Translations: there is an Italian saying
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If you ever needed translations maybe you
wandered "What is so
special about doing a translation, where is the difficulty? You only
have to replace words in a language with the same ones in
another language." Well, it's not exactly so.
Automatic translations?In Italian there is the expression "translator is a traitor" ("translator, traditore") which expresses the possibility, the risk that by translating a text its meaning or style can get betrayed.
An automatic translator is good to understand more or less the meaning of a not too complicated text or to have a good laugh, but if you need a properly done translation, it has to be done by a professional translator. Moreover, in all languages many words have more than one meaning depending on the context, there are conventions, some things have to be translated while others don't and an automatic translator is very unlikely to be able to recognize all this. Esistono several programs that in a way do some sort of automatic translation. What they actually do is this: they store in a memory all the expressions or technical words translated, so that if the same text, or another one, contains a sentence that has already been translated and saved (by the translator) in the memory, the program prompts the translator to use that same translation and saves him a good deal of time. Anyway, it's always the translator who, at the beginning, decides how to translate a particular sentence or word and saves it. This software to help with translations (called CAT tools, Computer Aided Translation tools) are used especially to translate texts where the same sentences are repeated many times na dhave to be always the same, like for example, technical manuals wth instruction for use and all software. If the translator had to manually re-translate the same sentences it would take him much longer and there could be some slightly different translations for the same sentence. Anyway, for the translation of literary and specialistic texts, they'll need to be done by hand. Translating:
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The importance of being faithful
Here is another example of translation in which keeping the text meaning is necessay and more important than translating the exact words, for lack of a corresponding word: it is the title of the play The importance of being earnest, by Oscar Wilde. This is just the case where the translator can really become a traitor of the (double) meaning of the text and of the author's intentions. Oscar Wilde plays with the omophony (same sound) of the words earnest and Ernest: being it a play, to be performed in a theatre, rather than a novel to be read, the audience hears the same sound of the two words, they don't see them written, perciò può esistere il gioco di parole.Ernest is simply the name Ernesto
earnest menas serious, honest, convinced, in good faith, sincere...
Since in Italian there is no word that sounds like the name Ernest and has also the other meaning, it is necessary to find a different word that racchiuda both meanings.
I've seen this title translated in different ways, more recently translated as L'importanza di chiamarsi Ernesto, (The importance of being called Ernest) wich translates the word earnest in Ernesto, thus emphasizing the male name. However, by doing this all the double meaning is lost. The play amply exploits the double meaning, deriving from the presence of a man by name Ernest who was earnest, that is serious, honest, convinced, in good faith, sincere... (I wonder how the translator managed to render in Italian the all the witticism that in the original text has a double meaning!)
Since Wilde in the title writes earnest (not Ernest), it means that he meant to give more importance to the personal quality than to the name. Moreover, in the play there are a lot of equivocations and it's clear that Wilde wanted to emphasize the importance of being serious, honest, convinced, in good faith, sincere...
In Italian there is a male name, Franco, that can lend itself to this double meaning and in the past I had seen this title translated in L'importanza di essere franco. Indeed, franco (frank) also means honest, sincere and therefore, even though it's not the exact translation of the words, it is the one that comes closest to keeping the sense of the sentence and the author's intention. Therefore, should you ever see some words translated not exactly as they are in the original, you know that there may be a reason like this one.
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Specialistic translations
A professional translator can translate any general or slightly technical text, but if the translation requires the specific knowledge of a subject, it's necessary that the translator is specialized in that subject, because he'll know the technical terms used, the procedures, the situations and thus will be able to understand the original text properly and explain it in another language. That's why translators often have, or have had, also another job or specialistic study (for example they have a degree in medicine, enngineering, law, geology etc.) that enables them to translate higly specialized texts.
This applies also to musical translations and indeed several times I couldn't find in dictionaries (they are limitated, anyway) the translation of some words typical of musicians' language, but I was able to translate them because I knew their meaning and usage from experience or from sources other than dictionaries. Here is a musical example.
Paganini and the translator
Paganini, it's well known, had made a pact with the devil, so he was able to perform things "impossible" for ordinary mortals. i guess I must have been really so, because time ago, on a large circulation Italian music magazine, I read an article about something even more mysterious (at least for me, at the start of the reading) that Paganini often did in his compositions, in particular the article referred to a concerto for violin and orchestra. Paganini iperaccordava, used the iperaccordatura. Now, I play the viola, however I had not yet come across this practice, I couldn't figure out what this was. Initiallly I thought it really was something newly discovered about Paganini. Then I read that the article was a translation from English and I tried to imagine how it might have been written in English. Eventually I realised that the article was about Paganini's habit (a habit generalized until the end of 19th century) of using the scordatura, (mistuning), that is a tuning of the instrument different from the usual.Paganini often tuned his violin differently from the normal way. In this case, the article referred to the concerto in "D major" that was actually written in E flat for the orchestra, with the solo violin part in D, but with the violin tuned a semitone higher than normal (exactly the same trick used by Mozart for the viola in his sinfonia concertante for violin, viola and orchestra). And this is the iperaccordatura! Apparently that article translator didn't know much about music and even less about violin and he even invented a word in his attempt to translate.
Therefore, pay special attention to which translator you entrust with your translations.
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Concert in the garden
To finish with an allegro (cheerful) note, the following could be the result of the perfect literal translation of a concert programme, although it could also be a presentation of floral compositions or a lecture in a botanical garden with musical entertainment. Enjoy the concert!"The best representative in
this field, that he cultivated and enlarged like nobody else
before him, and to whom we owe a rich flourishing
of compositions, tonight William Primrose is with us
to delight us with his viola and the fleld flower, under
the direction of the master Gardiner and his group of Musical Flowers.
We'll be to cheered up also with melodies by little birds and we'll be able to enjoy water music and music for some royal fireworks."
We'll be to cheered up also with melodies by little birds and we'll be able to enjoy water music and music for some royal fireworks."
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