I recently learned about the debacle that was the Swedish translation of Tolkien, and it got me wondering: “are there books that can only exist within a masterful use of the authors native tongue?”.
I recently learned about the debacle that was the Swedish translation of Tolkien, and it got me wondering: “are there books that can only exist within a masterful use of the authors native tongue?”.
I mean, poetry in general can't really be translated. Take Classical Chinese for instance. You have a couple lines that due to the nature of Classical Chinese already has multiple interpretations, so you gotta make sure you figure out the right one. Then you translate that to English, but if it's an idiom then you either localize it or provide a few sentences of context. And even then you've lost the syllable and rhyme scheme, so perhaps you teach your English students to at least read Chinese even if they're not fluent. But Classical Chinese is so phonologically different that Mandarin pronunciation is only slightly better than just saying it in English.