Historical Development Of Literary Translation

The world of translation is an immense and varied concept. Translation records has been a subject that specialists have discussed for a long time and has made it simpler for them to comprehend much about ancient cultures. The need for translation has been clear for the reason that earliest day’s of human interaction, whether for emotional, business or survival purposes. Literary translation is one of the categories of translation which allows more people globally to enjoy the literary work in their natal languages. The main principle of translation of literature is to deliver the authentic tone and cause of a message, considering the truth of cultural and nearby variations between source and goal languages. Around many languages, early medieval translators contributed to the occasion of modern and national languages. Translators went on playing a significant place within the development of society for hundreds of years. One of the biggest challenges for a translator in this particular translation is the need to balance remaining true to the original work with creating something new and individual that will obtain not different feelings and responses as the original.

Translation services have been very common all through ancient societies within the Middle East, and plenty of languages among ancient kingdoms which kept people restricted to speak through languages barriers with each other. Around 2500 BC, clay tablets were used by people to decrypt symbols from Semitic languages, including Sumerian and Eblaite. During 1799, Napoleon’s French army discovered the Rosetta Stone, a broken off a slab of black rock composed of a type of stone called granodiorite that hieroglyphics from both languages and others were carved into it. Now, the Discover of the Rosetta Stone was one of the greatest findings as it represent the efforts of ancient translators but also gave scholars the opportunity to analyze Egyptian hieroglyphics. The valuable information gained from the Rosetta Stone was used in the early 1800s to decipher others inscriptions from Egypt. Among all the famous translators who worked translating hieroglyphics from the Rosette Stone, Jean Francois Champollion, a French translator who excelled in successfully translating the inscribed and proving that not only were written alphabetic symbols but also representations of ideas.

In the past, several translators have been hailed for their work, partly because of the shortage of translators and also because what they have translated has had a great impact in religion area. The western world consider the translation of the Bible from Hebrew to Greek as the first major translation work. The process of translation was called the Septuagint there were a total 70 individuals translators who each one used to work separately in their own cell on the translation by being cramped. Even though they worked for 72 days to complete the translation, however they came out with the same translations. The Jews later on used the Septuagint version of the Bible to translate into Georgian and Latin because they were spread out in different places, and they forgot their native language. While it was a time when the translation of the Bible was one of the biggest work done, discussions about the role of a translator to bring over clues between cultures were spoken in the 2nd centuries BC when a famous Roman playwright named Terence modified Greek comedies into Roman. According to records, during the time when st. Jerome, also known as the patron saint of translators, was translating the Bible into the Latin language, he said that the translators should translate their works in ‘sense for sense’ term instead of ‘word for word’ term.

Translation is a conception of culture. The history of literary translation in every country is an inherent part of the literary history. In fact, even the first written works give proof of the existence of translations. By the time of medieval history, the western world had available some translations of works in the Latin language because they started to learn Latin that had become the popular language of the moment. Back in the 9th century, the translation of The Ecclesiastical History by Bede and the Consolation of Philosophy by Boethius helped people to improve their poor English prose during the time of King Alfred the great. Earlier in the 12th and 13th centuries, European scholars traveled far and settled in Toledo, Spain, translating great religious and philosophical works from Greek, Hebrew and Arabic into Castilian and Latin. During 13th century that an English scholar named Roger Bacon came out with the idea that a translator should not only know one language, but should also have more knowledge about both the source and the target language in order to generate results in translation.

Literary translation is different from literary creativity, because its existence depends on the presence of a translation object and how the advancement in translation increase the ability to proceed with the creation of new ones. When demand for new literary materials grew, the advance in the printing process and the rise of the middle class during the 16th century further strengthened translation. Also, it was the first time when a section of the Bible has been translated directly into English from Greek and Hebrew scripts by an English scholar, William Tyndale. During the 16th century several other translations of the Bible were made, providing the Holy Book available in German, Spanish, French. A theology professor Martin Luther created a German Bible translation, arguing that a correct translation can only be done in the translator’s own language. His translation of the Bible into German played a big role in the growth of contemporary German language.

Coming to the modern history, translation and translators was necessary and continued to grow strong. Translators have managed to adapt literature work manually throughout the course of history. This was the moment when translation begin to be a difficult and intense activity because engineers was looking for a solution to make translation work by itself with a little direct of human control. Because machine translation is not sufficiently qualified to replace a human translator, the overall emphasis was therefore on developing tools that would improve the translation process and not replace human translators. Literal translations were restricted in an area to the materials of science, academia, history, and religion. Interpreting, which was traditionally only known as a special kind of translation, was developed in the middle of the 20th century as a different discipline.

In the 20th century, translation became more common and standardized, when it became necessary to understand the meaning of the written text. The economy grew rapidly after the Industrial Revolution, and transformed into a system with the potential for global success. New machinery made it possible for texts and business related materials to be produced more rapidly and this ensures that more time could be spent in the creation of a product and the export of products into foreign markets. Contemporary translators helped to improve languages by translating ideas from source languages into target languages and using loanwords. Technology and the Internet have generated a global market for language services including the development of applications for translation and localization.

As a conclusion, there is nothing left to say that translation brings many advantages in the lives of many people. It also allows you to solve basic problems such as learning to use a device made in another country by reading the manual in the language you understand. It also allows us to access knowledge and know the contributions of other people who do not share a language and from a literary point of view, it allows us to know the contributions that had famous translators who worked to make the translation better than what was in the past and in those moments. Literary translation services have had an impressive impact on the world, as the process offers opportunities for people to understand the meaning of several languages. Studying the history of translation has therefore allowed society to learn a great deal about the cultures and civilizations that existed many centuries ago. Literary translation is present, past and future and in this sense, we must feel involved in it.