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"Our translations, even the best ones,
proceed from a wrong premise. They want to turn Hindi,
Greek, English into German instead of turning German into
Hindi, Greek, English. Our translators have a far
greater reverence for the usage of their own language than for
the spirit of the foreign works....
The basic error of
the translator is that he preserves the state in which his own
language happens to be instead of allowing his language to be
powerfully affected by the foreign tongue. Particularly
when translating from a language very remote from his own he
must go back to the primal elements of language itself and
penetrate to the point where work, image, and tone converge.
He must expand and deepen his language by means of the
foreign language. It is not generally realized to what extent
this is possible, to what extent any language can be
transformed, how language differs from language almost the way
dialect differs from dialect; however, this last is true only
if one takes language seriously enough, not if onetakes it
lightly." |