Translation Problems for Traditional High Cultures
Currently this page contains a summary of the problem, with links to work on improving translations of the Popol Vuh, starting from the good work of many predecessors and the tools provided by the recent editions by Allen Christenson. The wonderful edition of the Rabinal Achi by Alain Breton (1994 in French, 2007 in English from University Press of Colorado) also permits study of some similar kinds of problems in translation. For the Rabinal Achi (added 21 Feb. 2009) please click here.
I hope during the coming year to add some suggestions on translations of place names, perhaps Western Apache or others. For this last, please see Wisdom Sits on the Land by Keith Basso..
There is an enormous responsibility which goes with any act of translation, since one is necessarily representing one culture to others who may know it only through those translations.
There are serious problems in the vast majority of translations from one culture into another. It is difficult to become aware of these problems, simply as a matter of craft skills. And it is difficult to understand how the image of the "other" is often distorted. Word by word, phrase by phrase, great damage can be done.
First two examples of terminological misrepresentation. Then some explanation of translation problems more generally.
A very simple example was mentioned by Joel Palka at the Mayan Weekend (University of Pennsylvania Museum, April 2008): the term "Cranial Deformation" is standard among archaeologists, but it is both negatively evaluative and in other ways strongly misrepresents the meaning of the practice to those who valued it. "Head shaping" is a more scientifically accurate term. It is neutral as to evaluation, but presupposes that there was a purpose ("shaping"). This is not a matter of political correctness, this is a matter of using terminology which conveys factually accurate meanings rather than scientifically false ones. "Deformation" is something that can equally occur in an auto accident, which is not what we are usually talking about here. (Though there are instances where we don't know whether we have an example of intentional "shaping" vs. unfortunate "deformation", such ambiguity is probably quite rare.). The fact that our own culture regards head shaping as bizarre gives us no excuse for misrepresenting another culture by using such a term when it factually is not applicable.
A second example is the the dominant use of the word "sacrifice" even in some contexts where only "offering" makes sense. Notice how very different these are. The word "offering" focuses on whom the offering is made to (a God or a human receiver), and sometimes on the purpose for which the offering is made. The word "sacrifice" focuses relatively more on the effect on the object (whether a bird, or a human whom we see as a victim). [We are not talking here about "making sacrifices for the common good". That is a very different context.] There are times when "sacrifice" is the right word. But an excessive focus on "sacrifice" is often part of sensationalizing, of a scientific misrepresentation of other cultures. Compare the previous example with "cranial deformation".
Word-for-word glossing is not translation. (Even though Mayanists do a lot of it, it is not translation.) If there is any difference at all in grammatical structures between two languages, it will give a bad impression of the "other", because it will use for example English words in ways which a literate person does not use them in English. Translation, properly understood, always gives the MEANING of the original accurately, with no reflection of the grammatical form of the original. That means that if we do not correctly understand the meaning of an original in some language, we simply cannot translate it into our own language or into any other. Some will protest against such a strict criterion, but it is a valid statement. It is a caution against misrepresenting other cultures as illiterate, incompetent, or stupid. Doing so actually damages us, because it encourages us to think of ourselves as exceptional. It prevents us from seeing our own mistakes and from interacting respectfully with others. Please see Eugene A. Nida 1964 Toward a Science of Translating. Leiden: E. J. Brill
Popol Vuh by Sam Colop in Quiché and in Spanish
These are two publications which arrange the original text in nearly ideal formats to reveal its discourse structure. The Sam Colop edition of the Popol Vuh is a version in modern K'iché', with Spanish notes, published by Cholsamaj in Guatemala. In February 2009, a new translation by Sam Colop into Spanish, published by Cholsamaj, was released. The presentation speech (please click here) was given by the writer who featured correction of previous mistranslations and on the poetry of expression. One significant change is that ancestors of the Quiché are said to have come from the "edge of the Sea", not from "across the Sea". A separate statement by Sam Colop (please click here) features the possibility that there were several distinct persons named Tecun, partly following the tradition of alternate generations, naming grandsons after grandfathers.
