Translating into and out of a planned language: what does it mean?

The case of Esperanto as a translation tool

Federico GobboUniversity of Insubria

Varese Italy

Les mardis à l'ETI, 20 Avril 2010

Outline

1. What is a planned language? 2. Esperanto as a planned language3. The role of translation in the history of Esperanto4. Some specific problem of a planned language 5. Esperanto and Machine Translation6. Final remarks7. Reading. Specimens of good literary translations

What is a planned language?

A planned language is a human language whose langue is planned before its parole is established. Planned languages can be constructed for various purposes, literature, fiction, playing... In particular, during the XIX-XX centuries the quest for an International Auxiliary Language (IAL) raised interests in the élite of European intellectuals.

More than a thousand were proposed...

...during a century (from 1850 until 1950). Some names:

● Langue Bleu, ● Idiom Neutral, ● Spokil, ● Weltsprache...

Mostly were based on Hindo-European languages. More recently, other proposals were made through the internet (e.g., Lingua Franca Nova)

The most successful IALs

Most of them had no success (i.e., no one ever used it save the proponent, see at least Eco 1993). In other words, only a few of them were used by a community - establishing a parole, in particular: ● Volapük ● Esperanto● Latino Sine Flexione/Interlingua ● Ido ● Occidental/Interlingue ● IALA's Interlingua

The IAL speech communities

During the XX century only 6 IALs succeeded to establish a proper speech community in spite of two World Wars: ● Volapük (since 1879 until 1892)● Esperanto (since 1887)● Latino Sine Flexione/Interlingua (since 1903 until 1932?)● Ido (since 1908)● Occidental/Interlingue (since 1922 until 1951?)● IALA's Interlingua (since 1951)

Nowadays only 3 IALs (in bold) have a speech community.

Esperanto as a planned language

Among IALs, Esperanto is the most successful in terms of adoption by enthusiasts (time: longest period; quantity: numbers of active speakers; quality: diversification of texts).

Active speakers nowadays:

Esperanto: +50,000 worldwideIdo: approx. 1,000 worldwide (mainly Europe)IALA's Interlingua: approx 1,000 worldwide (mainly Europe)

For this reason, Esperanto is the most interesting IAL from the point of view of linguistic research.

Translation in the history of Esperanto● The Zero period: L.L. Zamenhof composes the langue of Esperanto

(1863-1887) ● The First Period: primitive Romanticism (1887-1920)

● The Second Period: Literary flowering (1921-1930) ● The Third Period: Parnassism and the dangerous language (1931-

1951)

● The Fourth Period: Modernism (1952-1974) ● The Fifth Period: popularization of the novel (1975-1990)

● The Sixth Period: Postmodernism, Post-sovietism and the Web era

(1991-)

The Zero period: L.L. Zamenhof composes the langue of Esperanto (1863-1887)

At first Zamenhof writes a grammar of Yiddish, in a Zionist context ("one people, one language"). After the falling of the American Option and the approval of the Palestine Option, Zamenhof leaves Zionism and composes Esperanto under a different ideological perspective ("second language for all").

Zamenhof's linguistic "theory"

Principle of optimization: balance between productivity (active competence) and immediate readability (passive competence).

Source languages: Yiddish and (Bielo?)Russian (L1), Polish, German (full L2), French and English (mainly reading/writing), Latin, Greek and Hebrew (classic languages). Note: Ferdinand de Saussurre in his famous Cours talks about Esperanto, and his brother René was an Esperantist.

The First Period: primitive Romanticism (1887-1920) Translations always important to establish the style, since the first book (1887).

L.L. Zamenhof's translations: parts of the Bible, poems by Heinrich Heine, Hamlet by Sheakespeare, and other masterpieces (Dickens, Schiller, Gogol, Goethe, Andersen).

Polish pioneers' translations (Gabrowski, Kazimir Bein): The Pharaon by Bolesław Prus, The Brothers by Goethe, and other masterpieces (Pushkin, Molière).

The Second Period: Literary flowering (1921-1930)The review Literatura Mondo [Literary World] in Budapest establish literary style also through translation, e.g. Dante's Inferno by Kalocsay. Anthologies dedicated to national literature started to appear (Hungarian, Italian, French, Japanese...)

Eugen Wüster, the Austrian engineer founder of modern terminology, publishes the first part of his technical dictionary and encyclopedia. First technical and scientific translations (mainly electric engineering).

The Third Period: Parnassism and the dangerous language (1931-1951)

The Parnasa Gvidlibro [Guidebook to Parnassus] creates the canon of 'classical' poetry, by the Budapest school;

The Nazi and the Soviet persecutes Esperantists systematically.

Translations become less and less important: mostly ideological literature is written (e.g., Esperantism & Socialism).

The Fourth Period: Modernism (1952-1974)

Esperanto survives the IIWW. In 1956 William Auld publishes La infana raso [the Child Race].

Modernism is characterized by calembours, word plays, irony, meta-language, meta-literature...

The Esperanto style is come of age, and translations are no more felt necessary as before.

