But their Nepali equivalents are used when the characters refer to each other in quote marks. In case of Hutt’s translation of Karnali Blues, this may refere, among other choices, to the use of the English ‘sister’, ‘mother’ and ‘father’ in the narration. She says this often leads the translator to ‘achieve a certain logic and rhetoric during translation’. Thapa adds, ’here is, in each translator, a persistent desire for such successes, a desire often realised, albeit erratically, unpredictably’. A slight mistranslation can unravel and flatten the entire narrative. Characters often have different words for different family members depending on whether they are from the father’s side or the mother’s.Ĭoupled with the differences in dialects and syntax, the difficulties when translating are often posed by the intangible aspects particular to languages, such as the tone, the cadence, humour and poetic images. Set in far west Nepal, the narrative of Karnali Blues is informed by its society and dialect, and the use of ba, ama, didi and kaka or mama are ubiquitous. One classic challenge, he recalls, was to choose how much Nepali to put into the translation, especially in the cases of nouns for family roles such as father, mother, sister, uncle. “The original must not be changed beyond recognition.” “If certain aspects of the original language do not come elegantly in translation, one has to accept it,” he says. The levels of politeness and deference between speaker and interlocutor in conversational context, for example, is difficult to take from Nepali and replicate in English because there are not exact counterparts.īut taking excessive liberties in the name of ‘capturing the spirit of the text,’ says Hutt, is an act of violence. When translating from the Nepali language into English, says Hutt, there is a character embedded in the Nepali language that speaks to a Nepali speaker or reader but not to English. There are no perfect translations of books, and Hutt believes “a sense of compromise must be reached between the original text and the translation”. He says, “The Nepali was mine, but the translation is Michael’s too.” Nevertheless, Hutt believes that as a translator, he has a serious responsibility to the author and the original text to not distort the intended impact and meaning.įor author Buddha Sagar, translation is a joint effort. Hutt’s other translations of Nepali works include Laxmi Prasad Devkota’s मुनामदन Muna Madan in 1996 and Lil Bahadur Chhetri’s बसाईँ Basain (as Mountains Painted with Turmeric) in 2008.Įven then, Hutt adds, ‘for you, sir’ may not be the perfect choice, as another reader of Nepali literature may immediately, upon coming across the phrase in the book, quip, “I would have translated that differently.” “At first mention, I say something like ‘for you, sir’, so that the semantics will be apparent to an English-language reader, but keep the ‘ hajurko’ in the later instances.” “‘For you, sir teashop’ just doesn’t work,” says Hutt, a professor of Nepali and Himalayan studies at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London. Michael Hutt, whose translation of Karnali Blues was published in December by Penguin India to rave reviews, agonised over how to render हजुरको into Nepali, trying to find the perfect turn of phrase without misrepresenting it. But how does one transpose the same effect into the English medium when translating? To the reader of Nepali, the nuance clicks immediately – a phrase is used so often that it takes on a character itself. Eventually he runs a teashop which takes its name after the same memorable idiolect: हजुरको चियापसल (‘H ajurko Chiyapasal’). A character in Buddhisagar’s bestselling 2010 novel कर्नाली ब्लुज ( Karnali Blues) has the habit of adding “हजुरको” (‘ hajurko’) at the end of his sentences whenever he speaks.
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