Turkish Translation
It's just so kwool to hear from the translators all round the world, that have worked on Sarah and The Heartis Deceitful Above All Things. I always appreciate their questions coz it makes the work so much more true to the original. And lord knows there's slang in there that folks just outside of West Virginia might need a dictionary for!! We're working on a page to put up on the web site, a kinda anthology of all the questions that have been asked. It's been fun to wander through them as they get formatted to post up.
In the meantime, here's a question from the Turkish translator:
I still have questions about "The Heart..." which I think you know I'm translating now. I'd appreciate if you could help me with a few problems I've come across during the process.
The biggest challenge is now in "Baby Doll" where Jeremy imitates his mother in Jackson's presence. You keep referring to the female third person due what I presume is a mix-up of identities in Jeremy's mind. My problem is, in Turkish, we don't have a gender specific pronouns. We just have one single pronoun that goes for both "he" and "she" (the same applies in the case of
possessive pronouns) and that too is usually lost in the sentence, with the verb carrying the implied pronoun. We use pronouns only when we need to stress them.
In Baby Doll I have to repeat Jackson's name every two or three sentences in order to clarify who is doing what and even so it's not clear when "she" or "he" does or says something.
What I'm asking you is if I can refer to "her" as "my mom" or "Sarah" (even though I know it's Jeremy) while telling the story on that particular occasion. Elsewhere I had to do similar adjustments, but it looks too critical a decison for me to make in this context.
We posted this on my discussion group on Yahoo (terminator2--great group of folks!) and got lots of responses:
how about putting something in [sarah] or [jeremy] after the pronoun
to clarify it for the reader?
***
In my opinion it would be wrong to use "my mom" in that sequence,
but "Sarah" might work. Jeremiah does not pretend to be a mom or any
other female, but Sarah as a grown up, sexual being. So using "Sarah"
would send the right signal I think. Hope this makes sense.
It reminds me of the way this scene was solved in the film.
The main thing is that the reader must in the end realise what is
going on, that Jeremiah is the one acting while pretending to be
Sarah. I guess that is a challenge, but I hope the translator is up
to that. :)
***
Boy, that is a tough one! Maybe you can call him "little sister"
or "little Sarah" at some key places to clarify the identity blur.
I think it may be better to be more obvious than less, because the
story changes time and place frequently. Nearly all the events are
already so unthinkable in their own right, that to confuse the
reader would diffuse the power of these scenes. And they are so
critical to understanding the psycological and emotional makeup of
Jeremy/Jeremiah.
***
In my mind, i think Anne is right, i like her idea. Using the name
"Sarah" seems to be the good way to express the role Jeremiah wants to get.
And with Jackson's words "hey kid, what are you doing?" the reader can
understand the situation. As Anne said, using "mom" would be wrong for the reasons she said.
***
wow...the situation is really interesting.
I completely agree with Anne that it would not be a
good idea to use 'mom'.maybe 'sarah',maybe there
should be used a neologism.
it is really weird that in Turkish language there's
one gender specific pronoun.
the best,
***
I think that's all the Turkish translator can do, insert the
necessary clarifications and try to be judicious about it,
so that it doesn't disturb the flow and the poetry too much.
Your Japanese translator Mizuhito Kanehara wrestled with
similar problems. Last year when I looked into the Japanese
translation of The Heart, I saw she was inserting the name
"Sarah" many times -- Japanese has no pronouns "he" or "she"
-- she constantly had to change the sentence structure all
around to fit the completely different grammatical patterns.
Often, one of your sentences maps to 4 or 5 in Japanese.
Have also seen that sometimes even your European translators
misinterpret a sentence and attribute an action or speech to
the wrong person.
And there are also slang errors like in the Japanese Sarah,
where "pump knot" is mistranslated as "penisu" (= penis in
katakana).
***
You learn something new every day :) It must be so interesting
dealing with translations because it really makes you concentrate on
getting at the kernel of what you wanted to express in a certain
sentence.
I think in this case I'd agree with the translator's decision to
refer to Jeremiah as "Sarah" or "my mom". But do you think there
might be a need then to emphasise the shift from jeremiah to his
Sarah-identity? I guess there is a danger that the shift could get
lost or confused.
***
My response:
This is so amazing, and not just the responses, which really made me
think, and are very wonderful! But the way we are here, bouncing
stuff around. Ya know, I was watching the start of Cat in the Hat the
other day, and it starts with this scene, something like this.
Doorbell rings, mother opens it, balding man standing there with
boxes, says "Kate's Catering." Mom looks over his shoulder and says,
"Where's Kate?" Man says, "I'm Kate." He walks past her into house
with boxes, mom looks confused, shrugs and they move on… gender stuff
is like that for most folks… cept the ones sporting crow bars…. I
think it is like what Billy Corgan says in the new Spin mag interview
with him, about Frames of Reference. Here is a link…
http://jamesiha.org/storage/200508spin05.jpg
Like Kate in the Cat in the Hat has a very strong self frame of reference. Whether he
is a man named Kate or female identified with no outward signifiers
doesn't matter. He doesn't explain and mom is forced to just accept
it.
Doesn't affect how tasty his catering is either. Thanks for all this.
Think I will send whole discussion to the Turkish translator. We will
be posting a translation page. I know there are a lot of concepts,
phrases that don't make it, heck, not just overseas… lotta folks in
Muncie got no reckin'ing tat all what I on bout. Heck, half the time I
don't either, so will be interesting. Would be swell for folks to post
the way something is translated in their country! Thanks for taking
the time for this y'all.