Rabinal Achi by Alain Breton
University Press of Colorado in 2007 published the English translation of Alain Breton's masterful work Rabinal Achi. A Fifteenth-Century Maya Dynastic Drama. It contains analysis of the form of the text, a photocopy of the best manuscript, a nearly ideal presentation of the text, reflecting its structure both in Maya transcription and in translation, on facing pages, and analysis of it as "An Exemplary History". It concerns the history of conflicts between the Rabinaleb and the Quiché. This text reveals much about the pre-contact Quiché and the formal courtly language and phrases used by them.
The chief limitation of this book in structurally representing the text is of this kind -- the small narrow format often does not permit locational phrases beginning with /chi/, which often end sentences, to be logically displayed at the ends of lines. Instead they begin new lines, throwing off some alignments of couplets and sentence structure.
There are a few places where words are used which do not reasonably work in English, where the Quiché has idiomatic phrases but the English words do not suggest any corresponding metaphor to most readers and further make little or no sense in their contexts. These are glossings of words rather than translations, and fail to recognize that the Quiché expression is an idiom or metaphor. It is something like claiming to "translate" an English idiom like "hit the sack" (meaning "go to sleep") using words which in Quiché or in Spanish mean "hit"and "sack". This obviously would make no sense in Quiché or in Spanish and thus cannot be a translation into those languages. In some cases the French edition, done by the author himself, presents a meaning which fits the context where the English edition does not. In some cases neither French nor English renderings work in context. There is also a Spanish edition, which this writer has not yet examined. For a small sample of these difficulties please see now here. A compilation of idiomatic or metaphorical usages will be added to this web site at a later time. Some of them may be no longer active in modern Quiché, so the task of translation is by no means trivial. This kind of problem exists only in a relatively small number of phrases in Breton's translation, but some of those few phrases recur frequently in the text.
For those thinking of attending the 2009 Maya Weekend at the University Museum in Philadelphia, reading this version of the Rabinal Achi (along with Allen Christenson's version of the Popol Vuh) might be especially relevant this year. The 2009 Maya Weekend is focused on the province of Alta Verapaz. Rabinal is located in Baja Verapaz, Guatemala, on the edge of the provinces of Alta Verapaz and Quiché. This book is extremely valuable for anyone interested in Maya civilization.
Popol Vuh of the Quiché Maya
The following .pdf downloads are intended to be used together. This is obviously work in progress.
You are welcome to download for personal use, but please do not reproduce otherwise.
Please do undertake your own projects to improve translations of this or of other important documents, always to avoid errors which would not reflect well on the people whose ancestors produced the documents.
Please do make suggestions on any matter where you wish to. Email Lloyd Anderson here.
The versions accessible here are partly as of 20 December 2007, modified after discussions in the workshop led by Allen Christenson and Frauke Sachse at the WAYEB meetings earlier that month in Geneva.
"Translating the Popol Vuh" is a collection of special case studies of idioms,
metaphors, etc., indicating how and why particular translations are used.
The Cover page gives a one-page version of this introduction.
The English and Quiche versions are here through line 1720, the defeat of 7 Macaw.
They are arranged to be printed and then viewed as facing pages
These use the full width of the paper to lay out the structure of the text
as revealingly as possible. The English is not yet smooth normal English,
it still has some prominent reflections of Quiche word order,
but at least in other respects it is getting closer to normal English.
If you are careful about sequencing the sheets, and use the cover page,
you can print them back-to-back (two-sided) and end up with the
translations facing each other. .
(intended for 8.5 x 11 inch paper -- European paper may cut off the sides slightly)
Translating_Popol_Vuh_2007Dec.pdf
Popol_Vuh_Cover_2007.pdf [version older than the other three]
Popol_Vuh_English_2007Dec.pdf
Popol_Vuh_Quiche_2007Dec.pdf
These documents are copyright © 2007 and © 2008 by Lloyd Anderson. All Rights Reserved with the following exception: they may be freely downloaded by individuals as long as they are complete, properly cited and this copyright notice is retained unchanged. They must be copied only from this web site, to ensure the latest versions are accessible. Secondary copies shall not be made otherwise.
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