Translation

The OED offers a range of definitions for the noun translation, whose origin lies in the Latin verb meaning “to transfer.” The first is “transference; removal or conveyance from one person, place, or condition to another,” a meaning that, after having been dormant for some time, regained currency following the anthropological turn in translation studies, which regards translation not as a product but as a process that can be extended to include people, travel, and migration. This is the sense in which Salman Rushdie uses the term to describe his situation as a British Indian writer: “The word ‘translation’ comes, etymologically, from the Latin for ‘bearing across.’ Having been borne across the world, we are translated men” (1991, 16). The more commonly applied meaning of translation as “the action or process of turning from one language into another; also, the product of this; a version in a different language” (OED) follows later. The term translation is not itself contested in children’s literature, but the appreciation of translation as an expression of internationalism, and especially the actual practice of translating, are.