Sans state support, Tamils rely on translations internet for global knowledge
Tamil knowledge systems readily acknowledge the importance of translations. In the past, there have been many voices articulating the value of translation in order that knowledge and information posited in languages other than Tamil is made accessible to Tamil language speakers.
However, effective translation of knowledge from one language to others is limited. This is due to the mindset of communities or people who transmit and receive knowledge through translations.
Translating knowledge is connected not only with sharing of knowledge and information but also with power. Power of the English language and its central role in the dissemination of information all over the world are simply because of the colonial and neo-colonial domination by the English-speaking nations and their systematic arrangements to maintain hegemonic control in the world.
On the other hand, contemporary developments in the Tamil language in Sri Lanka are solely connected with, and depend upon, the power of so-called ?ordinary people.? The Tamil language has little institutional support and the role of the Sri Lankan state is limited to mere rhetoric on popular platforms.
Similarly, translations too have a story or history that is solely dependent on the spirit of committed individuals and/or small groups who more or less sacrifice their very existence to work on translating texts, than to institutional support.
Though acknowledging the importance of translations, the tragedy of the Tamil intellectual tradition is its unawareness of the importance and centrality of translators for the expansion of knowledge. Translation is conceived of as an act of mechanical copying, and the cerebral input by translators is rarely taken into account. Translators are not considered artists or intellectuals, they are perceived as mere copyists.
The art of translation, or the practice of translation, is basically connected with a single word: ?why?? The power and meaning of the single word ?why?? is enormous. It is connected with existing systems of knowledge and social construction. It is a questioning of the existing environment for its limitations and its powerlessness.
In principle, translation is an act of sharing knowledge, information and socio-cultural values. Knowledge, information and values can be transmitted outside a group that subscribes to the same language only through translation. Since knowledge is power, translations empower those who would not have had the benefit of that knowledge because access to it was restricted by barriers of language.
At the same time, translation can be exploited by those in power for their own sectarian ends. A critical eye on the world news pages of the vernacular media reveals the politics of translation and its construction ? how it subtly navigates the reader to control thought and behaviour.
Therefore the art of translation makes an immense contribution to the manufacture of knowledge in order to control. But at the same time, this art could be used to liberate and emancipate a community from the shackles of oppression by strengthening and vitalising knowledge systems that support such progressive endeavours.
As mentioned above, the contemporary history of translation in the Tamil context is mainly the story of committed individuals and small groups. Those who are involved in the art are motivated by the importance of transferring information or knowledge, thereby empowering and enriching their own knowledge systems, while exposing theirs to world outside. Basically, translations into and from Tamil is an unrecognised act by invisible persons.
Despite their invisibility, these groups and circles are aware of the importance of translation and consciously regard it as a form of political expression. The role of the left movement in the 1960s and 1970s in this regard is commendable. Translations of Marxian and Maoist literatures on political and cultural issues, particularly literary works ? novels, short stories and drama ? from Soviet Russia and China were very influential in expanding Tamil speakers? knowledge of the world outside.
The upsurge of political nationalism among the Sri Lankan Tamils in the late 1970s and 1980s provided a boost to translations. The demand by Tamil readers for the artistic and political literatures of other groups resisting oppression gave a fillip to translations. Thus the political and cultural works of Palestinian, African and the other oppressed nations and communities were translated into Tamil.
The emergence of feminist activism in 1980s among the Tamils resulted in the translation of a considerable amount of literatures and influenced the transformation of the perspectives of the Tamil community.
From the 1990s, the rise of movements within civil society and resistance by small groups and individuals to globalization paved the way for influential translations of texts on political, social and environmental issues into Tamil.
Most translations were not directly of original works. They were translations of English translations. But a reasonable number of translations were made from the Russian language with the support of the Soviet government. Though very few, there are direct translations from other languages too.
English has become the platform for the transfer of global information and knowledge in ?alternative media? spaces too. But it has its own politics, despite being the most accessible and easily available route for global communication. However, the political question is to whom it is available and remains an easy path of communication. It is an issue that must be addressed when looking at different agents of oppression.
Another major influence on translation in the Tamil context is the emigration of Sri Lankan Tamils overseas in the late 1980s and 1990s and their reaction to its cause. The emigration of politically active youth and their life overseas in alien environments yielded new and strange experiences that are entering the Tamil knowledge system.
These youth, who are essentially non-native-speakers of English with hardly any formal, tertiary level education, are migrants to countries outside the English-speaking world. They have responded to their relocation in new environments by bringing into the Tamil knowledge system translations from the French, German or Dutch. Their compilation of dictionaries is an important feature of this practice. Once again, this too is a commitment by individuals and small groups who are mostly living marginalised existences in Tamil Diasporas.
