Traduttore traditore The Treachery of Translation
Saturday 21/4/2018
Distance 30.3 km Total Distance from Canterbury 537.6km
Sometimes it is the journey where the day’s adventure lies and sometimes the journey is straightforward but what comes after involves some risk. This was one of the latter days,
The phrase in Italian Traduttore traditore is a sort of proverb which means something like ‘all translators are traitors’, or ‘he who translates is a traitor’. It loses a bit in translation, because it is a kind of pun in Italian because the words sound very alike. Anyway it embodies the notion that it is always difficult to translate from one language to another. It is very hard to pin down the meaning of a word, because words have multiple meanings and also the meaning of words changes over time, sometimes quite quickly, especially but not exclusively in youth culture. For example the words gay, wicked, sick, and bad all have additional meanings different from those they had when I was young(er). Sometimes it is just ‘youth culture’ but the words can enter the mainstream quite quickly too. And a mouse for instance is more commonly spoken of in relation to a computer than in relation to wildlife I guess. And in our own language, and this is important, we don’t really confuse the different meanings. Because as my old Greek professor said (he who told us that all cows are black at midnight) when asked how will we ever know what a word means, when it can mean more than one thing, ‘context, context, context.’
There is a list of words in English which have two contradictory meanings. So cleave can mean to cut something in two (with a cleaver) and can mean to adhere closely to. You might dust the top of your cake with icing sugar, but if you dust the table you are removing the excess sugar that has landed on it. You might screen a movie, to show it to everyone or you might screen (put a screen around) something you don’t want other people to see, like a road accident. ‘He fought with his brother’ can mean that he and his brother were at loggerheads and fighting with one another or can mean that they both went off to the war together to fight a common enemy. In our own language, generally it is not a problem. Because of the context. The moon is out – so we can see. The lights are out – so we are in the dark. There is a classic pair of sentences in English which used to be quoted to suggest that computers would find it very hard to translate English. Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana. Just compare each word in the two sentences. But it is rather like the proverbial bumble bee which aeronautical engineers said could not possibly fly. Computers, and most commonly our friend Google, can and do translate with remarkable ease now. Most of the time.
The father of modern linguistics is a man called Ferdinand de Saussure (1857-1913). He was Swiss and lectured in the University of Geneva. His most famous work was his Course in General Linguistics. He didn’t write the book in fact, it was put together after he died by his former students using their notes on his lectures. He was an important figure in semiotics, the study of signs. Please do not confuse this with the special field of Robert Langdon, the central character in The Da Vinci code which we mentioned yesterday. That is to say the one played by Tom Hanks. He is a Professor of Symbolology. I think it is like the difference between astronomy and astrology. Or medicine and homeopathy. But let’s not go there.
One final bit of theory. Saussure spoke of paradigmatic analysis. Let me try and simplify. When you choose to use a word, (each word you use), at that moment you somehow choose not to use all the other words you could have used. Happily this is a largely unconscious process. in the unlikely event that you are writing an essay on Saussure please don’t quote me. That is an oversimplification! We’ll come back to that.
I mentioned yesterday that the necessity for the French forces to remain ‘match fit’ (the threat of the Russian Bear, I suppose) meant that there was nowhere for me to stay in the low cost (and generally lowish quality) pilgrim accommodation in Brienne. So I stayed in Les Voyageurs a rather old fashioned hotel in the town. I had rung the previous day and so they were expecting ‘the English pilgrim’. You walk straight into to a small friendly bar and there were a few locals having a drink or a coffee. A large, friendly elderly man gave me my key and in fact brought me up to my room (which would have been quite hard to find without his guidance.) He looked rather like a forty years older version of René Artois from ‘Allo ‘Allo.
