| *(yes that's totally a pun off of "Bi-lingual") |
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| from The Knights of Dor #2, The Ring of Wishes |
My name is Lars Doucet, and I translate comic books, specifically the two series the Knights of Dor and Miranda, both by InkaLill Røsberg, from Norwegian into English.
On the surface, that sounds simple. Translation is popularly conceived as an arcane alchemical process by which everything anybody needs to know about a certain work in one language is magically transmuted to a "translated" work in another. The problem with this perception, however, is that it is fundamentally impossible.From this fact comes another misperception about translating. Among the more cynical crowd, there is a belief that translated works are at best simply inaccurate, and at worst horrible mutations of the original work, transmitting nothing of the magical "essence" featured in its original language. As a native bilingual translator, I am quite familiar with a fundamental fact : translations are only as good as their translator, mostly because translation is by necessity an exercise in interpretation.
However, it is my aim to demonstrate through my experience and first-hand knowledge the degree to which translation is fundamentally accurate, reliable, and trustworthy. I also seek to inform to what degree translation cannot be wholly accurate and reliable, and what compensatory methods may be used in these cases where straightforward translation itself does not achieve adequate results.
The first obstacle standing between a work and an adequate translation is the translator himself. A translator must have, at minimum, competency in the two languages he seeks to translate between. He must understand the language which he is translating from (we'll call this the "source" language), as well as the language in which he is translating the work into (the "target" language). However, above and beyond this, a good translator must specifically be a good communicator in the target language.
Mere competence is not sufficient, as it is useless to understand a work, even with total comprehension, if the translator can't transmit that knowledge to his audience. For this reason, when employing a translator, good writing skills in the target language and average comprehension of the source language are sometimes preferable to the reverse. Both cases would obviously result in sub-par translations, but the former would at least be easier and more natural to read. Many "commercial" translation firms, referred to in the industry as "localization" companies, who focus on translating television shows, comic books, and video games, often settle for this caliber of translation. Natural language is often considered more important than an accurate translation.
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| from Miranda #4, The Battle for Arubia |
In an ideal situation however, the best translator is one who has complete mastery in both languages, including the aspects of comprehension and communication. For example, as a native speaker, I have excellent comprehension of Norwegian. I understand essentially everything spoken or written to me. As I am also an American, I am fluent in English. However, I'm not a great Norwegian writer - I'm merely average, since I was raised in Texas and have no formal training in writing Norwegian.
However, since I'm translating from Norwegian, and not to Norwegian, all that's important is how well I can understand the Norwegian words in order to find the correct way to re-phrase them in English. It doesn't matter if I can't write so well in Norwegian as long as I understand the words perfectly and can write an English translation well.
Even assuming the translator is adequately suited to the job, there are many different ways to translate a given work. As I mentioned earlier, translation cannot by itself transmit the full scope of information contained in the original work. Something is always lost in the translated text. This does not mean that translations are inaccurate, just that an exhaustive translation that covers every aspect of meaning, intonation, and language-specific insights would take the form of a highly annotated scholarly document that must be intensely studied, not casually read. Limiting the scope of the works in question to those that are written, each work operates on several levels. There are literal, word-for-word meanings, metaphors, similes, analogies, allusions to other works (often culture-specific), and countless others. Not all of these can be translated effectively to any language other than the original. Word-for-word meanings often do not work, for instance, because in many languages words do not stand alone - they are dependent on the context in which they are placed.
Take the following example of Norwegian and English, taken from The Knights of Dor #2: The Ring of Wishes:
"Vel, jeg tok på meg spander-buksene, og etterpå gala-kjolen!" (InkaLill 8)
Translated literally, that sentence in English is:
"Well, I took on me the spending-pants, and afterwards the gala dress!"
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| from The Ring of Wishes: what the heck are "Spending-Pants???" |
If you don't speak Norwegian, you're probably very confused. Try this sentence though; a re-phrasing closer to the idiomatic
meaning of the original Norwegian sentence:
"Well, I thought I'd splurge a little, and bought this gala dress!"
