>This is the reason for the inevitable deficiency of all translations. It is almost never possible to translate any characteristic, concise, significant period from one language into another in such a way that it has exactly and completely the same effect. - Even in mere prose, the very best translation will at most relate to the original in the same way as a transposition of a given piece of music into another key. Music lovers know what this means. - Therefore, every translation remains dead and its style forced, stiff, unnatural: or else it becomes free, i.e. contents itself with an à peu près, and is therefore wrong. A library of translations is like a picture gallery of copies. And now even the translations of the writers of antiquity are a surrogate for them, as chicory coffee is for the real one(Hierauf beruht das nothwendig Mangelhafte aller Uebersetzungen. Fast nie kann man irgend eine charakteristische, prägnante, bedeutsame Periode aus einer Sprache in die andere so übertragen, daß sie genau und vollkommen die selbe Wirkung thäte. — Sogar in bloßer Prosa wird die allerbeste Uebersetzung sich zum Original höchstens so verhalten, wie zu einem gegebenen Musikstück dessen Transposition in eine andere Tonart. Musikverständige wissen, was es damit auf sich hat. — Daher bleibt jede Übersetzung todt und ihr Stil gezwungen, steif, unnatürlich: oder aber sie wird frei, d. h. begnügt sich mit einem à peu près, ist also falsch. Eine Bibliothek von Uebersetzungen gleicht einer Gemäldegallerie von Kopien. Und nun gar die Uebersetztungen der Schriftsteller des Alterthums sind für dieselben ein Surrogat, wie der Cichorienkaffee es für den wirklichen ist.)
>>23622577i love him so much, it genuinely hard to describe
>>23622577I disagree with him on this, translations are fine most of the time.
Obviously translations into German don't work because its such a limited language, but translation into English tends to improve the original
He never said that
>>23622577I read almost exclusively translated books
>>23622577Die sprache hat bereits die komponenten der dialektik eingebaut. Es ist das Privileg der Philosophie, den ausdruck zu wählen. Sogar beim Übersetzungsbegriff wird die besessenheit von der übersetzung zum fetischismus, und wir alle wissen, wie wichtig fetische sind.>Language already has the components for dialectic built in. It is the privelege of philosophy to choose expression. Even with Übersetzsungbegriff the obsession over translation turns into fetishism (aufheben!), and we all know how important fetishes (aufheben!) are.
>>23622577I feel like translations of works that are made just to tell info or teach are fine (philosophical works or dry textbooks) because it tells the same info but translations of poetry and other rhythmic mediums 100% fail to capture the original. You kinda have to change it to fit the new language and even then it isn’t the old work anymore it’s the translators work really. Arabic poetry is a good example of this. How poetry is treated there is completely different from English. Sign languages concept of rhyming is especially another good example. In sign language something rhyming is shown by how close to words look to each other in hand movements not how close they sound obviously. So 2 words that rhyme in sign language can sound completely far away from each other in English speech
>>23622577>Translation is transpositionNo, it isn't
>>23622577This is true for anything of artistic value be it prose or poetry. Couldn't imagine reading Cicero or Homer or Goethe in translation for instance. But for technical books on history, science, etc. it doesn't really matter.
