Abadian Hossein (Imam Khomeini University, Qazvin, Iran)

In the years between the crisis of World War II and the coup of August 1953, Iran witnessed a very strange wave of translations from English, French, German, and Russian languages into Persian. These translations did play significant roles in the cultural and political processes of the country in upcoming years. Most of these translations were novels which had social critical approaches, an important part of them were Russian novels known as Socialist Realism. Also, the novels of Victor Hugo, Balzac, Mark Twain, Charles Dickens and Jack London were translated and published in very high circulations aiming to show social catastrophes and economic poverty around the world; also, the translations were efforts to explain the necessity of social changes in the Iranian society. In fact, the translated novels were connecting circles between intellectuals with different Iranian social classes. The aim of this abstract is to illustrate that from which languages the influential novels were translated into Farsi between the crisis years between 1941 to 1953 and what roles did play these translations in the cultural orientation of Iranian intellectuals?

 

Asemi Nabil Ali (University of Saba Region, Yemen) 

This study aims to investigate the problems that Yemeni undergraduate students in English department face when translating Yemeni culture terms and tries to find the solutions for these problems in order to get a correct and clear translation. To achieve the goal of this study, the researcher selected a random sample that comprised 40 students who are doing BA in English in two Yemeni universities during the second semester 2023-2024. The researcher designed a translation test that consisted of 30 terms which students were asked to translate from Arabic into English. These terms included Yemeni culture terms related to food, dancing, agriculture and other fields of life; it also includes Yemeni idioms and proverbs. The results of the study showed that the students face several problems when translating cultural-bound expressions. These problems can be attributed to lack of knowledge of translation strategies, inability to explain the meaning because the term is not clear for the native speaker himself, difficulty to find the equivalence in the second language and lack of knowledge of the culture of the target language. The study concluded that students should follow the translation strategies when translating cultural-bound expressions or terms. Students also must be trained and given the chance to practice translating such kind of expressions.

 

Batiuk Iryna (Ivan Franko National University of Lviv, Ukraine) 

This article deals with the problem of dialectal speech in Japanese literary texts and its reproduction in English translations. The usage of dialecticisms as indicators of particular region to which characters belong is an important component of the writer’s style. Dialect can be used to represent a culture, which is different from the dominant one. The examples of translation strategies show the way of creating an illusion of dialect. The choice of dialect reproduction depends on the linguistic sensibility of the translator. It has been found out that combination of standard English with explanation is often used in translation of dialect speech. Complete neutralization, usage of transcribed forms of dialect, profanity, non-standard English are also observed.

 

Bąkowski Jacek (Inst. Jęz. Polskiego PAN, Kraków, Poland) 

Digital humanities, a field at the crossroads of computer sciences and the humanities, enables the effective use and analysis of vast quantities of information like language corpora or large collections of texts, introducing a novel approach to humanities rooted in quantitative data. Some methodologies within this domain can effectively enhance the translator's workshop.

 

Błajet Zuzanna (Kraków, Poland) 

The collection of folk narratives from Tajik Badakhshan was initiated by Russian researchers during the Soviet era and is being continued by local researchers of Pamiri origin. As a result, these narratives are available for research in several languages: in the original, i.e. one of the Pamiri languages, in translation into Tajik and/or Russian. This study examines the different language versions of the Pamiri folk narratives, analyzing the fidelity of Tajik and Russian translations with the Pamiri text, as well as the implications of specific translation strategies (literal and liberal) for the reception of folk text. The comparative analysis revealed frequent semantic and plot differences between the original and translated texts, which may result from the translator's misunderstanding of the Pamiri text or the choice of a liberal translation strategy. Liberal translation seeks to capture the artistry of folk texts and make the text more attractive and comprehensible to recipients from a distant culture. Literal translation tends to be characterized by scholarly precision, at the same time requiring the recipient to have a certain degree of familiarity with a distant culture. Regardless of the choice of translation strategy, every translation loses some aspects of the initial folk performance. However, in the case of such a multilingual area as Badakhshan, translation may be the researcher's only access to the original narratives.

 

Browarczyk Monika (Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznań, Poland) 

Krishna Sobti (1925-2019) is the doyen of the Hindi literature and her "Bādlõ ke ghere" of 1955 is undoubtedly among the canonical short stories of modern Hindi writing, is highly praised by critics and readers alike, and since long has entered the school and university syllabuses. Sobti's prose demonstrates well her extraordinary language sensitivity, which is characterized by precision of expression combined with economy of language. Her highly individual style originates from creation of distinct 'idiolects' for narrating each of her individual works, poetics of elusiveness, unique imaginary, and inclusion of colloquial forms from different registers of language, not only Hindi/Urdu, but also Punjabi. The latter linguistic interest stems from the author's biography, for her native language was Punjabi, but like some other writers of her generation, she chose to write in Hindi because of its possible scope.

The features of Sobti's writing come into the fore in "Bādlõ ke ghere," and hence a translator attempting its rendition is charged with a difficult task of doing justice to a piece of writing which is the literary canon. The pressure comes from the fact that translations from Hindi literature – aside from three collections of short stories, one novel published decades ago and four books of poetry published more recently – are absent from the book market in Poland.

For a long time, in the translation tandem that Maria Puri and I formed, we have been considering an idea to acquaint Polish readers with Sobti's writing, which is now available in Polish through only one little outdated translation of one of her short stories. With this project in mind, I commenced translation of "Bādlõ ke ghere" in March 2020, after the outbreak of the pandemic, when strict rules of social isolation were introduced in Poland and in the world and the media, including social media, were full of news about the spread of the disease, its dangers, contagion, etc. Sobti's short story which is told in an intimate voice of the first-person narrator-cum-protagonist, pertains to a sense of alienation and loneliness that results from a deadly disease. Its 'deep reading' i.e. its translation (Grossman 2010), was thus done in the circumstances that to a certain extent reflected an atmosphere of this piece of writing. A case study of the story’s translation will be presented from the perspective of translator's 'place of enunciation' (Tymoczko 2010) and the 'human factor' in translation.

