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Untranslatability is the property of text or speech for which no equivalent can be found when translated into another (given) language. A text that is considered to be untranslatable is considered alacuna, orlexical gap. The term arises when describing the difficulty of achieving the so-called perfect translation. It is based on the notion that there are certain concepts and words that are so interrelated that an accurate translation becomes an impossible task.[1]
Some writers have suggested that language carries sacred notions or is intrinsic to national identity. Brian James Baer posits that untranslatability is sometimes seen by nations as proof of the national genius. He quotes Alexandra Jaffe: "When translators talk about untranslatable, they often reinforce the notion that each language has its own 'genius', an 'essence' that naturally sets it apart from all other languages and reflects something of the 'soul' of its culture or people".[2]
A translator, however, can resort to various translation procedures to compensate for a lexical gap. From this perspective, untranslatability does not carry deeplinguistic relativity implications. Meaning can virtually always be translated, if not always with technical accuracy.
There is a school of thought identified withWalter Benjamin that identifies the concept of "sacred" in relation to translation, and this pertains to the text that is untranslatable because its meaning and letter cannot be disassociated.[3] It stems from the view that translation should realize the imagined perfect relationship with the original text.[4] This theory highlights the paradoxical nature of translation wherein it—as a process—assumes the forms of necessity and impossibility at the same time. This is demonstrated inJacques Derrida's analysis of the myth ofBabel, a word which he described as a name that means confusion and also a proper name of God.[5] Furthermore, Derrida noted that when God condemned the world to a multiplicity of tongues, he created a paradoxical need and impossibility of translation.[5]
Derrida himself has put forward his own notion of the untranslatability of the text, arguing in his early works such as theWriting and Difference andMargins of Philosophy that there is an excess of untranslatable meaning in literature, and it cannot be reduced to a closed system or a restricted economy[3] "in which there is nothing that cannot be made to make sense."[6]
Brian James Baer posits that untranslatability is sometimes seen by nations as proof of their national genius. Literature that can be easily translated may be considered as lacking originality, while translated works themselves may be regarded merely as imitations. Baer quotesJean-Jacques Rousseau defining true genius as "the kind that creates and makes everything out of nothing". ParaphrasingRobert Frost's remark about poetry ("Poetry is what gets lost in translation"), Baer suggests that "one could define national identity as that which is lost in translation". He further quotes Alexandra Jaffe: "When translators talk about untranslatable, they often reinforce the notion that each language has its own 'genius', an 'essence' that naturally sets it apart from all other languages and reflects something of the 'soul' of its culture or people".[2]
Quite often, a text or utterance that is considered to be "untranslatable" is considered alacuna, orlexical gap. That is, there is no one-to-one equivalence between the word, expression or turn of phrase in the source language and another word, expression or turn of phrase in the target language. A translator can, however, resort to a number of translation procedures to compensate for this. From this perspective, untranslatability or difficulty of translation does not always carry deeplinguistic relativity implications;denotation can virtually always be translated, given enoughcircumlocution, althoughconnotation may beineffable or inefficient to convey.
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AlthoughThai has words that can be used as equivalent to English "I", "you", or "he/she/it", they are relatively formal terms (or markedly informal). In most cases, Thai people use words which express the relation between speaker and listener according to their respective roles. For instance, for a mother to say to her child "I'll tell you a story", she would say "แม่จะเล่านิทานให้ลูกฟัง" (mae ja lao nitaan hai luuk fang), or "Mother will tell child a story". Similarly, older and younger friends will often use sibling terminology, so that an older friend telling a younger friend "You're my friend" would be "น้องเป็นเพื่อนพี่" (nawng pen peuan pii), would translate directly as "Younger sibling is older sibling’s friend". To be translated into English correctly, it is proper to use "I" and "you" for these example statements, but normal Thai perceptions of relation are lost in the process.
