Qian Zhongshu apparently did not have a high opinion of Eliot (pictured above), and in an essay he translated the honorific name of the great Anglo-American poet as "Eli Bade".
Start with "Coca-Cola."
Typing on the computer screen, there will always be a small dish of peanut rice next to it, and a can of "zero degree" Coca-Cola. Peanuts may be fragrant and may bring inspiration; drinks have symbolic meanings in addition to their practical role: those who write or translate can get creative from this translated name. Legend has it that Jiang Yi translated Coca Cola as "Coca-Cola", which is a beautiful transliteration of "classic level" and has a lofty position in the history of commercial translation. In Hong Kong, in this business society, translations of imported trade names are often gratifying. Whenever Hong Kong people have a festive banquet, they like to serve guests with a brandy called "Pepsi Ji". This brand of wine, originally named Bisquit, has nothing to do with "PepsiJi" in the sense; the translator's creativity was like a glass of Chinese and American wine overflowing, and he came up with a jia name.
I call translations like "Coca-Cola" and "PepsiJi" "the magic translation of yiyin creativity." The translator creates a word according to the pronunciation of the original text, the pronunciation is the same as or similar to the pronunciation of the original text, and its meaning serves the subjective thinking of the translator, in order to express the reasonableness or interest of the translator. Such translations can be elegant, praiseable, and spoofy, and strive to be clever and interesting. Hong Kong translators have always performed well in the commercial translation of "Good Ode".
One of the brands of perfume, Revlon, which translates to "Revlon" in Hong Kong, reminds us of Er Li's poems: Li Shangyin's poetic imagery; Li Bai's famous phrase "Spring Breeze Blows Revlon". More than a thousand years ago, if there were already "Revlon" series of perfumes and cosmetics, they would surely become royal treasures - The Tang Ming Emperor would definitely give them to Yang Guifei for special use. The wonderful translation of "Revlon" is poetic and rich, and the fragrance floats on both sides of the Strait, Taiwan and the mainland have been attacked by its strong fragrance. Another perfume brand, Chanel, which translates to "Xiannu" in Hong Kong, sounds close and strange, but its aroma does not drift to the carp gate; Kitakami Guangshen is neither "xian" nor "slave", and Jiaqi is called "Chanel". The word "Nai" in this translated name has the meaning of what to do and how; it is true that it is elegant and intriguing, and it is also a good translation of the near meaning.
Back to "Xiannu". This is an era when everyone is equal, how can you be a slave to others? But the immortals are all handsome men and beautiful women, when the immortals are slaves, romantic, there is immortality, maybe the immortal qi can live forever! Hong Kong has a street name "MacDonnell Road", which once translated the world-famous fast food restaurant McDonald's as "McDonald", and once translated US President Ronald Reagan as "Langu Reagan". These "slaves" are all products of the colonial era. At that time, the slave Yan Concubine's intention was hidden in the hearts of some Hong Kong people? Of course, commentators can argue that the initials of the end-of-word syllables such as McDonald and Ronald are n instead of l, so the translation uses "slave" instead of "law".
Firenze "Emerald": Neither cold nor emerald
In a feast of translations of all natures and genres, this clever translation is like an appetizer or a dessert. In order to attract consumers, the translator is "art for reality"; this kind of translation of non-commercial and literati can be called "art for art's sake".
The creative translation of the Chinese literati Yashi is not known in which dynasty it began; it may be that when there is contact with foreign countries, there are "tongue people" and "translators". Let's start with the early 20th century. Hu Shi studied in the United States, cornell university is located in the beautiful landscape of itheca city, he translated the place name as "Qi Se Jia", the sound is close and beautiful. The elegant Hu Shi was affectionate and had a girlfriend, Edith Williams, while studying at Cornell University, and the researchers of Hu Shi said that their love affair lasted for fifty years. The beautiful translation of "Qi Se Jia" does not know whether I have taken inspiration from "beautiful person".
Xu Zhimo, a poet who had experience in the United States with Hu Shi, and Firenze (English is Florence, Chinese generally translates to Florence) in Italy, were amazed, and translated the place name as "Emerald Jade", which was cold and beautiful, which caused the later afterglow to scare the previous generation of colleagues: looking down on Firenze City from a high place, the roofs are orange-red, neither emerald nor cold.
Another bingxin who stayed in the United States, studied at a college in the suburbs of Boston, was sick, hospitalized, and was accompanied by the wind-blowing lake outside the window in his loneliness, feeling a little comforted. She translates this Lake Waban as "Lake of Comfort Ice" and explains it this way: "... The sunset is extremely beautiful and feminine. The golden light that fell to the treetops scattered on the surface of the lake. I...... Command it lowly, take my love and comfort with it, and go with it to the Far East. This is also a good translation: "diaspora" (diaspora) is out of the wandering, found solace. Zhou Cezhong, who wrote "The History of the May Fourth Movement", was a professor in Madison City, Wisconsin, USA, and translated the place name as "Strange Land", and trouble came: the editor read Professor Zhou's manuscript and thought that "Strange Place" was a clerical error, but changed it to "Strange Place". What should not be changed is that it is another yiyin creative translation with "discrete" feelings: Zhou Cezhong is a student in a strange place.
