mmar@sphinx.UChicago.UUCP (Mitchell Marks) (06/20/85)
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As part of a general diatribe against the efforts towards sex-neutral
usage, J. Eric Resco (sorry if I've got the name wrong, I don't have it
here) proclaimed that he was going to forswear English and post only in
Spanish. His rationale wasn't entirely clear: either (1) he regards English
as a dead loss because it is being desecrated by those of us who encourage
gender-neutral usage, whereas in Spanish he can be as sexist as he wants,
or else (2) on the contrary, the Spanish language has the special property
of saving its speakers from ever committing racism or sexism, so they
need not go through the changes and self-examination that Anglophones
are currently experiencing.
Whichever of those his point was, he used the following example:
> Si yo me digo <<El trabajo de negros>>, no significa nada mal.
This was part of a fairly long posting, mostly in Spanish. Sophie Quigley
provided a translation for the net, together with some right-on commentary.
In general she gave a free translation rather than a word-by-word literal
one, but always fair and reasonable -- accurate social/cultural equivalents
where not absolutely literal. (Except for one minor goof, introducing the
metric system where J Eric was talking about the metrics of poetry --
i.e., scansion.) The line quoted above appeared thus:
> > Si yo me digo <<El trabajo de negros>>, no significa nada mal.
> "If I say 'nigger's work', it doesn't harm anybody.
J Eric, who professes a profound appreciation of poetry, ought to know
something about the difference between a word-by-word translation and
a cultural translation, and when each is appropriate. If he did, he would
recognise this as a perfectly reasonable rendering of what he wrote. Indeed,
although there are other good options for handling the second part of
the sentence, Sophie's translation of the highlighted phrase was THE ONLY
REASONABLE EQUIVALENT. J Eric didn't think so, however. I don't follow
his objection, so I'll have to quote it:
> Now, this is a very serious mistranslation. What it actually says is,
>
> "If I say `the work of the blacks,' it doesn't mean anything bad."
>
> This was a reference to the fact that `negro' in Spanish means `black', and
> was an example of semantics being externally imposed by the perceptions
> of the reader.
Certainly 'nigger' is a patently offensive word, but it's not clear whether
J Eric is attacking Sophie personally for introducing it into the translation
where he thinks the original was inoffensive; or attacking English for
having the word 'nigger' (and its speakers as racists); or attacking
English for having the whole phrase _and_concept_ 'nigger work'.
In any case, if his point was one of those three, HE'S QUITE WRONG. The
concept is there in Spanish too, as he shows us. It's up to the individual
whether to deal in such a concept and employ such a phrase. If the focus
is on the single word 'nigger', I ask whether he would think our society
would be less racist if people went around saying "Oh don't ask me to
do that stuff, that's just more Afro-American work". No, it's not any
better. The problem is further back than language, it's in the attitude
that dirty or unpleasant or tedious work can be apportioned out on a
racial basis. And that remains offensive whether you say 'nigger work'
or 'el trabajo de negros'.
-- Mitch Marks
@ UChicago (linguistics)
ihnp4!gargoyle!sphinx!mmar