Abstract
The attempt has been made to understand the various problems and possibilities of translating Indian Literatures into English language in the present paper. Translation is not an easy task; it requires much toil and thorough knowledge of the Source Language (SL) or Source Text (ST) and Target Language (TL) or Target Text (TT). The history of Translation is very great and grand in the world. Through the translations of the various documents and treatises, the entire world can get the knowledge of the various fields. Translation studies are not just a linguistic branch but an extensive field with many branches and very important results. Translation is founded on the idea that the essence of a document may be abstracted from its meanings and replicated in the very specific ways of a second language. The various issues in translating the literary works has been discussed in the paper.
Key Words: Translation, Source Language (SL), Source Text (ST), Target Language (TL), Source Text (ST), issues, possibilities
[1] Introduction
Translation studies are not just a linguistic branch but an extensive field with many branches and very important results. Translation is founded on the idea that the essence of a document may be abstracted from its meanings and replicated in the very specific ways of a second language. Translation is not an easy task; it requires much toil. A translator must have good command over the first language and the second language. Only good knowledge of the first and the second languages is not enough for the translator because at the same time he must be aware of the social, cultural, religious, historical and political background of the both states and nations as well. There are many problems and hindrances in translating the Source Text (ST) or Source Language (SL) into Targeted Text (TT) or Targeted Language (TL). The present paper describes the origins and development of English-language translations. It is not within the scope of this paper to discuss all Indian language translations into English. Instead, it provides a selective overview regarding the growth and development of Translation Studies and the problems and possibilities of translating Indian literature into English.
[2] Literature Review
In order to know and study the past research done in the field of Translation Studies, few research papers and articles have been reviewed. The thorough and comprehending reading of the selected papers and articles have widened the horizons of the area of Translation Study and help the research to peep into the same area.
M. Asaduddin (2006) attempts to define the role of translation in interhuman space at different times and places in the world in general, and in the Indian situation in particular. Renaissances in various parts of the world were a translation function in these languages. Translation has undoubtedly a place in the history of ideas, and the history of translation is the history of human civilization and (mis) understanding. The paper goes on to discuss the Indian situation in particular, both endotrophic (= one Indian language into another) and exotropic (= Indian language into English).
Md. Ziaul Haque (2012) addresses the problems of translating literary prose and reveals some relevant solutions and also focuses on expanding the perimeters of translation studies. Multiple translation courses offered Universities in Bangladesh and abroad treat the subject as a result of applied linguistics. Currently, translation teachers and students are frustrated by the mounting impenetrability of books and papers flooding the market. Unfortunately, the translators put more emphasis on poetry translation; there should be more research on the specific problems of translating literary prose. One explanation of this might be that the status of poetry is considered higher, but it is more likely due to the notable flawed notion that novels, essays, fiction etc. have a simple structure compared to that of a poem and are thus easier to translate. However, there were many debates on when to translate, when to apply the close local equivalent, when to invent a new word by clearly translating, and when to copy. Simultaneously, the culturally-bound words and phrases "untranslatable" continuously intrigued prose-translators and translation theorists. The plea in this article is to admit that there is much to be learned from shaping the criteria to undertake a prose-translation and we should appreciate the hard work, difficulties, or frustration of the 'translators' (go-betweens) in creating a good sense of the texts.
2014 Dr. Rositta Joseph and Valiyamattam (2014) argue Language is one yet languages are many. And therefore the origins of translation can be traced back to the origins of the human race. The paper discusses about the Indian Literatures and Translation, Translating Indian Literatures into English: Issues and Possibilities, Examples of Indian Fiction in English Translation, Great Hindi Short Stories (translated from Hindi by Dr. Ravi Nandan Sinha), Sachin Kundalkar’s Cobalt Blue (translated from Marathi by Jerry Pinto), Benyamin’s Goat Days (translated from Malayalam by Dr. Joseph Koyipally).
Mehta, Pooja (2016) argues that from the outset, translation studies have been caught in questions about equivalence, untranslatability or loss in translation. Literary text translation and critical text translation pose a distinct task for a translator. Translation of a critical text is more difficult and demanding, as the spectrum of imagination is limited and the obligation to be faithful to the text doubles. Translation of literary and critical terms plays a vital role here. These words are unique to literary, critical culture and tradition. The 'equivalence' issue arises while translating critical terms. This paper deals with the complexities of translating literary and critical terms through the text in translation from Gujarati to English, Dr. Harivallabh Bhayani's Rachana Ane Samrachana, a series of articles and papers describing and explaining the upheavals of literary theory and literary works.