 

The present paper deals with the translation of the Mahābhārata from the original Sanskrit into Malayalam language done by the legendary Koṭuṅṅallῡr Kuññikkuṭṭan Tampurān (1864-1913), a famous poet known for his ‘instant poetry’ (Drutakavitā). Tampuran had the uncanny knack for not only reciting verses spontaneously, but also for translating even difficult Sanskrit verses instantly . He translated the whole of the Mahābhārata , consisting of 120000 verses in just 874 days in verse, using the exact metres of the original text. This is a feat unparalleled in any language and defies notions of translation as a slow and deliberate process , using the trial and error method. It is no wonder that the translation has become a classic in Malayalam despite the fact that there are other renderings of the epic . Almost a superhuman aura has been associated with the personality of the author due to this work. There are graphic descriptions of the manner in which the author would recite the translation of every verse , to be written down by a scribe sitting nearby. The translation is done in a lucid style and has made the text easily accessible to grateful readers who have no access to the original text. It is thus a contemporary example of the democratisation of knowledge. The paper proposes to investigate the circumstances under which such a translation was conceived , the methodology with which the epic was tanslated by the poet in a routine amazing in its regularity and speed, the nature and quality of the rendering and the ways in which it has been received in the Malayalam speaking world.

 

Chuchla Konrad (Jagiellonian University in Kraków, Poland) 

The issue of translating Persian and Perso-Arabic Shiite titles and styles into English manifests itself in various fields, from linguistics, literature, and religious studies to history and numismatics. Linguistic disparities between English and Persian, as well as deeply embedded cultural and religious nuances within the vocabularies, are the main factors contributing to the hindrance of the translation process and necessitating compromise between semantic, cultural, and aesthetic fidelity. Some strategies for addressing this issue include literal translation, adherence to the existing norms, resorting to Christian terminology, or refraining from translation altogether. In the attempt to bridge the linguistic and cultural division, during the lecturette I will discuss shortcomings of the aforementioned methods, and propose a blended strategy of utilizing appropriate approaches depending both on the source and the target text, as well as the text recipient.

 

Cielas Hermina – Pierdominici Leão David  (Jagiellonian University in Kraków, Poland) 

From La Mancha to Kashmir: notes on the windmill episode in the Sanskrit version of Don Quijote 

The present paper aims at investigating selected passages from the Sanskrit version of Cervantes’s Don Quijote. Published in 2019 as Ḍān Kvikṣoṭaḥ, the translation was completed in 1936 by two Kashmiri Pandits – Jagaddhar Zadoo and Nityanand Shastri – on the basis of an English rendering by Charles Jarvis published in 1742. The study of the windmill episode from the Quijote (I, 8) and the comparative analysis of the early modern Spanish original, the English medium and the Sanskrit translation reveal how the practice of translating not from the original source may influence the meaning and enlighten the difficulties of rendering extraneous elements in a language so distant from morphological and phonetical points of view.

In the course of the analysis special attention will be paid to the rendering of proper names, modern concepts and objects, specific expressions and to the translation strategies employed by the Indian Pandits.

 

Ghobadi Aein (Warsaw, Poland)

Literary translation from western languages into Persian is not a long-lived phenomenon and, excluding a few examples, it dates back to the late XIX century. Back then, along with reforms in the Iranian educational system, and emerging new possibilities to dispatch groups of Iranian students to European colleges, gradually the first efforts to translate western literary works into persian took place.

During these hundred years of literary translation from western literature in Iran, it has played an obvious role in the evolution of Iranian literature trends, its concepts and forms, both in prose and poetry. One could easily claim, that the diversity of poetry currents during the last century in Iran, a country of longtime and rich poetry, surpasses all trends during its millennium long history. Many of the notable contemporary Iranian poets and writers have emphasized on the influence of translated works of western literature on their works and writing styles. This explains why translators in Iran are considered as important and appreciated as writers. At the same time, it shows the very crucial task that is given to translators in Iran.

I believe, that it is the time for translators to redefine the work of translation, avoid its traditional expectations, and catch up with the wisdom of their readers, who, thanks to easier contact with the world, are able to have a better and deeper understanding of western cultures and literatures.

As few decades ago, translators were expected to have their share in educating their society and familiarizing them with the world’s literary masterpieces, or philosophies and social-political ideas through rich concepts, now it’s time to take a step forward and focus their work on the form as well. The form is what the pleasure of reading comes from. And it is the biggest victim of many translators` ignorance. This ignorance is rooted either in a lack of wisdom or, as explained earlier, in a fear from social feedback which barely shows willingness to new experiments in literature.

On the other hand, the multiplied number of publication houses and new ways to publish and release literary works compared to decades ago, for instance through the internet or publications abroad, provides translators with a new ground to make choices based on their passion and what they themselves see as appropiate, not being afraid of feedbacks or difficulties of persuading publishers.

As for Iran, we see a huge number of books translated by many different writers from only a few selected countries whose literature has been well known and appreciated since years ago. While there is a disappointing lack of translations from many countries worldwide, translators still tend to look for another novel by another French, Russian, or South American writer, being certain about the big chances of its acceptance by publishers and booksellers. Later, the translator would prefer to use traditional tones and not deal with the form sufficiently, in order to feel free of possible criticism. And finally, trap himself/herself in a disastrous self-censorship to increase the chances of its confirmation by the supervisory boards. These issues are the usual traps Iranian translators deal with.

But what saves the richness of the book market, and helps translators keep up the good work, is feeling confident and sharing experiences with other translators.

In this article, I will try to examine different challenges in the work of literary translation for Iranian translator. Particularly, I will focus on following points, point out to several issues I regard as problematic, and will try to provide solutions for each issue:

· Early examples of translations from wesern literature into persian;

· Cultural barriers of translation; how Iranian translators have dealt with that, and to what can be done to overcome these barriers;

· Diversity of languages and dialects in Iran, and the need to consider this as a translator;

· Footnotes are a key tool at the hands of translators

· Vulgarism and its translation into persian

· Dealing with censorship led by Iranian authorities;

· Internet, and the possibilities it provides for translators.