The Fifth Period: popularization of the novel (1975-1990)Original novels - less pretentious in literary terms - appear: crime, science-fiction, fantasy... A youth movement emerges with different organizations, congresses and organizational rules, and with some jargon (e.g., mojose! is cool!).

Publications become less and less expensive, so a lot of "grey" literature is produced (e.g., dazebaos, congress booklets),both original and translated.

It's difficult to follow this "liquid" production.

The Sixth Period: Postmodernism, Post-sovietism and the Web era (1991-)The Esperanto movement gets involved with the topic of language rights and the paradigm of ecology of languages. Some authors publish bilingual originals. After Modernism the corpus of text is big enough to act as a reference for a standard register of written language.

Two examples

Two best-sellers (among the Esperanto community...):

● Jorge Camacho (professional translator at UE) starts postmodernism in poetry since 1991, both in Esperanto and in Esperanto/Spanish.

● Anna Löwenstein in 1999 publish The Stone City / La Ŝtona Urbo, a long, historical novel in Ancient Rome, both in English and Esperanto (two different editions).

Their style is very different: Camacho is more naturalistic, Löwenstein is more schemistic.

Esperanto as the Open Source Language

With the Web Era (1993-), translations of technical texts in computer science becomes more and more important. In particular, open source software is being translated (e.g., OpenOffice). From an ideological point of view, the motto is "Esperanto = Linux". Most dictionaries are put in the web as free resources.

Wikipedia in Esperanto

The Wikipedia in Esperanto (Vikipedio) is one of the most active (128,213 articles by 19 Avril 2010). It is interesting because: ● it has translations of national Wikipedias...

● ...as well as original texts

How Esperanto was established by translation

(s)?

Esperanto as a "translation language"

Under a certain point of view, Esperanto is a "translation language" by definition, being the Target Language (TL) of Zamenhof's Source Languages (SL).

In fact, L.L. Zamenhof translated parts of each langue he knew into Esperanto, in a delicate mix. A simple example:

● personal pronouns are borrowed from English: mi, vi, li-ŝi-ĝi, ni, vi, ili (exactly as "I, you, he-she-it, we, you, they").

● the unpersonal pronoun is borrowed from French: oni.

The same is true for the lexicon (Romance, German, Slavic).

Esperanto is made by interference

In other words, Esperanto was made by the results of good linguistic interferences, with some degree of freedom. Example

● Bonvolu helpi min ('please help me', as in English) with the Accusative

● Bonvolu helpi al mi (bitte helft mir, as in German)

with the Dative

They are equivalent in practice.

Esperanto was developed by sourciers

In the very beginning, an Esperantophone should always turn to the source languages (SLs) to find how to translate into Esperanto expressions. In the translation arrow, the SLs were more important (the so-called school of sourciers: "means matter!"). This fact is still true nowadays in certain domains.

Example: the train domainNe pas se pencher au dehorsNe sin pendigu for

Nicht hinauslehnenNeniam sin elklini

E' pericoloso sporgersiEstas danĝere elkliniĝi

Do not lean out of the windowNe sin apogi el la fenestro

This uncertainty happens because there are no writings in Esperanto on trains!

The force of linguistic tradition...

Since its beginning, Esperanto started to evolve as any other living language. The more Esperanto grew up in use, the more a standard register became to emerge. So, nowadays, a good translator in Esperanto should turn to the Esperanto use in that field whenever possible.

However, in most cases a form wins over the others, and enters the standard register.

...brings archaisms and idiomatic expressions!

As a proof, few archaisms can be found. Examples:

● 'postage stamp' is signo de poŝto (1887), poŝta marko (1889), then poŝtmarko (since 1905, Sutton 2007).

● 'international language' was lingvo internacia, nowadays is internacia lingvo (unmarked word order shift).

Some idiotisms emerged according to the forming of the community:

● la verda stelo [the green star = Esperanto, following the flag]● samideano [person who has one's same idea = Esperantist]● interna ideo [internal idea = humanitarian internationalism

behind the language]

Example: having a shower in Esperanto

● Maria faras la duŝon (Maria fa la doccia, as in Italian)● Maria duŝas (Maria duscht, as in German) ● Maria prenas duŝon (Maria takes a shower, as in English)● Maria havas duŝon (Maria haves a shower, as in English)

The direct verbification (as in German) is preferred, especially since the Fifth Period (since 1975), starting from the jargon within the youth movement.

EvaluationIn its early period, Esperanto was completely dependent on the language(s) Esperantophones know.

In particular Zamenhof's SLs were the most important.

Then, French became the Dachsprache of Esperanto since the Second Period (Paris was the center of the world).

After the IIWW (Fourth Period) English started to become more and more important even for Esperantophones (mostly unaware of this fact). This is confirmed by the rhetorics of Esperanto as an "Asian" language (Piron) and "Stop to the Western/WASP Dialect (Corsetti, de Zilah).

Some specific problems

Ideological aspects

Esperanto is nobody's property but - potentially - belongs to every human being. Look at this translation.

