THE TRANSLATOR'S ENDLESS TOIL

Abstract

Translation is, etymologically, a carrying or bringing across: the Latin translatio derives from transferre (trans, across + ferre, to carry or to bring). The modern European languages have generally formed their own equivalent terms for this concept after the Latin model: the English the Spanish translacion and traduccion, the French traduction, the Italian traduzione, the Portuguese and Rumanian terms (de rived from the kindred Latin traducere, to lead or bring across), the German Ubersetzung (a putting across) and its Swedish, Danish and Norwegian cognates, the Russian pyehryehvod (a leading or putting across) and its Serbo-Croatian cognate, and the mod ern Polish przeklad (a putting across) and its Czech cognate?all these are variations on the same Latin theme. The other Polish term tlumacz, tlumaczenie comes from the Turkish tilmuz via the German Dolmetsch. And the Greek term for translation, metaphrasis (a speaking across), has supplied English with metaphrase, meaning a literal, or word-for-word, translation, as contrasted with paraphrase (a saying in other words). The latter Greek terminological distinction was adopted by John Dryden (1631-1700), who represented translation as the judicious blending of these two modes of phrasing when selecting in the target language counter parts, or equivalents, for the expressions that have been used in the source language:

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