 

Hlayyil Amir (al-Arzyada magazine Kfar Shima, Lebanon)

During mu presentation, I will discuss my translation into Lebanese of an excerpt from James Joyce’s Ulysses, i.e. a final passage from the episode of Penelope (lines 1553–1609 according to H.W. Gabler’s Ulysses edition, New York 1986). My philological commentary will contain some translation strategies (lexical, syntactic and concerning spelling in the Arabic alphabet) to reflect the stream of consciousness narrative technique. I will propose Lebanese equivalents of game names, elements of jargon and excerpts from Irish folklore. I will also present some new connotations in the text. My translation, independent of existing versions of Ulysses in Standard Arabic, is based on the first edition of Joyce’s novel published in 1922 by Sylvia Beach in Paris by Shakespeare and Company.

 

Iliychuk Iryna (Ivan Franko Lviv National University and Vasyl Stefanyk Precarpathian National University, Ukraine)

The research emphasizes the combination of translation and didactic areas aimed at the study and substantive application of translated fiction texts in teaching and scientific-theoretical activities, which will help to introduce elements of an innovative approach into the methodology of teaching Chinese in Ukrainian high schools and universities. Didactic materials of fiction translations from the Chinese language will introduce to pupils, students and everyone who is interested in China, its geography, history, mental traits, culture, way of living and lifestyle of the population. The problem of involving literary translations in the teaching of the Chinese language in Ukrainian linguistic didactics was not considered before. The parallel study of Chinese and Ukrainian fiction texts aims at an in-depth study of the specifics of the translation of Chinese fiction texts into Ukrainian and Ukrainian texts into Chinese. Such a linguistic and a cultural approach will contribute to the further development of Ukrainian-Chinese cooperation in the humanitarian, cultural and educational spheres. The task of mastering the skill of translation appears on the agenda in foreign language education. Human development is a cultural process, and language serves as a cultural tool that is closely related to virtually all cognitive changes.

 

Iwanowicz Ada (Jagiellonian University in Kraków, Poland)  

Examining translation of proper names in fairy tales is an important aspect in Translation Studies due to word plays and cultural contexts.

In my study, I intended to examine the translation of proper names in Disney Princesses’ Movies from English to Arabic. I analyze the usage frequency of translation strategies and techniques in order to determine if those translations are adequate in terms of meaning.

I examined ‘Beauty and the Beast’, ‘Cinderella’, ‘Snow White’, ‘Little Mermaid’ and ‘Sleeping Beauty’. I chose the most popular films with plots embedded in European reality. I presented translation strategies, domestication and exotisation, and translation techniques: calque, transliteration, transcription and transposition.

My research showed that Arabic translations are frequently based on the creative use of Arabic grammar. For instance, the surname ‘LeFou’ meaning ‘the fool’ in French was translated as ‘Rafūl’, a derivative from Arabic verb ‘rafala’ (to boast).

I believe that my study can bring a new perspective to the field of Arabic Translation Studies, since animated movie markets are rapidly developing in the Arab World.

 

Jaśkowski Stanisław (University of Warsaw, Poland) 

Persian (including Indo-Persian) manuscripts in Polish sources were carefully catalogued many years ago by prof. Tadeusz Majda in his Catalogue of Turkish and Persian Manuscripts (Katalog rękopisów tureckich i perskich, Warsaw 1967). Impressive as it is, the catalogue contains some errors, which was to be expected in a work of such impressive scope. It would appear that the errors occur mainly, though not exclusively, in the case of the Indo-Persian manuscripts. It would appear that the author’s expertise primarily in Turkic and Ottoman studies, influenced his reading of the Persian texts from the eastern part of the Persianate world, which require a slightly different paleographical skill set. This, it seems, was generally the case with scholars of Persian manuscripts in Poland. As a result, a number of manuscript – especially Indo-Persian ones – is still incorrectly catalogued. It is for this reason that an attempt has been made to address these problems and to discuss them on the example of two manuscripts: Bahār-i Dānish from the National Library of Poland (Rps BOZ 182) and Ṭūṭī-Nāma from the Wrocław University Library (Ms. Or. I 56). This serves as a starting point for a discussion of the possibilities of cataloging, analyzing and at least partially translating Persian and Indo-Persian manuscripts in Poland.

 

Jurewicz Joanna (University of Warsaw, Poland) 

The paper discusses examples of the narrowing and expanding zooming strategy (Langacker 2005) as one of the methods of active scene building. I also discuss the difficulties it presents to the Polish translator and I will consider to what extent Polish inflection enables their literary dedication and meeting the translation requirements proposed by Tabakowska. My hypothesis is that in many cases it is possible, as opposed to an English translation (Cherniak 2008-9). I also believe that the most precise rendering of the Sanskrit way of constructing the scene saves the extraordinary value of the original. I would also like to add that this type of analysis of the classical Sanskrit text is the first in Polish and in world literature. The article is the result of my own work on the Polish translation of Book 6 (Bhīṣmaparvan) of the Mahābhārata. 

 

Karcz Marta (Jagiellonian University in Kraków, Poland) 

Umaraśatakam (1981) is a collection of 100 Rubai yats of Omar Khayyam translated from English into Sanskrit by Prof. N. G. Suru. Omar Khayyam was a Persian polymath of the late 11th and early 12th centuries known for his contributions to mathematics, astronomy, philosophy and poetry. As a poet, he became primarily famous as the author of the Rubaiyats – witty and cynical four versed poems that gained worldwide fame in the second half of the 19th century through translations into English and subsequent renditions in various languages. This article analyzes Professor Suru's translation, examining the use of Sanskrit stylistic and literary devices. Furthermore, it sheds light on the linguistic and cultural adaptations undertaken by the translator to ensure the faithful conveyance of the poems' essence and ambiance. This analysis provides deeper insight into cross-cultural literary transmission and contemporary translations into Sanskrit.

 

Kłagisz Mateusz (Jagiellonian University in Kraków, Poland) 

The article introduces my planned research devoted to the landay – a poetic genre to be found in Pashto popular (mostly oral) literature. It comprises seven chapters. In (0) I present the reasons why I decided to deal with this topic. In (1) I recapitulate the more popular views on the landay. In (2) I discuss its features compared to other literary traditions of the region. In (3) I explain reasons why I use the term landa in Polish language. In (4) I present the formal features of the landay in detail, citing twenty one examples. In (5) I analyse a single example of adaptation of the phonetic structure of one particular example to the metric requirements of the genre. In (6) I sketch my future research programme.

