I saw this interesting blog post on using “stepmother tongues”, i.e. on people who write in or translate to a language other than their native one.
I have worked on translations to Swedish with native Swedish speakers, but I doubt I would ever want to be completely responsible for any jobs to Swedish, because it is not my native language and I know there are things I would miss or be unable to translate as well as I could when working to English. I turn down such assignments when asked to take them on, explaining why. Likewise, I regularly write articles and essays in Swedish, but I would probably not want to write fiction in any language other than English. You just have a different feel for your mother tongue than you do for your stepmother tongues.
Some rare people are true bilinguals and can write in or translate to more than one language equally well. And some people do eventually feel comfortable and confident working in a language other than their native one. The post mentions Samuel Beckett and Milan Kundera as examples; Vladimir Nabokov is another one, as is Elias Canetti, though he did learn German from a fairly young age.
But I confess that I am suspicious when people profess “true fluency” in a multitude of languages and take on assignments requiring them to translate both to and from their native language. Many people do have stepmother tongues, but sometimes those stepmothers can be wicked and can make us think we are better at them than we actually are.
Jewish Literary Links
6 hours ago
8 comments:
Thanks for the link...and I am happy to have discovered your blog. I agree with the point about wicked stepmothers!
Thank you for your comment! I'm glad to have discovered your blog, too.
Best wishes,
BJ
True bilinguals are about as rare as I imagine true hermaphrodites are. Britain is a dangerous country when it comes to no end of misunderstandings and glib generalisations in this field, as the vast majority of British people don't even speak French, which I believe is still Foreign Language Number One in British schools.
As BJ points out, there are very few true bilinguals. And even those who can write literature in two languages are not necessarily true bilinguals, because a text always goes through the filter of the editor. The Finland-Swedes are proud to tell us that their writer Elmer Diktonius was bilingual; but the Finns say that he didn't quite have that Fingerspitzengefühl for Finnish.
I remember a phone conversation with the Finland-Swede Karmela Bélinki (in Swedish) in about 1980. She said that her knowledge of her three languages depended on context. The three languages were Finnish, Swedish and Yiddish. I don't remember all the areas where her one language dominated, but when mushroom picking I think it was Swedish that got the upper hand, as the friends she did that with happened to speak Swedish.
That context is important. You will tend to use languages in a slightly, or significantly, different context.
I never translate anything into a foreign language (my mother-tongue being British English), as there are thousands of native-speakers out there. When Norfolk County Council dreams of exploiting cheap labour, i.e. A-level Brits to do a spot of brochure-writing, you cannot but laugh. The brochures will be hilarious.
Thanks for your comment, Eric! Your point about the context being important is right on, I think. Thanks for mentioning it.
Best wishes,
BJ
I was just browsing on the net, looking for biographical material about a poet, a few of whose poems I have translated, Mårten Westö. He is a Finland-Swede, i.e. has Swedish as his mother-tongue, although living in Finland.
About his experiences of living every day with two languages, he says:
Vilket är ditt förhållande till språket?
- Språket är givetvis viktigt eftersom det är mitt centrala arbetsredskap, men det är ändå inte det centrala. Jag ser dikten ganska långt som en berättelse, det måste också finnas något utöver språket. Ändå kommer man ju inte ifrån att språket är oerhört betydelsefullt, men samtidigt en komplex fråga för en finlandssvensk författare.
- Jag har vuxit upp tvåspråkigt, även om jag kommer från en helt svensk familj. Och jag minns att jag i något skede var övertygad om att jag lika bra kunde skriva på finska. Det var först i tjugoårsåldern som jag insåg hur viktig svenskan är för mig. Under de senaste fem åren har jag vistats mycket i Sverige, och även översatt böcker för svenska förlag, vilket har fått mig att grubbla mer och mer på vår språkliga utsatthet, samtidigt som det också har skärpt mitt eget språk.
- Numera har jag väldigt svårt att acceptera finlandismer till exempel. Det här har lett till att vi bråkar hemma om huruvida det heter lenkkitossor" eller "gympadojor". Ibland använder jag rikssvenska ord som "fika" och "macka" och "strul" bara för att retas med mina finlandssvenska vänner. Jag hyser själv en stor kärlek till Sverige och har en genomgripande upplevelse av att vårt språk måste vara förbundet med vårt grannland för att vi ska överleva.
Source: http://tinyurl.com/29ud3x
Thanks, Eric. That was quite interesting. I don't quite understand why he doesn't want to use Finland Swedish, though. It is like US English versus UK English -- we understand each other (mostly, anyway -- I had trouble with the Geordies from Newcastle!) and both are equally valid, but we do have some different slang words and some other differences. So I think he should be proud of his Finland Swedish and not feel pressured to use "rikssvenska".
But the main point, of course, is that though he is bilingual (or multilingual even), he only feels comfortable writing in Swedish, not Finnish.
Best wishes,
BJ
i wanted to find out the french for 'wicked stepmother' and typed in 'french translation and stepmother' and got a list of links about translation - and this blog!
i don't suppose any one of you brilliant translators knows how to say it in french - all the better if you can manage to imply the other meaning of 'wicked' (i.e. as in 'terrific').
luckily for me, after years of being scrutinised with deep suspicion, my lovely stepdaughter has decided i am 'wicked' in the positive sense.
I don't know French, but I love that your stepdaughter has decided you are wicked in a good way. I hope all our stepmother tongues decide that!
Best wishes,
BJ
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