A similar feature can also be observed in Indonesian. One may use the formal form of pronouns, which are generally distinct from the informal/familiar forms; however, the use of these pronouns does not evoke sufficient friendliness or intimacy, especially in spoken language. Instead of saying "Anda mau pesan apa?",[definition needed] a waiter/waitress will most likely say "Bapak/Ibu mau pesan apa?" (lit. 'Father/Mother wants to order what?'). The two expressions are equally polite; however, the latter is more sympathetic and friendly. When conversing with family and relatives, most Indonesians also prefer usingkinship terminology (father, mother, brother, sister) when addressing older family members. When addressing younger family members, informal pronouns are more prevalent.[citation needed]
English lacks some grammatical categories which are present in some other languages.
There is no simple way in English to contrast Finnishkirjoittaa or Polishpisać (continuing, corresponding to English 'to write') withkirjoitella orpisywać (a regularfrequentative, 'to occasionally write short passages at a time', or 'to jot down now and then'). Similarly,hypätä andskoczyć (to jump once) contrast withhyppiä andskakać (to continuously jump; to be jumping from point A to B).
Irish allows theprohibitive mood to be used in thepassive voice. The effect is used to prohibit something while expressing society's disapproval for that action at the same time. For example, contrastNá caithigí tobac (meaning 'Don't smoke' when said to more than one person), which uses the second person plural in the imperative meaning "Do not smoke", withNá caitear tobac (best translated as 'Smoking just isn't done here'), which uses the autonomous imperative meaning 'One does not smoke'.
Italian has three distinct declined past tenses: thusfui (passato remoto),ero (imperfetto), andsono stato (passato prossimo) all mean 'I was'. The first indicates a concluded action in the (remote) past, the second a progressive or habitual action in the past, and the latter an action that holds some connection to the present, especially if a recent time is specified ("stamattina ho visto" for 'this morning I saw'). Thepassato remoto is often used for narrative history (for example, novels). Nowadays, the difference betweenpassato remoto andpassato prossimo is blurred in the spoken language, the latter being used in both situations. What difference there exists is partly geographic. In the north of Italy thepassato remoto is very rarely used in everyday speech, whereas in the south it often takes the place of thepassato prossimo. The distinction is only alive in Tuscany, which makes it dialectal even if hardline purists insist it should be applied consistently.
Likewise, English lacks a productive grammatical means to showindirection but must instead rely onperiphrasis, that is the use of multiple words to explain an idea. Finnish grammar, on the contrary, allows the regular production of a series of verbal derivatives, each of which involves a greater degree of indirection. For example, on the basis of the verbvetää ('to pull'), it is possible to produce:
| Finnish | English | Translation/paraphrase of boldface verb |
|---|---|---|
| Hevonenvetää. | A horsepulls. | pulls |
| Ajomiesvedättää. | A drivercommands the horseto pull. | causes something to pull |
| Urakoitsijavedätyttää. | A subcontractordirects the driverto command the horseto pull. | causes someone to cause something to pull |
| Yhtiövedätätyttää. | The corporationassigns the subcontractorto have the drivercommand the horseto pull. | causes someone to cause someone to cause something to pull |
Hindi has a similar concept of indirection.Karna means 'to do';karāna means 'to make someone do';karwāna means 'to get someone to make yet another person do'.
MostTurkic languages (Turkish, Azeri, Kazakh) contain the grammatical verb suffixmiş (ormis in other dialects), which indicates that the speaker did not witness the act personally but surmises or has discovered that the act has occurred or was told of it by another, as in the example ofGitmiş! (Turkish), which can be expressed in English as "it is reported that he/she/it has gone", or, most concisely, as "apparently, he/she/it has gone". This grammatical form is especially used when telling jokes, or narrating stories.