 

Krasnowolska Anna (Kraków, Poland) 

On my return, after many years, to my editorial work on Władysław Dulęba’s translation of the Shahnameh into Polish, I come face to face with its old and new challenges. The editor’s task should be to maintain a balance between the interests of the author, the translator and the reader. Yet, a meticulous editorial work on the text demands some far-reaching interference in Dulęba’s translation and leads to the discovery of some further complications. Working on the text of Sohrab, one of the most popular stories of Ferdousi’s epos, one realizes, how imprecise the notion of authorial text in this case is. Although Ferdousi’s authorship raises no doubt, still the epic, which has been subject to oral-and-manuscript transmission for centuries, reached us as a multiform literary product. While dealing with the questionable places of the translation, the editor falls into the trap of multiple versions of almost each passage. Additionally, some longer fragments, omitted in the translation as doubtful, turn out to expand the story with some valuable details which connect it to a broader epic context. Should they be included? Should the text be presented to the reader as a strictly delimited one author’s work, or as an open-sided text of culture, with a broader spectrum of implementations? What kind of reader do we have in mind, when making these decisions?

 

Leezenberg Michiel (University of Amsterdam, Netherlands) 

Ehmedê Xanî's love story Mem û Zîn, written in the late 17th century CE in Kurmanji or Northern Kurdish, was originally intended for a medrese or Quranic school audience schooled in religious learning and Islamic mysticism; but in the late 19th century, it was consecrated as the Kurdish national epic. In the 20th century, it acquired and uncontested status as an expression of Kurdish national identity and aspirations. As a result, a number of translations into various languages started appearing. These language include Russian, Turkish, English, French, German, Persian, and even several varieties of modern Kurdish. 

In this talk, I will briefly discuss these translations, and discuss whether and to what extent they have contributed to elevating, or canonizing, this poem to the status of world literature. In this context, I will also discuss some theoretical points concerning exactly what 'world literature' as recently reconceived by David Damrosch and others, and criticized by Hamid Dabashi and others, amounts to. I will also discuss the question of how 'subaltern' or 'minor' languages like Kurdish may be emancipated, or 'decolonized,' through processes of translation. 

 

Maksymiv Olha (Ivan Franko Lviv University, Ukraine)

The presentation will focus on translations from oriental languages, made by Lviv University's teachers. The study of oriental languages began here after 1817. The 1920s can be considered the heyday of Lviv orientalism and its Warsaw-Lviv-Petersburg school.

In 1938, the Institute of Oriental Studies at the Faculty of Humanities had nine departments where 36 oriental languages were taught. Subsequently, the department was abolished, and the teaching of oriental languages at Lviv University officially ceased.

As it turned out later, it continued its life, but it was fragmentary and only thanks to the ascetic activities of individual enthusiasts. The most significant, consistent, and steadfast of them was Yarema Yevhenovych Polotniuk. For a long time and with constant interruptions, he taught optional courses in Arabic and Persian at the university. He was also an active translator of Persian and Arabic into Ukrainian. He made many of his poetic translations in collaboration with Mykola Ilnytskyi. Y. Polotniuk revived Iranian and Arabic studies in Lviv, which is as good as the previous school. He is also a well-known translator of the Qur'an. This presentation will focus on his translations from Arabic and Persian into Ukrainian.

When the Department of Oriental Studies was finally established at the Faculty of Philology of the Ivan Franko National University of Lviv in 1997, translations from oriental languages intensified. A brilliant master of words, Roman Hamada, appeared. In this presentation, we will focus on his translations from Persian into Ukrainian. We will also mention translations from Japanese and Chinese into Ukrainian.

 

Malenka Tetiana (Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, Ukraine) 

Owing to pioneering enlightening activities of Ukrainian writers-democrats of the end of 19- beginning of 20 century - I.Franko, L.Ukrainka, A.Krymskyi - the proces of discovery and translation of Oriental poetry in Ukraine started. The new stage in ukrainian study of Hafez' ghazals were Ukrainian poetic translations and researches of A.Krymskyi. He called Hafez along with Khayyam the most featured expression of the view system and the spirit of Persian Classic Poetry. A.Krymskyi's heritage concerning Hafez could be divided into three periods between the years of 1891 and 1924: Early period (1891-1895), Middle period (1898-1916), Final period (1917- 1924).

The most vivid and artistically valuable synthesis result for A.Krymskyi were translations of Hafez' poetry that A Krymskyi worked over for more than 30 years.  Basic features of his method in these translations were the most perfected. Hafez' baits he translates with usual quatrain, rhymed a-b-a-b-a-b or a-b-c-b-c-b and with the same strophe of rhythmically cut 2th and 4th lines.

Moreover, in his translations we would meet feminine and well as muscular, dactylic and associative  rhyme. Stylistically these translations are very open, filled with folk vocabulary, vowels and repetitions, colloquial expressions and phrases, that allowed A.Krymskyi to create really vital, very special linguistic structure. It is necessary to stress that translation adaptation of traditional and features of Persian lyrics by A.Krymskyi was little unfulfilling - it doesn't carry its real view system reflected i images used. And vice versus, it is more noticeable in his translations and oriental poetry relying on traditions of Ukrainian, Slavic and overall  European poetry.

 

Marlewicz Halina (Jagiellonian University in Kraków, Poland)

Raja Rammohan Roy (1772(?)-1833), born in Bengal into a rich Bramin family, became famous for his role as ‘the father of modern India’, the social activist of the colonial period, the Hindu revivalist, one of the principal characters of what became later known as the Bengal Renaissance, a unique cultural and social revolution, which awakened “the Indian mind to new intellectual, creative, social and political possibilities” 2 in British colonial Bengal of the nineteenth century. An exceptionally gifted and creative man, well-read in Bengali, Persian, Sanskrit, and English, Roy was a prolific writer, who reflected on, argued for, or against sociocultural, philosophical, and religious ideas of different traditions, and often asserted his own position against them. His translations from Sanskrit into English include the Vedāntasāra, a philosophical compendium of the classical system f the Vedānta, which he published under the much telling title Abridgement of the Vedant, or the Resolution of all the Veds, The Most Celebrated and Revered Work of Brahmnical Theology; Establishing the Unity of the Supreme Being; and That He Alone is the Object of Propitiation and Worship. He also authored and introduced English translations of several Upaniṣads, Sanskrit philosophical and religious works of the late Vedic period. In my presentation, I shall focus on a few excerpts from Roy’s Sanskrit translations in English. The fragments will be analysed and interpreted from the perspective of specific crosscultural transgressions understood as the personal-ideological interventions of the translator detectable in his English version of the original.