Sushil Kumar (2016) attempts to understand the historical perspective of translating Indian literature into English. India has a long tradition of translating texts into various languages. It starts with translating Ramayana and Mahabharata from Sanskrit into local Indian languages. English is undeniably the language of the global market and well-accepted in multinational countries like India, and Indian literature translated into English has its unique position. In addition, many agencies and institutions such as Sahitya Academy, National Book Trust, and National Translation Mission were established to accelerate interest in translation. Translating Indian literature into English is a critical transformation to provide space for sharing Indian literature with unknown Indian language readers. Using the translation device, Indian rich literary traditions were relocated and reaffirmed in world literature scenario. Moreover, an attempt is made to understand the colonial designs behind that era's translation, and similarly the postcolonial era's compulsions (market) are to be discussed.
[3] Objectives of the Study
The objectives of the present study are enlisted below:
To understand the growth and development of the Translation Study.
To understand and discuss the various issues of translating Indian literature into English language.
To discuss the possibilities of translating Indian literature into English language.
[4] Research Methodology
Research Methodology is a design for the research. The present paper is based on the secondary data i.e. research papers, articles, journals and magazines. The data is collected from the mentioned sources through the internet. The comprehending and analytical reading is used for the present paper. MLA 8th Edition is used for the designing paper and citations.
[5] The Definitions of Translation
Language is a medium through which thoughts, ideas and feelings can be expressed properly. Thus, language is one yet languages are many. Therefore, the origins of translation can be traced back to the origins of the human race. The word ‘translation’ consists of two Latin words – ‘trans’ meaning ‘across’ and ‘lation meaning ‘to take’ (derived from the Latin verb transfero, transfere, translatum). The ancient Greek word for translation was metaphrasis meaning ‘a speaking across’. To put it very simply, translation means transferring or taking across to or expressing in one language what has already been said in another language. The various concepts and views regarding translation has been mentioned below:
According to Dr. Johnson, translation involves the process of 'change into another language, retaining the sense "Which is the basic objective" (Nair, 96:1). A.H Smith fully agrees with Dr. Johnson's statement when he states, "To translate is to change into another language retaining as much of the sense as one can '' (Nair, 96:1). Since Catford's theory in translation is a linguistic based theory, he defines translation as "The replacement of textual material in another language (TL)" (H. Lakshm, 93:48). Nida proposes two types of equivalence in translation, formal equivalence and dynamic equivalence. For the first one, formal equivalence focuses on the message itself, in both form and content...One is concerned that the message in the receptor language should match as closely as possible the different elements in the source language. Formal equivalence is thus keenly oriented towards the ST structure, which exerts strong influence in determining accuracy and correctness (H. Lakshm, 93:41).
Translation simply means translating every word from SL to TL. But particularly when referring to the literacy text, it's a very complex procedure. Not only words, but also expressions, connotations, word associations, and culture are all to be translated. Translation changes intellectual debate. Therefore, some change is inevitable.
[6] Indian Literatures and Translation
Unlike the West, classical Indian translation features loose adaptation and imaginative retelling rather than close translation. Sanskrit translations into vernaculars took the form of critical comments, summaries, and partial translations. As K. Satchidanandan states:
India’s culture of translation dates back to pre-colonial times that had witnessed several kinds of literary translation, though our ancients may not claim to be doing so. This is perhaps natural to multilingual culture where poets… easily moved from one language to another without even being aware of it and translators did not fear being executed for deviations as in the West…. We do not even have a proper word for translation in the Indian languages, so we have, at different times, borrowed anuvad (‘speaking after’) from Sanskrit and tarjuma (explication or paraphrase) from Arabic…. Our predecessors used texts as take-off points and freely retold and resituated them, as was done in the case of many Ramayanas, Mahabharatas and Bhagavatas in different languages. … This tendency to transform texts from older languages like Prakrit, Pali, Sanskrit, Tamil or Persian continued almost to the end of the pre-colonial period… (3)
In addition, Buddhist literature, Ramayana, Mahabharata and Panchatantra were translated into almost all major Asian languages. During the Mughal period, Emperor Akbar created a special division to translate ancient Sanskrit texts into Persian and Arabic.