In the meantime, here's a question from the Turkish translator:
I still have questions about "The Heart..." which I think you know I'm translating now. I'd appreciate if you could help me with a few problems I've come across during the process.
The biggest challenge is now in "Baby Doll" where Jeremy imitates his mother in Jackson's presence. You keep referring to the female third person due what I presume is a mix-up of identities in Jeremy's mind. My problem is, in Turkish, we don't have a gender specific pronouns. We just have one single pronoun that goes for both "he" and "she" (the same applies in the case of
possessive pronouns) and that too is usually lost in the sentence, with the verb carrying the implied pronoun. We use pronouns only when we need to stress them.
In Baby Doll I have to repeat Jackson's name every two or three sentences in order to clarify who is doing what and even so it's not clear when "she" or "he" does or says something.
What I'm asking you is if I can refer to "her" as "my mom" or "Sarah" (even though I know it's Jeremy) while telling the story on that particular occasion. Elsewhere I had to do similar adjustments, but it looks too critical a decison for me to make in this context.
We posted this on my discussion group on Yahoo (terminator2--great group of folks!) and got lots of responses:
how about putting something in [sarah] or [jeremy] after the pronoun
to clarify it for the reader?
***
In my opinion it would be wrong to use "my mom" in that sequence,
but "Sarah" might work. Jeremiah does not pretend to be a mom or any
other female, but Sarah as a grown up, sexual being. So using "Sarah"
would send the right signal I think. Hope this makes sense.
It reminds me of the way this scene was solved in the film.
The main thing is that the reader must in the end realise what is
going on, that Jeremiah is the one acting while pretending to be
Sarah. I guess that is a challenge, but I hope the translator is up
to that. :)
***
Boy, that is a tough one! Maybe you can call him "little sister"
or "little Sarah" at some key places to clarify the identity blur.
I think it may be better to be more obvious than less, because the
story changes time and place frequently. Nearly all the events are
already so unthinkable in their own right, that to confuse the
reader would diffuse the power of these scenes. And they are so
critical to understanding the psycological and emotional makeup of
Jeremy/Jeremiah.
***
In my mind, i think Anne is right, i like her idea. Using the name
"Sarah" seems to be the good way to express the role Jeremiah wants to get.
And with Jackson's words "hey kid, what are you doing?" the reader can
understand the situation. As Anne said, using "mom" would be wrong for the reasons she said.
***
wow...the situation is really interesting.
I completely agree with Anne that it would not be a
good idea to use 'mom'.maybe 'sarah',maybe there
should be used a neologism.
it is really weird that in Turkish language there's
one gender specific pronoun.
the best,
***
I think that's all the Turkish translator can do, insert the
necessary clarifications and try to be judicious about it,
so that it doesn't disturb the flow and the poetry too much.
Your Japanese translator Mizuhito Kanehara wrestled with
similar problems. Last year when I looked into the Japanese
translation of The Heart, I saw she was inserting the name
"Sarah" many times -- Japanese has no pronouns "he" or "she"
-- she constantly had to change the sentence structure all
around to fit the completely different grammatical patterns.
Often, one of your sentences maps to 4 or 5 in Japanese.
Have also seen that sometimes even your European translators
misinterpret a sentence and attribute an action or speech to
the wrong person.
And there are also slang errors like in the Japanese Sarah,
where "pump knot" is mistranslated as "penisu" (= penis in
katakana).
***
You learn something new every day :) It must be so interesting
dealing with translations because it really makes you concentrate on
getting at the kernel of what you wanted to express in a certain
sentence.
I think in this case I'd agree with the translator's decision to
refer to Jeremiah as "Sarah" or "my mom". But do you think there
might be a need then to emphasise the shift from jeremiah to his
Sarah-identity? I guess there is a danger that the shift could get
lost or confused.
***
My response:
This is so amazing, and not just the responses, which really made me
think, and are very wonderful! But the way we are here, bouncing
stuff around. Ya know, I was watching the start of Cat in the Hat the
other day, and it starts with this scene, something like this.
Doorbell rings, mother opens it, balding man standing there with
boxes, says "Kate's Catering." Mom looks over his shoulder and says,
"Where's Kate?" Man says, "I'm Kate." He walks past her into house
with boxes, mom looks confused, shrugs and they move on… gender stuff
is like that for most folks… cept the ones sporting crow bars…. I
think it is like what Billy Corgan says in the new Spin mag interview
with him, about Frames of Reference. Here is a link…
http://jamesiha.org/storage/200508spin05.jpg
Like Kate in the Cat in the Hat has a very strong self frame of reference. Whether he
is a man named Kate or female identified with no outward signifiers
doesn't matter. He doesn't explain and mom is forced to just accept
it.
Doesn't affect how tasty his catering is either. Thanks for all this.
Think I will send whole discussion to the Turkish translator. We will
be posting a translation page. I know there are a lot of concepts,
phrases that don't make it, heck, not just overseas… lotta folks in
Muncie got no reckin'ing tat all what I on bout. Heck, half the time I
don't either, so will be interesting. Would be swell for folks to post
the way something is translated in their country! Thanks for taking
the time for this y'all.
posted by JT LeRoy at 2:20 PM
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