● English: it's Greek to me.● Italian: Per me è turco/arabo [it's Turkish/Arabic to me].● Esperanto: Estas volapukaĵo al mi [it's Volapük to me].

Note: Volapük influenced the pioneering epoch of the Esperanto movement. No one is harmed or offended!

Mitev's reflection: dialects and the problem of the ancestorMitev (1991): it's difficult to simulate dialects and very old language (there is no Ursprache, such as Latin for Italian or Anglo-Saxon for English). Some solutions proposed: ● Arkaika Esperanto (ad-hoc planned language with cases) for

the Ursprache; ● Ido used as a dialect.

Anyway, there is no diatopic difference!

You won't read cases such as Harry Potter: in Britain it is Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone; in the US it is Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. By now, the Esperanto community is small in absolute numbers and very compact to forbid such tendencies.

The debate about neologismsIn 1891, L.L. Zamenhof wrote in the first review La Esperantisto an article intitled Pri la uzado de formoj simplaj anstataŭ kunmetitaj [About the use of simple instead of compound forms] (in De Diego 1979: 17,18, my translation):

Above all we suggest always to use simple forms, instead of compounds. Compounds are typical in the German language, and for this language they actually succeed to give a great richness of forms; but in our language, words are more natural and sound good if they are not compound, but used in isolation.

Zamenhof let Esperantists free

In 1910, at the 6th World Congress (Washington, DC), Zamenhof said (in Sutton 2007, 22, author's translation):

When I composed the language... I first intended to compose the whole language, with all the detals, and I thought of translating all the wrods in Schmidt's complete, multilingual dictionary... but I soon realized that it would be better, in the beginning, that the language have only its most essential elements, and that I should live to life ... the job of completing the task.

Naturalism and Schemism as two tendencies

In its essence Esperanto behaves like the other natural languages and, although it lacks a special national character, nonetheless it has got a proper spirit, which arises from its grammar structure and its Hindo-European word treasure, with its cultural and emotional associations. But ... we need to strengthen that spirit and give a great relief and coherence... Esperanto hesitates between two tendencies, at the same time structural and stylistic, that results into that provisional feeling, a sort of lack of a solid ground. It's a double-face analytic and synthetic, or, if you want, naturalistic and schemistic.

(De Diego 1979: 15, 17, my translation).

An example by Auld (1997)

"the old weak Lady slowly took short steps away"

Schemistic lexicon: mal-jun-a mal-fort-a mal-jun-ul-in-o mal-rapid-e mal-long-a mal-proksim-ig-i Schemistic translation: La malforta maljunulino malrapide malproksimigas per mallongaj pasoj

The standard register is an accurate mix Naturalistic lexicon: old-a febl-a dam-o lant-e kurt-a dist-ig-i Naturalistic translation: La febla olda damo lante distigas per kurtaj pasoj A more realistic translation is mixed: La febla maljunulino forigas malrapide per kurtaj pasoj

Schemism is also culturally determinated!Example: ●vort-aro borrows from Romance strategies

('vocabul-ary/diction-ary', in English) instead of German ones. It could be possible to have ●?vortlibro borrowing from German Wörterbuch.

Esperanto and Machine Translation

The Charles Babbage of Machine TranslationPetr Trojanskij used Esperanto in its electrical machine in a Soviet Patent (1933). He structured the Russian lexicon into 80,000 roots thanks to 300 "logical connectors" to perform grammar character transfers (then, Tesnière 1959).

Example:

O bicikl-o bicycleI bicikl-i to bicycleE bicikl-e with a bicycle, etc.A bicikl-a cycling, cycle

The extreme regularity of Esperanto lets to reduce considerably the lexicon to be encoded (see Hutchins-Lovtskii 2000).

The Distributed Language System (DLT) Started by Toon Witkam in 1982, it was developed for five years with the support of the Esperanto community in a marketing context (BSO enterprise), in particular by Klaus Schubert, Dan Maxwell and Victor Sadler (2010 in Blanke-Lins 2010).

A multilingual dependency grammar was built. The "transparent" morphology of Esperanto facilitates the parsing and POS-tagging.

Esperanto was the interlingua (pivot language) between the SL and the TL. Partial success: Esperanto had been modified to fit the MT system.

Final remarks

A. In order to compose the language, it was natural to translate into Esperanto; only from the Fourth Period it became interesting to translate from Esperanto too.

B. The Esperanto lexicon privileges literary areas instead of technical ones, because of the language use (there is a bias against Esperanto in many people), so neologisms are often needed to specific domains and purposes.

C. Nowadays, there is no substantial difference in translating in or out Esperanto.

D. Paradoxically, as English became the Dachsprache of Esperanto (in fact most Esperantophones also are proficient in English), the naturalistic tendency will be more and more important - substantially, Esperanto adopts a vacuum-cleaner strategy (Crystal) for neologisms inasmuch English, regardless of their utility.

In general, English is influencing more and more the structure of Esperanto, especially when Esperantophones are not aware of this influence.

Do we need oktopuso when we had for decades polpo?

Reading

Specimens of good literary translations