Trying to get an original sense of the parent language in a translated text? This is a one of the major worries a translator has, especially if he is dealing with the text of a dead author whose aura looks over his working shoulder. Sounds spooky but actually there are translators who are terribly conscious of the fact that when dealing with a text from a deceased author there is an aspect of its immutability they are challenged to respect. There is no one to consult with on any doubts they may have about interpretations that would feel as if they were tampering with the sense of text against the author’s wishes.

Translators like myself have not had that problem if the text was technical and words from the Italian into English would be taken literally. Where I was challenged was in translating a text on the history of mythology from the Italian, where there would be hidden alliterations or metaphors that would not be easily translated. I would have been even more challenged had I been working with fictional texts of people who would be speaking colloquial Italian, which would be different from the classical version. The same problem will occur when translating from other languages where fiction can be interpreted differently than in English. I have heard of the case of Czech students who when translating Kerouac’s ‘On the Road’ gave the text a far more emotive sense than comes across in the original English. Evidently the Czech language is more emotionally expressive than the English is according to the translator.

If the translator wants to get started, he has to ask himself what his range of language is going to be. Is he as comfortable with the Florentine version that is considered to be the standard for modern Italian or other versions like Neapolitan or Milanese? If he is more comfortable with the classical language he is translating, he should stick with just that, unless of course he can find himself in a team with other translators who are more versatile. If he is working on an Italian text before Italy’s unification in 1861, then he might question if the author’s fictional piece was entirely in modern Italian or there were elements of a more regional language or dialect. Then there is the added problem of translating from one language into an American form of English or another. As a teacher, students wanting to distinguish Americanisms from the British standard would question me why some forms prevail and not others. Canada has always figured as somewhere in the middle with a British base and the use of got or the tendency to eliminate the present perfect tense in common speech. Then there is always the addition of several words which don’t exist in either one form of English or the other and that makes the Canadian version distinctive.

If the book has to be edited after its is translated, one way of getting through that is by agreeing with the editor and then doing the minimal amount. It is pointless for the translator to worry too much about what the editor will say especially when faced with someone who will question every word of a translated text. One particularly humorous situation occurred with the past of go, relating a cat moving from outside a coach to its interior as ‘the cat went in the coach’. That phrase may be taken as the animal having pissed there, in one English version and not another. Look at an American definition and went is just the past of go. But the editor might still question the past form of go because of its ‘dual’ sense. How else does the translator express the fact of the cat having been transported in a vehicle while respecting the form of the language? In any case after some bargaining or arguing the editor will usually agree with the translated version. Then the translator will know if it’s worth his while to continue collaborating with a publisher who uses an overly contentious editor.