“Effective translation of natural languages comes awfully close to requiring a sentient translator program.”

— Vernor Vinge, A Fire Upon the Deep (1st edition)

Source: A Fire Upon the Deep (1992), Chapter 32 (p. 397).

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

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Vernor Vinge34

American mathematician, computer scientist, and science fic… 1944

Media Kashigar (1956–2017) Iranian translator, writer and poet

Source: The best critic of a translation is its second translation, Center for the Great Islamic Encyclopedia, 2013 https://www.cgie.org.ir/fa/news/3001

“The language of Europe is translation.”

Umberto Eco (1932–2016) Italian semiotician, essayist, philosopher, literary critic, and novelist

Statement in a lecture at the Assises de la Traduction littéraire in Arles (14 November 1993) http://www.eutrio.be/language-europe-translation

“On translating text into the new language as it is in source language, there is a chance of it being emerged as an absurd sentence in the target language making no sense at all. In the attempt to make the translation meaningful to the target language, there exists a risk of the original work getting meddled by the translator’s style.”

Suman Pokhrel (1967) Nepali poet, lyricist, playwright, translator and artist

Foreword, 'Tales of Transformation: English Translation of Tagore's Chitrangada and Chandalika', Lopamudra Banerjee, (2018). https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07DQPD8F4/ From Prose

“Chance of source language influencing the target language and that of the translator intervening onto the style of original writer are major challenges in literary translation.”

Suman Pokhrel (1967) Nepali poet, lyricist, playwright, translator and artist

“All language is but a poor translation.”

Franz Kafka (1883–1924) author

“English translation of the Spanish language text.”

Angelique Rockas South African actress and founder of Internationalist Theatre, London

Vogue, Mexico Interview: Una Actirz Multiplicada (July 1992)

“With me, everything turns into mathematics.
More closely translated as: but in my opinion, all things in nature occur mathematically.”
Mais apud me omnia fiunt Mathematicè in Natura

René Descartes (1596–1650) French philosopher, mathematician, and scientist

""Mais"" is French for ""but"" and the ""but in my opinion"" comes from the context of the original conversation. apud me omnia fiunt Mathematicè in Natura is in latin. Sometimes the Latin version is incorrectly quoted as Omnia apud me mathematica fiunt. Sources: Correspondence with Mersenne http://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/Page%3aDescartes_-_%C5%92uvres,_%C3%A9d._Adam_et_Tannery,_III.djvu/48 note for line 7 (1640), page 36, Die Wiener Zeit http://books.google.com/books?id=9Xh3fVZLCycC&pg=PA532&lpg=PA532&dq=%22Omnia+apud+me+mathematica+fiunt%22+original+zitat&source=bl&ots=CgQOrveRiM&sig=WFHwIK20r5vRZ66FwCaxo857LCU&hl=de&sa=X&ei=_Wf2UcHlJYbfsgaf1IHABg#v=onepage&q=%22Omnia%20apud%20me%20mathematica%20fiunt%22%20original%20zitat&f=false page 532 (2008); StackExchange Math Q/A Where did Descartes write... http://math.stackexchange.com/questions/454599/where-did-descartes-write-with-me-everything-turns-into-mathematics?noredirect=1#comment978229_454599

“Translation came naturally to me because as a child I was translated from Germany to Britain.”

Michael Hamburger (1924–2007) British translator, poet, critic, memoirist and academic

Interview with Lidia Vianu http://lidiavianu.scriptmania.com/Michael%20Hamburger.htm

“Silence is the language of God, all else is poor translation.”

Rumi (1207–1273) Iranian poet

“The greatest pleasure in translating is precisely this feeling of spiritual closeness and spiritual merging with the translated author. Moreover this spiritual relation is different with every writer.”

Ventseslav Konstantinov (1940–2019) Bulgarian writer and Translator

As quoted in "From Bach to Kafka, or... about temptation - An interview by Emil Bassat http://darl.eu/intervie/84_05_30.htm" in Sofia News (30 May 1984).

“Effective translation of natural languages comes awfully close to requiring a sentient translator program.”

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