Similar to the Turkicmiş, nearly everyQuechua sentence is marked by an evidentialclitic, indicating the source of the speaker's knowledge (and how certain they are about the statement). The enclitic=mi expresses personal knowledge (Tayta Wayllaqawaqa chufirmi, "Mr. Huayllacahua is a driver - I know it for a fact");=si expresses hearsay knowledge (Tayta Wayllaqawaqa chufirsi, "Mr. Huayllacahua is a driver, or so I've heard");=chá expresses high probability (Tayta Wayllaqawaqa chufirchá, "Mr. Huayllacahua is a driver, most likely"). Colloquially, the latter is also used when the speaker has dreamed the event told in the sentence or experienced it while intoxicated.
Languages that are extremely different from each other, like English andChinese, need their translations to be more like adaptations. Chinese has notenses per se, only threeaspects. The English verb "to be" does not have a direct equivalent in Chinese. In an English sentence where "to be" leads to anadjective ("Itis blue"), there is no "to be" in Chinese. (There are no adjectives in Chinese, instead there arestative verbs that do not need an extra verb.) If it states a location, the verbzài (在) is used, as in "Weare in the house". In some other cases (usually when stating a judgement), the judgment verbshì (是) is used, as in "Iam the leader." And in most other cases, such structure ("to be") is simply not used, but some more natural structure in Chinese is used instead. Any sentence that requires a play on those different meanings will not work the same way in Chinese. In fact, very simple concepts in English can sometimes be difficult to translate, for example, there is no single direct translation for the word "yes" in Chinese, as in Chinese the affirmative is said by repeating the verb in the question. ("Do you have it?" "(I) have".)
German,Dutch, andDanish have a wealth ofmodal particles that are particularly difficult to translate as they convey sense or tone rather than strictly grammatical information. The most infamous example perhaps isdoch (Dutch:toch, Danish:dog), which roughly means "Don't you realize that . . . ?" or "In fact it is so, though someone is denying it." What makes translating such words difficult is their different meanings depending on intonation or the context.
A common use of the worddoch can be found in the German sentenceDer Krieg wardoch noch nicht verloren, which translates toThe war wasn't lost yet,after all orThe war wasstill not lost.
Several other grammatical constructs in English may be employed to translate these words for each of their occurrences. The sameDer Krieg wardoch noch nicht verloren with slightly changed pronunciation can also mean excuse in defense to a question:. . .but the war was not lost yet (. . . so we fought on).
A use which relies heavily on intonation and context could produce yet another meaning: "So the war wasreally not over yet (as you have been trying to convince me all along)."
Another change of intonation makes the sentence a question.Der Krieg wardoch nochnicht verloren? would translate into"(You mean) the war wasnot yet lost (back then)?"
Similar difficulties occur with the Dutch words "even", "toch", and, especially, "gezellig".
Another well-known example comes from the Portuguese or Spanish verbsser andestar, both being translatable asto be (seeRomance copula).Ser is used with essence or nature, whileestar is used with ephemeral (temporary or current), states or conditions, however. Sometimes this information is not very relevant for the meaning of the whole sentence and the translator will ignore it, whereas at other times it can be retrieved from the context.
When none of these apply, the translator usually uses aparaphrase or simply adds words that can convey the right meaning. The following example comes from Portuguese:
Some South Slavic words that have no English counterparts aredoček, a gathering organized at someone's arrival (the closest translation would begreeting orwelcome, although a 'doček' is not necessarily positive); andlimar, a sheet metal worker.
Kinship terminology often varies across languages. Terms are often too specific or too general to translate into another language. Some rules used for defining kinship terminology include the following:
Paternal or maternal. For example,Nordic languages,Indo-Aryan languages, andChinese languages distinguish paternal and maternal relatives such aspaternal grandmother andmaternal grandmother. Conversely,son's son anddaughter's son are also distinguished (instead ofgrandson). Also distinguished maternally and paternally, aunts and uncles are further distinguished in many languages (compare to non-specific-sidedgreat aunt andgreat uncle).
Gender. Whereas English kinship terms make clear distinction between genders (i.e.,brother,sister), many languages do not. For example, Thai does not distinguish between siblings by gender, but only by age[clarification needed]. Thai also disregards gender when aunts or uncles are younger than their parents, and has one word for all nieces, nephews, and grandchildren. On the flip side, the English wordcousins does not distinguish gender, but many languages do, includingRomance languages,Slavic languages, and Chinese languages.