 

Mazepova Olena (Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, Ukraine) 

The object of this study is the Persian politeness system named ta’ārof, which is sometimes, in a broader sense, regarded as the Persian cultural complex, because in fact it reflects much more than simple polite interaction, due to its comprehensive nature and decisive influence on all types of social communication in Iran. It seems that without knowledge of this system, successful communication between non-native Persian speakers and native Persian speakers is impossible. Ta’ārof includes a broad complex of behaviours infusing Iran’s social and cultural life, and is used for both marking differences in social status and harmonising the communications of speakers who are equal in social status. The word taʿārof is derived from Arabic into Persian, and comes from the Arabic root عرف [ʿarafa], which means ‘to know’. Although in Arabic ta’ārof literally means ‘becoming acquainted’, after coming into Persian its semantic field grew considerably, and the word now has several meanings. For example, the Aryanpur Persian-English dictionary suggests a wide range of them, including ‘compliment(s)’, ‘ceremony’, ‘offer’, ‘gift’, ‘flummery’, ‘courtesy’, ‘flattery’, ‘formality’, ‘good manners’, ‘soft tongue’, ‘honeyed phrases’, ‘respect’ and renders ta’ārof kardan (i.e. to do ta’ārof) as ‘to use compliments’, ‘to stand upon ceremony’, ‘to make a present’, ‘to speak with courtesy’, ‘to use honeyed phrases (soft tongue)’ (Aryanpur & Aryanpour 1986: 306-307). Therefore, translating this term is a fundamentally difficult task since it has no one-word equivalent in other languages.

Many Iranian researchers have paid a lot of attention to classification of the concepts forming the system of ta’ārof. The author of this study suggests her own classification, which includes two conceptual fields: Face and Hospitality. The main concepts forming the conceptual field of Face are Honor (āberu) and Modesty (forutani). The latter includes two cultural schemes, namely shekastenafsi and rudarbāyesti (col. form – rudarvāsi). The main attention in the study is paid to the analysis of translatability of the term rudarbāyesti. In dictionaries the word rudarbāyesti has a wide range of meanings, for example: ‘standing on ceremonies’, ‘having shame’, ‘being shy’, ‘being embarrassed’, and ‘self-restraint’ (Aryanpour & Aryanpour 1986: 434).

 

Michalak Mirosław (University of Warsaw, Poland) 

Translation of texts written in ancient languages that are no longer in use or the so called dead languages has been for ages an important way of communicating with the common lore of the past. In Europe it has traditionally been related to Greek and Latin, and to some extent to Hebrew. However, it by no means is confined only to our literary heritage, as other communities have similar traditions in this regard. On the ground of Iranian linguistics the study of extinct languages is a vast research area of its own, covering many Old and Middle Iranian languages, including Middle Persian (sometimes called Pahlavi). This paper deals with lurking challenges which a reader of Middle Persian texts has to face on his way. As far as translation is concerned, there exist many obstacles and drawbacks in obtaining the right outcome: nominal clause, ergative construction, extensive use of pronouns (esp. pronominal suffixes attached to prepositions), double terms, Avestan and New Persian influences, considerable number of words that lack established meaning, precarious condition of modern translations, lack of dictionaries. In fact, the long journey from reading the text to relevant translation is a painstaking task with many traps and riddles which appear at the very beginning, even while dealing with the printed text.

 

Milewska Iwona (Jagiellonian University in Kraków, Poland) 

The paper is a short survey of the attempts to translate fragments of Sanskrit epics to Polish. It covers only the non-direct methods. The examples analyzed are included in the book “Historya Literatury Indyjskiej” published in 1901. Its author was Julian Adolf Święcicki. The topics discussed in particular are:

- sources of author’s information on India and its literature

- the description of the range of the translations of the epics to the European languages as used by Święcicki

- the Polish versions of fragments of Indian epic literature as comprised in the book

 

Mirmokri Manijeh (Sanandaj University, Iran) 

The translation of literary works from Kurdish and Farsi into English, and vice versa, presents unique problems and barriers for each, particularly in the context of poetry, where aesthetic significance and intricate cultural elements play a significant role. This presentation attempts to offer insights into the complex nature of translation across these languages, focusing on a variety of translated works, and explores specific issues with which the translators encounter in this process, along with the strategies they employ to navigate these challenges. To achieve this, three distinct sets of data have been examined: a selection of Pashew's poems (Kurdish to Persian and English), Bukowski's poems (English to Kurdish and Persian) and Forough's poems (Persian to Kurdish and English). Drawing upon Newmark's (1988) framework for the classification of cultural factors and elements as a framework, the study initially has isolated these elements from the original compositions using purposeful sampling and then has juxtaposed them with their translations in order to clarify which of the methods of Vladimir Iver's model (1987) used by the translators. The preliminary statistical results indicated that the most frequently employed method by the respective translators was substitution, followed by the use of literal translation and borrowing, with the additional use of neologisms and explanatory footnotes in the Kurdish translations. Moreover, it becomes apparent that the successful transfer of cultural elements from the original text to the target text may also be influenced by the social status of the languages, in addition to the translator's capabilities. These results also illustrate how translators encounter fewer challenges when translating cultural elements in closely related languages.

 

Nasalski Ignacy (Jagiellonian University in Kraków, Poland) 

Is it possible to translate literary texts in a way that allows to maintain full equivalence at all translatological levels: linguistic level, content level and aesthetic level? Is it possible to reflect the syntactic aspects, lexical nuances, content depth and formal beauty at the same time? Even if we assume that it is theoretically conceivable, the practical challenges make the goal almost unattainable. And the scale of difficulties increases immeasurably when the literary values are interwoven into the very religious and mystical composition of the text. And such is the case with the Koran. Its powerful authority and influence it exerts on millions of people are based, among others, on an interplay between what is expressed in a clearly understood language, and what is hidden behind expressions and formulas, the meaning of which is blurred or obscure. The translator faces then the challenge to resolve not only the usual translational difficulties, but also to find the right balance between the necessary clarity of the expressed thoughts, which is a precondition for intelligibility, and the vagueness of content contained in the original, which should also be mirrored in translation.

