be.jazz comments
I like the fluid way "translation" is being used here. We are talking about the transferability of codes, I think; the applicablity of reading strategies across difficult gaps in language, idiom, time (context). I'm using "reading" in the broadest possible sense. It is often observed that something is 'lost in translation,' and sometimes it is noticed that something is 'gained,' but this gain is always a betrayal of context and of authorial intention. But I want to consider the value of misreading. I want to honour paranoia. Because it is not at all a given that a perfect knowledge of the context and the author of a work is going to give you the inside track on understading that work. So why would the reverse hold? Reading is always at least partially a process of seeing meaning when it is not there. I accept the tire marks in the snow that look like a heart, and they fill me with joy. If Ayler is making heart-shaped tire marks, right on.
U want to learn Lingala?
u start here, but it is more for French speakers who want to learn Lingala.
U translate from French to Lingala and not otherway round
First, a quite personal experience. Some years ago a Russian company were playing William Shakespeare plays here (Argentina), in russian, not spanish. Yes, I know the material, in english and spanish, but after a while, the group did a great job, I was absolutely into the acting without really keeping attention to any kind of translation.
Something similar in the old days, when I used to see three or four movies on a row a day on video (twenty four a week, average...), subtitles were lost at some point, no matter the language, english, swedish.
And about poetry, yes no way to translate, but it's almost the same with prose. You can't do that with, just say Ray Bradbury's images and metaphors, or Raymond Carver writing rhythm, sometimes prose, specially with a good author, it's poetry, you can't just translate word by word.
There's an interesting method from the film director and screen writer John Huston, Herman Melville's "Moby Dick" and the James Joyce's short story "The dead", are part of his beautiful work. His adaptation method was very simple, just use some of the material, taking out what he decided was not worthy to be seen on the screen, of course after a long analysis, an if you take a look at the results not a bad system.
I've got a lot of African music, I mean, not the kind of music you'll find in a big record store, Pygmies ceremonies, children singing. Sometimes just knowing the name of the song, or the ceremony, it's enough to "feel" the deep energy of the music, more the sound of the words than the words on itself, of course will be wonderful to speak, let's say, forty or fifty African dialects and languages, and will be not enough to cover a whole world of wonderful art.
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