From a capella to zeitgeist, English has always filched other people’s words and run with them. There are so many more waiting to be used. And Ella Frances Sanders has brought them to life. As she says in Lost in Translation:…
Blog Archives
Words to bridge the gap
Tagged with: Ella Frances Sanders, Inuit, Japanese, The Bridge Called Langauge, Translation, Untranslatable Words, Welsh
Posted in books, Illustration, language, translation, words
Posted in books, Illustration, language, translation, words
A Welsh New Year Wish
Cold is the man who can’t love, The old mountains of dear Wales, To him and his warmest friend, A cheerful holiday next year. Cold is the snow on Mount Snowdon, Even though it has a flannel blanket on it,…
Tagged with: Christmas Carols, John Ceiriog Hughes, New Year, Translation, Welsh
Posted in Christmas, translation
Posted in Christmas, translation
Women in Translation Month: Menna Elfyn
“Why write? It is so much easier to say when I started to write. I fell in love with words, and wordsmiths such as Dylan Thomas… in the ‘fifties, when I was growing up, the Welsh language was still seen…
Tagged with: Catrin Glyndwr, Gillian Clarke, Joseph P. Clancy, Menna Elfyn, Murmur, Poetry, Translation, Welsh, Women in Translation Month
Posted in books, language, poetry
Posted in books, language, poetry
O bydded i’r hen iaith barhau: Patagonia 150
One of my earliest language-learning memories is of hot summer afternoons in the early years of high school, when even our unquenchably enthusiastic Welsh teacher would give up and just tell us stories. Of a land far far away, where children…
Tagged with: Language, Patagonia, Translation, Welsh, Y Wladfa
Posted in history, international, language, translation
Posted in history, international, language, translation
Workers of the world unite: you have nothing to lose in translation
Billy Bragg had a 24-hour job at a moment’s notice. He was not going to get paid for his overtime. But he was on a mission. And he made the deadline. Hear him tell the story and sing his translation.…
Tagged with: American, Billy Bragg, British, Charles Hope Kerr, Chinese, English, Eugene Pottier, Finnish, French, German, internationale, Pertti Uotila, Pete Seeger, Polish, Russian, Tagalog, Thomas Nicholas, Tiananmen Square, Translation, Welsh
Posted in international, translation
Posted in international, translation
A language is a dialect with an army
Yesterday was St David’s Day, in self-imposed Finnish exile I’ll have to buy, not pick daffodils and sing the national anthem alone. It includes the immortal line: “O bydded i’r hen iaith barhau” (may the language endure for ever). Welsh…
Tagged with: Basque, dialect continuum, Herodotus, language continuum, language learning, Leonard Bloomfield, Max Weinreich, Translation, Welsh, Welsh Language Society, Yiddish
Posted in language, translation
Posted in language, translation
sounds British? Save our Sounds!
If, like me, you still regret getting rid of your lovingly created mix cassette tapes, complete with breath of radio 1 DJ at the end of each song, even though you haven’t had anything to play them on for years,…
Tagged with: British, British Library, English, Language, Save our Sounds, sound, Translation, Welsh
Posted in language, translation
Posted in language, translation
Dead poets translation society: “I was not there I don’t know”
How do you translate a dead poet? The November issue of Poetry magazine is dedicated to translation, with translator’s notes on each poem. I made a beeline for languages I know – and found they shared a problem. The poet…
Tagged with: Dafydd ap Gwilym, Dafydd Johnston, Gwyneth Lewis, Jennifer Grotz, Jerzy Ficowski, Piotr Sommer, Poetry, Polish, Translation, Welsh
Posted in history, poetry, translation
Posted in history, poetry, translation
International Translation Day 2014: Language Rights are Human Rights
There are still many places around the world where linguistic minorities are persecuted and do not have the same access to work, education, health care or justice. Where I was born, the original Welsh Language Act had been in force…
Tagged with: human rights, International Translation Day, Language, linguistic rights, PEN, Sami, Translation, Welsh
Posted in international, translation
Posted in international, translation
found in translation 