International Esperanto Day
Posted on December 14, 2006
Filed Under Language, Philosophy, Poetry, Reading | 1 Comment
December 15th is International Esperanto Day. A while back, Steven Brewer asked me if I would participate in posting something on my blog translated into Esperanto & the first thing that came to mind was a poem from my last book, “The Language of Poetry.” I have reproduced the translation below, followed by the original English. After the two texts, I have appended Brewer’s “translator’s notes,” which I find interesting in a number of ways. Actually, I’m skeptical about the utility & even the possibility of universal languages, though I am sympathetic to the idea that more communication & better understanding is better than less & worse.
La Lingvo de Poezio
Edukita viro, Ngo Dinh Diem (1),
kredis je la povo de vortoj
okazigi ÅanÄon en la mond’
d’ aferoj. Do, laÅ poezia gest’li renomis la danÄerajn provincojn
okcidente de lia ĉefurbo, vokante ilin
Hứa nghÄ©a (2), literatura kliÅaĵo kiu signifas
/promeso je lojaleco/. Li vokisla urbocentro Khiêm CÆ°á»ng (3),
/modesta sed vigla/, anstatauxigante
la malnovan nomon Bầu Trại (4), /ronda bieno/.
Je la somero de 1963 la vort’fariÄas karnon. La prezidanto celis
trompi la spiritojn de l’ aer’ kaj la ter’
kiu dumlonge loÄis en tiu loko,
sed ili ne trompiÄis, eĉ per poezio.====
Pronunciation:
(1) /ngo dinj zjem/
(2) /hua ngja/
(3) /Ä¥iem kuong/
(4) /bau ĉaj/
Here is the original English, which was written after reading Neil L. Jamison’s Understanding Vietnam. At least that’s where I think I got the facts for the poem:
The Language of Poetry
An educated man, Ngo Dinh Diem
believed in the power of words
to make a difference in the world
of things. So in a poetic gesturehe renamed the dangerous provinces
west of his capital, calling them
Hua Nghia, a literary cliche that means
deepening righteousness. He calledthe district center Khiem Cuong,
modest but vigorous, replacing
the old name Bau Trai, round farm.
In the summer of 1963 the word wasbecoming flesh. The president meant
to deceive the spirits of the air & earth
who had lived long in that place,
but they were not fooled, even by poetry.
Unfortunately, I don’t have the ability to reproduce the Vietnamese diacriticals in the English version, but they are correct in the Esperanto text above. Here are the translator’s notes:
Nguyen Xuan Thu, a UEA delegate in Vietnam, helped me with the translation. He suggested that Hua Nghia should actually be translated as something more like “A Promise of Loyalty”, which is reflected by my translation. Deepening Righteousness would be something like “ProfundiÄanta Virteco”. The Esperanto pronunciations are provided by the footnotes. He also provided the correct Vietnamese spellings.
There were a couple of places that were difficult to translate. One was “making a difference in the world” which has a particular idiomatic significance in English. I elected to translate it as “causing a change to happen in the world”. The phrase “the word was becoming flesh” also posed a challenge. Esperanto avoids complex verbs (although they can be constructed, they’re considered clumsy), so I wrote “In the summer of 1963, the word becomes flesh”, which is, I think, clear and more “belsona”.
Update: Other Esperanto Day postings can be found here.
Comments
One Response to “International Esperanto Day”
I thought there was something highly appropriate about translating a poem from the book “Magical Thinking”. Believing in Esperanto probably requires more than a little magical thinking. A lot of people come to Esperanto with the dream of a Universal language but stay engaged for the fascinating and vibrant Esperanto community, which is a unique and magical place in-and-of itself. Thank you for your contribution — your poem really is “Magical Thinking”.