http://www.pathawi.net/b-log/2005/05/09/on-the-untranslatable-and-the-misinterpreted-misunderstanding-ghana/ Pensaments of an Anthropological Patzer Tue, 06 Jan 2009 02:35:27 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.5.1 http://www.pathawi.net/b-log/2005/05/09/on-the-untranslatable-and-the-misinterpreted-misunderstanding-ghana/#comment-62 NotSoMuch Sat, 26 Nov 2005 16:05:18 +0000 http://www.pathawi.net/b-log/2005/05/01/on-the-untranslatable-and-the-untranslated-misunderstanding-ghana/#comment-62 Here's the thing: That poem ... lousy translation or mediocre or brilliant ... is impossible for me to read in the original and the translation gives me a taste of something I have never otherwise accessed. Work it up. Edit. Rewrite. Whatever. But even as is, it gives me something I never had before. And the insight into that other part of the world was real nifty. Don't sell short the fact that this is what you are doing (at least in part). And it is worth doing. Sure: make it better. Find a way. But even as a start: it gives us uninitiated people something. Here’s the thing:
That poem … lousy translation or mediocre or brilliant … is impossible for me to read in the original and the translation gives me a taste of something I have never otherwise accessed.
Work it up. Edit. Rewrite. Whatever.
But even as is, it gives me something I never had before. And the insight into that other part of the world was real nifty.
Don’t sell short the fact that this is what you are doing (at least in part). And it is worth doing.
Sure: make it better. Find a way. But even as a start: it gives us uninitiated people something.

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