Issue 27 - Columbia: A Journal of Literature and Art

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word-puzzle mode—it's good fun. Gerard Manley Hokins used it
and Dylan Thomas certainly had the sound of the cynghanedd ringing
in his ears as he wrote in English.
Of course, living in a largely English-speaking city, Welsh was
handy as a private language for us. We used it as a family code—
to avoid the scrutiny of over-bearing sales ladies in the shops. In
school—I was educated till the age of eighteen through the medium
of the Welsh—we switched languages mid-sentence when
teachers appeared, to avoid punishment for speaking English.
People have asked me often am I a different person speaking
English and Welsh? I always answer no, but what 15 different, of
course, is the cultural context in which words are spoken. When
these political values clash the cultural sensitivities can be acute.
For example, until recently Swan matches had the slogan
"England's Glory" written on the side of their boxes. "Got your
matches ready?" is an innocent enough sentence in English. But
in Welsh, against the background of an arson campaign run by
nationalists who've been burning down second homes owned by
the English in the Welsh heartland, the question "Ydi dy fatsys di'n
barod?" takes on a totally different tenor. The words are the same,
but the meaning totally different.
I had a sense of the cultural traps involved in being bilingual
very early on. But I also knew it could lead to excitements that
rarely came the way of my monoglot friends. A primary school
teacher who taught me at about age six once told us a story about
young Tommy who didn't practice his English reading. One day
instead of learning his vocabulary he was wandering around and
happened across a rocket. Curious, he made his way in. His eye
was immediately attracted by a big red button on the control
panel. Under it, written in bold letters was an unfamiliar word:
DANGER. "Danger?" he puzzled. "Danger?" Not a Welsh word.
So he pressed the button. The doors closed and before he could
count to ten, he was propelled into space. The moral Miss Rees
intended is clear: your life depends on your being able to read
English. The unconscious moral—and the one by which I'm still
fascinated—was that unfamiliar words lead to huge adventures.
Little Tommy might have died a lonely death in space, but think
of the wonders he must have seen before his oxygen ran out.
I have a linguistic equivalent. For some reason I was talking
to a friend who had been conscripted into the Israeli army about
T. S. Eliot's "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock." We got to the
lines
For I have known them all already, known them all—
Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons.
My friend said that he could never hear that last line without
thinking of a sergeant in the Israeli army whose favourite punishment
for transgressions was making you fill your water bottle (for desert
warfare) a teaspoonful at a time. In the light of this Eliot's line
takes on a felicitous, if unintended new meaning, making the
time and tedium involved in both activities starkly vivid. Words
change according to the background against which you place
them. This is the kind of cross-cultural rocket trip translation can
lead to. Never mind if the voyage is authorized or not, it's bound
to be fertile.
Before I had enough confidence to write in English I spent a
long time translating my own Welsh poems. I've been thinking
about translation for a long time and it seems to me that it's treated,
unjustifiably, as a secondary process in literary life. I'm one of
those who believes that not only is translation possible, it's an
essential element in every nation s culture. Poetry isn't only what's
lost in translation—it's what's gained. In a culture the desire to
translate is always a sign of strength. Only rich cultures are hungry
for news of the outside world—paradoxically, voracity is a sign of
plenitude. It's only cultures who want their members to have a
limited political view that resist promiscuous translation and the
absorption of outside influences. Totalitairan states don't like
translators. Here I take it that the whole point of translation is to
introduce a new element—of rhythm or thought—into a literary
tradition. The point isn't to produce a version so culturally smooth
that nobody would ever guess it was imported. There has to be
something strange, novel and fascinating either about the style or
cast of mind of the new piece.