Journal of Italian Translation

Gaetano Cipolla
with a little jacket with so many patches he looked like a
Harlequin, barefoot, but with very clean feet. He begged for a
living, but discreetly, without bothering anyone, or scaring the
women and children. He could hold his wine well, when he
could afford to buy a bottle, so much so that nobody ever saw
him even slightly drunk, in spite of the fact that there had
been times during feast days when he had put away quite a
few liters.
Few would argue that this is not a faithful rendition of the
Italian text, in terms of the information conveyed. What is missing
is the writer’s voice, his gently mocking tone that emerges from his
problematic use of the dialect. Having lost the metalinguistic component,
i.e. the use of the dialect, the rendition is definitely flatter
than the original. What options are open to a translator? It seems
to me that if he wants to maintain a multilevel linguistic code he
must couch his rendition with a least two, and possibly more, linguistic
codes that would be accessible to the readers. If the audience
for the novel is English, the translator could try to use standard
English with American English as subtext. If he is American
he might utilize expressions and idiomatic sentences that can be
identified with a local dialect to render the Sicilianized Italian expressions.
For example, whenever possible he might interject
Brooklinese or a local jargon of some kind into the stream of standard
American English. Naturally the risk is great that the translator
would introduce an alien dimensions into the novel, disregarding
the fact that the action takes place in Sicily and such interjections
would be considered out of sync with the environment.
Failing this option, it seems to me, the only option left for the translator
is to develop his own multiple level language made up of
sequences that he himself considers normal and interjecting from
time to time expressions that deviate in a consistent way from the
dominant language. The types of deviation naturally would depend
on the translator’s background and preparation. But the deviations
would not have to coincide with Camilleri’s own departures
from standard Italian. An attempt to make the deviations
coincide with Camilleri’s would probably be counterproductive.
The translator would have to listen to his own voice and from time
to time revert to his own subcode in a way that would mimic
Camilleri’s own procedure. With this in mind let us try a different
rendition of the passage we have already translated.
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