By blood or by marriage. For example, the English worduncle can refer to a parent's brother, or a husband of a parent's sibling. Many languages, such asHindi,Bengali,Hungarian, andChinese distinguish these. This is also true forLatin where e.g.avunculus refers to one's mother's brother, but cannot refer to one's mother's sister's husband, named thusmaterterae maritus (the husband of the maternal aunt).
Full or half sibling. In Arabic, "brother" is often translated intoأخ (Akh). However, whilst this word may describe a brother who shares either one or both parents, there is a separate word -شقيق (Shaqīq) - to describe a brother with whom one shares both parents.
Age relative to oneself or one's parent. For example inBengali, father's elder brothers are calledJethu (জ্যাঠা), while the father's younger brothers are calledKaku (কাকু). Their wives are calledJethi-ma (জেঠি-মা) andKaki-ma (কাকি-মা), respectively. Another common issue is translatingbrother orsister into Chinese or Japanese, which have separate words for older and younger ones.
Relations by marriage. There is no standard English word for the Italian "consuoceri", Yiddish "makhatunim",[7] Greek "συμπέθεροι/συμπεθερές", Latin "consocer", Spanish "consuegros" or Portuguese "consogros": a gender-neutral collective plural like "co-in-laws". If Harry marries Sally, then in Yiddish, Harry's father is the "mekhutn" of Sally's father; each mother is the "makheteyneste" of the other. In Romanian, they are "cuscri". In Bengali, both fathers arebeayi and mothers,beyan. Bengali hasdada/bhai forbrother andjamai-babu/bhagni-pati forbrother-in-law;chhele forson andjamai forson-in-law.
Spanish and Portuguese contrast "brother" with "brother-in-law" ("hermano/irmão", "cuñado/cunhado"); "son" with "son-in-law" ("hijo/filho", "yerno/genro"), and similarly for female relatives like "sister-in-law" ("cuñada/cunhada") and "daughter-in-law" ("nuera/nora"). Both languages use "concuño" (Sp.) or "concuñado/concunhado" (varying by dialect), as the relationship between two men that marry siblings (or two women, using the feminine "concuñada/concunhada" instead). In the English language this relationship would be lumped in with "cuñado/cunhado" (sibling's husband or spouse's brother) as simply "brother-in-law". This distinction is reflected also in Italian, withfratello for a brother,cognato for a brother in law; etc. In Latin, the distinction between children and children-in-law is also present, withfilius for one's child,privignus for one's spouse's child that is not ours,gener (andnurus in feminine) for one's child's spouse.
Serbian andBosnian have specific terms for relations by marriage. For example, a "sister-in-law" can be a"snaha/snaja" (brother's wife, though also family-member's wife in general),"zaova" (husband's sister),"svastika" (wife's sister) or"jetrva" (husband's brother's wife). A "brother-in-law" can be a"zet" (sister's husband, or family-member's husband in general),"djever/dever" (husband's brother),"šurak/šurjak" (wife's brother) or"badžanak/pašenog" (wife's sister's husband). Likewise, the term"prijatelj" (same as"makhatunim" in Yiddish, which also translates as"friend") is also used. Bengali has a number of in-law words. For example,Boudi (elder brother's wife),Shaali (wife's sister),Shaala (wife's younger brother),Sambandhi (wife's elder brother/Shaali's husband),Bhaasur (husband's elder brother),Deor (husband's younger brother)Nanad (husband's sister),Jaa (husband's brother's wife), etc. This is also true for Latin, with words such aslevir (husband's brother),glos (husband's sister),ianitrix (husband's brother's wife), yet none for the wife's part of the family tree.