The problem with such endeavours is that they are ad hoc and unsystematic. From time to time, social movements raise their voices in favor of institutionalised translation programmes, but such projects have not really got going.
A new feature in the field of translation is that of translation studies gradually entering the curricula of academic institutions, particularly institutions of higher education. The point to ponder is of course its attachment to departments teaching English, and English Language Teaching Units (ELTUs) in a variety of Sri Lankan universities. It is rarely that translation studies are attached to departments teaching Tamil.
This is the product of a lack of understanding of the uniqueness of translation studies. Translations are interpreted as being from English, to English, or through English. In actual fact however, translation is matter of knowing any two languages and the art of rendering effectively what is in one language in the other. Basically a person who has mastered at least two languages could be a translator.
Conceptalisation of translation as a part of other specialised fields in academics such as the teaching of English literature or language, and institutionalising it as a sub-unit of departments teaching English in academic institutions, will only lead to a distortion of translation studies. It will help strengthen English-centric knowledge construction and the dissemination of the colonial master plan, which still influences and controls academic programmes in post-colonial nations.
Distortion of the goal of translation studies also occurs due to a popular notion among first language speakers that they have nothing to learn in their mother tongue other than for formal examination purposes. The same fallacy has infected the minds of the intellectual community in academic institutions as well.
The lack of actual involvement by governments of newly-independent countries other than manufacturing political rhetoric on official language policy is a direct reflection of the actual state of politics in countries emerging from colonial rule.
The status of a language spoken by people relates directly to the economic position of the community speaking that language within a state, or a state within the international system. Economic dependency will result in mental dependence and limit the discussion of the use of native languages to rhetoric on political platforms.
Dealing with language issues in a practical way is directly connected to the questioning of existing systems, particularly in education and economics. Movements which raise the language issue for social liberation usually concentrate and celebrate its dignity in the past. In this, to some extent at least, they are engaged in a journey of linguistic reversal to an idealised past, which emphasise notions of the language?s purity.
It is rare indeed to encounter or recall prominence given to translation studies in such linguistic-based liberation movements. But translations have a major role to play not only in the enrichment of a particular language, but also in transforming the perspective of its native speakers by restructuring their knowledge systems.
Modern knowledge systems of the Tamils are colonial construction and English-centric. They are fundamentally the brain child of Thomas B. Macaulay the master craftsman of the Minutes on Indian Education.
Construction of the ?modern? world is basically the creation of western colonialism. Though the colonisers might have physically departed from the shores of their former possessions, they continue to maintain hegemony over our minds, with our consent. This is in reality the politics of ?independent? states or the postcolonial state.
Postcolonial states are busily engaged in number of conflicts, internal wars, liberation struggles, campaigns against international terrorism etc. Tamils in different parts of the world, but particularly Tamils of Sri Lanka, have become enmeshed in this web of postcolonial reality.
The most visible consequence of this reality has been overseas displacement and emigration of Tamils and their settlement in different parts of the world. It is these groups that form the Tamil Diaspora that are writing and translating literatures of the countries in which they live.
An important aspect of individuals and groups operating in the Tamil Diaspora is their independence. Their work is not an imposition by a superior force. It is decided and determined by the Tamils for the Tamils. The internet in Tamil, the small-circulation magazines and the mainstream media play an important role in this movement.
Tamils through the Tamil language are electronically connected to their brethren in every nook and corner of the world now. And these linkages are being used progressively too. The songs of popular Tamil cinema for instance are a bridge of the ?Thamil koorum nal ulahu.? It has bonded children in non-Tamil-speaking lands who are unfamiliar with the Tamil language.
The electronic medium that is globally interconnected is already in operation. With Tamil language-users connected through cyberspace, Tamils are experiencing the advantages of this global interconnectedness and access through the Tamil language to information and knowledge.
The crucial question is how Tamils are going to organise themselves to use this situation to achieve a positive space for members of that community living scattered around the world. How is the favourable atmosphere going to be exploited effectively to connect Tamils all over the world through the Tamil language? How is a generation of Tamils unfamiliar with their mother tongue going to be connected through the support of the Tamil internet?
Finally it will determine how we are going to manipulate cyberspace to transform Tamil knowledge systems to achieve a world in which all Tamils can live in freedom, unbound by the shackles of caste and creed and political affiliations.
By: S. Jeyasankar
Source: Northeastern Monthly - March 2007
