The Linguist

@Linguist_CIOL APRIL/MAY The Linguist 9 FEATURES POETIC INFLUENCE Vikram Seth (left) published his Beastly Tales (centre) in 1991 – a retelling of the old fable of 'The Hare and the Tortoise' (right) among them a footnote at times – be it names of specific relatives, such as chacha (paternal younger uncle) and dada-dadi (paternal grandfather- grandmother); or the names of food items such as chudhkaani (a lentil curry eaten in the Kumaon region of the Himalayas). Why should I find an English equivalent for the Indian language references in the text? The reader surely has access to a search engine that they can use to look up the meaning of an Indian food item, flower, song or term of endearment. In fact, translators now even go so far as not italicising words that do not belong to English, a decision I welcome as a translator. Italicisation of non- English words has been called "linguistic gatekeeping; a demarcation between which words are 'exotic' or 'not found in the English language,' and those that have a rightful place in the text: the non-italicised." 4 In essence, then, my priorities and decisions as a translator change with the direction of my translation. If this poem had been written by a Western author using Western references, my urge to 'decolonise' the text may not have been as strong as it was with an Indian English writer. In fact, I could argue that my translation process can be seen as an act of decolonisation only because I believe that the writer's Western references are a result of a postcolonial hangover. Figures like Mozart and TV channels such as the BBC are almost used as 'universal images' because they belong to dominant cultures of the West. This is similar to translator Lawrence Schimel's example of illustrated books for children with images of American mailboxes and New York black-and-yellow taxis as the norm, irrespective of the language and country they are published in. According to him, "these are not translated or re-illustrated for other cultures, and even though Spanish children have grown up seeing white taxis, translated picture books make sure they grow up in New York". 5 A product of my cultural identity I find that I have, in my translation practice, used translation as a tool to challenge the postcolonial underpinnings of a text, and my translation of it is my personal attempt to decolonise it while translating. In this case then, the identities and lived experiences of both the writer and the translator play a role in determining crucial translation-related decisions in my translation, which would be different if the author's identity was different, and if the linguistic direction of my translation was reversed. This pushes me to ask larger questions around translation practices and cultural identities. It is my attempt to reflect on the ways in which my translation work becomes a product of – or an assertion of – my own cultural identity, moving past the expectation of 'invisibility' from a translator, understood at one point as the most 'accurate' form of translation. The question is whether the 'accuracy' and 'faithfulness' of translations can be assessed differently based on the identity of the author and translator, and whether this should be a factor that influences the translation of a text. Are transcreations, as in the case of my Seth translations, an effective tool to decolonise a text in and through its translation? What criteria do you use to even assess this translation when questions of accuracy fly out the window and translation becomes available as an active tool to decolonise? Notes 1 Kothari, R and Shah, K (2019) 'More or Less "Translation": Landscapes of language and communication in India'. In Gambier, Y, A World Atlas of Translation, Amsterdam, John Benjamins Publishing Company 2 Venuti, L (1986) 'The Translator's Invisibility'. In Criticism: A quarterly for literature and the arts, 28 (2), 179, 1 3 Seth, V (1991) Beastly Tales: From here and there. Illustrated ed. Penguin Books 4 Barokka, K (2020) 'The Case Against Italicizing "Foreign" Words'. In Catapult, 11/2/20; cutt.ly/CatapultCo 5 Gupta, M (2020) 'Diapers and Mailboxes: Busting myths about children's literature in translation'. World Kid Lit blog, 17/6/20; cutt.ly/WKLmyths AMRHELWEH VIA WIKIPEDIA CC BY-SA 4.0 JEAN GRANDVILLE'S 1855 ILLUSTRATION

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