The Untranslatability of Ideas: Reading a Poem in Afrikaans and Reflections on Translation

This is my first real video on Hive. There is a reason why some people can act, and some people can make videos. This is not easy. In any case, in the video, I read a poem in my home language Afrikaans. I proceed to reflect on translation and why I think it is so hard to achieve any outcome in translation. This is not an in-depth study, but more of an art project of some sorts. Most people who make videos say your first couple will always be the worst. So let us hope for better days. Below is the original script, but I did not stick to it all the way. Also, I add the Afrikaans poem below the script.

I hope you enjoy this rather personal moment of reflection and my old typing machine. I write a lot of my poetry on the typing machine. There is something carnal to the use of an old machine like this. The sounds, the texture of the keys under your fingers, and the end product.

The video was shot on a Nikon D3200 with my old Nikkor 50mm lens. The poem I read comes from one of my books. The reflections are also of my own. Thank you so much if you listened and watched. If you have any advice for a newbie, please let me know in the comments.

A Script of Sorts

Needless to say, if you do not understand Afrikaans, the reading of my poem would not have made any sense. Translating poetry have always fascinated me. Not so much the end product of the translated work, but the sheer impossibility thereof. Or that is my subjective experience.

I had to translate poetry as a requirement to enter a creative writing course. Again, what struck me was a feeling of pointlessness or meaninglessness. Writing, or saying, these words, I undergo the same process. The word I use in Afrikaans is “nutteloosheid”. If something has “nut” there is some kind of utility to it. “nutteloos” means there is no utility, there is no reason to do it. Translating poetry feels like this to me.

Translating poetry seems to be a poetic undertaking itself. The reason why I think poetry cannot be translated is that sounds and word pairings are integral to poetry itself. It is as if the words, sounds, and meanings are like paint strokes on a canvas. But I want to take this even further and claim that ideas themselves are untranslatable.

This is a rather radical claim to make. But, using poetry as my example, there are some ideas that one simply cannot just translate. But this is a slippery slope argument that inevitably leads to the idea that we have private languages and that we can only understand ourselves. Meanings are fleeting, always deferred.

Thus, my idea with the reading of this poem was for the listener to focus on the sounds of the words. Almost like the sounds themselves become brushstrokes on the canvas.

Dans met die Dood

om en om dans ons
op sagte note van verdwaalde melodieë
onder die maan verlig
stilte

skielik was dit swart
soos ʼn kraai se vere
val ons stadig in die niet van lewe
banaal absurd ʼn beeldskone gesig

vertel vir my ʼn verhaal
dat ek kan sing
en die stilte verbreek
en saam dood dans op die maat van jou stem

stilte
alles val tot niks
banaal en absurd elke beweging
nutteloos verplig

Shameless Tagging

I am shamelessly tagging two friends with whom I have talked about this video, @yahia-lababidi and @insaneworks.