InRussian, fifteen different words cover relations by marriage, enough to confuse many native speakers[citation needed][dubious –discuss]. There are for example, as in Yiddish, words like "сват" and "сватья" for "co-in-laws". To further complicate the translator's job, Russian in-laws may choose to address each other familiarly by these titles.
In contrast to all of the above fine distinctions, in American English the term "my brother-in-law" covers "my spouse's brother", "my sibling's husband", and "my spouse's sibling's husband", which is six different possibilities at minimum. In British English, the last of these is not considered strictly correct.[citation needed]
Japanese has a concept,amae, about the closeness of parent-child relationship, that is supposedly unique to that language and culture as it applies to bosses and workers.[8]
Japanese, Chinese, and Korean have words for classmates and colleagues of different seniority and/or gender. The most well-known example to English speakers is probably the Japanese word先輩 (senpai), referring to a senior classmate or colleague.
There are also times when the same concept exists but the practice is different, such ashomeschooling in Spanish and its practice in the United States, Puerto Rico, and Latin American countries. Translators must discern whether the existing terms convey the same concepts.[9]
Objects unknown to a culture can actually be easy to translate. For example, in Japanese,wasabiわさび is aplant (Wasabia japonica) used as a spicyJapanesecondiment. Traditionally, this plant only grows in Japan. It would be unlikely that someone from a country such as Angola would have a clear understanding of it. However, the easiest way to translate this word is toborrow it. Or one can use a similarvegetable's name to describe it. In English this word is translated aswasabi orJapanesehorseradish. In Chinese, people can still call itwasabi by its Japanese sound, or pronounce it by itsHanzi characters,山葵 (pinyin:shān kuí). However, wasabi is more frequently called芥末 (jiè mò) or绿芥 (lǜ jiè) in China and Taiwan, meaningmustard. One may specifyyellow mustard andgreen mustard to avoid confusion.
Another method is using description instead of a single word. For example, languages like Russian and Ukrainian have borrowed wordsKuraga andUruk from Turkic languages. While both fruits are now known to the Western world, there are still no terms for them in English. English speakers have to use "driedapricot without core" and "dried apricot with core" instead.
One particular type of foreign object that poses difficulties is the proper noun. As an illustration, consider another example fromDouglas Hofstadter, which he published in one of his "Metamagical Themas" columns inScientific American. He pondered the question: "Who is the first lady of Britain? Well, first ladies reside at the prime minister's address, and at the time, the woman living at 10 Downing Street wasMargaret Thatcher. But a different attribute that first ladies have is that they are married to heads of government, so perhaps a better answer wasDenis Thatcher, but he probably would not have relished the title."
Concepts unknown or less known to a culture are difficult to translate because there are no correspondinglexemes. When translating US-specific concepts such asmobile home andfoster children, translators cannot simplycalque but find ways to adapt the translation such as using a descriptive phrase.[9]
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The two areas which most nearly approach total untranslatability arepoetry andpuns; poetry is difficult to translate because of its reliance on the sounds (for example,rhymes) and rhythms of the source language; puns, and other similarsemantic wordplay, because of how tightly they are tied to the original language. The oldest well-known examples are probably those appearing in Bible translations, for example,Genesis 2:7, which explains why God gaveAdam this name: "God created Adam out of soil from the ground"; the original Hebrew text reveals the secret, since the wordAdam connotes the wordground (beingAdama in Hebrew), whereas translating the verse into other languages makes it lose the original pun.
Similarly, consider the Italian adage "traduttore, traditore": a literal translation is "translator, traitor". The pun is lost, though the meaning persists. A similar solution can be given, however, in Hungarian, by sayinga fordítás: ferdítés, which roughly translates as "translation is distortion".
That being said, many of the translation procedures discussed here can be used in these cases. For example, the translator can compensate for an "untranslatable" pun in one part of a text by adding a new pun in another part of the translated text.
