Tag Dutch

In other words – writing, reading and literary translation

LisaTulfer Leave a comment

I have recently been working on a translation into English of a short story in Dutch.  It’s part of an ongoing project, and I am finding the process fascinating.  As a writer who is also a translator, there are a number of things going on at the same time when I undertake literary translation, and although the temptation is to say that much of it is instinctive, in fact there are layers of practice at work which I find it helpful to analyse and articulate.

Any translation has elements of decoding meaning from the source language (which in my case is Dutch) and encoding it in the target language (in my case, English).  Sound straightforward enough?  Well, not really, because the differences between how languages work, the building blocks that make up meaning – things like word order – mean that it’s not simply a case of grabbing a dictionary and swapping one word for another.  Also, you can’t just translate expressions and idioms literally, because the same idea may be expressed completely differently in the two languages.  For example, iets kennen als zijn broekzak literally translates as ‘knowing something like his trouser pocket’ – which makes no sense whatsoever in English.  The equivalent idiom in English would be ‘knowing something like the back of his hand’.

But what if the meaning of the text is made up, not only of dictionary words, or even idioms and colloquial phrases, but of subtle nuances of tone, sound, repetition, alliteration, rhythm, pace, and so on.  This is most obvious in translating poetry, of course, but any literary text is more than the sum of its words, and my challenge is to extract a sense of those extra layers of meaning and to convey that into English.  It is my job to write the short story in English which the original author would have written if they had been a native speaker of English.

This is, of course, impossible, but the best translations get so close to this ideal that the reader forgets that they are reading a translation.  This is what I am aiming for.  I need to identify and isolate the quirks, style and individual voice of the author and find a way of distilling that into an equivalent voice in English.  If the story reads as if I wrote it, then I’ve failed.

Ironically, I believe that it is the fact that I am a writer which equips me to do literary translation.  Finding my own voice, using all those tools of tone, sound, repetition, alliteration, rhythm, pace, and so on in my own writing, enables me to put that toolbox at the disposal of the author whose words I am translating.  Because I am a writer, I am well-placed to see the workings behind the scenes of the original text, to recognise what the author is doing, and to do what is necessary to create the corresponding effect in English.

It can be a slow process.  This is not like translating an online article about a new archaeological discovery, or even like translating a piece of academic writing.  Those kinds of texts are mainly about conveying the content.  The voice of the original author is rarely the main feature of the translation, and the task is to convey the information in appropriate, equivalent English.  It may take time to do the necessary research to find that appropriate equivalence – especially where there is specialised vocabulary involved – but it is not an especially lengthy process.  With literary translation, by contrast, I need to live with the text for a while before attempting to start translating it.  In the case of this short story, I first read it more than six months ago, and have gone back to it many times since.  I have it read straight through; read it for structure; for style; for vocabulary; for geographically-specific references (the author is Flemish, and the story is set in Antwerp).  I have marked up ‘problems’, passages where it is not immediately apparent how I should translate the text.  One particular phrase occupied me for a long time – in the end I decided to take a risk and move quite a long way from the literal meaning of the original Dutch word in order to create the same shock-value and controversy in English.  Re-reading my translation now, I am really pleased with the ‘solution’ to that particular ‘problem’.

There is a campaign ongoing in the translation and publishing industries at the moment to put ‘translators on the cover’ – in the vast majority of cases, literary translators are not named on the covers of the books they translate, even when these translations go on to win major book  prizes.  Often – in Anglophone markets, anyway – it is hard to know that the book you are reading is a translation.  At best, you might find the translator mentioned on the title page, but usually they will merely get a credit tucked away on the copyright page, which only the most nerdy amongst readers ever actually reads (I do – but I’m an ex-librarian and back in the day, when cataloguing was done manually, this was where you found the information you needed in order to catalogue a book).  If you live in an English-speaking country, you have probably read the work of literary translators without even realising it.  It is my hope that, having read this post, you may seek out the work of literary translators and enjoy the results of the process that I have described.  There is a whole world of books out there, and literary translators are the people who make it possible for you to read them in your own language.

