“To know thyself is the beginning of wisdom.” (Socrates)

In the Maritime Republic of Mauritius, complacency is our treasured value. We bluff and finally trust our bluffs. We lie and soon believe in our own lies. We live on an island where the sea is never far away and yet only a small number of Mauritians can swim. Worse still! Every year fishers whose work environment is the sea are reported ‘dead by drowning’ for they could not swim. We are most of us semilinguals having a mediocre language competence, having only a smattering of any language we claim to speak and yet we boast of being multilinguals. Most of us are either semi-literate or non-literate, much in need of symbols to perform our democratic duty being unable to read names on a ballot paper and yet we fancy ourselves as functionally literate. We believe we know without having to learn.

Recently I read a few comments on an article published by l’Express.
One person had this to say: “Dev Virahsawmy has an excellent command of the English language but he must cease his rough translations of English classics. He misleads all readers... An example of his distorted and far-fetched translation:

"If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you, If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
Si to tini ferm kan lezot sapé, E pe rod fer kwar twa ki pe foté; Si to sir to pwen (?) kan lezot douté"
Suggested translation:
"Si ou kapav gard ou latet lor ou zepol kan lezot pe perdi pou zot e blam ou pou sa. Si ou kapav fer ou mem konfians kan tou dimun dout de ou".

The source text by Rudyard Kipling is in verse and is as follows:

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you...
My transcreation reads as follows:
Si to tini ferm kan lezot sapé
E pe rod fer kwar twa ki pe foté;
Si to sir to pwen kan lezot douté...

That expert at translation wants to teach all of us the art of translation and this is what he proposes:

"Si ou kapav gard ou latet lor ou zepol kan lezot pe perdi pou zot e blam ou pou sa. Si ou kapav fer ou mem konfians kan tou dimun dout de ou".

Note the following:
Rudyard Kipling uses iambic pentametre, a five-beat line in English, a stress-timed language; the three lines rhyme. 

To try to create a similar rhythm, I use 10 syllable lines which rhyme. N.B. Mauritian is a syllable-timed language.

The translation guru respects neither rhyme nor rhythm and cannot distinguish between verse and prose. Moreover, he makes no distinction between translation and paraphrase and finds it normal to insult (rough translations of English classics/ distorted and far-fetched translation) hiding behind a pen-name which for many, means a license to insult and slander. Is it not a case of misuse of freedom of speech?

This person is also ‘un donneur de leçon’. He adds in French this time: "Si" Rudyard Kipling aurait parlé kreol ou français, aurait-il tutoyé d'emblée les gens comme le fait grossièrement Dev Virahsawmy à sa place? Modern English has only ONE second person pronoun, ‘you’. Thou, thy and thee have been dropped. According to that great intellectual giant, using the second person singular is a sign of bad manners (grossièrement). So according to him/her, all Christians are ill-mannered when they say their prayers:
In English:

Our Father, which art in heaven,
hallowed be thy name;
thy kingdom come;
thy will be done,
In French:
Notre Père, qui es aux cieux,
que ton nom soit sanctifié,
que ton règne vienne,
que ta volonté soit faite

Another person who thinks he/she is a translation expert has this to say: 
The 2 lines:
“If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you ...
… you’ll be a Man, my son!”
are translated by me as:
"Si doushmann ek dos pa fouti tor twa,
… to finn vinn gayar, monwar."
He proposes “une traduction plus facile à comprendre”: "Si to kapaz pa senti twa blessé ou offensé par bann lennmi ou bann kamarad pros...to pou vinn enn vré ZOM, mo garson!"
He/She too confuses verse and prose, translation and paraphrase. Much worse, alliteration and internal rhyme are gone.
In my version there is an attempt not to overlook the alliteration ‘foes’ and ‘friends’ (doushmann/dos) and the internal half-rhyme (man and son) through the use of ‘gayar’ and ‘monwar’. In the process something more is gained: two gender biassed words ‘man’ and ‘son’ are replaced by two gender neutral words ‘gayar’ and ‘monwar’ which makes the message universal and relevant to all including LGBT.
Let us conclude with two quotes: “The more I read, the more I acquire, the more certain I am that I know nothing.” (Voltaire) and “Once we accept our limits, we go beyond them.” (Albert Einstein). In this period of great confusion and serious life-threatening issues, let us remember what very wise people have told us.

11.10.19