We were having a conversation in our Greek composition about the meaning of one particular word and Professor Higbie was so amused by this that she told us to look up the word in our dictionaries and put together a translation of the whole sentence as our assignment for Friday.
Even though we all had the same word, each one of us gave a different definition because we all interpreted the context of the situation using our own biases and experiences.
For example, I wanted to know more about the people involved and tried to find one man in some sore of prosopography, but I had no luck.
Other people did all kinds of strange things to figure out a meaning, from debating the author's use of Greek particles to tearing apart the etymology of the word.
It just goes to show how much we rely on a translator and the deleterious or positive influence he or she can have on the understanding of a reader not at all familiar with Greek or Latin.
Despite the difficulty involved in translating our own chunk of Apuleius, it is such a beneficial exercise! Not just because it instills within us a greater appreciation for the laborious work of translator, but because it allows us to visualize our own potential impact on a text and its audience.
Next time, I hope we can read more translations of a particular author and gain a better understanding of how and why different translators omit or include different aspects of the text.
Let's all kick ass and take names on Thursday too!
Kittie
3 comments:
I will still argue that "reliable friend" captures epidedeios' meaning of both serviceable and friendly!
That part has always been the most interesting to me as well since it is more understandable to me. Frequently, as Teddy is finding out in the office this term, when one archaeologist looks at an object they see one thing and another archaeologist can see something completely different. All it takes is a difference in experience, teaching, gender,or even upbringing and religion to completely change how something is seen and interpreted by those studying it. It is nice to see that translators have the same problem and I wonder how much each relies on earlier translations?
This reminds me of an experience I once had in an Undergrad Vergil Class, which was brought up again recently in my Linguistics class. We argued for a whole period over how best to translate the word ardeo. It was very slight, but each word we came up with to translate the meaning had a slightly different connotation. The point of the exercise was to explain that although words can have the same basic meaning, there are connotations associated with it that invoke certain images in our head. In my linguistics class we were just recently discussing that in English there are very few, possibly no, true synonyms. Meaning there are no two words that can be interchanged to get the exact same meaning. In short- in Latin where we do not have the opportunity to clarify with an author what he meant, I don't think we should call them translators. Rather, they are interpreters.
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