a few thoughts on translating from Pali
Aug. 22nd, 2023 10:03 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cattasallaI have been learning Pali for awhile now, and have reached the point where I can mostly read the suttas (with the help of a dictionary!). Occasionally, maybe 5% of the time or less, I come across a sentence I can't parse, but otherwise I'm doing fine.
My proclivities about translation have evolved over time. At one point, I tried to maintain as much fidelity as I could to the grammar of the original. But, while it may be useful for me, and certainly useful for that to be a stage in the translation process as I work with the sentence and try to find the English for it, it also makes for what is probably awkward and clumsy reading for someone not familiar with the texts. I think this is probably the motivation for Bhante Sujato's translations, which are often what I would consider pretty loose.
Also, there is this tendency to want to find exactly one English word to fit one Pali word, and to choose an English word that best encompasses all the nuances of the Pali. But that's really often impossible, especially for words that are important philosophically or for practice! For example, instead of trying to render kusala as either "skilled" or "wholesome", I'm now using "ethically skilled" (and "ethically inept" for akusala). I think in order to convey the meaning of words like that it's better to use a couple words covering more aspects of its meaning. And also to choose different words for the different contexts.
My proclivities about translation have evolved over time. At one point, I tried to maintain as much fidelity as I could to the grammar of the original. But, while it may be useful for me, and certainly useful for that to be a stage in the translation process as I work with the sentence and try to find the English for it, it also makes for what is probably awkward and clumsy reading for someone not familiar with the texts. I think this is probably the motivation for Bhante Sujato's translations, which are often what I would consider pretty loose.
Also, there is this tendency to want to find exactly one English word to fit one Pali word, and to choose an English word that best encompasses all the nuances of the Pali. But that's really often impossible, especially for words that are important philosophically or for practice! For example, instead of trying to render kusala as either "skilled" or "wholesome", I'm now using "ethically skilled" (and "ethically inept" for akusala). I think in order to convey the meaning of words like that it's better to use a couple words covering more aspects of its meaning. And also to choose different words for the different contexts.