Translating SF at Tobias Buckell Online

Journal Entry

Translating SF

January 23rd 2007 at 6:21 am

The Intergalactic Medicine Show has an interesting article up about the vagaries of translating novels in our interesting genre.

Yael Sela-Shapiro did not wake up one morning and say, “I think I’ll translate English science fiction into Hebrew” — but after passing a test given by a small translation agency, it happened just the same. Armed with a slew of dictionaries and reference material, she began her work. One day, while translating Pullman’s His Dark Materials, she came across the words “General Oblation Board,” also known as “gobblers.”

And here’s the problem: Hebrew does not have a word for “oblation.” It has words for “ship” and “armor” but not for “greaves,” “mizzen-mast,” or any obscure or uncommon word created after the year 220 AD. Hebrew was an all-but-dead language for over 1,700 years, revived only in the late 19th century.

I can’t imagine what the Germans are going through with Crystal Rain. Well, actually I can. I’ve had one puzzled inquiry from the German publisher. “What exactly is a Trellis tree?” they asked. “We’ve been googling and can’t find it.”

That would be because it only existed in my head.

My hat is off to those brave translators.

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4 Responses so far

1. Steve Buchheit on Jan 23rd, 2007 at 10:22 am

Translators certainly do have a thankless job. I’ve used many for design. It’s so much fun to be in the middle of arguments over word choice and getting to hear who has spent more time speaking which language (client vs translator). Eventually some of those devolve into the client (actually the client’s consultant) just translating the piece themselves, I think this is where many of those “lost in translation” problems occure.
2. Buck on Jan 23rd, 2007 at 4:45 pm

First off, Tobias, I’m here via the John Scalzi/Jim Hall from Comcast Detroit nexus. I loved “Crystal Rain,” in part because it reminded my of the year I spent living in the Dominican Republic, in part because it was innovative and very well written. I’m looking forward to “Ragamuffin.”

I’m an immigration attorney and speak Spanish about 50% of the time- there are some specific legal terms that just don’t want to bridge from one system to the other. However, I’ve gone the other direction, translating science fiction from Russian into English for an Oscar-winning SF special effects guy (who values his privacy).

It’s bad enough trying to translate anything from one language to another. Fiction is harder, and because you don’t know what part of the language used by an SF author is obscure and what part is original, it’s pretty hard.
3. tobias s buckell on Jan 24th, 2007 at 12:12 pm

Thanks for visiting, Buck. The comcast Detroit nexus totally rulez!

Glad you enjoyed the book.
4. Lenora Rose on Jan 29th, 2007 at 5:23 pm

Yes, translation is a painful process; you even see it in music lyrics. Some of the clunkiest lyric translations I’ve seen are those that attempt to emulate the original rhythm and rhyme-scheme (If any) — the second clunkiest are those that go for completely listeral without the slightest reference to sound, feel, or difference of idioms. Crystal Rain, which also uses a lot of colloquial language, must be truly difficult, though, I can only commend them.

I read in at least two different places (Don’t ask me where now) that Terry Pratchett has been told by bilingual German fans that his books are actually funnier in German translation than in English, and not due to mistranslation.