 

Nowakowska Monika (University of Warsaw, Poland) 

The communal endeavour of our group translation of the war books of the Mahabharata into Polish has been a great opportunity to reconsider and categorize the main factors influencing the way one can approach and work with the translated material. In view of my interpretative experiences with various types of Sanskrit texts over the years, from philosophical to epic, I propose in this paper to differentiate the translated source texts in terms of their i) form, ii) transmission, and iii) contextuality. Under i) I point out first of all the differences in working with canonized and non canonized literature. At ii) I consider different interpretative processes involved in the translation of oral and written literature. And finally, under iii) I discuss, with exempla, difficulties of approaching highly contextualized literary sources.

 

Skakuj Puri Maria (Independent scholar & Translator, Delhi, India)

The paper looks at the Polish translation of Geetanjali Shree’s Hindi novel Ret Samadhi (2018). Published in English as The Tomb of Sand (2021), the book brought its author a worldwide acclaim in the form of Booker International Prize (2022). The current project, involving two translators — Monika Browarczyk and Maria Puri — is a brainchild of a Warsaw-based publishing house, Tajfuny, with the book scheduled to appear in Poland in 2025. As one of the two translators, I propose to discuss the pitfalls of translating literary texts into a language belonging to a different cultural milieu while at the same time trying to successfully relocate the imaginary world created by the writer onto a different literary practice. With this in view, I discuss the current work of translation keeping in mind concepts such as translator’s habitus (Simeoni 1998), politics of translation (Spivak 2012), domestication versus foreignization (Venuti 1995), decision-making in translation (Jiri 200), “semantic dominant” (Barańczak 2004), visual image and its verbal counterpart (Tabakowska 2015), partatextual interventions, and others. Besides delving into reasons for choosing certain solutions and privileging some practices over others, I would also like to make an argument why in certain situations it is thought pertinent to introduce footnotes/endnotes or glossary to facilitate reception (Gürçaģlar 2018).

Bibliography

• Barańczak, Stanisław. 2004. Ocalone w tłumaczeniu. Szkice o warsztacie tłumacza poezji z dodatkiem małej antologii przekładów-problemów. 3th enlarged edition. Kraków: Wydawnictwo a5.

• Chakravarty Spivak, Gayatri. 2012. “The Politics of Translation”, in Outside in the Teaching Machine, Routledge, New York and London, first Indian reprint, pgs. 200-225.

• Gürçaģlar, Şehnaz Tahir. 2018. “The translator as subject: literary translator biographies, memoirs and paratexts.” In Washbourne, Kelly and Van Wyke, Ben, eds. The Routledge Handbook of Literary Translation, London and New York, Routledge. p. 524-537.

• Levy, Jiri. 2000 (1st ed. 1967). “Translation as a Decision Process”. In: The Translation Studies Reader, edited by Lawrence Venuti. London and New York: Routledge.

• Simeoni, Daniel. 1998. “The Pivotal Status of the Translator’s Habitus.” Target10 (1): 1–39

• Tabakowska, Elżbieta. 2015. “Myśl językoznawcza z myślą o przekładzie”, ed. Piotr de Bończa Bukowski and Magda Hydel, Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Jagielońskiego, Kraków; p.21-32; the essay was originally published in two-monthly journal “Arka” 1991, number 34, p.52-61;

• Venuti, Lawrence. 1995. The Invisibility of Translator. London and New York: Routledge.

 

Rakowiecka-Asgari Karolina (Jagiellonian University in Kraków, Poland) 

The paper discusses the challenges and constraints associated with translating social satire from Persian to Polish, using the example of Oh, Land Full of Treasures (Ey marz-e por-gouhar), a lengthy poem by Foruq Farroxzād. Despite Farroxzād being translated more frequently and attracting more interest than most contemporary Iranian poets, this particular poem has not yet been translated. Moreover, she is not recognized by Polish readers as a satirist. Introducing this intriguing aspect of her poetry poses challenging issues for translators. While some satirical elements of the poem are easily relatable regardless of the specific social contexts of the Pahlavi dynasty era in Iran, others, such as proper names, allusions to specific events and customs, or language games, require a reconsideration of translation strategies. In analyzing the effectiveness of specific strategies, the paper raises questions about the limitations of translating social satire and explores ways to overcome them, including those involving the familiar satiric repertoire.

 

Sarikaya Cafer (Boğaziçi University, Istanbul, Türkiye) 

The Chicago World’s Columbian Exposition in 1893 was organized by the United States for the celebration of the 400th anniversary of the discovery of America by Christopher Columbus. It was considered as being one of the most important international exhibitions was known in the United Kingdom as Great Exhibitions, in France as Expositions Universelles and in the United States as World’s Fairs. The Ottoman Empire was officially invited by the United States of America to the exhibition on the 19th of February in 1891. After the invitation, preparations were set in place for the exhibition to be scheduled and displayed for a total of six months and lasting from May the 1st to October the 30th during the year of 1893. Without any delay the Ottoman Empire established a commission for the preparations of the “Turkish Village” project and the Jewish architect Robert Louis Levy presented a project for the Turkish Village which was accepted by the Ottoman commission. The Turkish Village was the largest compound on the Midway Plaisance entertainment area of the fair, with about 200 employees consisted of the Ottoman Jewish, Christian and Muslim people living in the Empire. The World’s Columbian Exposition generated an important monthly newspaper Musavver Şikago Sergisi (The Chicago Fair Illustrated) which was the first publication of a newspaper in Turkish in the United States of America. In the first volume of publication the aim of the paper was explained as “the aim of establishing a printing press and publishing this newspaper is to bring the exhibition to the notice of those who cannot come to Chicago. In other words, we hope that people examining our newspaper, even if they could not be there in person will in a way be visiting the exhibition in their minds by reading about all its wonders and interesting aspects in detail.” The editor of this newspaper was a Syrian intellectual called Süleyman el-Bustânî and the writer was Mehmed Ubeydullah Efendi. Süleyman el-Bustânî, Lebanese politician, journalist and writer, was a nephew of Butrus el-Bustânî (1819-1883) who was a notable Arabic writer and scholar from present day Lebanon. Süleyman el-Bustânî was famous for translating Homer’s Iliad into Arabic, introducing its poetic style into the Arabic language. He had a good education and he knew numerous languages which are Arabic, Syriac, Turkish, English, French, Greek, German, Italian, Persian, Russian, Latin, Hebrew and Sanskrit. On the other hand, he was a statesman; teacher, poet, historian and he worked as a director for some newspapers during his lifetime. He went to Basra in 1876 and then passed to Baghdad where he was a member of the Trade Court. He visited Arabia for long periods while he was in Basra and Baghdad and this let him the opportunity to know the traditions and customs of Bedouins. He returned to Beirut in 1885, worked there in publishing, doing different work, he had to make some visits to Istanbul, Egypt, India, Iran, and Baghdad. He was sent to Chicago where he published Musavver Şikago Sergisi,

