Aloha mai! It has been a while since I last posted, but life has been busy and crazy. As a means of balancing the crazy with peace and good feels, I enjoy translating. I am probably so-so at it, but I have wanted to be a translator almost as much as I wanted to be a writer. So in an effort to get closer to that goal, I intend to release a serial translation of one of my favorite books of all time, Tokyo Fiancée by Amélie Nothomb. (no promises though)
I discovered this book many years ago by accident as I was looking for something to read at the University of Washington Bookstore. I liked the cover and picked it up. I was instantly hooked because I have long had a fascination with the Japanese and French languages and cultures. And here was a book that blended the two! Now the author is actually Belgian, a French-speaking country with its own culture, but there is a lot of French concepts (lots of philosophy) in Tokyo Fiancée. Then I discovered, also completely by accident, the original French version, Ni d’Eve ni d’Adam (Neither Eve nor Adam). I absolutely loved it the French version as well.
Over time I came to enjoy reading texts in their original languages more and more. While I have read short, children’s books in Japanese and Mandarin, the foreign languages that I read in primarily are French, Spanish and (one very short, very simple book so far in) Portuguese. And Hawaiian.
And here is where my desire to translate and share my translation of Ni d’Eve ni d’Adam, Ka Ipo No Tōkiō Mai, comes from. There are so few books to read in Hawaiian, and the bulk that are available are old (though RICH in history) like Kawelo, Lāʻieikawai and Hiʻiakaikapoliopele – all of which I’ve read. There are lots of newspapers to read, including translations of Ivanhoe, but again these are old and don’t help us come to terms with the world we live in. When I go looking for books to read, I am always upset that there aren’t many Hawaiian books to choose from. Keao Nesmith has recently released his translation of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone – which I’ve already ordered and whose title translates to “Philosopher’s Stone” per the original version – but it’s more sharing of the same types of narratives. AND, horror of horrors, most translations from foreign languages pass through English, since it is the lingua franca today. So a book originally written in Chinese that a Swahili speaker wants to read who most likely be a two-part process: Chinese to English, then English to Swahili. But anyone who has studied a foreign language even casually can tell you that English is devoid of some of the rich linguistic textures found in other languages. And all translators (myself included) invariably bring tacit bias to their translations, so the Swahili translation is likely to be very different from the original Chinese. You can just imagine the problems that is likely to cause.
So my desire in this endeavor is this: circumvent English completely and translate a new, delightful story directly from the source language (in this case, French) to the target language (Hawaiian). This process was fraught with difficulty – but also ecstasy, because translation is a rewarding kind of problem-solving with many, many possible solutions. Whether I have succeeded is up to the readers, of which there are few. I hope to teach and learn from this process, but most of all, I hope to inspire others to share and release their own stories and translations with those of us who are excited to experience different voices and revel in different dreams. I love English, but that doesn’t mean it is the only means for conveying stories.
Translation Notes:
Hawaiian, having been banned for more than a hundred years, has yet to undergo the seismic changes to lexicon, phonemic inventory, syntax and pragmatics – to name a few areas – to enable it to serve us well in today’s tech-driven world, which is equally dominated by abstractions. It is for this reason that concepts like the following are not yet paʻa (determined, well defined) in the Hawaiian lexicon. Literal translations provided in parens:
- hilinaʻi kau maikaʻi “optimism” (faith placed in good)
- hua Pākē – “Chinese character (“kanji/hànzi)” (Chinese character/word)
- kālaialapolokikele “ballistics” (study of projectile trajectory)
- ʻolohani pōloli “hunger strike” (hungry strike “all hands”)
- ʻēheu ʻākau loa “right-winger” (far right wing)
In some cases, translating the concept wouldn’t, in my opinion, yield as good a return as simply borrowing it in, most often from English, but where I for one am all about being faithful to the source language. Therefore, Japanese concepts I try to borrow in from Japanese, and French from French – to the extent that these concepts/words have entered into the English-speaking sphere. For, it goes without saying, that today, just about all Hawaiian speakers also speak English. Here are some of these transliterations:
- siuwā “silver” (keleawe can mean any metal, including brass and copper)
- kanewā “canvas”
- bele gona “gong (bell)”
- siteronela “citronella”
- sanitariama “sanitarium”
- samurai “samurai”
- spedi “spade” (original peki doesn’t convey enough, IMO)
- supa “soup” (and also stū “stew/thick soup”, since kū is already so overloaded)
- Naita Temepala “Knight(s) Templar”
- tabu “tub” (original kapu feels too sacred, IMO)
Finally, we have extensions of existing words and combinations:
- hoʻomodele – “to act like a model, specifically, to pose for a picture”
- hoʻokepanī – “to act like a Japanese person”
- sūpākūʻai – “supermarket”
- puʻukaua mōʻaui – “reactionary stronghold”
Finally, where possible I have tried to maintain the flavor of the original by leveraging ʻŌlelo Noʻeau as well as extension of these, in phrases like the following:
- ʻAʻole e ʻelepaio ʻia ana kēia waʻa. Literally: “This canoe will not be ʻelepaio’d.” Meaning: I won’t give up so easily. I won’t be derailed or discouraged so easily. Story: When looking for trees to make waʻa out of, kahuna would avoid any that the ʻelepaio had marked, because it meant the wood wasn’t solid.
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Ua nokenoke akula au ma ka ʻai ā manō mumule, ʻaʻohe nānā i ke kumu pali. Literally: “I strived to eat like a silent shark, without looking at the base of the pali.” Meaning: “I went right to work eating with silent gusto with complete disregard for the host.” Story: The ʻŌN at the heart of this is ” ʻai ā manō, ʻaʻohe nānā i ke kumu pali” meaning “to eat heartily without thinking of the host who prepared the food.” The original has a shade of disapproval, which doesn’t carry over in my translation.
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Eia au i kahua o Maliʻo e hoʻonuʻa ana iaʻu iho ma ka ʻai pākahi ʻana iho i nā fūiū. Literally: “Here I am at the foundation of Maliʻo indulging myself by eating the fuyu persimmons one by one.” Meaning: “Here I am on cloud nine…” Story: This ʻŌN refers to kahua o Maliʻo – a “place of happiness, comfort, pleasure (named for Maliʻo, a mythical woman renowned for entertaining with music and for her ability in love magic.”
If you have ideas for better translations or different ways of thinking of difficult translations or have questions about your own translation woes, share them with me.
Thanks!
(Ka Ipo No Tōkiō Mai will commence in the next post.)
Ryan Keawekane 