Photograph of part of a page from a Dutch/English dictionary, showing the entries for 'vertalen' (to translate), 'vertaler' (translator) and 'vertaling' (translation).

I am committed to making this blog freely available, and not putting material behind a paywall. As a writer, I am doing what I love – but I still have to make a living. If you have enjoyed this post, and if you are able to do so, perhaps you would consider supporting my work by making a small contribution via the Buy Me A Coffee button. Thank you!

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Humans getting taller – is it all in the mind?

LisaTulfer Leave a comment

I recently listened to a programme on the BBC World Service which explored the reasons why humans have got taller in recent generations, and why people in some countries are generally taller than in others.  The programme grabbed me from its opening sentence, which asserted that the Netherlands was the tallest country for men (for women, Latvia just nudged ahead).  As I am half-Dutch, and have always been one of the tallest women amongst my friends and colleagues, this interested me.

There is not, it appears, a consensus as to the cause of this increase in height (nor is it consistent – in some places, such as the United Kingdom, the rate of increase has slowed markedly, and in others, such as Uganda, it has actually reversed).  There are two main theories: firstly, it’s genetic.  The predisposition to be tall is inherited, either individually or in certain groups of the population.  Secondly, it is attributed to the improvements in nutrition and healthcare during the past two centuries or so, together with (arguably) greater equality in society.  This, it is argued, explains why the historic differences in heights between the privileged classes and the poor (evidenced by archaeology) have narrowed in recent generations as nutrition and healthcare have improved in the general population.  This theory is also espoused by Dutch researchers, who attribute the Netherlands’ position as a country of unusually (by international standards) tall people to a national diet which is big on dairy produce, an excellent welfare state, and a more equal society.

I’m no scientist, so I’m not qualified to evaluate the detail, but on the face of it this second theory is quite plausible.  It also avoids the slightly queasy overtones of eugenics which inevitably attach to any theories which posit that one group of people is genetically better than another – and undoubtedly human society regards being tall as a Good Thing.  Small may be beautiful, but higher is better – just think for a moment about all the words and phrases which include ‘high’ – can you think of many that are negative?  Would you rather be high status or low status?  High class, high quality, the moral high ground, high-minded, the high life – altitude equals advantage.  Studies show that taller people are more successful, healthier, richer.  Taller men are deemed more attractive to women.  It has a wide range of psychological advantages – most humans equate height with status and leadership.  Who wouldn’t want to be tall?

The programme offers a third theory, however – that increased height is linked to increased optimism.  Where a society is hopeful about its future, its children and grandchildren grow taller.  Until fairly recently, the USA was the country with the tallest people – might this be a result of the American Dream?  The programme cited the case of Germany after the First World War, when the rigid stratifications of society broke down and there was the prospect that people could improve their situation.  So many children grew so tall that it was thought to be a medical problem, an abnormality.  Proponents of this theory cite sub-Saharan Africa, where height increased significantly in the middle of the 20th century, arguing that this was as a result of a wave of optimism after the end of colonialism; in many countries where there has been ongoing instability that trend has since reversed, with adults now being, on average, shorter than their grandparents.  Also, this theory suggests that the famous tallness of the Dutch was due to a surge of optimism in 1848, the ‘Year of Revolution’ in Europe which in the Netherlands saw the creation of a constitutional monarchy.

So – can tallness be caused by optimism, self-confidence, a positive view the future?  Could a physical change like this be the result of a psychological outlook – a psychological outlook on the part of a society or community, moreover, rather than the individual who is growing up tall?  I find it a fascinating idea.  I was born in the late 1960s, which was, I gather (I was a bit young at the time to experience it first hand), a time of optimism, social change and liberation.  More specifically, my parents were at that time turning their backs on the constraints of society and looking ahead to a life of fulfilling their dreams of travel and freedom.  My father (of Welsh ancestry and a working-class background) was born during the First World War and at 5’6” (168cm) was significantly taller than his parents or siblings.  My mother was a shade shorter than him, and the tallest person in her (Dutch) family was my grandfather (born in 1900 into a professional middle-class family), who had peaked at 5’7” (170cm).  By the age of 13 I was the same height as my grandfather, and a final growth spurt while at university took me to 5’ 7 ¾“ (172cm).

