Spanish translation in the Golden Age
Encyclopedia
Spanish Golden Age
The Spanish Golden Age is a period of flourishing in arts and literature in Spain, coinciding with the political rise and decline of the Spanish Habsburg dynasty. El Siglo de Oro does not imply precise dates and is usually considered to have lasted longer than an actual century...
a great number of translations were made, specially from Arabic, Latin and Greek classics, into Spanish, and in turn, from Spanish into other languages.
Background
The Spanish Golden AgeSpanish Golden Age
The Spanish Golden Age is a period of flourishing in arts and literature in Spain, coinciding with the political rise and decline of the Spanish Habsburg dynasty. El Siglo de Oro does not imply precise dates and is usually considered to have lasted longer than an actual century...
that expanded from the late 15th century to the 17th, witnessed the flourishing of cultural and artistic expressions. Good translation were specially highly valued as the mechanism by which to gain access to the Latin and Greek classics, as well as the conduit through which the best in Spanish writing could be transmitted to the rest of Europe. At the same time, the interest for ancient Arabic scientific and medical writings was still very prominent, in spite of the fact that a large part of the Muslim
Muslim
A Muslim, also spelled Moslem, is an adherent of Islam, a monotheistic, Abrahamic religion based on the Quran, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God as revealed to prophet Muhammad. "Muslim" is the Arabic term for "submitter" .Muslims believe that God is one and incomparable...
community who had refused to convert to Christianity, had been expelled from Spain along with similarly unconverted Jews during the year of 1492.
The legacy from the prestigious Toledo School of Translators
Toledo School of Translators
The Toledo School of Translators is the name that commonly describes the group of scholars who worked together in the city of Toledo during the 12th and 13th centuries, to translate many of the philosophical and scientific works from classical Arabic, classical Greek, and ancient Hebrew.The School...
, established during the 12th and 13th centuries, had diminished considerably after the expulsion of the Moors and Jews from Spain in 1492, but in many of the old Arab quarters of Spanish cities the tradition of translation from Arabic to Latin or Spanish continued, although frequently in disguise to avoid the suspicions of the Inquisition. A known Spanish translation of the Muslim Koran, was made in 1456, but however, after 1492 the situation of the Muslim community left in Spain changed drastically, when they were told to accept the Christian faith by means of baptism as a condition for remaining in Spain.
Translations into Spanish
Those Muslims and Jews who chose to stay in Spain while maintaining their religion had to carry out their non-Christian rituals in secret. Their religious books also had to be kept hidden, and for many years they would use AljamiadoAljamiado
Aljamiado or Aljamía texts are manuscripts which use the Arabic script for transcribing Romance languages such as Mozarabic, Berber Spanish or Ladino.According to Anwar G...
manuscripts, which used the Arabic alphabet
Arabic alphabet
The Arabic alphabet or Arabic abjad is the Arabic script as it is codified for writing the Arabic language. It is written from right to left, in a cursive style, and includes 28 letters. Because letters usually stand for consonants, it is classified as an abjad.-Consonants:The Arabic alphabet has...
for transcribing Romance languages such as Mozarabic
Mozarabic language
Mozarabic was a continuum of closely related Romance dialects spoken in Muslim-dominated areas of the Iberian Peninsula during the early stages of the Romance languages' development in Iberia. Mozarabic descends from Late Latin and early Romance dialects spoken in the Iberian Peninsula from the 5th...
, Spanish
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
or Ladino. Aljamiado played a very important role in preserving some of the Moriscos Islamic beliefs and traditions secretly. However, as the years passed they grew increasingly unable to read the original texts, and turned more and more to Spanish translations. Even though many of these translations were destroyed by the Inquisition
Inquisition
The Inquisition, Inquisitio Haereticae Pravitatis , was the "fight against heretics" by several institutions within the justice-system of the Roman Catholic Church. It started in the 12th century, with the introduction of torture in the persecution of heresy...
, some have survived, and bear witness to the laborious task of translating and then copying the religious books by hand. In the year 1606, a Morisco copier of the Koran in Spain made this marginal notation in a mixture of Castilian, Aljamiado and Arabic:
Nonetheless the successive Catholic Monarchs were very keen on education, and created many Universities and study centers, where translations took place. Besides the study and translation of philosophical and scientific works from Arabic, Greek, Hebrew and other languages from Europe and the Mediterranean basin, translations were made from literature works and orally transmuted legends and traditions from native languages in the New World
New World
The New World is one of the names used for the Western Hemisphere, specifically America and sometimes Oceania . The term originated in the late 15th century, when America had been recently discovered by European explorers, expanding the geographical horizon of the people of the European middle...
.
Translations from Spanish
The particular aspects of Spanish Humanism in the RenaissanceRenaissance
The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...
did much to shape the Spanish attitude towards literary translation. In this period the English language acquired a great number of Spanish words. English lexicographers began to accumulate lists of Spanish words, beginning with John Thorius in 1590, and for the next two centuries this interest for the Spanish language facilitated translation into the two languages as well as the mutual borrowing of words.
In the New World
New World
The New World is one of the names used for the Western Hemisphere, specifically America and sometimes Oceania . The term originated in the late 15th century, when America had been recently discovered by European explorers, expanding the geographical horizon of the people of the European middle...
, translations were made specially of those books deemed appropriate for the propagation of the Christian Doctrine in far away lands, predominantly in America and Asia.
Criticism
Most the issues that arose from undertaking such enormous and varied amount of translations during this period are reflected in the Don Quijote de la Mancha of Miguel de CervantesMiguel de Cervantes
Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra was a Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright. His magnum opus, Don Quixote, considered the first modern novel, is a classic of Western literature, and is regarded amongst the best works of fiction ever written...
, where he attributes the authorship of his book to a variety of characters and translators, some with Moorish names, some Spanish, and some from other parts of Europe. Cervantes also expresses his opinion on the translation process, offering a rather despairing metaphor for the end result of translations, which is frequently cited by contemporary theoreticians and translating experts:
According to Cervantes, translations (with the exception of those made between Greek and Latin), are like looking at Flemish tapestry by its reverse side, where although the main figures can be discerned, they are obscured by the loose threads and lack the clarity of the front side.
See also
- Spanish Golden AgeSpanish Golden AgeThe Spanish Golden Age is a period of flourishing in arts and literature in Spain, coinciding with the political rise and decline of the Spanish Habsburg dynasty. El Siglo de Oro does not imply precise dates and is usually considered to have lasted longer than an actual century...
- Toledo School of TranslatorsToledo School of TranslatorsThe Toledo School of Translators is the name that commonly describes the group of scholars who worked together in the city of Toledo during the 12th and 13th centuries, to translate many of the philosophical and scientific works from classical Arabic, classical Greek, and ancient Hebrew.The School...
- Latin translations of the 12th century
External Links
- Robert of Ketton's Qu'ran, as edited by Bibliander (1550 revised edition)
- El Quijote y la traducción in Spanish