words per minute
6
Gajanan_Modi
00:00
Speed
This, to be sure, is to admit that all translation is only a somewhat provisional way of coming to terms with the foreignness of
languages. An instant and final rather than a temporary and provisional solution of this foreignness remains out of the reach of
mankind; at any rate, it eludes any direct attempt. Indirectly,
however, the growth of religions ripens the hidden seed into a
higher development of language. Although translation, unlike
art, cannot claim permanence for its products, its goal is undeniably a final, conclusive, decisive stage of all linguistic creation. In translation the original rises into a higher and purer linguistic air, as it were. It caml0t live there permanently, to be
sure, and it certainly does not reach it in its entirety. Yet, in a
singularly impressive manner, at least it points the way to this
region: the predestined, hitherto inaccessible realm of reconciliation and fulfillment of languages. The transfer can never be total,
but what reaches this region is that element in a translation which
goes beyond transmittal of subject matter. This nucleus is best
defined as the element that does not lend itself to translation.
Even when all the surface content has been extracted and transmitted, the primary concern of the genuine translator remains
elusive. Unlike the words of the original, it is not translatable, because the relationship between content and language is <Iuite different in the original and the translation. "Yhile content and
language form a certain unity in the original, like a fruit and its
skin, the language of the translation envelops its content like a
royal robe with ample folds. For it signifies a more exalted language than its own and thus remains unsuited to its content, overpowering and alien. This disjunction prevents translation and at
the same time makes it superfluous. For any translation of a work
originating in a specific stage of linguistic histOIY represents, in
regard to a specific aspect of its content, translation into all other
languages. Thus translation, ironically, transplants the original
into a more definitive linf,'Uistic realm since it can no longer be
displaced by a secondary rendering.