WT 2: Translators as Bridges

Translators as Bridges

Have you ever considered what  your life would be like if you had never been in contact with a culture other than your own? How would the world have developed if there had never been any contact between regions where different languages are spoken? We are in debt to translators for making intercultural exchange possible and for promoting understanding between peoples. But translators' impact in the world is not only cultural but also related to business, law and technological innovation. This is why I believe that translators are bridges of bridges; i.e. they link societies and cultures around the world.

Translators have been "bridging" cultures for a very long time. The Bible, arguably one of the most important texts for the Western world, reached the Roman world after it was translated by St. Jerome, the patron of translators. Nowadays, the number of languages it has been translated into stands at around 450. This accounts for the importance of making a text readable by the largest audience possible. Important translations are not only religious: translated literature, for example,has allowed the development and evolution of regional literatures. Such is the case of Argentina, where the translation of modernist novels written in English led to the so-called Latin American Boom. It is thanks to translators and the cultural contact they allow that societies undergo change and innovation.

Translation does have its limitations, though. Some experts claim that making a faithful translation is categorically impossible. While this position may seem extreme, it is not without truth. In the process of making a text readable by another culture (not just a language), translators usually change and adapt the source text. The first victim is frequently humor. Jokes and wordplay are specially tricky to translate and are usually turnedinto blander counterparts that do not reflect the author's wit.Nevertheless, I believe that this is a price that we must pay as there is no better option. Literal translation isgenerally even less faithful and may tend to produce downright gibberish.

In conclusion, translators make cultural contact possible and the innovation and enlightening that it produces. As Paul Auster eloquently put it, "Translators are the shadow heroes of literature, the often forgotten instruments that make it possible for different cultures to talk to one another, who have enabled us to understand that we all, from every part of the world, live in one world.”

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