Sasha Staggs’s Reviews > Babel > Status Update

Languages aren't just made of words. They're modes of looking at the world. They're the keys to civilization. And that's knowledge worth killing for.”

“No translation can perfectly carry over the meaning of the original. … Humboldt, for instance, argues that words are connected to the concepts they describe by something invisible, intangible - a mystical realm of meaning and ideas, emanating from a pure mental energy which only takes form when we ascribe it an imperfect signifier.”

“When we say a word or phrase is untranslatable, we mean that it lacks a precise equivalent in another language. Even if its meaning partially captured in several words or sentences, something is still lost - something that falls into semantic gaps which are, of course, created by cultural differences in lived experience. … translation involved some degree of warp and distortion.”

“The translator needs to be translator, literary critic, and poet all at once … . The poet runs untrammelled across the meadow. The translator dances in shackles."

“…translators do not so much deliver a message as they rewrite the original. And herein lies the difficulty—rewriting is still writing, and writing always reflects the author's ideology and biases. After all, the Latin translatio means "to carry across". Translation involves a spatial dimension—a literal transportation of texts across conquered territory, words delivered like spices from an alien land.”