Re: Translations - 1

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* 	Recently Vasu asked how come we are better at translating English
* works into Telugu rather than the other way around? To me the answer is
* simple. The translator has to have a command on the idioms and nuances of
* the recipient language. When Indians (not just Telugus) translate into
* English, the translations usually suffer because the idiom employed is not
* native to the work nor to the translator. This is not as much a problem
* when the translation occurs in the reverse direction.

That brings up the interesting question--what proportion of translations
worldwide are done by people native to the the target language versus
people for whom the target language is an acquired language? Don't know
that any definitive statistical answer can be provided, but perhaps some
data points touching on popular translations of major works are available?
For instance, it has often been said that Rabindranath Tagore's own
translations of his Bengali works into English are vastly inferior 
to his originals. On the other hand, I have heard only good things
about O.V. Vijayan's self-translations of his Malayalam works into
English. I have read a couple of Vijayan's works in English, and they
read very well. I have no way of comparing their quality with that
of the Malayalam original, however.

Ultimately, I think a good translation into English has to be able
to stand on its own as a literary work in English, leaving aside
questions of translation loss with respect to the source language.
To me, both Vijayan's and Tagore's translations meet this test.
Question is, are there Telugu-to-English translations meeting this
test?

By the way, going back to English-to-Telugu translations, I can never
forget the Chandamama translation of Kipling's Jungle Book, which
was serialized as araNya puraaNam. Does anyone know who the translator
was? It was great storytelling. I read it well before I was even
aware that there was an English original.

My personal views.
Bapa Rao

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