And it soon transpired he was not only the receptionist and barman but seemingly the cook and certainly the waiter too. But he took it all in his stride at a leisurely pace. He presented a large menu of local cuisine and told me that the day’s special was cow’s tongue. He said it in the kind of voice which made it clear really that the day’s special was so special that there was really nothing else on the menu. Although I am functionally a vegetarian for most of the time I am not in any way a dogmatic or, even less, an evangelizing vegetarian. I just don’t ever cook meat and I cook for myself 95% of the time. But I eat meat when I’m out and about and I like it. I think it is true that I will try anything once. The only things I don’t really like are salad cream, a curious British alternative to mayonnaise which is disconcertingly yellow, and dessicated coconut. There was a time when I didn’t like celery, but those days have passed.
Having said that, beef tongue isn’t high on my list of favourites. but I didn’t feel in could disappoint René so I acquiesced. And it was fine, and came preceded by salad with local charcuterie and followed by excellent cheese. I left next morning for Bar-sur-Aube which had a nice ring to it I thought. The parish priest there used to provide accommodation for pilgrims in the presbytère but the mayor’s consort in Corbeil had already told me this was no longer the case. So I had made a reservation ahead at the campsite. Most campsites will accommodate you even if you don’t have a tent.
And here I have to admit that something unusual happened. I left a T-shirt behind. A very cheap ‘technical’ running T- shirt. The are very light, entirely synthetic, they wick sweat away from the body, and they dry in an hour or two. (AJ, my erstwhile Camino companion take note! I’m not sure whether this indicates contagion or genetics.)
The church in Brienne-le-Château had nice windows and I liked Noah’s Ark and the Tower of Babel, which you don’t see all that often.
The road to Bar-sur-Aube was unremarkable. I passed through the strangely named Dienville, followed by Unienville. Then to a place called Autremonde an unusual name again which means ‘other world’.… I don’t know why. It contained about five houses.
I visited a few more churches and even found somewhere for a coffee. Two places in fact. And it was another day of 29C.
I liked this poster I saw in the bar I had my second coffee of the day. It looks rsther home made.
I came towards a very pretty manicured village in the afternoon which was back in a corner of the champagne growing area. It looked quite posh with an interesting and unusual name, Dolancourt, which sounds a bit Irish. You would have called it a sleepy quiet village but the air in fact was full of loud and excited screaming. Dolancourt is the home of Nigloland, a name which doesn’t really work in English. It us a theme park, like day Alton Towers. And it has ‘the highest rotating free fall tower in the world.’
As someone who is uneasy standing on a table, I resisted the temptation. It still seems quite odd. It is like having walked the Wicklow Way, or through Snowdon or the Lake District and suddenly finding yourself in a (smallish) Disneyland.
So I arrived in the nice little town of Bar-sur-Aube and found the campsite and my quirky little wooden tent, in the style of Little House on the Prairie. Well maybe, but I’ve never watched Little House on the Prairie. There was a programmeron BBC fifty years ago called Cabin in the clearing. It certainly could have got a part in that.
And then to eat and here is where the risk came in. I’ve lived in two countries where goats are the top of the culinary tree. In Nigeria isi ewu ofe or goats had soup or stew is a great specialty. And in Kenya nyama choma mbuzi which is really barbecued goat is beloved. I was at a serious ibter-collegiate academic meeting in Nairobi once, a long day which was to end with a celebratory meal. An hour of the proceedings was given to heated discussion of where we should buy our goat. Our dinner you understand was still at this point contentedly feeding itself in a field near by, unaware of its fate. There were many considerations.
Anyway, I love cheese and the menu came and I saw what I thought should be goats cheese salad. And I ordered it.
While shopping my aperitif I consulted Google which suggested I had ordered warm gost’s droppings. The word is crottins. I remembered a sign I had seen on the pavement a few days before.
It means something like ‘This is a pavement, not a dog’s toilet.’
My salad arrived. It was lovely! So lovely I gave it a frame!
These are crottins. 
Beware of words with more than one meaning. Choosing just one and omitting others can cause confusion, not to say distress. And watch out for treacherous translations!
Thanks for the warning about crottins!!