There is much that scholars of Asia can learn from thinking about translation, and much that translation studies scholars can learn from studying practices in Asia, as this excellent book, Translation in Asia: Theories, practices, histories, edited by Ronit Ricci and Jan van der Putten reveals. The book consists of an introduction and eleven chapters, with contributions by Thomas Hunter, Torsten Tschacher, Peter Friedlander, Ronit Ricci, Haslina Haroon, Vijayakumar Boratti, Jose Mario Fransisco, Didi Kwartanada, Erlinda Alburo, Paul Rae and S. Sanjeev. Essays discuss translation in South and Southeast Asia (despite the broad ‘Asia’ of the title), and from, into, and between languages including Sanskrit, Javanese, Malay, Tagalog, Cebuano, Filipino, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Kannada, Hindi, Mandarin, Arabic, Spanish and English. The period of translation history covered is broad; from the two millenia-old cosmopolis shaped by Sanskrit, to contemporary performance in Singapore.
The essays take translation studies in exciting new directions. The strongest linking thread is the questioning of ways interlingual transfer — and language itself — is conceptualised in South and Southeast Asia. Rather than merely identifying instances of a practice readily familiar (from a Euro-American-centric perspective) as ‘translation’, the writers work hard, from the inside out as it were, to find local explanations of where languages begin and end, and how movement between them is both thought about and practised. This approach reveals a wealth of translation activity and often traditions of profound reflection about it. It leads to discussion about the juxtaposition of and movement between vernacular and cosmopolitan languages (Hunter's wonderful essay on Sanskrit and Old Javanese, and Tschacher on the rendering of Islamic texts in Arabic into Tamil); between languages of writing and speech; between high and low status languages; and between the sacred and secular. It raises questions such as: what is ‘unintelligibility’, where does it lie, and what is its purpose? It shows how language encounters stimulate the formulation of ideas about ‘translation’ (for instance Munshi's reflections on Malay); influence language practice (commentary on ‘foreign’ texts influencing the structure of the local language); and highlight both complex interrelationships between languages and scripts, and differences between manuscript and print culture.
This book also demonstrates how a focus on translation can be an entry point to the study of Asia, enriching our understanding of histories of contact, the complexities of thoroughly multilingual societies, and interrelationships between language, identity and power. Asia's multi-religious context, with long-established interaction between Moslem, Hindu, Buddhist and Christian traditions, is fertile ground for the study of ways adherents perceive languages of religion and sacred texts (Sanskrit, Pali, and Arabic, for instance) and how these languages, moved between different contexts, transfer ideas. Hunter's essay on the Sanskrit ecumene helps us (after Pollock) associate contemporary ideas of identity formation — cosmopolitanism — with centuries-old practice. Other essays highlight the intricacies of language politics and colonialism, and show how studies of translation in colonial contexts contribute to the study of nationalism and postcolonialism. All the (modern) nations covered in the book (India, Malay[a]sia, Singapore, Indonesia, the Philippines) were colonised. Kwartanada's essay on the Indies-born Chinese in Java in the late nineteenth century and their rediscovery of Chineseness via the Malay language and romanised script is an important contribution to postcolonial studies. It is nicely balanced with Rae's innovative essay about the national language project of Malay in Singapore in the early 1960s, and Rae's own presentation of this as a contemporary staged performance of translation. The interrelationship of Christianity and the colonial experience is discussed in Fransisco's essay on the translation of Catholic religious terms from Spanish (and English) into Tagalog, and shifts in the characterisation of sin. Boratti's essay on colonial India shows translation politics at work in the other direction, in the work of missionaries translating Indian sacred texts into European languages, where, he argues, their motivation was to discredit those texts. Two other essays discuss the politics of language and translation in contemporary settings, namely the position of ‘minority’ languages in the contemporary multilingual state in South and Southeast Asia; Alburo's contribution on Cebuano (in the shadow of Tagalog and Filipino), and Sanjeev's essay on Malayalam (in the shadow of English and Hindi).
Perhaps precisely because this book opens up exciting new areas, it often makes the reader wish for more. While Translation Studies has indeed developed with a Euro-American bias, many of the discussions in this book could be enriched by more reference to non-Asian contexts (Ricci alone brings in a comparative perspective, comparing some Javanese translation practices with those of Medieval Europe). The role of Sanskrit in Asia could be compared to (and contrasted with) the role of Latin in Europe for over a millennia as a language of power, writing, communication, education, and religion. Polyglossia, too, is of course not exclusive to Asia, and comparison between multilingualism in Asian societies and in Europe (at various times) and links (or not) between language and prestige would be instructive; for instance, shifts in dominant interlanguages (such as English and French in Europe compared to Arabic and Malay in Asia).
This pioneering book does have some weaknesses. Even with the explanation that the ‘Asia’ of the book's title refers to South and Southeast Asia, there are no essays on languages of mainland Southeast Asia other than Malay; nothing on Thai, Lao, Vietnamese, Khmer and Burmese for instance. (Perhaps this could have been solved with a different book title?) Some essays are overly specific for an edited volume covering such broad ground, such as Boratti's chapter. And finally, for a book about language, it is surprising that the English language editing is occasionally sloppy, with clumsy grammar and spelling errors (‘drought’ spelt as ‘draught’ is one example). The final manuscript could have done with one more thorough check before going to print.
