LAS LENGUAS INGLESA Y ESPAÑOLA de Delfín Carbonell

  In Muir 's translation of Kafka 's The Trial , there is a suggestion that someone must have been traducing Joseph K., as I paraphrase from memory. This leads to a broader consideration of the ongoing debates surrounding translations. The choice of terminology is crucial, with some translations opting for 'telling lies about Joseph K.' In light of these discussions, I propose reevaluating the term 'translate' itself. To translate implies turning from one language into another, but is it also an act of traducing? Traducing involves speaking maliciously and falsely about someone, akin to slander. Both 'traduce' and 'translate' share roots in the Latin 'traducere.' What if we reconsider the act of rendering one language into another as 'traduce' instead of 'translate'? By doing so, we acknowledge the complexities of translation—where the translator may, at times, be slandering, disgracing, or leading readers astray. This per...

In 1921, Edwin and Willa Muir , Scottish poets of good standing, went to Prague and then Germany, Austria, and Italy, and then back to England where they decided to become professional translators. They were lucky with a first effort and chose to tackle Franz Kafka next, who had died in 1924 leaving behind an unfinished novel, Das Schloss , The Castle . They introduced Kafka to the English-speaking world in translation, their translation. J.M. Koetzee (2003 Nobel Prize in Literature) in His Stranger Shores (2001) deals with the art of translating, by means of Kafka, in the Chapter "Translating Kafka". His analysis is of great interest and picks holes in the Muirs´rendering of Kafka into English well-worth reading and studying by all would-be translators. Particularly a paragraph stands out: "... although the Muirs mastery of German -particularly Willa´s- was astonishing, given the fact that they were more or less self-taught, and although Edwin in particular had read w...