Tuesday, May 03, 2022
So-Called Phonemic Translation
Peter Green, Classical Bearings (1989; rpt. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998), p. 260, with note on p. 310:
Newer› ‹Older
No translator, however ingenious, can reproduce the sound-patterns of an alien tongue: attempts at so-called 'phonemic translation', of which the Zukofsky Catullus remains the most notorious example, are mere grotesque curiosities. 'Et qui sis, fama loquetur anus', Catullus wrote: 'And that old woman Rumour will tell what you are.' What does the phonemic version give us? 'Wait queer, Sis Fame'll liquidate your anus.'29
29 Catullus 78.10; Celia and Louis Zukofsky, Catullus (1969) 78. Lefevere (n. 3 above) concedes the near-impossibility of phonemic translation.
