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Part of
A World Atlas of Translation
Edited by Yves Gambier and Ubaldo Stecconi
[Benjamins Translation Library 145] 2019
► pp. 125–148

Chapter 6
More or less “translation”

Landscapes of language and communication in India

This essay aims to theorise the present moment of translation in India without losing sight of its historical and contemporary understandings. It traces in the pre-modern moment, a range of linguistic negotiations to destabilise a theory of an absence of translation and dwells on perceptions of linguistic difference to show what ‘translation’ meant in pre-modern India. We demonstrate subsequently how colonial technologies produce the institution of language through translation, and also how translation rests upon the institutions of languages. We argue that ‘translation’ as a term and as a concept of text-to-text/written transference of meaning is a nineteenth century phenomenon dating back to the colonial period. Furthermore, in the postcolonial moment that saw the use of translation in the service of regional and national identities, we also examine the complex relationship between English and the ‘modern Indian languages’ that has given rise to new creolised idioms.

Keywords: translation, pre-modern, colonial, post-colonial, linguistic difference, English, Hinglish, multilingualism, regional language, national language
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Main challenging issues
  • 3.Multitudes of translation
  • 4.Examining perceptions of linguistic difference in pre-modern India
  • 5.Colonial India and the institutionalisation of translation
  • 6.Living in translation: Twentieth century and thereafter
  • 7.Towards a conclusion?
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 5 February 2019
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/btl.145.06kot
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