and why I prefer say the Fagles translation.
Edith Grossman’s translation of Don Quixote seems to be considered the gold standard of that particular book (and I loved the hell out of it, so I won’t argue.)
But what makes that better than other translations?
Discuss as you like

Marquez?
 

SomeRandom

Still learning to be wise
Staff member
Premium Member
What does this have to do with Indigenous Identity Reclamation? And dismantling colonialist structures?


Decolonization is not a metaphor:
Decolonization is not a metaphor
Relax it’s just slang. It’s a tongue in cheek sort of reference to mean that one is recognising and then actively trying to breakaway from the “ironclad grip” that colonialism has over western culture as a whole. In this case literature
Decolonizing Your Bookshelf: The What, The Why, and The How
 

The Hammer

[REDACTED]
Premium Member
Relax it’s just slang. It’s a tongue in cheek sort of reference to mean that one is recognising and then actively trying to breakaway from the “ironclad grip” that colonialism has over western culture as a whole. In this case literature
Decolonizing Your Bookshelf: The What, The Why, and The How

Which why I stated it's not a metaphor to be used willy-nilly.

I recommend the full Tuck and Yang article of whose abstract I posted
 

SomeRandom

Still learning to be wise
Staff member
Premium Member
Which why I stated it's not a metaphor to be used willy-nilly.

I recommend the full Tuck and Yang article of whose abstract I posted
Whilst I recognise the need to watch our language and be mindful, getting bogged down in the nitty gritty of semantics is to miss the forest for the trees, imv.
Instead of opening up discussion, it becomes more a “woke scold” kind of phenomenon.
Just my experience.

But as this thread was about what’s important about translation and what works and doesn’t work. Do you think these ideas are not being translated well when we use such language? And why?
 

SomeRandom

Still learning to be wise
Staff member
Premium Member
Well yeah. If you live in the West a predominant voice is that of colonialism in general. Even my own cultural folklore has been “Westernised” to some extent. Unless you go straight to the original source material. Hell even then
 

The Hammer

[REDACTED]
Premium Member
But as this thread was about what’s important about translation and what works and doesn’t work. Do you think these ideas are not being translated well when we use such language?

No it is not translating well, I think we need a word for what we are doing in this instance other then decolonize. I think the term gets thrown around a lot, without thinking of or representing the indigenous voices who coined the movement the term is coming into our modern lexicon from.

I think the academic usage of the term and wider public's usage of the term (and definition), are not in agreement.

This isn't meant as a "woke" argument (even if others see it as such). I just literally have a presentation on this topic on Friday.

Edit: I think that one of the problems with using the term “decolonization” in higher education, starts with keeping in mind that everything in academia, eventually makes its way into the hands of the wider public. Which can cause a term or idea to be spread in a way that it gets used outside of its original context, or misinterpreted. The more complex academic definition of “decolonization” is when a nation seeks to become free of the oppressor/oppressed regime imposed on them by a colonial power, and to physically and legally undo the colonial state, or Empire, that has dominated their society; which often times gets reduced to it’s more basic definition the action or process of a state withdrawing from a former colony, leaving it independent. What this miscommunication misses, is the nuance of what is required in decolonization, and allows for “settler moves to innocence” (Yang, p1) through the process of metaphorization. For example “At a conference on educational research, it is not uncommon to hear speakers refer, almost casually, to the need to “decolonize our schools,” or use “decolonizing methods,” or “decolonize student thinking.” Yet… these discussions make no mention of Indigenous peoples” (Yang, pg3) or the struggles that they have endured and continue to endure.
 
Last edited:

The Hammer

[REDACTED]
Premium Member
I recommend

The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee by David Truer

As book to expand the voices on your shelves.
 

SomeRandom

Still learning to be wise
Staff member
Premium Member
Fair enough @The Hammer
I can see where you’re coming from.
What would you propose as a better phrase?

I kind of like “De-Anglophise your bookshelf.” But I don’t think that’s a word
 

The Hammer

[REDACTED]
Premium Member
Fair enough @The Hammer
I can see where you’re coming from.
What would you propose as a better phrase?

I kind of like “De-Anglophise your bookshelf.” But I don’t think that’s a word

I've been pondering a new word for days and the best I've come up with is decolonialize, so far, which isn't much better.

De-anglophise is interesting. Maybe De-Eurocentering? Euro-unsettling?
 

SomeRandom

Still learning to be wise
Staff member
Premium Member
I've been pondering a new word for days and the best I've come up with is decolonialize, so far, which isn't much better.

De-anglophise is interesting. Maybe De-Eurocentering? Euro-unsettling?
Euro-decluttering?
 

rational experiences

Veteran Member
In the past memory. Humans by science which began by words only were theories. Storyteller. Ended up back in a tribal life. Left civilization.

His DNA thesis begins with basic tribal man in history of storytelling.

As all branches theories ology is just a story told by a human who isn't shifting anywhere as they consider what they dig up by human choice. Lived living only one life human present.

Should be the thesis he says first before he digs up any article in reality. As a reminder you are only one self storyteller.

How books cults began. Lots of groups lots of cult teachings by books.

I would rationalise civilization had always destroyed itself. So we watch movie books now as the visionary now.

Visionary seems to give a realisation not read in a book.

All pretend but it can become real. As visionary also records reality.

Compare where comparing began visionary is now a new book...visionary. lots of visionary science chosen movies to choose from...what can science cause.
 

Estro Felino

Believer in free will
Premium Member
I really, really love some English translations of Dante's Inferno.
They are very well made. Nothing is lost in translation.

English is incredibly rich in vocabulary.
More than Italian (the reason is that Italian is an almost artificial language, created by Dante, whereas English is the result of a natural process).

Inferno, Canto III

Through me the way is to the city dolent;
Through me the way is to eternal dole;
Through me the way among the people lost.
Justice incited my sublime Creator;
⁠Created me divine Omnipotence, ⁠
⁠The highest Wisdom and the primal Love.
Before me there were no created things,
⁠Only eterne, and I eternal last.
⁠All hope abandon, ye who enter in!
 
Last edited:
Top