In the colonial era, West contact transformed India's translation scene. English scholars like William Jones, Mac Donnell, Max Muller, H.H. Wilson, R.T.H. Griffith, G.A. Jacobs, as well as French, German and Italian scholars translated Indian texts into English and other European languages. Regarding the translation of English or European texts into Indian languages, there were notable examples such as Bharatendu's Hindi translation of Shakespeare, Premchand's Hindi translation of plays by John Galsworthy, as well as Hindi versions of Alexander Pope, Matthew Arnold and Edward Fitzgerald's Rubaiyat by Omar Khayyam. Translations between Indian languages were a special feature of the Indian Renaissance and helped create the nation throughout the fight for independence. Bhartendu, Ramakrishna Varma, Gopal Ram Gehamari, Roop Narayan Pandey, Dwijendranath Roy and others translated Bengali and other texts in Hindi. Satchidanandan argues that:
These translations during the early years of independence and the late colonial period were not profit-oriented; dedicated translators came up in many languages making Tagore, a Sarat Chandra Chatterjee or Premchand household names across the country. (3)
Many individuals and institutions like the Sahitya Akademi, the Indian Gyanpith, and the National Book Trust are involved in translations between different Indian languages today.
[7] Translating Indian Literatures into English: Issues and Possibilities
India has the world's oldest and richest literary traditions. Thousands of languages and dialects are the history of Indian literature. In the colonial period, English entry contributed to widespread translation of Indian literature into English. William Jones, Mac Donnell, Max Muller, Wilson, Griffiths and Jacobs were pioneers. Indian scholars like Romesh Chandra Dutt etc entered the movement by the late 19th century, often with a noble aim to correct Western interpretations of Indian texts. This is a living tradition as we realize from P. Lal, A.K. Ramanujan, Dilip Chitre, Velcheru Narayana Rao, Arvind Krishna Mehrotra, Arshia Sattar, H.S. Shivaprakash, Ranjit Hoskote, Vijay Nambisan, Bibek Debroy, and several other poets and scholars. The world has been enriched by translations of Vedas, Upanishads, Ramayana, Mahabharata, Buddhist texts and Panchatantra, Panini and Kalidas masterpieces in Sanskrit, Tulsidas, Surdas, Kabir, Meera, Premchand, Bharatendu, Dinkar, Agyeya in Hindi, Ghalib and Iqbal in Urdu, Chandidas, Saratchandra and Tagore in Bengali, Narsi Mehta in Gujarati, Pothanna and Vemana in Telugu. Jagannath Das in Odiya, Shankar Dev in Assamese, Purandardas in Kannada, Kumaran Asan and Vallathol in Malayalam, Kusumagraj and Vijay Tendulkar in Marathi, Kamban and Andal in Tamil – to name only a few.
Translating Indian literature into a global language such as English is an effective means of unveiling to the country and the world — the rich cultural heritage, the similarities and differences among these literatures, their human dream and high values, their search for reality, grace, equality, justice and happiness. In Indian literature, English translation has helped to break down place and time and to be accessible to lay people and critics alike. Further translations from old and modern works are needed in Indian literature and are enormous in size and desperately required, to uncover new meanings, and to bring to light countless secret riches.
However, it is far from easy to translate or build a bridge between two languages. As Nida observes:
Translating consists in reproducing in the receptor language the closest natural equivalent of the source-language message, first in terms of meaning and secondly in terms of style (12).
The translator is mainly responsible for three roles - that of the reader who must understand the complete text of an original text; of the bi-linguist who must master and equal uniquely regulating the unique rules, styles, socio-cultural contexts and worldviews of two distinct languages; and, of the creator who creates an original writing, translation demands creative imagination. In effect, the work of the translator is harder since the essence of the heart and mind of another individual must be captured and transmitted. Translation theorists have been worried about maintaining the fine balance between literal translation and the creative paraphrase which makes the equivalence between original and translated texts possible from Cicero and Horace to John Dryden. Professor Bijay Kumar Das quite rightly remarks, that:
…at the writing level, translation is always considered as a rewriting of the original text… translation is a text about a text and hence, it is a meta-text. It reproduces not only what the author in the original language says but what he means…. (167)
Indian literature translations into English may assume varied forms based on the medium and procedure. Translating poetry is as difficult as writing poetry, for the original poet's idiom, figures of speech and peculiar style must be recreated. Translating prose is also a challenge, as the text 's original socio-cultural context must be faithfully rendered. Textual translations adhere strictly to the text's substance and style. For example, Hindi words like ‘kaala bazaar’ and ‘aag mein ghee dalna’ become 'black market' and 'add fuel to fire,' respectively. The translator may also focus on reproducing the original text 's core emotion and effect, rather than word-to - word translation. For example, a Hindi idiom like ‘woh khoon ka ghoont peekar reh gaya’ might be literally translated as ‘he drank a draught of blood and remained,' while the actual English equivalent would be 'he pocketed the insult.' In the same way, a Gujarati idioms like ‘rang ma avi javu’, ‘pete pata bandhava’, and ‘dant khata karava’ might be literally translated as ‘comes into colour’, ‘tie a bandage around the belly’ and ‘to make sour the teeth’ respectively which seems very ridiculous and meaningless where as the actual equivalent would be ‘in a good mood or passionate’, ‘hard work’ and ‘to give a great shock to the enemy’ respectively.
