I had the opportunity to participate in a two-day seminar on Faith and Language at the Holy Rosary Major Seminary in Naga City a few weeks back. I, with my nonpriest colleagues, considered it a rare opportunity to be inside the enclave of people whose vocation mark them as separate from ours.
Although the topic centered mainly on how the Catholic faith and its pertinent documents, or artifacts, have been translated into Bikol, the discussion resonated with the colonial experience of this country.
If the material being translated is prose, there seems to be no problem. When the form of the piece assumes a literary style, then the question of “untranslatability” rears its difficult head. Fr. Wilmer Tria, the head of the Madrigal Foundation in Ateneo de Naga, and a good academic himself with PhD from Rome, has been translating literary works. Like any good translator, he finds the critical aspects of finding the right words or translation more of part of the fun than the mystery of language. He has translated Khalil Gibran’s The Prophet, Antoine Saint-Exupéry’s The Little Prince, among many others. In Gibran’s poetry, Tria talked about finding equivalent for “oak” trees in the Philippine context by looking for trees that cast massive shadow. After all, the line is about people not growing under each other’s shadow. Any tree that cast a shadow, as the wisdom of the translator puts it, will do.
The second day, poetry and rituals were discussed. Vic Nierva, a poet, talked about his translation of John Donne’s works, a formidable exercise. The poet, however, did not really talk about the process of translation but how he ended up choosing the mystic poet, Donne. He meditated upon memories of loss as the beginning of the desire to understand Donne. Feelings are native and words that are foreign do not, it seems, serve the heart in grief.
Kristian Cordero, another poet, went on to expound on his translation of Rilke’s poems. But Cordero admitted he was amazed about the process where he felt he had to enter the person of Rilke, that he had to make the poet part of his own life, before he sensed that his translation was becoming significant.
I discussed the ritual called “Perdon,” a procession where the participants ask for forgiveness as they enumerate their sins. No priest is needed to mediate between the people and their Lord.
Cordero and I went back to that major seminary to conduct workshop on orthography. We gave them the rules and then asked them to spell some words. We reached the entry “God,” how is that word translated and how to spell the translation. First came “Diyos” and then “Dios.” A third option was offered: “Jos.” Laughter filled the hall. Now they know this business of language and faith can be amusing. They will all make good translators and, maybe, even good evangelizers.
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