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Language Models and Catalan Translation
Joaquim Mallafrè
The process of how a translator acquires a language appropriate for translation is interesting because it transcends the individual, taking place, as it does in a shared cultural framework, whether in an intra-linguistic or an inter-linguistic community (in both cases the language models with any real influence are limited). In Catalonia, where Catalan has long struggled to survive under the shadow of Spanish, there has been some discussion about language models for translations into Catalan. Under Franco’s dictatorial regime, Catalan was banned in schools and the Catalan cultural tradition was eclipsed by the dominant culture. Thus, the codification and the style of the language have been transmitted by an intelligentsia that was very different from those found in more established societies. For example, the prestigious Catalan poet and translator, Josep Carner, was a symbol of a particular cultural movement at the beginning of the twentieth century, the Noucentisme. This movement belonged to a historical period that could not evolve normally and had no natural continuity. Due to this rupture caused by the Civil War and its aftermath, a present-day reader may find Carner’s style strange. The same is true of the style of Carles Riba, whose translation of The Odyssey is “a model for what some would have whished to be a standard model of cultured Catalan that was brutally frustrated”, according to Parcerisas (1997: 471). Parcerisas includes it amongst “those works that have marked and conditioned how translation has been understood” (485).
Traços en el silenci
Jordi Mas i Manel Ollé
PEN Català ha dedicat el Dia Internacional de la Traducció de 2009 a parlar de la traducció del japonès i del xinès al català. L’influx de la poesia xinesa i japonesa en les nostres lletres ha donat lloc a un ventall molt gran de textos que van des de la traducció estricta fins a la versió lliure i la creació original. Aquest recital vol oferir un tast, necessàriament breu i arbitrari, d’aquesta producció tan rica.
Catalan: the Historical and Social Background of a Romance Language
Josep Murgades
Descended from Latin, Catalan at present counts some ten million speakers, making it comparable numerically to both Dutch and the Scandinavian languages. In Spain, it is used in the Principality of Catalonia (capital Barcelona), the Valencia region or País Valencià (named after its capital) and the Balearic Islands (capital Palma de Mallorca); in France, in the Roussillon region (capital Perpignan); and throughout the Principality of Andorra, an independent state where it is the only official language.
