{"id":5835,"date":"2011-04-08T16:24:39","date_gmt":"2011-04-08T12:24:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/?p=5835"},"modified":"2011-04-08T16:25:14","modified_gmt":"2011-04-08T12:25:14","slug":"keeping-the-meaning-in-the-language-of-protests","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/middle-east-society\/keeping-the-meaning-in-the-language-of-protests\/","title":{"rendered":"Keeping the Meaning in the Language of Protests"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>The chants, slogans, and signs of the 2011 Egyptian revolution have been fodder for translation (and translation theorists) since the first protests on January 25.<\/p>\n

In late January, Elliott Colla wrote an essay about the use of protest chants<\/a>\u2014and the difficulties in translating them\u2014for Jadaliyya. This linguistic challenge is also part of the coursework of a new spring class at the American University in Cairo, Dr. Samia Mehrez\u2019s \u201cTranslating the Revolution<\/a>.\u201d And the protest signs in particular are the subject of a forthcoming book, Messages from Tahrir: Signs from the Egyptian Revolution<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Colla addressed the difficulty of translating chants for a foreign audience, noting that, \u201cThe poetry of this revolt is not reducible to a text that can be read and translated in words, for it is also an act in and of itself.\u201d<\/p>\n

The forthcoming Messages from Tahrir<\/em>, edited by Karima Khalil, preserves some of this performity, as it is primarily a collection of photographs. Still, the network of meanings and the \u201caliveness\u201d of the signs are difficult to capture in such limited spaces.<\/p>\n

Khalil notes, in an email, that she was challenged by a particular sign.\u00a0 She did not opt for the literal translation \u201cmy blood is on your neck\u201d, but instead the more comfortable \u201cmy blood is on your conscience.\u201d She said that she didn\u2019t find it ideal, but added that it was \u201cthe closest I could get to the implicit meaning of \u2018my blood is your responsibility\u2019 that is inbuilt in \u2018ra2abtak.\u2019 I mean, \u2018my blood is on your neck\u2019 gets one nowhere and \u2018my blood is on your hands\u2019 is not quite right either.\u201d<\/p>\n

The literal translation of \u201cmy blood is on your neck\u201d does take the reader outside his comfort zone, evoking a space and context beyond the words on the sign. While it may take a little decoding\u2014since the expression in English is slightly different\u2014the new body part (neck instead of hands) enlivens the English language and makes us think about responsibility in a different way. However, it also moves away from the directness of the sign, which does not have this linguistic \u201cstrangeness\u201d in Arabic.<\/p>\n

A direct translation also has the unfortunate consequence of, for some readers, exoticizing the Egyptian struggle.<\/p>\n

When author Ahdaf Soueif translated Egyptian protest chants for The Guardian<\/em><\/a> in 2005, she also abandoned this sort of local flavor in favor of a British-English colloquialism. Fuul, bey, and even lentils disappear:<\/p>\n

“A soldier gets a lousy deal\/rotten clothes, one lousy meal”<\/p>\n

“Hey Suzanne tell the lord: even beans we can\u2019t afford”<\/p>\n

Indeed, for Khalil\u2019s book, she said, \u201cI was most concerned with approximating their meaning and general spirit and in keeping the tone of the book quite colloquial.\u201d<\/p>\n

A recent blog post from Dr. Mehrez\u2019s course looks at a few chants in-depth<\/a>, working at the exceptionally difficult task of preserving (some of) their rhythm and meaning in very tiny spaces.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

M. LYNX-QUALEY: Much has been written about the ‘banners of the revolution’. However, it is difficult to agree a translation that matches their spirit.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":5837,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[90,5],"tags":[3121,3125,18300,354,5930,18291,3126,1541],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5835"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5835"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5835\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5837"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5835"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5835"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5835"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}