THE ART OF TRANSLATION: HOW IT ALL BEGAN
THE ART OF TRANSLATION: HOW IT ALL BEGAN

Summary/Abstract: Translation is a science and a profession that has a long history. According to the Bible at the dawn of human civilization all people spoke one language but when the God got angry with people he mixed their languages in such a way that they couldn’t understand each other. And since that time the need in interpretation and translation appeared. With the development of human society the art of translation has developed as well. Many writers who know foreign languages are good translators. Translation defined as “the rendering from one language into another” illuminates both the cultural otherness at stake in contemporary studies of nationhood and the epistemological otherness at work in language itself. It requires attention to cultural values, to economic and political inequalities, to individual choices, and to otherness in its linguistic and cultural forms. The effort to render one language system into another requires a keen awareness of broad cultural as well as specific linguistic values. The present paper proposes to provide readers with some information about the beginning of translation activities in schools of translation, which were founded in China, India, Baghdad, and Toledo. Translators opened all the ancient arts and sciences to the world not only philosophy, astronomy, and geometry, but also mathematics, medicine, optics, alchemy, and astrology. As Giordano Bruno himself would say: “From translation all science had its off-spring”. The patron saint of translators throughout the world is considered to be St. Jerome, the bible translator, therefore the International Translation Day is celebrated on 30 September, St. Jerome’s Day.

• Details
• Contents