That's much clearer. In Norwegian the idiom "to put on one's spending-pants" means to put oneself in a mood to splurge. There are two reasons the "word-for-word" translation is inadequate and confusing. The first is because it uses an idiomatic phrase which must be translated as a multi-word unit. A word-for-word translation will therefore be inadequate; a separate multi-word unit that translates the meaning of the sentence must be found, be it a closely corresponding idiom or simply a natural-sounding phrase of the same basic meaning. English doesn't have an idiom similar to "spending-pants" (that I know of), so I just parsed the idiom apart into its meaning. The other reason the word-for-word translation is found lacking is the misguided assumption that correspondence is the same as equivalence. In any two languages, there are what can be called corresponding words; ie, the entry you will find for a particular word in a bilingual dictionary. An example is the word "to eat."
In German, this word is "Essen." Example: "The man eats the fish; Der Mann esse den Fisch." However, there is another German word that means, "to eat." This word is "Fressen," as in, "The wolf eats the man; Der Wolf fresse den Mann."
In English, we use the same word, "to eat," in both situations. But there is a distinction in the German words - "Essen" is used when a human being eats something, and "Fressen" is used when an animal eats something (Clark 288). A wolf cannot "esse den Mann," because it is an animal, not a human being; neither can a man "fresse den Wolf," because he is a human being, not an animal. Although it could be said that both words correspond to the English word "to eat", it has been shown that neither of them are strictly equivalent to "to eat" because they are not used in the exact same way as the English word "to eat," which may be used whenever an animal or a human being eats something.
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| In just six easy lessons, you can speak German as badly as Lars does! |
Many "translation purists," especially the kind who frequent Internet message boards for certain foreign-language comic books, do not understand this principle. It is easy to understand why they would think this; after all, this word means such-and-such in this language, why not just use the dictionary entry? Isn't that what the word means? But it is not so. Word-for-word translations can in many cases be less accurate than paraphrase translations because correspondence alone does not dictate the most appropriate way to render a word in another language. However, noting the pitfall of corresponding words only solves our problem on the level of the word - and translation requires a bilingual understanding above and beyond this level.
A comprehension on the level of the sentence as a whole is the minimum requirement for a smooth-sounding and accurate translation. Literary works do not communicate information merely one word at a time - indeed, each level of complexity from word, to phrase, to sentence, to paragraph, to chapter, and finally, to the entire work itself, communicates something different; all of them are connected. Ideally, the work must be grasped as a complete whole. The translator must understand the goals and intents of the author of the original work; he must understand, for instance, the subtle cues given by the innocuous sentence in the first chapter that foreshadows the coming of the villain in chapter 10. Someone less skilled at his work could easily translate those subtle hints away without even realizing they were even there.
So far my scope has been essentially limited to prose; I shall now say a few words about poetry and verse. Even closely related languages have different sounds for corresponding words, and hence the carefully selected word choice of poetry, hand-picked for rhythm, meter, cadence, and most importantly - rhyme, is all blown apart if we parse the poem, word-by-word, by correspondence alone. Poetry is nearly impossible to translate while still preserving metrical considerations as well as meaning. Poetry can be translated as if it were prose, but the beauty of the form is lost; also, if the translator takes too many liberties with the original words, it can be difficult to honestly call it a "translation." Most translators must thus settle for "adaptations" of poetry in the target language. Take the example of the church Hymn, "Thine be the glory"; in Norwegian called, "Deg Være Ære"
| English | Rhyme structure | |
| Thine be the glory, risen, conquering Son; Endless is the victory, thou o'er death hast won; Angels in bright raiment rolled the stone away, Kept the folded grave clothes where thy body lay. |
A...B A...B C...D E...D |
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Source: Oremus Hymnal |
| Norwegian(Bokmål) | Rhyme structure | |
| Deg være ære, herre over dødens makt, Evig skal døden være, Kristus underlagt. Lyset fyller haven, se, en engel kom, Åpnet det stengte graven, Jesu grav er tom! |
A...B A...B C...D C...D |
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Source: Norsk Salmebok (Krogh 234) |
We can see that the Norwegian version preserves very nearly the same structure and rhyme as the English version. In fact, it actually has more rhyme, such as the internal rhyme of the first verse, ("være ære"), as well as the fact that "ære" in line 1 is an exact rhyme with "være" in line 2, whereas "glory" and "victory" in the corresponding lines of the English version could be considered "slant" rhyme. But essentially, the rhyme scheme and metrics are similar, and when sung it sounds like "the same song." Here then is the Norwegian version translated literally into English:
| Norwegian(Bokmål) - "word for word" | Rhyme structure | |
| [Unto] you be [the] glory, lord over death's power, Eternally shall death be laid under Christ. Light fills the sea, see an angel came, Opened the closed tomb, Jesus' grave is empty! |
(completely obliterated) | |
These two versions of the song's first stanza both speak about the same thing in essentially the same manner, and even the same order - speaking of the glory of Christ over death, then a statement of eternal power, then a mentioning of light and an angel, and finally a reference to the empty tomb. However, the original sentence structure could not be preserved when making these different versions because there are only so many words that fit the right style of rhyme and flow - thus it's impossible to write song (a cousin to poetry) if the translator is picky about word-for-word literalism.
