Book description
People speak different languages, and always have. The Ancient Greeks
took no notice of anything unless it was said in Greek; the Romans
made everyone speak Latin; and in India, people learned their
neighbours' languages - as did many ordinary Europeans in times past.
But today, we all use translation to cope with the diversity of
languages. Without translation there would be no world news, not much
of a reading list in any subject at college, no repair manuals for
cars or planes, and we wouldn't even be able to put together flat pack furniture.
Is That a Fish in Your Ear? ranges across the whole of human
experience, from foreign films to philosophy, to show why translation
is at the heart of what we do and who we are. What's the difference
between translating unprepared natural speech, and translating Madame
Bovary? How do you translate a joke? What's the difference between a
native tongue and a learned one? Can you translate between any pair of
languages, or only between some? What really goes on when world
leaders speak at the UN? Can machines ever replace human translators,
and if not, why? The biggest question is how do we ever really know
that we've grasped what anybody else says - in our own language or in
another? Surprising, witty and written with great joie de vivre, this
book is all about us, and how we understand each other.
David Bellos is Director of the Program in Translation and
Intercultural Communication at Princeton University, where he is also
Professor of French and Comparative Literature. He has won many awards
for his translations of Georges Perec, Ismail Kadare and others,
including the Man Booker Translator Award, and received the Prix
Goncourt de la biographie for his book on Perec.
