A fish in your ear

If you have to read one book about translation, let it be David Bellos’ Is that a Fish in your Ear? Translation and the Meaning of Everything. Taking inspiration from Douglas Adams - twice in the same title - the book will tell you all you need to know about the topic if you’ve never explored it before, and if you have, it will remind you why you’ve become interested in translation in the first place. Or at least, that’s the effect it had on me.

What language did the very Italian Christopher Columbus speak, when communicating with his Castillan crew? Why is translating poems (meaning ALL of their elements, such as rhyme, alliteration, meter, sound devices, etc., and not just some) virtually impossible? How far removed is the first foreign-language version of the Bible (or the Septuaginit’s Greek version of 240 BCE) from the version in Malai, and why does it talk about bananas? Is translating humour truly impossible?

As I read the book I was reminded of the complexities of communication in what can only be described as “a world with as many different languages as there are people”, where we all try to say things but can never be sure how much of what was meant was understood. A world where languages grow into each other, with meanings slowly bleeding like drops of colour on a wet page, creating new shapes.