a special review published in Ottoman (Arabic, Turkish, and Persian) language, which was also officially recognized by the Ottoman Imperial Commission as well as the first publication of a newspaper in Turkish prepared in the United States of America. It was followed not only in Chicago but also in Istanbul due to the fact that the progress of the exhibition was being followed there also. As Öykü Potuoğlu-Cook point out both propagandist and educational, Musavver Şikago Sergisi targeted both the Ottoman citizens at home and on the Exposition grounds while providing celebratory and critical reviews of the Fair with a special focus on its expenditures.

 

Schaefer Vance, Warhol Tamara (University of Mississippi, MS, United States) 

The social nuances of speech styles [e.g., (im)politeness registers, regional dialects, sociolects of gender, LGBTQIA+ sexuality, neurodivergence] in one language can be difficult to translate into another language. Japanese media (TV shows, movies, anime, manga) manipulate multiple first-/second-/third-person pronouns, sentence-final particles, and verb forms associated to particular speech styles to create character identities, define relationships, express stance, and more. These speech styles allow viewers to follow dialogue and storylines by adding nuanced meaning. For instance, regional variations of the be-copula help viewers identify government forces (da) versus anti-government rebels (ja) against locals in Kyoto (ya) (Rurouni Kenshin on Netflix). Shifting between verb forms (e.g., polite to casual) can show inner dialogue when juxtaposed against formal language whereas shifting between pronouns (e.g., omae versus kimi) may demonstrate evolving relationships and/or changes in stance (The Door into Summer) or impose heteronormative relationships on gay relationships (What did you Eat Yesterday). Finally, difficult-to-translate pronunciation contributes to a show’s soundscape, e.g., trilled /r/ indicates belligerence, pitch fluctuation and range shows politeness levels.

However, these indexical features are generally lost in English translations of subtitles and dubbed dialogues (Schaefer & Warhol, forthcoming), resulting in one-dimensional characters, flatter interactions, and blurred storylines; erasing voices of marginalized groups (e.g., LGBTQIA+); and perpetuating an image of a monolithic Japan. The role of English as a pivot language (e.g., translating Japanese into English and then, into a third language) limits translation of languages like Thai that may have similar linguistic features (e.g., multiple pronouns, sentence-final particles). This presentation 1) compares translations of various speech styles and their indexical features used in Japanese shows on streaming platforms into English and Thai subtitles and dubbed dialogues and the possible effect of English as a pivot language and 2) explores the influence of subtitling/dubbing constraints (e.g., timing, accents, written limitations) on translation.

References

• Schaefer, V., & Warhol, T. (forthcoming). Subtitling and dubbing out diversity: Expressing (evolving) identities, relationships, and stances in Japanese through translating underrepresented linguistic repertoires and codeswitching/styleshifting. In T.-Y. Lin (Ed.), Multiculturalism, Literature and Translation in East Asia (pp. 00-00). London: Routledge.

 

 

Sellmer Sven (Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznań, Poland) 

Formulaic language is a widespread phenomenon and constitutes a major problem for translators. It will be tackled here from the perspective of translating the Sanskrit epics, which – as will be shown – share many traits with the texts where it has been first diagnosed and described, namely, their Homeric counterparts. The proposed paper will discuss the role of formulaic language both in the context of oral poetry and of post-oral epic literature. Based on the different functions of formulaic language for different kinds of epic works and of the function of epic poetry as such, several possible translation strategies will be presented and discussed

 

Szczechla Aleksandra (Jagiellonian University in Kraków, Poland) 

Arishima Takeo's story belongs to the trend of naturalistic literature. In Japanese literature, it is a unique case of showing nature as an insurmountable and hostile force. The story shows the dramatic living conditions of poor tenant farmers cultivating land belonging to unimaginably wealthy landowners. The action of the story takes place in the difficult natural conditions of the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido, where only the local names bring to mind the past associated with the indigenous Ainu people. One of the interesting aspects of the translation is the question of how the language reflects the violent character of nature. The difficulty of translating a hundred-year-old text lies, among other things, in conveying social and regional relations, local names and address forms, including vulgarisms. In my presentation I will compare the original with its English translation and my own attempt at a Polish translation.

 

Szczurek Przemysław (Univeristy of Wrocław, Poland)

The observations in this paper have arisen as a result of the author’s work on the translation of Book 9 of the Mahābhārata, the great ancient Indian epic composed in Sanskrit. This endeavour is part of a larger group project, i.e. an annotated translation into Polish of the so-called battle books of the Mahābhārata (6–11). Efforts to include the Polish version of the Śalyaparvan in metrical translation are outlined. (The co-translator of this book, Andrzej Babkiewicz, rendered the middle part of the book in the similar way.) The eight-syllable meter was used with the intention to imitate śloka, a typical Sanskrit epic meter (4 pādas or quarters of metric measure x 8 syllables). The eleven-syllable meter is to replace the much less frequently used triṣṭubh (4 x 11 syllables), and the twelve-syllable meter replaces the Sanskrit jagatī (4 x 12 syllables), which appears very rarely in the epic. When trying to compose the rhythm of the translated verses, the author of the translation was greatly helped by his childhood and youthful, i.e. school readings of some masters of Polish rhyming and rhythmic literature. Attention was then paid to this specific source of inspiration and its impact on the translator’s work.     

