Skip to main content

Multilingue / Multilingual

Na sexta-feira, 14 de Abril, fui a um evento multilingue incomum. Multilingue porque falaravam três línguas para manter todos na conversa. Incomum porque nenhuma destas línguas era o inglês. 

Tratava-se do lançamento de dois livros de Peter Svetina na Livraria Velhotes em Vila Nova de Gaia. Peter é um autor infantil consagrado, mas estas são as suas primeiras publicações em Portugal. 

Peter esteve à conversa com dois dos seus editores: o seu editor português, João Manuel Ribeira, e a sua editora eslovena, Barbara Pregelj. A maior parte das perguntas vieram de Barbara. Ela dirigiu-as a Peter em espanhol e ele respondeu em esloveno. Depois, Barbara traduziu as respostas para espanhol, para benefício do público. 

Tenho quase a certeza de que, à excepção das três pessoas na fila da frente que se riram ou acenaram com a cabeça enquanto o Peter falava em esloveno, todos os outros tinham o português como primeira língua. O editor João Manuel Ribeira fez algumas perguntas em português, mas as línguas dominantes eram o espanhol e o esloveno. Apesar disso, o público deu todos os sinais de estar a acompanhar o discurso. 

No meu dia-a-dia, a frase 'seria mais fácil em inglês?' é um juízo sobre os meus habilidades linguísticos. Normalmente é dita com gentileza, mas significa que não comuniquei com clareza ou que as minhas dificuldades com a língua portuguesa eram demasiado óbvias. 

O inglês é a rota segura, a nova estrada, o caminho que aplaina a paisagem, ignora as curvas e cuidados pré-existentes e leva-nos ao nosso destino. Foi fantástico estar num evento que não precisava de usar o inglês. 

A close up of a poster showing a hand.

On Friday 14th April I went to an unusual multilingual event. Multilingual because three languages were used to keep everyone present in the conversation. Unusual because not one of the languages was English. 

It was a book launch of two titles by Peter Svetina and it took place at Livraria Velhotes in Vila Nova de Gaia. Peter’s an established children’s author but these are his first publications in Portugal. 

Peter was in conversation with two of his editors: his Portuguese editor Joao Manuel Ribeira, and his Slovenian editor Barbara Pregelj. Barbara asked most of the questions. She addressed them to Peter in Spanish and he replied in Slovenian. Barbara then translated his answers back into Spanish for the benefit of the audience. 

I’m fairly sure that, apart from the three people in the front row who laughed or nodded along as Peter spoke in Slovenian, everyone else had Portuguese as their first language. The editor Joao Manuel Ribeira made a few interjections in Portuguese, but the dominant languages were Spanish and Slovenian. Despite this, the audience gave all the signs of following the discourse. 

In my day-to-day dealings the phrase ‘would it be easier in English?’ falls in judgement on my language skills. It’s usually offered with kindness but it means that I haven’t communicated clearly or that my struggles with the Portuguese language were too much for my interlocutor to bear. 

English is the safe route, the new road, the way that flattens the landscape, ignores the pre-existing curves and cares, getting us to our destination. It was amazing to be at an event which sought no recourse in English. 

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Please share your thoughts about this post:

Popular posts from this blog

Phatic rhythm

My boss likes to talk. He doesn’t need an interlocutor, he needs an audience. As there’s not much call to respond during these daily discourses it’s possible to pay attention to how he structures his speech. Linguistics uses the term phatic communication to describe speech that has a social function rather than an informative one. The Open University describes phatic openings to conversations as an ‘invaluable means of establishing relations before getting down to the real purpose of the encounter’. Here are some of the phatic openings that my boss and other colleagues use (I live in Portugal so these phrases are in Portuguese; I've put an approximate translation in brackets after each one): Eh pá (Hey), Pá (Hey), Olha (Look), Ora bem (Well then), Pronto (Ready), É assim (It’s like this). These are often the first thing uttered during an exchange. They request the other person’s attention and signal that things are ready to roll. They mean Please listen to me; I have somethi...
Post a Comment
Read more

Apple tree is the best translation for ameixoeira

I have been completing first drafts of the last few poems in Aberto todos os dias   by João Luís Barreto Guimarães. In my experience, translating poetry involves a negotiation between sense and sound. The words I choose need to communicate a meaning close to the Portuguese original, and also a similar rhythm and sound patterning. There’s some adjusting to be done: swapping a word for a synonym with one extra syllable, or with one less. Swapping a word for a synonym whose vowel sounds complement an existing pattern in the line. It reminds me of being a dressmaker making small tucks or opening seams in a garment to get the best fit. The acrostic is a literary form where such subtle alternations are inadmissible. Guimarães’s poem 'Introdução à poesia' ('Introduction to poetry') describes a group of fruit trees planted so that the first letter of each spells out the word CALMA (in English, CALM): Cerejeira, Ameixoeira, Limoeiro, Macieira, Ameixoeira. Translating this list ...
Post a Comment
Read more

a o a the the the

When translating, there are always textures in the source language which cannot be directly replicated in the target language. Moving from Portuguese to English, gender is one such texture. Every noun in Portuguese is either feminine or masculine (which is the case in many other languages too) while English only has gendered nouns in special cases. I have been translating João Luís Barreto Guimarães’s collection Aberto todos os dias from Portuguese into English. I noticed a pattern at the start of the poem ‘Aquela garça ali’ (or  ‘That heron there’) . The first six nouns are alternately feminine and masculine. The nouns are:  a garça, o bote, a curva, o rio, a cidade, o fim. (In English this would be: the heron, the boat, the curve, the river, the city, the end).  Since every noun in Portuguese – whether animate, inanimate, concrete, abstract – is gendered, gender can seem arbitrary, not carrying significant meaning. To me the gender of a noun stands out ‘as though each ...
Post a Comment
Read more