<div style="text-align: center; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">===========================================<br>L O W L A N D S - L - 07 July 2009 - Volume 01<br style="color: rgb(153, 153, 153);"><span style="color: rgb(153, 153, 153);"><a href="mailto:lowlands@lowlands-l.net">lowlands@lowlands-l.net</a> - <a href="http://lowlands-l.net/">http://lowlands-l.net/</a></span><br style="color: rgb(153, 153, 153);">
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===========================================<br></div><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">From: </span><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="gI"><span class="gD" style="color: rgb(121, 6, 25);">Jacqueline Bungenberg de Jong</span> <span class="go"><<a href="mailto:Dutchmatters@comcast.net">Dutchmatters@comcast.net</a>></span></span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Subject: </span><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="gI">LL-L "Language use" 2009.07.06 (03) [EN]<br><br></span><p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(31, 73, 125);">Beste Luc, I have two languages. I was born in the Netherlands
and arrived in the United States early enough to now feel thoroughly at home
with American English. But still, my soul is Dutch. (It is like your blood
group, it never changes except by bone marrow transplantation) </span></p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(31, 73, 125);">When I am in the Netherlands it would not occur to me to grab an
English translation of a Swedish book, if a Dutch translation by a good
translator is available. And thank heaven that there are a few good ones in
the Netherlands. Come to think of it, the only foreign language books that I read
on purpose translated into a language other than Dutch, were English
translations of Kant and Hegel when I had to take Philosophy at the University
of Utrecht . </span></p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(31, 73, 125);">The art of translation from one set of language, time and
culture into another set is hellishly difficult, therefore I would prefer to
not have to change hats more than once while reading a book. If no Dutch
translation is available I will take English: No sweat! </span></p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(31, 73, 125);">A good translator is a performing artist, an alchemist and a
magician. He,- or she as the case may be -, has to digest the written word and
transmogrify its sense and reason to energy, intelligence, weight, feeling,
color, music, rhythm and whatever else it takes, so that it dances out of the
hat at the other end as something that gives us the same experience when
reading it in its original language. No wonder that there are so <u>few</u>
good ones. And even two good ones do not necessarily read the same book. Just
try and read the Hungarian Author Sándor Marái’s book , which appeared in
English under the title “Embers” with an excellent translation by Carol Brown
Janeway and in Dutch as “Gloed” with a translation of Mary Alföldy. It is the
same story told by Janeway by the glow of the fire and by its ashes by Alföldy.
An example of an awful translation is the English translation of “Minoes” by
Annie M.G. Schmidt. This guy managed to destroy everything that made that book
a magic experience for me and my children.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(31, 73, 125);">But what goes for literature does not necessarily hold for other
written materials. The question then becomes, where do you hold the line? Text
books? On what? An English translation of an original Chinese text on
acupuncture? In practice they are using English textbooks at the Universities
and even there it is not limited to the sciences and i-technology. And what
about German, Spanish and French? Does it come down to us having to start to
think of our minority language as some artifact of culture that we insist on
maintaining against the threat of English as a lingua franca. Look at us in
Lowlands! Isn’t that what we are all about?</span></p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(31, 73, 125);">I’d rather pay a good translator.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(31, 73, 125);">I would very much like to read the 58 comments but I cannot get
the “tiny URL” to work. Could you send it again Thank you!</span></p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(31, 73, 125);">Met Hartelijke Groeten.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(31, 73, 125);">Jacqueline BdJ</span></p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(31, 73, 125);">Seattle USA</span></p><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">----------</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">From: </span><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="gI"><span class="gD" style="color: rgb(91, 16, 148);">Henno Brandsma</span> <span class="go"><<a href="mailto:hennobrandsma@hetnet.nl">hennobrandsma@hetnet.nl</a>></span></span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
Subject: </span><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="gI">LL-L "Language use" 2009.07.06 (03) [EN]<br><br></span><div style="margin-left: 40px; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);">From: Hellinckx Luc <span><<a href="mailto:luc.hellinckx@gmail.com" target="_blank">luc.hellinckx@gmail.com</a>></span></span><br style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);">Subject: LL-L "Language politics"</span><br>
<span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);"></span><br><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);">Beste Lowlanders,</span><br style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);"><br style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);">Just read this article in the NY Times, written by Daniel Hamermesh, a labour economist from the University of Texas.</span><br style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);">
<br style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);"> Title: How the Market Influences What Language You Read In. Quite disturbing really, but realistic nonetheless...here goes:</span><br style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);">
<br style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);"></div> <div style="margin-left: 80px; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 153);"><div class="im">My Dutch friends tell me that they read foreign (non-Dutch) novels that are translated into English rather than into Dutch.<br>
Their English is very good, but their Dutch is clearly better. So, I ask, why read in English?<br></div>
Their answer is simple: take a book originally in Swedish, like Stieg
Larsson’s wonderful Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. If somebody
translates it into Dutch, the relatively small number of Dutch-speakers
means that the market for the translation will be much smaller — and
the royalties and profits smaller too — than the market for an
English translation.<div class="im"><br> These smaller returns attract
translators who are not as good as those attracted into translating a
book into English; the supply curve of translators is upward-sloping.<br>
My friends say they would rather read a good translation into a
language they know well, but not perfectly, than a mediocre translation
into their native language.<br></div></div><div style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="im"> <div style="margin-left: 40px;"><br style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);">The
author is of Jewish descent and holds teaching positions in both
Rotterdam and Maastricht; I guess he knows fairly well what he's
talking about. Don't want to take a position in this polemic, but fact
is that the 58 comments he received so far were all well worth reading.</span><br style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);"><br style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);"><a style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);" href="http://tinyurl.com/moq2so" target="_blank">http://tinyurl.com/moq2so</a><br style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);">
<br style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);"> Question: If Dutch is your native language, would you rather read a mediocre translation in Dutch than a good one in English?</span><br style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);">
<br style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);">
Detail: Stieg Larsson's book "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" is
titled "Mannen die vrouwen haten" in Dutch, "Men who hate women", and
something similar in Swedish. The English (or American?) publisher was
apparently taken aback by the original title.</span><br style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);"><br style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);"> Kind greetings,</span><br style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);"><font style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 153);" color="#888888"> </font><br>
<font style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 153);" color="#888888"> Luc Hellinckx, Halle</font><br></div> <br></div><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><div style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
-
It depends: really literary books (e.g. classics) from big publishers
do get good translations (e.g. Ulysses has a fantastic translation, so
has Don Quixote, War and Peace, etc.) as a rule, and such tranlations
are subsidized by several funds as well, to compensate for wordly rate
(the usual way of paying for a translation is by word/page plus a small
precentage of the royalties) of translations [and royalties are less as
well, of course]. This is a niche market, for relatively expensive
books. many children's books also have good translations, e.g. Harry
Potter has a relatively good one, although I have read only small parts
of it, as I prefer the original.... </div><div style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><br></div><div style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">- More
"pulpy" books (most thrillers, romantic novels, "real life"-stories,
etc) have a hurried translation (bestsellers have to brought out
quickly), and these books have smaller profit margins. The quality of
those is often quite bad, the original "shimmers through", and e.g. if
there are maths terms (e.g.) or other science terms, there are many
errors, even. Quite a difference. But then, the audience is different
and less likely to be taken aback by that: they want "an easy read",
and don't really seem to care too much about the trnslation quality.
Someone who wants to read Tolstoy has higher expectations than that....</div><div style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><br></div><div style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">My 2 cts,</div><div style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<br></div><font style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" color="#888888"><div>Henno Brandsma</div></font><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
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