Oscar Wilde's playThe Importance of Being Earnest incorporates in its title a pun (resonating in the last line of the play) that conflates the name Ernest with the adjective of qualityearnest. The French title of the translated play is "L'importance d'être Constant", replicating and transposing the pun; however, the character Ernest had to be renamed, and the allusion to trickery was lost. (Other French translations include "De l'importance d'être Fidèle" (faithful) and "Il est important d'être Aimé" (loved), with the same idea of a pun on first name / quality adjective.) A recent Hungarian translation of the same play byÁdám Nádasdy applied a similar solution, giving the subtitle "Szilárdnak kell lenni" (lit. "One must be Szilárd") beside the traditional title "Bunbury", where "Szilárd" is a male name as well as an adjective meaning "solid", "firm", or "steady". Other languages, like Spanish, usually leave the pun untranslated, as in "La importancia de llamarse Ernesto", while one translation used the name Severo, which means "severe" or "serious", close to the original English meaning. Catalan translations always use "La importància de ser Frank". This example uses the homophones "Frank" (given name) and "franc" (honest, free-spoken). Although this same solution would work in Spanish also ("La importancia de ser Franco"), it carries heavy political connotations inSpain due toFrancisco Franco's dictatorship (1939–1975), to a point that even this possible title can be taken directly as ironic/sarcastic: literally, "The importance of being Franco", so this alternative was never used. However, the German translation "Ernst sein ist alles" (literally "Being Ernst is everything") only changes the name very slightly: in fact (unlike the equivalents in English) the adjectiveernst is even spelt exactly as the nameErnst and, given the position at the beginning of the title, both meanings would be capitalised.
TheAsterix comic strip is renowned for its French puns; its translators have found manyingenious English substitutes.
Other forms of wordplay, such asspoonerisms andpalindromes are equally difficult, and often force hard choices on the translator. For example, take the classic palindrome: "A man, a plan, a canal: Panama". A translator might choose to translate it literally into, say, French – "Un homme, un projet, un canal: Panama", if it were used as a caption for a photo ofTheodore Roosevelt (the chief instigator of the Canal), and sacrifice the palindrome. But if the text is meant to give anexample of a palindrome, they might elect to sacrifice the literal sense and substitute a French palindrome, such as "Un roc lamina l'animal cornu" ('A boulder swept away the horned animal').
Douglas Hofstadter discusses the problem of translating a palindrome into Chinese, where such wordplay is theoretically impossible, in his bookLe Ton beau de Marot[10] – which is devoted to the issues and problems of translation, with particular emphasis on the translation of poetry. Another example given by Hofstadter is the translation of the poemJabberwocky byLewis Carroll, with its wealth ofneologisms andportmanteau words, into a number of foreign tongues.[11]
A notableIrish joke is that it is not possible to translatemañana intoIrish as the Irish "don't have a word that conveys that degree of urgency".
According to Ghil'ad Zuckermann, "Iconicity might be the reason for refraining from translatingHallelujah andAmen in so many languages, as if the sounds of such basic religious notions have to do with theirreferents themselves – as if by losing the sound, one might lose the meaning. Compare this to the Kabbalistic power of letters, for example in the case ofgematria, the method of interpreting the Hebrew Scriptures by interchanging words whose letters have the same numerical value when added. A simple example of gematric power might be the famous proverbנכנס יין יצא סוד (nikhnas yayin yåSå sōd), or lit. "entered wine went out secret", that is, "wine brings out the truth",in vino veritas. The gematric value ofיין, or wine, is 70 (י=10; י=10; ן=50) and this is also the gematric value ofסוד, or secret, (ס=60; ו=6; ד=4). Thus, this sentence, according to many Jews at the time, had to be true."[12]
Barbarous names aremagical formulas often taken from foreign languages, but corrupted or meaningless to the magician.Iamblichus discusses barbarous names, warning magicians not to translate them even if their original meaning is discovered, due to the belief that the power of the names resided in their sound, not their meaning.[13][14]In the modern era,Aleister Crowley also argued that the supposed effectiveness of barbarous names rested in their utterance, not their meaning.[14][15]
