Translation, Language Endangerment andRevitalization, Bilingual Texts: Tradukshon, Peligerpa Pèrdida di idioma i Revitalisashon di Idioma,Teksto Bilingual

Summary

Abstract

A sea of languages; we live in a world in whichthere are not just many languages but also manypeople who speak several. Linguists estimate thatthere are around 7,000 languages, but some arerapidly disappearing and sometimes the boundarybetween language and dialect is hard to establish.The figure 7,000 is thus somewhat arbitrary, butnot unreasonable. Yet many languages are underthreat, and language endangerment is an urgentcultural concern, since all languages are part ofthe intangible cultural heritage of mankind. Everylanguage is like a cathedral: the result ofcreative efforts of communities over thecenturies. This commentary on the translations ofHilda de Windt Ayoubi's poems deals withtranslations and their role in languagerevitalization. Can we cross that sea?

Keywords: Big languages, smalllanguages, language endangerment, languagerevitalization, bilingual, mass translations

I start with the processes of language loss andlanguage revitalization, as they relate totranslation, and illustrate this with a case studyon a dying language from Bolivia. In the third part,I also discuss the role of translation in a largersense, as something much broader than we tend tothink of it as, beyond a professional activity. Itfocuses on translation as enrichment and deals witha special kind of translations: those within asingle text and in bilingual songs. In bilingualcommunities, texts may contain translationfragments, doublings, in which potentiallycontrasting form and meaning elements in the twolanguages are juxtaposed, to celebrate thedifference, to create new meaning nuances, forenjoyment, for bilingual punning, etc. Here thetranslation is clearly a gain: both versions areavailable to the reader/hearer. I will illustratethis with examples from bilingual songs in theAndes, waynos,multilingual raps in the Berber community, andcalypsos from Trinidad.

The final part of the chapter deals with the largersocial ecology of translation practices and withmass translations. Most of the mass translationsinvolve a center-periphery model. Here, centraltexts such as the Gospel ofLuke, the UNDeclaration of Human Rights, or Le Petit Prince aretranslated into many languages. There is however asecond type of mass translation, as in this book. Atext from the periphery, in this case from theCreole language Papiamento, is translated into manydifferent languages, countering the trend towardsincreasing dominance by a single language.