Here is a clear example of metrics being given priority over strictly literal translation. Note however that it still says essentially the same thing - one is essentially a paraphrase of the other. This humble little church hymn, as it does not claim divine inspiration, is not expected to be held to the same intense translational scrutiny as scripture or official church creeds; thus the translator can be well assured that God (or the translation committee) won't smite him for taking a few liberties with the words so that it will sound better in Swahili.
Sometimes, though, the nature of the work has inherent limitations that all effect the kind of translation that is possible and the kind that is expected. These limitations include, but are not limited to: tone, style, humor, culture-specific "inside jokes", historical context, literal meaning, metaphorical meaning, and so on. I will mention three kinds of documents to explore this phenomenon.
The first is the "frozen" document, which is a work whose author is now dead and cannot be consulted. The translator thus has nothing more than the document itself and his own knowledge of language as his guide. If he is lucky, he will have access to the author's notes. The translator here must work in the dark, depending on how obscure the work is and how long the author has been dead. The translator is required to "guess" what the author intended, since the author is not alive to be asked personally.
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| The Edda is a good example of a frozen document. Also, Iceland is cold |
Historical works like the Edda are examples of frozen documents. A good contemporary example, however, could be the works of J.R.R. Tolkien. Fortunately for anyone wanting to translate The Lord of the Rings into Spanish, French, Mandarin, or something else, Tolkien kept rather extensive notes about his stories, and his son, Christopher Tolkien, is still alive.
Then there is the "sacred" document, which is any document that is widely considered of such importance that its meaning must not be incorrectly interpreted; a specific example is scripture, considered to be inspired by God.
The translator must answer to a higher power, as well as to his audience. Sacred documents must be carefully translated to say precisely no more and no less than that which is in the original text. This is no place for artistic license or liberal interpretation. The translator must make as few assumptions as possible and transmit what the text says and everything it subtly implies, being careful to capture every intonation, figure of speech, and idiom, all while parsing it in terms of its original cultural context. I am hard pressed to think of an example of a "sacred" document that is not also "frozen."
I suppose if the translator was also a prophet his job would be made easier; sadly most translators such as I have no such holy gifts and must work with their earthly brains, imperfect and fallible (yet surprisingly versatile when we actually choose to use them!). Combining "frozen" and "sacred" results in a third kind of work - what I'll refer to as "sacred canon." Not only is everyone expecting you to do a perfect job and waiting to criticize you at the slightest slip-up, but you can't even phone up Elijah the prophet and ask him what he means by the obscure Hebrew adverb in verse 12.
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| Dun-dun...DUN! |
Here translation alone is usually not enough to finish the task. If the writer is long enough dead, and the work sufficiently old, translation is merely one of several tools used to complete the task of bringing it into another language; the job is no longer merely linguistic, but historical and archaeological as well. The translator must reconstruct the past with inferences based on scraps of evidence and recognize his own cultural biases that naturally come from not being contemporary with the original author. The situation sounds grim - surely at this point a good, reliable translation must be impossible.