This makes me quite a bit taller than the average for a woman in the United Kingdom (figures vary, but it’s somewhere around 5’4” or 162cm), and also taller than the average for the Netherlands (5’6” or 168cm).  In the UK, it is very unusual for me not to be the tallest woman in the room – so much so that it’s quite disconcerting when I meet a woman who is taller than me.  I had always put my height down to Dutch genes and good nutrition – but what if it’s actually a product of being born to idealistic parents at a time of promise and societal optimism about the future?  And how does that fit with my mindset, which is definitely not positive or optimistic – wouldn’t it be the ultimate irony if my tall body was the product of a psychology that my mind doesn’t share?


Photo by Immo Wegmann on Unsplash

If you are interested in the programme which inspired this piece, it’s available to listen at https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w3ct064s.

I am committed to making this blog freely available, and not putting material behind a paywall. As a writer, I am doing what I love – but I still have to make a living. If you have enjoyed this post, and if you are able to do so, perhaps you would consider supporting my work by making a small contribution via the Buy Me A Coffee button. Thank you!

Buy Me a Coffee at ko-fi.com

Portraits of the past – my family history in photographs

LisaTulfer 1 Comment

Last year I came into possession of a large collection of family photographs.  I am the last person standing on that side of the family, so on the death of the last of the previous generation is all passed to me.  We’re not talking a few albums here – the collection completely filled the back of an SUV!  Most of the albums were in poor condition and had been stored in damp or dusty places, so a priority was to remove all the photographs (copying the annotations onto the back of the photos where appropriate) and throw away the wreckage of the albums.  There were also a lot of loose photographs, as well as some in frames (many with broken glass).

Eventually, I was able to group them into rough families, eras and locations.  There were a huge number of duplicates, so the first edit was to choose the best of the duplicates, again copying any annotations, and put aside duplicates for cousins in America if they were likely to be of any interest to them.  Then, I went through each group of photographs, weeding out any which were of no particular family history interest, or where the features were blurred, or choosing one from a series of almost identical shots (there were lots of these, especially 1950s landscapes.  It was apparently a thing in Scandinavia to take many photographs of the back of people standing in a field gazing at distant hills…).

After many evenings and weekends of going through photographs, peering through a magnifying glass at blurry faces, and getting very dusty, I have now whittled the collection down to a single crate, all divided into acid-free archival envelopes labelled with details of the contents (pre-war Holland, Helsinki Olympics 1952, holiday to Wales July 1961, etc).  I also started a notebook, with a page for each year, so that I could track the events and movements relating to the various strands of the family.  One wet Sunday afternoon this winter I plan to create a timeline from the notebook, which colour coding for each branch of the family, for the whole of the 20th century (and also scanning the most interesting ones of shared ancestors to send to my American cousins).

This side of my family is Dutch (via military service in the Dutch East Indies and internment in Japanese camps during WWII), with various members emigrating to America, Finland and Britain.  It has been a fascinating – and occasionally harrowing – exercise to follow individuals from newborns, through rites of passage, family memories, pets and holidays, to ageing, and in one case, death (it seems it was the fashion to take open casket photographs in 1940s America).

I have glimpsed the interiors of Dutch colonial houses of the 1930s, Scandinavian holiday shacks in the 1950s, and American ranches in the 1970s.  I have found that some of the stories I was told as a child were true, and others were not, while still others have got garbled in the telling.  I have been saddened by the toll that WWII took on my grandfather (he was in his 60s when I was born, so I never knew him as anything other than old).  I have been moved by how much my teenage grandparents were obviously in love, in photographs from their courting days which I had never seen.  I have seen my own features and expressions looking out at me from the faces of long-dead relatives.  And I now have a much clearer sense of who I am, and where I have come from.