Middle Eastern Studies and Translation: preliminary remarks

While the problem of translation has received a generous share of attention of theoreticians and practicing translators alike, treating the subject from almost every imaginable viewpoint, certain questions remain unanswered. Between the extremes of pure theory (e.g. deconstructivist 'variations' on the translation-'motif') and pure practice (howto-manuals for the would-be translator), there still seems to be a wide field for inquiry. Worse, the conclusions reached are formulated from a largely Indoeuropean point of view, i.e. both source and target languages belong to the Indoeuropean language family. Considering the importance and sheer number of people translating from or into the major Indoeuropean languages and the theoretical sophistication of experts in literary and translation theory working only with English, Italian, Spanish etc. texts, this is not much of a surprise.

This state of affairs has led to several problems. Concerning Middle Eastern Studies, the worst seem to me

• the scarcity of serious works on translation into/from those languages and
• a certain lack of critical know-how on the part of the few texts published.

In this climate, rather dubious texts have gained currency and the status of authorities. In Arabic studies, the works of Richard Walzer are still considered to be of prime importance for the study of translation from Greek to Arabic, even though his urge to depreciate the intellectual capacities of Islamic translators and thinkers and the usefulness of Arabic as a medium of philosophical discourse betrays an only thinly disguised racism. Similar cases of incompetence and/or bias abound.

A few excellent works by Arabic and Persian authors reach western audiences, but most of the important work done in the field does not receive the attention it deserves, being confined to less accessible Arabic and Persian scholarly publications.

Though I am certainly not the one to remedy this situation, I would like to offer a modest contribution by collecting resources on the subject and providing pointers to other places of interest.