Translation in the Malay World. Different Communities, Different Agendas Jedamski, D.A.; Hung E., Wakabayashi J. Citation Jedamski, D. A. (2005). Translation in the Malay World. Different Communities, Different Agendas. In W. J. Hung E. (Ed.), Asian Translation Traditions (pp. 211-245). Manchester, UK, Northampton MA: St.Jerome Publishing. Retrieved from https://hdl.handle.net/1887/15104 Version: Not Applicable (or Unknown) License: Leiden University Non-exclusive license Downloaded from: https://hdl.handle.net/1887/15104 Note: To cite this publication please use the final published version (if applicable). Translation in the Malay World Different Communities, Different Agendas1 DORIS JEDAMSKI Leiden, The Netherlands It is said that translations do not have much value because they are merely duplicates. Be that as it may, they do occupy a significant place in literature.2 (Tzu You 1939:21) Abstract: For many centuries in the Malay world active and questioning use has been made of Arabic, Chinese, Indian and European source texts of all kinds. They were translated into Malay as well as into regional languages. This article outlines indigenous translation activities and colonial translation policy during the 19th and 20th centuries as they affected Malay literature. With the growing interference of the European colonial power in the educational sector and text production, the situation and tactics of the translators – among them Eurasians, Chinese, Sino-Malay, Arabs, Malay and Javanese – could not but change. Influenced also by their differing ethnic backgrounds, these translators developed diverse strategies, revealing divergent and sometimes contradictory notions of translation, translation history, and ‘ownership of the word’. This paper depicts the momentum that these concepts and strategies created in the Malay world. The screening and selection of cultural knowledge from outside the Malay traditions, as well as its purposeful acquisition and incorporation into the indigenous culture, has always relied on translation, but increasingly so when indigenously-run print media emerged in the Malay archipelago. From the late 19th century onwards literary translation in the broadest sense began to play a central role in the intellectual life of the Malay world. Within the indigenous context, a translation was apparently seen only as a first step, necessary to make the foreign source accessible, assessable, and – if deemed sufficiently relevant to be incorporated into the indigenous culture – adaptable. 1 This article is based on two chapters that form part of a forthcoming handbook on translation in Indonesia. Henri Chambert-Loir has undertaken the almost impossible mission of bringing to- gether the expertise of scholars worldwide in order to produce a handbook on translation in Indonesia (former Netherlands East Indies). The publication of the handbook, in English and in an Indonesian translation, is planned for 2005. 2 “Salinan katanja ada tida begitoe berharga, sebab tjoema ada barang ‘duplicaat’ sadja, tapi biar poen begitoe ia toch ambil kadoedoekan penting dalem literatuur”. (This and all following trans- lations are by the author unless otherwise indicated). 210 Asian Translation Traditions 1. Introduction Over the centuries, foreign cultures and their languages have again and again touched the Malay Archipelago and left their traces in one way or the other; some were welcome, others forced themselves upon the indigenous cultures. One manifestation of this intercultural encounter is innumerable translations – from Sanskrit, Arabic, Persian, Urdu, Chinese, Japanese, and Russian, as well as from various West European languages such as Dutch, English, German, and French. Apart from this cultural impact from the outside, a lively intra-regional exchange has also contributed to the history of translation in the Malay world. Translations from and into Malay3 from the numerous regional languages – in particular, larger languages with a long tradition of writing of their own, such as Javanese, Balinese and Sundanese – form a significant part of the multi-cultural character of the region. Translation has also helped make connections amongst the numerous regional languages themselves, sometimes moving between oral, written, semi-oral and semi-written forms. The earliest texts to be translated were of a religious character (the q’ran and the Bible being the most prominent ones) and legal texts concerning traditional law or, later, mostly colonial and governmental law. Facilitating and optimizing the colonization process required a good knowledge of the cultures subject to this process. Thus linguistic materials, classical literature and folklore as well as other oral traditions were also recorded, compiled and translated into the colonizer’s language on a larger scale. In support of the modernization processes, translation into the languages of the colonized was expected to help provide school teaching materials, technical handbooks, and medical and other scientific texts, but also modern prose, plays and poetry. Closer studies reveal the linguistic journeys that some texts have undertaken, not only travelling from one language to another, but also from one genre to the next and even from one medium to another – for in- stance, from book to stage or from film to book.4 At least four major components of translation – i.e. the source text, the transla- tor, the act of translation, and the target text – would have to be examined minutely to obtain a comprehensive picture of translation into Malay. It is impossible for a single article to cover it all. Moreover, the data required to meet that goal – if available at all – are far from complete. Space restrictions and the limits set by the accessible material allow me to focus only on literary translation activities as seen 3 The term Malay is used here for the various variants of Malay, standardized or not, spoken and printed up until Independence in 1945. In the more recent past the lingua franca Malay devel- oped into the two separate national languages of Malaysian and Indonesian. 4 In the context of more recent developments one would also have to look at film dubbing and sub-titling in the cinematic and TV world in this region. D. Jedamski: Translation in the Malay World 211 against the background of Dutch colonial translation policy in the Netherlands East Indies during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In the field of Malay studies, the study of translation seems to have been re- stricted to some kind of linguistic pastime. Especially within Malay literary studies, the idea still prevails that any translation is merely a copy or imitation of an ori- gin-al. It is that original (not necessarily the source text per se, but the assumed creativity and individuality associated with it) that was regarded as ‘authentic’ literature and that has been the declared object of Western research interests. In today’s Indonesia translation is valued more as a practical skill than as an aca- demic discipline. Only very recently is the strong active element in translation being acknowledged and perceived as a response to – rather than as a passive reception of – foreign cultures. The perception of translation as an act of commu- nication from colonized to colonizer entails two central questions: What are the concepts of translation in the colonial context and what are the intentions and strategies of the translators? 2. Disrespect for the original The Western idea of the author as authority, as the creator and owner of a text, extends to the translated text. The concept of translation in its Western context strives to reduce the translator to an imperceptible element in text production, and it is eager to create the illusion that the reader is viewing some kind of cloned source text by the ‘original’ author, simply in a different language. Within the Malay traditions, however, the distinction between author and translator was far less relevant, and only under the heavy demands of Westernization and modern- ization processes did such a distinction slowly emerge. The range of terms used for translations at least up until the late 1960s reflects the still-ambivalent state of the concept. The closest to the word ‘translated’ is the Malay tersalin (also disalin).5 Other expressions are terkarang (written, composed), ditjeritakan (narrated), terkoetip (copied, excerpted, quoted), ditoeroenkan (passed on, generated from), di(bahasa)melajoekan (put into the Malay language), ditoetoerkan (arranged), and dioesahakan (organized, worked). All these terms, with the exception of tersalin, seem to be used almost synonymously. Often, however, translations or adapta- tions were not even marked as such at all. Malay translators fostered a certain creative disrespect for the ‘original’, drawing on a long tradition of narrative free- dom that had not yet developed anything like the Western ‘copyright mentality’. 5 When used in its reflexive form (menyalin), this verb also means ‘to give birth’. Paradoxically, amongst all the different possible expressions it is tersalin that allows the least room for the translator’s/author’s creativity and productivity. Among the variety of possible expressions, it is this one that acknowledges the dependency on a source text. 212 Asian Translation Traditions Their prime objective was not to translate a piece of foreign culture as accurately as possible but to make the foreign text (or parts of it) accessible to their own culture. Whoever deemed the text entertaining and/or