A Multilingual Nation: Translation and Language Dynamic in IndiaRita Kothari How does India live through the oddity of being both a nation and multilingual? Is multilingualism in India to be understood as a neatly laid set of discrete languages or a criss-crossing of languages that runs through every source language and text? The questions take us to reviewing what is meant by language, multilingualism, and translation. Challenging these institutions, A Multilingual Nation illustrates how the received notions of translation discipline do not apply to India. It provocatively argues that translation is not a ‘solution’ to the allegedly chaotic situation of many languages, rather it is its inherent and inalienable part. An unusual and unorthodox collection of essays by leading thinkers and writers, new and young researchers, it establishes the all-pervasive nature of translation in every sphere in India and reverses the assumptions of the steady nature of language, its definition, and the peculiar fragility that is revealed in the process of translation. |
Contents
When a Text Is a Song | |
Shared Languages Accents and Located | |
Mira in Gujarat Narasinha Mehta | |
India Translated in French Travel | |
Acts of Naming | |
Of Languages and Modernities | |
in Nineteenthcentury Maharashtra | |
When Indias NorthEast Is Translated into English | |
On Translating andnottranslating Sarasvatichandra | |
Jhaverchand | |
Translation between Indian | |
Representing Some | |
Conceptual Priority of Translation over Language | |
Changing Script | |
Ficus Benghalensis | |
Common terms and phrases
Ahmedabad Assam Assamese language Bangla belonging Bengali bhajan bhakti bilingual Bombay Brahmins British caste century chapter Chinnappa claim colonial concept contemporary context cultural Delhi Devy dialect discourse discussion English essay example Gandhi Goswami grammar Grierson Gujarati Gujarati language Hindi Hindu Hothal idea identity ideology imagination Indian languages Kabir Kakati Kamrupi Kannada kāvya Kodagu Kodava Kothari Krishna linguistic literary literature Mahabharata Maharashtra Malayalam Malayali Marathi meaning Medhi Meghani Mira modern monolingual multilingual multiple Muslim Narasinha narrative nation north India novel oral traditions original Orsini Oxford University Press Phule pivot language poem poet poet-saints political practices Prahladji premodern question Rajasthan references region religious Sahitya Sanskrit Sarangi Sarasvatichandra Saurashtra scholars script Sindhi singers singing society songs source text speak speakers speech story Sufi Tamil target language textual Translation Studies transliteration understanding vernacular western Assam words writing written