Eliot: "Eli Evil"?" Oried"?
The creative translation of "art for art's sake" is translated by scholars, generally who understand foreign languages, such as Qian Zhongshu. This year marks the 100th anniversary of T.S. Eliot's famous poem "The Waste Land," and his poems are bound to spark a wave of discussion. Qian Zhongshu obviously did not have a high opinion of Eliot, and in an essay, he translated the honorific name of the great Anglo-American poet as "Eli Wicked" instead of the ordinary "Eliot". Yan Yuanshu, a professor at National Taiwan University in the 1970s and 1980s, would have been angry if he had known about Qian Zhongshu's spoof translation. Professor Yan admired Eliot and the New Critical School, translating Eliot, one of the founders of this school, as "Orlid": this person established virtue in Europe. Meritorious service, above the words is Lide, what a great contribution he has made! Will someone get justice for Eliot this year?
Qian Zhongshu spoofed Eliot, and to himself and many readers, he humbly called himself a silverfish, that is, a bookworm: he translated the Bodleian Library of Oxford University's town school as "Full Offibern Building", which was another victory of Yiyin's creativity. When he fed himself in the museum, the many volumes of notes were evidence of his delicious texts. Another Translation is "醹醅雅". The ancient Persian genius Omar Kahhyam wrote a collection of poems, Rubyat, which was immortalized by the English translation of Edward Fitzgerald in England. Guo Moruo and others were translated into Chinese according to the English translation, and the title of the book was "LuBai Collection". Qian Zhongshu was creative and unique, and he wrote "MingYa". The word "sauce" is wine, which is not esoteric; it is also wine, referring to a mellow wine. When Qian Zhongshu translated the title of the book, he probably remembered the twelfth poem in the very famous collection. Guo Moruo translated it like this:
In the shade of a tree is a scroll of poetry,
A bottle of grape wine, a little dry food,
You sing with me in this wasteland,
Oh, ah, the wasteland, heaven!
Qian Zhongshu research is called "Qianxue", there have been many treatises involving all aspects of his people and his writings, I don't know if someone has written an article on "Qian Zhongshu and Wine", and it is not uncommon for the word "wine" to appear in his poems. In addition, in a letter sent to me by Mr. Qian in 1982 (exactly forty years ago), it ended with the words: "... Re-reading Herodotus... Once passed, the sauce was delicious. The old man has no lamb wine, and relies on this to cool off the ears. A laugh. "Yi Yi Ya" is elegantly translated, and it is infused with some feelings of reading and life of the literary hero.
"Money fans" have many wonderful translations of "yiyin creativity" in the afterglow
The poet Yu Guangzhong revered Qian Zhongshu and had read "The Siege of the City" as many as ten times. This "money fan" is also fascinated by the elegant translation of Yiyin's creativity. He traveled to all continents. In the United States, the poet Xia Jing works at Fort Collins, and when visiting old friends, she has a literary record, translating the place name as "Linshi Fort", which means that Xia Jing lives here and can observe the field to facilitate her business. Daughter Peishan studied at East Lansing University in Michigan, and her father translated the place name as the euphemistic "East Orchid". Driving across the city in the United States, staying at the motel at night, he played the magic of words, turned English into the "twilight sleeper" of Chinese, and translated the name to correctly explain the market positioning of this kind of car hotel "for travelers to stay".
Europe's history and culture are deeper than those of the United States, and afterglow travels in Europe, place names, personal names, and things are in English, German, French, and Italian. Chenonceau, who was once the palace of the King of France, hid court affairs and struggles such as the "Biography of Zhen Huan", and Yu Guangzhong came here to visit, not forgetting to leave a beautiful translation of "Chenongsha" for it. When I arrived in another French town, called Chisseau, the poet was so moved that he translated it as "Sunset", because it was time to stay again. In Germany, lake Bodensee is shining, and the creative Yaxing is here again: "Boding Lake" (German see means lake). The poet respects Su Dongpo, and I believe that this translation should be inspired by the words "Dingfeng Bo" of the distant predecessor Po Gong. The rain stops and the wind is quiet, and the water waves are not happy, which is the hope of Su Dongpo's life, and it is also the prayer of the travelers in the afterglow. The famous places of interest in the British tour are Stonehenge, which is generally translated as "Stonehenge", and there are also half-interpretations and half-translations of "Stonehenge Ring Stones". According to his language cultivation, a small stone broke the sky with a harmonious tone: "The stone freezes and is silent." "Yes, these frozen stones have been silent for four or five thousand years.
