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Anjali
Gera Roy
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Anjali Gera Roy was born
on 9th October 1959. She is Associate Professor
in the Department of Humanities and Social
Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology,
Kharagpur, West Bengal. Her doctoral thesis
was about African Oral Tradition and
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Three
Nigerian Novelists: Achebe, Soyinka, Tutuola,
in the Department of Humanities and Social
Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology,
Powai.
She has published articles on translation
in journals like Scientific and Philosophical
Studies on Consciousness and Makers of Indian
English Literatures. She has also presented
papers on translation in All India Conference
of Linguistics; and National Seminar on
Literature and Linguistics. She can be contacted
at anjali@hss.iitkgp.ernet.in.
* This paper was presented in a seminar
on Translation of Classical Literature co-ordinated
by Sri Sivaramakrishnan.
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ven at their best, translations of classical
texts barely succeed in capturing the verbal meaning of the
original. But being reader- rather than listener-directed,
they silence their sound. Translations into modern
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languages attempt to convey the classical text's 'phonocentricism' to
the reader's 'scriptocentric' sensibility. Though worlds do
not fall into Walter J Ong's neat 'oral-aural'/literate model,
translation from classical languages essentially involves
carrying their phonocentric message across to a scriptocentric
receiver. This happens even in electronically recorded versions.
Translation of orally patterned thought into the structure
of textuality converts sound to the letter. This violates
phonocentric cultures' investment in sound and the relationship
of the acoustic sign with meaning. The emphasis on the interdependence
of the word and the referent in phonocentric cultures challenge
the basic assumptions of modern linguistic theory. In contrast
to Structural Linguistics that highlights the arbitrariness
of the sign, the phonocentric word reveals the inseparability
of sign and meaning. This paper will relate problems of classical
translation to the difference in the perception of the sign
in phonocentric and scriptocentric cultures.
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The perceptual difference begins with the
status of the word in traditional cultures. Word does not
need to be sacralized as mantra or sacred word. It is inherently
sacred both as shabda or sound and akshara or letter. It
cannot be an empty sign, a mere communicational tool transmitting
an idea by nature but the embodiment of the idea. The following
paean to Speech, underlining its pre-eminence in Vedic phonocentricism,
is an initiation into fundamental cultural differences in
the perception of the word.
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I am the queen, the confluence of riches,
the skilful one who is first among those worthy
of sacrifice. The gods divided me up into various parts,
for I dwell in many places and
enter into many forms.
Rig Veda 10.125.3
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