However, provided high-quality manuscripts are available, and assuming the culture that produced the documents are not shrouded in mystery, sufficiently skilled translators can do surprisingly well (Barker xi). This is why it is easier for us to work with Greek and Roman documents than, say, Egyptian works (modern man needed no Rosetta stone to decode the Greek and Latin languages). If the language is well documented and has a living scholarly tradition, prospects get even better. Just be prepared for the appendices and footnotes to be as long as - or longer than - the main body of translated text itself.
As another example, let us take what is widely considered the polar opposite kind of work - the often derided "commercial" translation of mass-media, commonly considered of "low" literary value. Translations of the Bible and the Icelandic Sagas are often considered of higher "literary and historical" significance, than, say, the latest issue of Naruto, a popular Japanese comic book about ninjas. Unlike Snorri Sturlarson's chronicles of the Norse Kings, Naruto's author is still living, which makes the job a little easier.
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| Naruto is written by Masashi Kishimoto and translated to English by Viz Media It also rocks. |
Also, most scholars of literature would probably not hold it to high scrutiny (though the hordes of slathering Naruto fans obviously would). Since such works are widely considered "low fare" and of little "literary and artistic" value by both academic snobs and, sadly, the localization companies that translate them, traditional values like accuracy and being true to the original work are considered lower priorities than: 1) cost, and 2) naturality. By naturality, I mean the degree to which the translated work flows and sounds "natural" in the target language. A classic mark of amateur or low-grade translation is that even though it might be technically correct both grammatically and syntactically, the word choice and sentence structure is not the way a native writer would compose.
Accuracy is often sacrificed in commercial translations in favor of something that is merely "close enough" and "sounds good." The exception to this is when the translation's commissioner values the artistic and cultural value of an excellent scholar-level translation enough to spend the extra resources required. When working on "academic" translations the only important motivation is to please the critics, or alternatively, one's owns standards of excellence (providing one has plenty of grant money and/or tenure). In commercial work, for better or worse, the paying public is the primary audience to satisfy. A brilliant translation of a comic book by an expert translator of that language with three thick appendices and reams of footnotes might be hailed by scholars of the graphic novel medium (all three of them), but would increase the price of the publication and probably wouldn't impress the average comic book-purchasing nerd very much. I myself translate comic books, and contrary to what I may have implied so far, there is no reason they cannot be of significant literary value.
Comic books present an interesting balance of priorities. In my work, I consider the author's original intent and meaning something that is worth preserving. Therefore, accuracy and literal meaning are important priorities for me. But because of my medium, I do not have the luxury of arbitrary length. In a novel, for instance, it is of little consequence if translated sentences are longer than they were in the original language. But comic books have a visual constraint - the text must still fit inside of the original text bubbles.
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| Page Count: 729. Damn you, Dostoevsky! |
Also a boon to my work, InkaLill is still alive and well, and the two of us have a healthy working relationship. I consult with her often about tricky passages and subtle intonations I'm unsure about. However, as she has grown to trust me as her personal translator, she has given me a certain amount of personal license with her translation. In effect, I function as both her translator and in some ways, as her editor. Sometimes I will share with her my concerns that a certain passage should be changed, and many times such changes will become permanent. In this situation I am not merely translating - I have direct input on the final form of the original text as well!
This is the sort of freedom that translators only dream of - in "frozen" works, a translator is often obligated to translate the eccentricities, quirks, and even errors of the original author. Besides my personal contact with the author, I also have another advantage in translating the comic medium - pictures. If I have a bit of difficulty with a certain passage, I can look at the pictures that accompany the text to help me translate the part that is troubling me.
The last obstacle I encounter in my work is a cultural phenomenon. But since it is also a linguistic issue, it bears mentioning here. Ms. Røsberg writes primarily fantasy comics; specifically works of fantasy that draw heavily from Norwegian folklore, and these works often contain the names of fantastic creatures that exist only within Norwegian folklore. Because they don't exist in English/American folklore, There simply are no terms in English for these creatures.