This kind of magic translation is Chinese as a unique dignity or becomes a "new national essence"
Yu Guangzhong was often fascinated by this kind of translation, and yiyin creativity became a hobby (hobby) of his—he translated the word as "hobby". The afterglow is not good at wine, just a chance to taste a little brandy and the like. With the help of wine, the "translation" flew and flew to the myth; so Pegasus became "double acceleration", zepher became "Ruofei", and Hercules became "Hejiulis"--such a heroic man can carry jiuding in China. There is a strong interest in transcreation, just like he writes poetry, and everything is covered.
Another example: in the fifteenth and sixth centuries, Machiavelli's famous work "On gentlemen" in Italy advocated the use of power to govern the government for profit, and the author's name was generally translated as "Machiavelli"; Yuguang Zhongyin was a win-win, translating the Machiavellism as "Majia mercenarism". The term "mercenary" is used well. The chi sound in Machiavelli is pronounced as the ki tone in English, which is not pronounced in Mandarin, but there is some in Hakka. Generally translating the "Chia" sound in "Machiavelli", Yu Guangzhong merged it into the "home" sound, which can also be said to be a kind of translation art of compromise.
The various transliterations in The Afterglow are creative and wonderful translations, expressing their language arts, intentionally or unintentionally revealing their thoughts and emotions, especially the "mini" products of translation. The various translations of Yu can be compiled and sorted out into a long paper, and this is the end of it. By the way, I have here a self-proclaimed "creative" translation, modern Western translation theorists such as Cafforde (J.C. Catford, Eugene Nida, etc. seem to be completely untouched; there is no other, and the "translation language" of this translation is Chinese, which is a monophonic square word with a single meaning, and its flexible combination is unique among the various languages of the world. On education, the ancient Chinese people said that "aspirations are in the Tao, according to virtue, according to benevolence, and travel in art"; the wonderful translation here is a kind of "swimming in art". The origin of literature and art includes games, couplets, riddles, poetry clocks and other national essences, all of which have the meaning of word games - it is an elegant word game. According to the clever translation of the yin creative, it may become a kind of "new national essence".
I read the books of Qian Zhongshu, Yu Guangzhong, and Xia Zhiqing, and I had some experience in compiling my articles into a book (there are three versions of Taiwan, Hong Kong and the mainland, and the mainland version is called "Master Style"). One of the three's major characteristics is that they take into account both Chinese and Western learning and literature. Qian and Yu's papers and writings all attach importance to rhetoric, and Xia pays less attention to it. Both Chinese and Western and attach importance to the lyricists, every multi-xi yiyin creative translation. Xia Zhiqing, whose words are more simple, does not seem to be able to manage this way, but it is not nothing. For example, he put sucker (sucker; Easily deceived) is translated as "sex"; readers who are well associated with it may appreciate the beauty of this translation. Elliot was closely related to Faber & Faber Publishing House, and Xia Gong studied Elliot and transliterated the name of the publishing house as "Flying White". Feibai is a kind of calligraphy and a way of rhetoric, and Xia translation can be described as elegant.
Qian Zhongshu wrote to Huang Weiliang in 1982.
My "too much breath, not happy"
Slightly speaking of my own yiyin creative translation. When I was in primary school in Hong Kong, I was quite confused about some words: there was a big sign in a small shop downstairs, the name was "Good Jing Shiduo", and there was a sentence in the school song that was sung that was "Ji Ji Duo Shi". Later, I learned that the original "Shiduo" was a transliteration of store, that is, a store. Such transliterations can be seen everywhere in Hong Kong since the opening of the port. When I was in junior high school, I participated in the "Request for Translation" competition, and translated a watch brand Ricoh as "Li Qi", which means accurate to the minute to the second to the minute, and is a polytheistic timer! Hong Kong still has the largest proportion of Cantonese-speaking population, and when pronounced in Cantonese, "Li Qing" is very close to Ricoh's voice. When the results of the competition were announced, the translated name of the winner was "Li Qi". I learned a lesson from "failure": this brand of watch is "accurate" (accurate) and "beautiful" (beautiful), of course, better than just accurate watches, popular. Although in terms of pronunciation, the Cantonese word for "Li" is not as close to Ri as "Li".
The "gene" elementary school that is interested in transliteration has been planted, and in the future, it has been widely involved in this aspect, and it has been a series of attempts for decades to compete with the predecessors. Many of my transliterations were written down at the time, but they were not collected, and they had long been forgotten in the smoke and water. Of course, there are many more that I remember now, such as Xerox becoming my "Record", Email being "Easy Magic", Youtube being "Friend Post", and so on. When drinking "zero degree" Coca-Cola and writing this article, he did not forget that the current epidemic situation in Hong Kong is serious, and the medical personnel and various materials in the mainland are going south to support hong Kong people who are poor in coping with the epidemic. I am relieved, but as a Hong Kong person, I am naturally unhappy to see that Hong Kong itself has not been able to fight the epidemic well. Oh, no joy! The aforementioned "diaspora" of Bing Xin and Zhou Cezhong is sad, and my creative translation of this foreign word is "too much, not happy"!
Huang Weiliang