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But when people say something “doesn’t translate”, they usually mean (and are understood as meaning) one or both of two things — that it doesn’t translate succi
by dghf 5y ago
But when people say something “doesn’t translate”, they usually mean (and are understood as meaning) one or both of two things — that it doesn’t translate succinctly, or it doesn’t translate exactly. Japanese honorifics, for example, probably fall under both.
- itdoestranslate 5y agoWell, both of those things are true, and are true for any two languages. Easily and succinctly are not absolute. They are functions of the two languages being discussed, and of the two people talking. By the definitions presented here, literally nothing is translatable, you’ve just chosen to an arbitrary line. My primary objection to this entire exercise is that it implies a linguistic preciousness that is really quite superficial. It also implies that “some languages are more cut out than others for certain purposes” and this is absolutely not the case. All languages are equally capable of meaning, and the fact that one language has one word for something and another uses many words for the same thing… that itself doesn’t “mean” anything about either language. It barely says anything about the cultures that use that language.