The impediments to translating poems are i) Lexical obstacles ii) Structual obstacles and
iii) Phonological obstacles.
i) Lexical Obstacles: They arise out of the rich mosaic of allusion in the poem. The allusions may be historical and spiritual as in Spenser's .Faerie Queene Milton's Paradise Lost is replete with mythological be allusions. These allusions cannot be translated. They will have to be explained in foot-notes only. Devaram and Thiruvasakam contain profound religious insights. Only a seer or a spiritually inclined translator can translate them at least with partial success. Similarly T.S.Eliot's Four Quartets with their multiple layers of allusions defy interpretation, leave alone translation.
i) Structural Obstacles: It is difficult to transfer the structure of a poem into the TL Text. Thiruvalluvar's Kural contains a world of meaning compressed within its couplets. It is a Himalayan task for the translator to achieve the same feat of compressing complex matters within the compass of the couplet. Similarly, the sonnet form of Shakespeare, with its rich involutions, cannot be easily translated into poems of similar size.
ii) Phonological Obstacles: Poetry is noted for its melody. The Poet uses devices like assonance, onamatopoeia, alliteration, rhyme, Phonological rhythm etc., to produce melody. Tennyson manipulates liquid consonants and long and short vowels to produce musical effects n
poems like The Lotos-Eaters and Tithonus. Hopkins’s poetry is highly alliterative. Milton uses subtle rhythmic patterns in his blank verse. Shelley’s poetry, as Symonds said, “music runs to drunken waste”. All these phonological effects are bound to elude translators.
1) Translating Prose:
Translating prose is considered comparatively easier than translating poetry. But this field also bristles with difficulties. Prose comprises essays, theses and dissertations, dramas and novels. Prose is a vast field.
2) Rules laid down by Hilaire Belloc for translating prose:
Hilaire Belloc lays down six rules for translating prose. They are discussed below.
a) The translator should avoid word-by-word and sentence-by-sentence translation. The translator should undertake section or block-by-block translation. He should read the work as a whole and then divide it into blocks, to be translated one by one.
b) The translator should pay special attention to idioms. Some idioms in the SL text have equivalent idioms in the TL Text. Belloc says that the Greek exclamation “By the dog!” can be translated as ‘By the God’ in English.
c) The translator must seek to echo the implications and intentions of the original writer and not merely the achieved results and explicit and direct statements.
d) Belloc warns the translator against less faux amis, that is, structures that seem to be similar in the SL and TL texts but are not really so.
e) Belloc advises the translator to ‘transmute’ boldly. He says that the essence of translation is ‘the resurrection of an alien thing in a native body’.
f) Finally, Belloc warns the translator against unnecessary embellishment and embroidery.
3) Difficulties in translating prose texts:
There are many insurmountable difficulties in translating prose texts. They are discussed one by one below.
Catford on untranslatability:
Catford has pinpointed two types of untranslatability, namely i) Lexical untranslatability and ii) cultural untranslatability.
i) Lexical untranslatability: Lexical translatability is due to the non-availability of equivalent worlds in the target language. Theodore Savory, Alan Duff and Eugene Nida have discussed this point at length.
Savory points out that the English language, supposed to be one of the richest languages in the world, yet lacks some very ordinary words which other languages have. He says that the French word ‘menue’ and the Latin word ‘auger’ have no equivalents in English’.
In English, there are separate words such as legs, feet, etc. But in Yugoslovian language the same word covers both the parts. Similarly there are no separate words in the latter language for arms and hands.
Nida also points to the same problem. In English there is a large number of words for storms such as tempest, cyclone, hurricane, etc., But in Tamil we have only one word namely, ‘puyal’. In Tamil there are various words such as பேதை, பெதும்பை and many other words to describe the various states of a girl’s growth. There is no such rich vocabulary in English.
ii) Untranslatability due to grammatical differences: In English, you is used to refer to both one person and more than one person.
The verb is the same for both these pronouns. For example,
You (Singular) speak English well.
You (Plural) speak English well.
But in Tamil, the pronouns are different. The verbs are also different.
நீ (singular) ஆங்கிலம் நன்றாக பேசுகிறாய்.
நீங்கள் நன்றாக ஆங்கிலம் பேசுகிரிற்கள்.
In English there are dummy subjects, such as ‘It’ and ‘There’. For example, in the following sentences, ‘It’ and ‘there’ only introduce the sentences. They do not have any meaning:
It is raining heavily
There are many flower-plants in her garden.
It is stupid to translate these introductory words also into Tamil as:
அது பலமாக மழை பெய்து கொண்டிருகிறது.
அங்கே அவளுடைய தோட்டத்தில் பல மலர்செடிகள் உள்ளன.
In English, ‘may is used in formal contexts, as in
May I sit by your side?
But in informal contexts ‘may’ is replaced by ‘can’ as in
Can I sit by your side?
But in Tamil, we say the same thing in both the contexts:
நான் உன் அருகில் உட்காரலாமா?
Another difficulty in translating from English into Tamil is due to the Passive Voice. In English, the passive voice is used profusely. But in Tamil, the passive voice has come into being Only in recent times, and that too because of the impact of English. Passive structures are rare in ancient Tamil literature. In English every other sentence is in the passive voice.
Cultural untranslatability: Cultural untranslatability is due to the gap between the culture of thr SL language and that of the TL language. Modern American fiction dealing with sexual promiscuity with explicit erotic details will sound most revolting to an orthodox Indian. Similarly, Tamil novel dealing with arranged marriages and the sour relationship between a girl and her in-laws will not be treated seriously by a Western reader because such values do not exist in Western countries.
There is no equivalent Tamil word for widower because the man who loses his first wife usually remarries and does not remain a widower here.
Colloquial words in Tamil such ‘ஓய்’ , ‘எலே’, ‘ஏய்’ which express contempt, cannot be translated into English. Even if we manage to translate swear words such as ‘ஏ மூஞ்சி’, ஏலே into English, they will not have the same flavour and the bite in the translation.
Translating Drama: There are difficulties in translating drama also. The drama usually presents many characters. Each character speaks in his or her own distinct style. The translator must bring out these stylistic variations. Another difficulty is that many dramas abound in colloquial expressions. These colloquial expressions must be translated into equivalent colloquial expressions in the TL text.
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