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E.V.Ramakrishnan
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E.V.Ramakrishnan is a noted
English and Malayalam literary critic. He
translates from Malayalam into English regularly.
He is currently Professor of English in
the Dept of English, South Gujarat University,
Surat, Gujarat.
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general theory of literary translation
between two or more languages that can explain or anticipate
the problems of linguistic and cultural transfer of meanings
and set standards of evaluation, appears
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a near impossibility,
given the large number of variables the process of translation
has to contend
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with. However, certain principles for evaluating
the nature and function of translations in the Indian context
between Indian languages and English need to be formulated.
During the last decade, a large number
of literary translations from modern Indian languages into
English have appeared. Do they constitute the national archives
of 'Indian Literature'? Do the translations emphasize the
local, the regional or the national? Do the process of translation
into trans-regional language like English reconstitute a
literary work from a modern Indian language? When a European
or Latin American text is translated into a modern Indian
language, does its 'truth value' suffer erosion? Do separate
strategies of translation produce different texts?
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I shall confine myself largely to translations
between Malayalam and English, though some examples would
come from other sources. If one examines the role played
by translation in Malayalam literary history, one is struck
by its critical function in the projection of new horizons
of expectations. The standardization of literary language
itself took place through translation. The publication of
original novels in Malayalam was preceded by translations
of various prose narratives. Realistic fiction as well as
modernist poetry was accompanied by a large number of translations
from various European, African, American and Latin American
languages. During the period between 1900 and 1975, of the
3367 novels published in Malayalam, 344 were translations.
That works out to be 11.5%. In the last decades this figure
must have marginally grown, as there is growing demand for
translated fiction. Of the 2031 books translated under the
category of literature, 909 are from foreign languages while
1122 are from Indian languages. The break-up for foreign
languages is as follows: English (401), Russian (229), French
(115) and German (30). The bulk of translations from Indian
languages is from Sanskrit (540), Bengali (266) and Hindi
(157). Of late, translations of contemporary writings from
Kannada and Tamil have begun to appear in larger numbers.
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