As far as translating Indian native literature into English is considered, the translator faces three major issues.
The first is to comprehend the meaning of the original text requiring a thorough knowledge of its linguistic form and vocabulary, nuanced cultural differences, and varying meanings of the same word or expression. If used in somewhat different contexts, the same Hindi expression ‘aankh lagna’ may have different meanings. ‘Kisi ki aankh lagna’ denotes ‘sleep’, ‘kisi se aankh lagna’ denotes ‘falling in love’, while ‘kisi par aankh lagna’ denotes ‘desire’.
The second problem involves moving the original text's exact meaning. Here the translator may have to retain the original use, find its equivalent, or explain. The Hindi word ‘chamaar’, for example, can be rendered in four separate ways based on meaning – 'chamaar,' 'cobbler,' 'tanner,' 'untouchable leather worker.'
Third problem concerns transmitting the original text's meaning. There, the translator will follow a reader-based approach with proper respect for the target language's structure and idiom, location and time of its readers. That's why chaitra ka mahina in Hindi is translated as 'the Chaitra Hindu month,' 'the April month' and 'the end of the spring season.'
English translations of native Indian literature have limitations. The translator will be very alert to the dissimilarity between Indian languages and English. For example, Hindi and English have different grammar structures vis-à-vis tens, number, gender, verbs, etc. The second obstacle is untranslatability among alien cultures. Exact English substitutes for native uses, explanations, footnotes or condensation are used. Suggestive applications, unusual words or patterns, sentence structures, socio-cultural idioms, philosophies, subtle nuances of language, situation-specific gestures, etc., are not always duplicated. For example, the Hindi words ‘aap’, ‘tum’ and ‘tu’ denote decreasing degrees of respect, but only one neutral English equivalent – 'you.' There are several ancient and rich Hindi words, idioms and proverbs that can not be translated into English for fear of losing cultural context. No English equivalents for dhoti, raita, puri, halwa, lota, lehenga etc. Chacha, Mama, Tau, Phoopa, Mausa all have one word 'uncle.' There are different means of ‘aag’ and ‘agni’ whereas in English translation is ‘fire’. ‘Agni’ is a pious word in Indian culture whereas in English there is no such kind of culture. Hindi idioms like ‘oonth ke muh mein jeera’ or ‘aa bail mujhe maar’ (akin to 'ask for it') have no literal English equivalents. The translator must consider contrasting customs, lifestyles, philosophies, beliefs and linguistic sensibilities in multi-cultural India.
Translating Indian literature into English is thus a daunting challenge requiring a selfless and intense dedication to literature, talent, hard work, scholarship and artistic ability, deep life experience and deep social commitment. Provided India's various autonomous language-communities, the translator is responsible for bridging a highly fractured environment. Multilingual and multicultural, he / she is supposed to strike a fine balance between imitating the original and producing a new one. The ultimate goal is to draw readers to the original and related language, literature, and culture. Today's translation is a demanding, dynamic discipline.
[8] The Issues in Translating a Literary Work
As we have discussed, the exact translation of a literary text is not possible. It is a complex procedure, and so, the issues are bound to take place such as:
The above mentioned issues are faced by the translator while translating a literary work from Source Language or Source Text into Target Language or Target Text.
[9] Conclusion
Thus, Translation is not an easy task; it requires much knowledge regarding the culture, history, heritage, religion, social, political fields of the target language. If the translator does not pay proper attention and is not responsible, the meaning of the original text can be rendered and the readers cannot get the actual understanding of the original text. Thus, translators face a number of problems in translating the literary works from source language or source text to target language or target text.
WORKS CITED