Everything worth reading is encoded in special features of each language

[Anonymous No.22749266]

And it almost always get lost in translation, and most translators are midwits who can't get into it anyway. It's Poetry-situation, only that it also happens in prose.

In reality, none of us are true /lit/ unless we learn English, French, German, Russian, Arabic, Hebrew, Latin, Ancient Greek, Sanscrit and Chinese. That's 10 languages to learn. That, or it's filter-city.

Its literally over. Only "polygots" are true lit. We're all frauds....

[Anonymous No.22749274]

>>22749266
I read using Google Translate.

[Anonymous No.22749283]

>French, German, Russian,
You should already be fluent in these by 25. Latin, Greek, French maybe if your family gave you a more classical education.

[Anonymous No.22749296]

Gonna heap even more real on this feel: There are so many smaller, less accessible languages that are only spoken by smaller groups of people or no longer living tongues and only maintained by academics. I feel lucky to speak and read English natively, but there is such a rich body of literature in languages Georgian, Hungarian, Old Irish, Old Norse... and those are just the ones I've made my own shy and uncertain attempts at. They lure you in by seeming exotic, and hold you there by revealing the richness and nuance of their own unique modes of expression. When people ask you why you would learn some language that "you'll never use" they are betraying their own heartbreaking lack of humanity and soul.

[Anonymous No.22749298]

>>22749283
>you should be fluent in languages useless to you by 25
That’s wacky. Especially when half of the people on this site can’t get a job

[Anonymous No.22749302]

>>22749298
I think it’s good to learn them. But to say you should learn them by a young age like it’s a nessacity like it’s easy, especially in the age you have the most to do in life is bizarre

[Anonymous No.22749309]

>>22749266
I also forgot to write Persian because I am a fraud. Technically Japanese might fit the bill, but they stole everything from Chinese so it doesn't really matter. So it's 11 languages, maybe 12 if you think that Nipcucks are worth it.

I say this as someone who knows 3 languages out of that list + my native. I can't possibly compete with Chads who know Latin, Chinese, Hebrew, Sanscrit and Ancient Greek. And I only began learning French 3 days ago, which means that every single French author I thought I knew I actually don't because I don't know French and most English translators are midwits who couldn't stress the intricasies of French within their translations.

I have become filtered, the wretchedness of all.......

[Frater Asemlen !XS8vrClKs2 No.22749311]

>>22749266
Name a single Russian older than the 1800s, any 1700s or prior Russian writer you have any interest in, name a single pre-romantic non archaic German writer who has nothing to do with Goethe, name, name 4 Arabic writers you have any interest in, name 5 ancient Greek writers with substantial corpus who you actually have interest in, name 5 Sanskrit writers you have actual interest in, name 5 Chinese.

You get my point, I don’t believe you really care about these languages, cultures or their literature, just the idea of appearing cultured, if you can’t tell me a single German baroque writer you have interest in, if you don’t know what a maqama is and so forth, then why pretend you care this much? If you just want pop schlock for clout, the notes and essays on your most popular Dostoevsky and li-bai translations will do you well enough.

[Anonymous No.22749312]

>>22749266
>And it almost always get lost in translation
>claims the monolingual

[Anonymous No.22749317]

>>22749311
Horrible post.

[Frater Asemlen !XS8vrClKs2 No.22749336]

>>22749317
Name the authors then.

[Anonymous No.22749402]

>>22749336
Dostoyevsky

[Anonymous No.22749410]

>>22749336
There's nothing wrong with wanting to read great works in the original language. I've recently learnt a language for this express purpose and I don't bother with older or obscure works at all. You're a pseud.

[Anonymous No.22749476]

>>22749311
>Post about language
>This nigger starts talking authors
How retarded are you? Turn in your "frater" tag, fraud.

Explain to me the difference between analytic and synthetic languages for starters. Lets see if you even know what this shit is about. Then there's the issue of etymology and evolution of said language and how certain words have been forgotten or lost in translation or consumed by others which then created a void where there is no way to explain a concept properly without using many words. Take Greek concept of Love; they had 7 different versions for the word while in English there's just 1, and it's mostly tied to Eros and Phillia.

Hell lets use my inconsequentuential language. "Tax", also "fee" when translated into english, actually means "de-poisoning" or "forgiveness", but it has been forgotten across centuries, so when someone reads a sentence from older text they might accidentally think that the topic was about taxes or fees, rather than removal of corruption within an abstract hypothetical situation etc. And this sadly happens way more than you think. In fact I've recently realized that we're actually all frauds reading translations of people whom might not even be on the level where they can properly convey everything in its proper original meaning.

And I could go on and on, but the point here is that all languages are structured differently and have many different unique characteristics that DO NOT translate into other languages unless the translator is not a midwit (a rarity). A lot of central points get lost in translation that way, especially when you enter the topic of philosophy and theology. This isn't about the evolution of words either, it's about morphology, syntax as well as symbolism.

>Why is this important
Since you're a midwit, lets just explain it like that:
Remember how poetry changes when you translate it? Almost to the point where it can't even be called poetry unless you restructure sentences and use different, but still adjacenet meanings to original concepts? Well, when you do that, meaning gets lost. In most cases there's a between-the-lines meaning that is absolutely crucial to decode the point, and if you remove that by doing surface-level translation, you essentially castrate a text. This isn't a big deal in soulless manual language or scientific modern fields, but it's absolutely ballbusting when it comes to older philosophical works and scriptures. Hell even standard lit loses some of its knack.

