Currently translators take a text in one language and create a rendering of it in a language that’s accessible to their readers. There will never be a perfect mapping from one language to another. As such, a text can be rendered in multiple ways. For example, there may be multiple ways a term can be translated. Each may have different connotations and there may be arguments in favor of each of these terms. In the print world, a book can only contain a single rendering, and thus a single choice must be made. The reader is left with that choice. Compromises will also need to be reached between literary flow and literal faithfulness. The translator makes this choice, and again the reader is stuck with it. Translators may try to mitigate this limitation by offering rationale for their decisions in introductions, including footnotes with alternate translations, or providing the original language term in parentheses, but a printed translation will always be very much a single rendering.

In the world of eBooks, things could be different. Instead of taking a foreign language work and producing a single rendering of it in the reader’s language, the translator could annotate the original work in order to provide data that could be used by different readers to render different versions of the work according to their individual criteria. Readers would be able to have their own bespoke translations.In this post, I use the bible as the primary example of a translated work. There are both technical and theatrical reasons to use the bible as our example. Firstly, if its various translations/editions are treated as a single book it is the best selling book of all time. Secondly, the bible is read and studied at a deeper level than most other books, as such translation decisions that would seem trivial in other cases are actively debated. The bible’s interpretation has been filled with political and religious controversy. Whether they intend to or not, its translators are arguably making a political and religious statement. Indeed, the first English translations of the bible altered the existing power structure in such a way that their mere existence was controversial and they were initially violently oppressed. Finally there are also some interesting technical aspects to bible translations: that are multiple source documents whose languages are no longer spoken, there is no living author to be consulted, and the source material is out of copyright.

An example of a biblical translation decision is the translation of the Hebrew יהוה. The Oxford Annotated Bible translates it as “The Lord”. In college, my religion professor disagreed with this translation and instead used the term “Yahweh” going so far as to say “Yahweh” when reading aloud even though the translation said “The Lord” on the printed page. Others have used “Jehovah”. Since a printed page can only contain a single term, he and his students were stuck with this rendering. Reading an alternate term was his only and somewhat Quixotic form of protest. Imagine instead that readers were free to choose whatever translation they desire — either one of the three terms above or something else of their own devising. If a book is electronic, there’s no reason an alternate term couldn’t be selected. ( See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yahweh for more discussion of the translation of  יהוה.)

Other examples might include aesthetic and stylistic decisions such as modern vs. archaic pronouns i.e. ‘you’ vs ‘thee’ and ‘thou’ and ‘your’ vs. ‘thine’ . Or the use of the phrase “become the father of” vs “begot”. The former uses modern conventional language while the latter is more concise and easier to read if used many times in the same paragraph. The decision to use archaic language (or not) is effectively a political and religious statement. The use of archaic language is a stylistic attempt to give the bible a status as an ancient and venerated text.

An interesting challenge of bible translations is that there’s no one authoritative original text. Different fragments come from different surviving documents. Translators must decide what source to use as the basis for the translation of a given passage if multiple sources contain it. However, if the translation is rendered electronically, readers could choose how different documents are weighted. For example, they might decide that the dead sea scrolls should be used where-ever possible or they might think the dead sea scrolls should be avoided.

Dynamic Translation for Other Works

Differing translations for a term is a common problem in many religious and philosophical texts. Sanskrit Śūnyatā though now usually translated as ‘emptiness’ was once translated as ‘void’ — a subtle but important difference that is thought to have led to confusion.

One decision that translators make is whether to use the original language terms instead of less exact translations. Scholars and serious connoisseurs are likely to prefer original language terms while the casual reader is likely to prefer translations. In the anime community Otaku (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otaku) often prefer fansubs to studio translations because they retain more Japanisms.  (A pet peeve of mine is movies that insist on translating the local currency into US dollars.)

Why not just have more print translations?

There are a few cases in which multiple print translations of a work exist. Though readers cannot create a bespoke translation, they can at least chose among the different static translations available. However, translating a work requires significant time and expertise. The number of different translations will always be limited. Additionally, with a copyrighted work, there may also be rights issues that limit the available translations. It is unlikely that a reader will find precisely the translation she’s looking for.

An objection is that readers do not want to make translation decisions. Indeed, many readers will happily accept a default rendering just as many users accept the default software settings. However, a set of translation decisions could be packaged by experts and shared with others. To make an analogy to web browsers, few users write their own add-ons but many use add-ons written by others.

Conclusion

E-books have the potential to change the nature of translations. The key is to effect a paradigm shift and shift power from the translator to the reader. Instead of being someone who produces a single rendering the translator would annotate the original word in such a way as to provide data. This data could then be used by the reader to create the precise rendering she desired.