 

Święcicka Elżbieta (Stockholm, Sweden)  

In the Rogge Library’s manuscript department, Sweden. A small book is listed under the title Turkisk Dictionair, skriven vid Bender af P. Carling, Holmensis in Suecia.

Developing expertise in the Turkish language in Europe and creating dictionaries was usually the result of missionary needs and peregrinations or long stays of Europeans in Turkish captivity. It was different in the case of Petter Carling.

After the defeat of the Swedish king, Charles XII at Poltava in 1709, Carling managed to escape from Russian captivity and joined the King who had obtained asylum in the Ottoman Empire. Petter Carling was appointed Field Commissioner in 1711, responsible for the functioning of the camp and further plans to organize a Swedish-Turkish expedition to Russia.

If there was to be any prospect of success, it was of the utmost importance that the King's plans should remain secret. On-site in Varnitsa/Bender, knowledge of Turkish was needed to handle the daily contacts and communicate with the envoys of the potential allies. A distrust of local interpreters and the desire to be able to control the translations could be one of the reasons why Carling decided or was ordered by the King to learn Turkish and to write a dictionary.

This small book of 228 handwritten unpaginated pages contains drafts detailing a possible force and its cost that, under Charles XII's leadership, could be used in the political power game under the heading Calculation over Krieg and an alphabetically ordered Swedish wordlist with their Turkish equivalents.

The next part of Carling's notes is Turkiska Galanterier, short phrases in rhyme, which could be uttered when it was necessary to start an acquaintance, following the Turkish savoir vivre to initiate not necessarily professional contacts. These folk poetry's typical 74 rhyme forms á la türkü, i.e. usually four verse stanzas, are composed in syllabic meter, as a playful game between sounds, words, and images.

About a thousand alphabetically ordered entries are written in the Latin alphabet, with elements of Swedish spelling, therein meeting the requirement to define them as ‘transcription texts’. It does not appear that Carling had access to any European dictionary as a model. Carling’s notes on the pronunciation of Turkish words in poems and in the dictionary are interesting from a linguistic point of view. Carling's glossary of many practical words for food, drink, weights, money, material things, plants, animals and health, easily, meets the criteria of a true ‘flesh and blood dictionary’

 

Thite Ganesh Umakat (Bhandarkar O.R. Institute, Pune, India) 

During the last two hundred years a great number of Marathi works including dramas have been translated from Marathi into Sanskrit. Many of them were performed on stage also. All these efforts are of the nature of "by the amateurs, for the amateurs and of the amateurs". Very few of these translations were printed and published. Most of these translations are characterised by Sanskrit defective from the point of view of grammar and prosody. In this paper the problems in translation are discussed. A few examples of good translations are also pointed out.

 

Trynkowska Anna (University of Warsaw, Poland)

From 2017 to 2023, together with a group of colleagues from the University of Warsaw, the University of Wrocław and the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, I participated in a translation project to make Books 1-8, or the so-called battle books, of the great Sanskrit epic Mahābhārata available to the Polish reader. I undertook the task of translating Book 8, the Book of Karṇa (Karṇaparvan), which I decided to render in Polish prose. In the present paper, I would like to discuss a few specific challenges that I had to face while working on the project. Since my main field of interest is the later, more artful classical Sanskrit literature (kāvya) rather than the great Sanskrit epics, some of the issues which I encountered were new to me. On the other hand, some problems were surprisingly familiar, e.g. those related to the translation of synonyms, words and phrases with double meaning, similes, etc. I will focus here on the latter group to show how looking at the Mahābhārata from the perspective of a kāvya specialist can influence the translation of the epic.

 

Varga Magdalena (Jagiellonian University in Kraków, Poland)

The aim of this study is to provide a comprehensive description of popular Hindi invectives that are based on kinship terms, such as sālā (brother-in-law) and sasur (father-in-law), or contain a kinship term as their main component, such as beṭīcod (having sex with his daughter), which have no exact counterparts in other languages.

The study is divided into two parts to ensure coherence and reliability. The initial section examines the social and cultural context of India, encompassing family dynamics and relationships, as well as the role of women within the community. This approach helps to understand the implicit meanings and connotations of different terminologies.

The second part of the study discusses the challenges of translating kinship terms into languages of societies with different family models than India and where patriarchal mentality cannot be easily expressed in language. This section is supported by literary and cinematic examples that illustrate the various contexts in which the invectives are used, facilitating their accurate interpretation and translation.

 

Vytychak Ulyana (Ivan Franko Lviv University, Ukraine)

 The First Ukrainian translations of Japanese poetry

The aim of the paper is to research peculiarities of the first Ukrainian translations of Japanese poetry. We analyzed texts of few collections: "Japanese lyrics of the feudal age" by O. Kremen, (1931); "One Hundred Poets - One Hundred Songs: A Collection of Ancient Japanese Poetry: Tanka" by I. Shankovskyi (1966); "Songs of distant islands: re-singings from Japanese lyrics" by N. Ripetskyi (1969). According to the aim we solved the following tasks: • to analyze the forms and means of translation of Japanese poetry into Ukrainian. • to find the main features of the first Ukrainian translations of Japanese poetry • to observe the place and the influence of this translation on the development of translation of Japanese literature; To achieve the goal we used complex methods and generalization of results. Conclusions. We made an attempt to research the collections of Japanese poetry translated into Ukrainian by O. Kremen, I. Shankovskyi, N. Ripetskyi and to outline methods of translation used by them.

 

Wójcik Agnieszka (Jagiellonian University in Kraków, Poland) 

“The Little Prince” (“Le Petit Prince”) of French author Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, written in 1943, is one of the most translated books in the world, with 570 translations into different languages and dialects. The paper will focus on Dr Gopabandhu Mishra's translation of the book into Sanskrit, which was first published in 2013. The aim of the paper will be to compare the Sanskrit version with the French original as well as the English translations of the book, in an attempt to determine what its source text was. The paper will also analyse the difficulties of translation into Sanskrit and examine the choices made by the translator in the use of the Sanskrit language.