Translation History

2 Aralık 2007 Pazar

In the nineteenth century, translation activities gained an impetus when compared to the previous periods, and translations made were regarded as being of equal importance as the originals. In some cases even the names of the authors were not published but those of the translators' in the translated works.
The selection of works was determined to some extent by the oppressive reign of Abdulhamid which implemented an extreme form of censorship. Studies on political and social development and French Enlightenment were censored. In addition, some literary works for example of Shakespeare, Hugo or Shiller got their share of this censorship.
The popularity of some translations led to the publication of other books by the same author such as the books of Jules Verne. The series of Harry Potter can be called as being a contemporary example of this fashion.

The journals, where the translations were mostly published, had an influence on shaping the strategies of translation such as the translation of Les Miserables by Victor Hugo, in which the translator rather preferred to summarize the original and applied a style which was like the detective stories of the day.
Turkish Tradition: Translation have served a didactic aim in many different periods ranging from the Arab-Persian phase to the Republic era in Turkish tradition which is similar to some other translation traditions such as the English one and the Elizabethean era within that period.
Turkish Tradition: Mehmed II ordered the translations to be made into Arabic rather than Turkish as he realized that Arabic was the principal language of learning in the Islamic world and translation into Arabic would serve this goal better. For example, after conquesting Constantinople he discovered Ptolemy's Geography and had it translated into arabic.

Chinese tradition: The translation of the buddst scriptures was done in assembly which mainly consisted interpreting, recording and checking processes, mostly foreign monks who had a limited knowledge of the target language and depended upon interpreters were attributed the term "translator".
French tradition: Les belles infideles became so much popular in French in the Renaissance that Jean François Ducics composed an alternative ending to Othello while translating it.
French and German traditions: There was a hierarchy between classical languages and vernacular languages which led to the understanding in French in 16th century that translation seemed to be an obstacle to creativity.

Because there was a scarcity of interpreters in the 16th century, when the explorations and conquests of the New World took place, some natives of the new region were kidnapped and taught the langauge of their abductors, and then served as interpreters.
In some cases, the interpreters, being aware of the power they had at the colonization period of the new world, used this power in political terms and attacked to the colonizers with the natives, like in the case of Etienne Brule in Canada.
With Mexico becoming a Spanish colony, the number of interpreters to be employed in administrative bodies increased, and this led to the legislation of at least fifteen laws implemented to the interpreters especially which shows us both the importance but at the same time suspicion put on the interpreters.

The translation of Koran in a way contributed to the analogy of religious pluralism and tolerance in Europe.
The translation of the Gothic novels into French created such an interest that even the original works were sometimes published as pseudotranslation because translation of these novels from English became to be very prestigious, and even sometimes the works originally written in French were attributed to some renown authors of English.
Although the genre "science-fiction" emerged in France, it was imported to the United States and in the 19th century it was imported back to France arising much interest and then declared to be a new genre within the framework of this language.