Two examples are the word "nisse" and "tusse." A "nisse" is a small, dwarf-like creature with a long beard, a cousin to trolls, that is usually benevolent, but might still play tricks on unwary farmers, and a "tusse" is a sort of nature-spirit that is ill-defined and mysterious, another troll-cousin. Beginning with "nisse," a translator could easily shoehorn the translation to fit inside of one of two existing English fantasy terms, "dwarf," or alternatively, "gnome." (Haugen 281). However, this is the fallacy of correspondence all over again. Here the translator must make a choice. It is more "natural" to craft a translation using words the reader is already familiar with, thus naturality favors using an existing English word. However, it is more "accurate" to not pretend that the word is the same as a similar, but different, English word. In this case, accuracy favors using a neologism, and introducing the reader to the fantasy creature as a new being.
In the case of "Nisse", I might change the word to "Nissie", to accommodate English pronunciation, and leave the word as it is - adding a new entry to the English lexicon of fantasy creatures. However, the term "Gnome" would not be an unacceptable choice as a Gnome and a Nissie are actually rather similar. There is another word, "Tusse", which simply has no close English corresponder - the closest is "fairy" or "pixie" and both are not good translations (Haugen 445). In this case the only thing to do is craft a new word, essentially leaving it untranslated. In my work, I rendered the word as "Tussit", since "Tusse" is rather difficult to pronounce in English.
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| One of these is not like the others |
Translation is not an easy task; some cynics theorize that because no work can be translated perfectly, translations are fundamentally inaccurate. This is untrue. As long as the work is well-documented, an accurate and even exhaustive translation that maps out every single subtle meaning, play on words, metaphor, and cultural allusion can be written by a sufficiently skilled translator. However, at this point the footnotes, endnotes, and appendices could quite conceivably be longer than the main body of text itself. Given enough funding, time, and translational skill, something very, very close to a "perfect" translation could be crafted, though it would not technically be a translation so much as a complex scholarly document, of which the main translation was merely a single piece.
Assuming the translator is skilled enough, avoids common mistakes such as over-reliance on bilingual dictionaries and corresponding words, and has insight into the intent of the author, we can rest assured that the document he produces is a good reflection of the original text. But we don't live in a perfect world for translators; authors die without finishing their memoirs, notebooks go missing, documents get lost, original manuscripts are damaged or destroyed, and translators are overworked and underpaid. Some localization firms don't even put a huge emphasis on accuracy - as long as they can make enough money off of the project, they might not care if the author's subtle literary allusions and clever word choice are retained in English.
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| If I were female -and dead- I would marry Einar Haugen! |
In my case, I'm sufficiently skilled in Norwegian to understand everything I read and sufficiently good at writing in English to express that well. Comics provide an interesting and diverse challenge for me that normal prose does not present. Translation is not a job that will make me rich, but I care enough about the work that I treat it as a sincere scholarly effort no matter how much I'm being paid; hopefully this is reflected in my work. It is my passion to bring a unique work of Norwegian fantasy literature to the English-speaking world, and I hope through this essay and my personal example that I have demonstrated the difficulties and challenges inherent in translation to my Anglophone audience.
What are you waiting for? Go and Read The Knights of Dor right now!
Works Cited
| Ed. Barker, Kenneth. The New International Version Study Bible. (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1995). Preface, p. xii. |
| Ed. Benner, Steve. Oremus Hymnal. 2003. Oremus. http://www.oremus.org/hymnal/t/t514.html |
| Clark, J. M. Collins Contemporary German Deictionary. 1973 London, England. William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd, p. 288 |
| Haugen, Einar. Norwegian English Dictionary. 1974. Madison, Wisconsin. University of Wisconsin Press. "Nisse" p.281, "Tusse" p.445 |
| Ed. Krogh, Aarhus. Norsk Salmebok. (Norwegian Psalm-Book). 2002 Jongbloed, The Netherlands. Verbum, psalm #187, p.234 |
| Røsberg, InkaLill. Ridderne av Dor #2: Ønske-Ringen. 1994. Arpatehdas, Finland. Bladkompaniet A/S. p. 8 |
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