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On Mistranslated Booktitles

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 October 2008

Wilfred Cantwell Smith
Affiliation:
Professor of the Comparative History of Religion, Harvard University

Extract

Of the pungent aphorism traduttori traditori, one of the inherent delights is that the phrase itself cannot be translated into other languages without betrayal; at the least, of its pithy charm. All language is imperfect, a reader (or hearer) always understanding what is said in a way that leaves out something of what the writer (or speaker) means, and a way that adds something of what the reader (or hearer) supposes, or imposes, Ortega y Gasset has thoughtfully argued. I agree with this, yet hold that this characteristic of the human situation need not dishearten. We do better to marvel at how much the written or spoken word succeeds in communicating among persons – succeeds in building community between and among persons – than to bemoan that it does not succeed flawlessly.

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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1984

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