The Game is going on: A, B and C languages in translation

Abstract

Let A be the language of the original work, B – the language of its translation, and C – another language connected with a country, whose realities and civilisation are discussed in the original. The translator of such a text should speak the C language quite well and should be an expert on the C civilisation. Recently, a lot of scholarly books have been translated from English into Polish, and there are some books concerning C languages and realities among them. Unfortunately, our translators neither can speak C languages nor know the first thing about C linguistic area realities. This paper attempts at the analysis of this situation and shows by way of example Polish translations of: And the Show Went on. Cultural Life in Nazi-occupied France by Alan Riding; Past Imperfect: French Intellectuals, 1944–1956, by Tony Judt (in postscript; A – English, B – Polish, C – French; see also footnote 3: C – Romanian). The major problems when translation errors emerge are the following: i) translation from C, e.g. in quotations; ii) C words mentioned and enumerated; iii) translation from C pertaining to the subject matter. Additionally, grammatical mistakes in Polish are made more frequently in translations than in original Polish texts.