Subtleties, pitfalls, temptations

Caño Cristales: Colombia's river of 5 colours.
Mario Carvajal via Wikimedia Commons

Unless you love words, you may feel duped by the title, because this post is about translation.

Remember this "about a Colombian health insurance company, EPS (Entidad Promotora de Salud), part of Colombia's largest co-operative, named Coomeva.  It went bankrupt and later ended up  being as a bank." ? 

The literal translation from terminó siendo is the relatively neutral 'ended up being'. I had nearly written 'reinvented itself', illustrating the seductive sirens of translation. They woo you to go with an angle, a flavour: it's just a tang of cynicism, barely noticeable and who cares, anyway?

Translation is about the subtleties of language. No matter how pedestrian the text the translator must make choices, whether to use this word or that, so they must care, about language. I have a friend, a translator and interpreter who kindly says they enjoy 'The Outpost'. I sometimes wonder why it is that certain people read it and it occurs to me suddenly that perhaps it is no coincidence that their job is about words and language.

Is there any 'ought' in translation? People put their own spin on information that they pass on from others all the time, sometimes deliberately, sometimes unconsciously. Should translation be a thing apart? How faithful should it be? How invisible the translator? Should the translation be as free as possible from any nuance of the translator's own? How could you even tell? When would "reinvented itself" be fine, compared to "ended up being / as"? "Does it depend on the content: a message? A social media post? When you're paid? When you like where the source is coming from?

Imagine two rivers, one style and one content. The translator must convey the content. They cannot choose to cut out essential facts or points. But so often, especially in literary or political work, isn't the the content itself a nuance of feeling or tone, which is conveyed by such elements as word choice, sentence structure, rhythm, figurative language? Or are such things always style?

Compare:

The sun dipped below the horizon, painting the sky in hues of orange and pink.

The sun set below the horizon, causing the sky to change to orange and pink colors.

The content is more obvious in the second sentence: The sun set.  The sky changed colours. 

The first sounds more artistic, romantic, poetic, the second more factual. The mood (or the tone) can be important, critical in fact, to the piece, depending on the text. Arguably it is so important, it is an inextricably part of the content, even though it's conveyed by elements of style like choice of word, 'dipped', 'hues' the metaphor, 'painting'. Without mood or tone, where they should exist, there are mere facts, which can be as bad as nothing at all, it's like leaving someone bereft of water or shade in some barren landscape.

At the rivers' confluence, where the creation of the original work occurs the waters of style and content, one hopes, entwine and flow seamlessly. But when the translator wades in the waters can be muddied.

The translator, makes as it were, a diverting channel of the waters so they flow in her own language. Do we want her to slip in to the waters quietly, divert them as close to their original colour as before. Or do we want him to add the colour of his own personality so they flow in a blend of colours, complementary, one hopes? Could he avoid doing anything else?