There's a language that can only reveal itself when you've conceptualized all the different parts properly. If one of those parts disappear, then some of the meaning gets corrupted or lost. That's how for instance a lot of old scripts ended up being misinterpret.

TL:DR: You're a faggot.

[Anonymous No.22749499]

>>22749266
You are just some butthurt ruskie, muh you can never understand tolstoy and dosto if you read translation, muh russian is untranslatable muh putins dick etc. just fucking kys retard.

[Anonymous No.22749504]

>>22749499
You are a butthurt belter.

[Frater Asemlen !XS8vrClKs2 No.22749505]

>>22749476
All of this seething is because the call out was accurate, I mention authors because all of the complaint about not knowing languages is, obviously, not about knowing the pop authors, not being “lit”, why else would the OP lack any mention of Italian and Spanish? And for someone speaking so much of poetry, have you actually studied historical translation and translation philosophy? What about the many cases like Goethe considering the nerval French translation superior to the original? What about the authors who wrote the same work twice in two languages, affirming both of equal quality? Even the love question you mention is solved by simple context, all of your seething about being a fraud is because you do not actually care about the lit but about the image of being literary, as for philosophy and religious scripture, it’s simply not true that they get neutered since the actual meaning is the point not the form, any obscurity can be explained, are you going to pretend you’ve studied in depth various religious and older philosophical lit beyond the most popular sort? Tell me which old scriptures and philosophical works you’ve read and have trouble with that do not have a million works analyzing their structure. Don’t throw at me “this is how the old lit got misinterpreted” men like Origen could read the original and already produced a multitude of misinterpretations, tell me who you’ve actually read and what you have interest in that you’re coming up against language instead of all this vagueness, why not actually answer my original question and name the various russian, Chinese and so forth authors I request?

[Anonymous No.22749512]

>>22749505
Unfathomable levels of midwitery, holy shit.

[Anonymous No.22749515]

America is going to make all your shithole languages extinct.

[Anonymous No.22749518]

>>22749266
LEARNING MANY LANGUAGES.—The learning of many languages fills the memory with words instead of with facts and thoughts, and this is a vessel which, with every person, can only contain a certain limited amount of contents. Therefore the learning of many languages is injurious, inasmuch as it arouses a belief in possessing dexterity and, as a matter of fact, it lends a kind of delusive importance to social intercourse. It is also indirectly injurious in that it opposes the acquirement of solid knowledge and the intention to win the respect of men in an honest way. Finally, it is the axe which is laid to the root of a delicate sense of language in our mother-tongue, which thereby is incurably injured and destroyed. The two nations which produced the greatest stylists, the Greeks and the French, learned no foreign languages. But as human intercourse must always grow more cosmopolitan, and as, for instance, a good merchant in London must now be able to read and write eight languages, the learning of[Pg 248] many tongues has certainly become a necessary evil; but which, when finally carried to an extreme, will compel mankind to find a remedy, and in some far-off future there will be a new language, used at first as a language of commerce, then as a language of intellectual intercourse generally, then for all, as surely as some time or other there will be aviation. Why else should philology have studied the laws of languages for a whole century, and have estimated the necessary, the valuable, and the successful portion of each separate language?

[Anonymous No.22749521]

>>22749266
I have that thought lurking in the back of my head everytime I read books in my language. I just know that foreigners will never truly get it, no matter how good translation is, same as I won't truly get their books. Shit sucks, if I was a carefree neet who wouldn't ever have to worry about wasting my precious time on earth to work, I would learn those languages and read books in original

[Anonymous No.22749559]

>>22749521
As long as people 'get it' in English is enough. Most important works are in English anyway, so what if some obcure Indian text has not been translated to English, nobody cares about those. As long as one has at least intermediate level of English they can pretty much understand all of it (and get the meaning)

[Anonymous No.22749575]

>>22749311
> name a single pre-romantic non archaic German writer who has nothing to do with Goethe
Define archaic.

[Anonymous No.22749585]

>>22749559
Literature & poetry are not just about meaning.

[Anonymous No.22749602]

>>22749266
Im going to try to attain fluency in Spanish and Italian before I get my degree.
French, Latin, and German are my pipe dreams. Europeans have it so easy...

[Anonymous No.22749607]

>>22749585
What is literature about then?

[Anonymous No.22749615]

>>22749311
>it's Frater
Cast a prayer for me friend. I am not so sure I'll get to meet God in this lifetime after all...

[Anonymous No.22749634]

>>22749607
Phonetics or the musicality of language is important too. Two sentences in two languages can have the same meaning, one of them sounding ridiculous and the other forceful.

[Anonymous No.22749644]

>>22749634
So they should not be translated directly word for word. The tone of speech should also be taken into account when translating (and most professional translators do exactly that)

[Frater Asemlen !XS8vrClKs2 No.22749677]

>>22749615
I’ll pray for you, God bless, if you really seek him you’ll know him in this life and forever.

[Anonymous No.22749697]

>>22749677
Nta but kys retarded christfag

[Anonymous No.22749700]

>>22749697
We shouldn't teach vulgar proles like you to write.

[Anonymous No.22749874]

>>22749512
nta, but not an argument

[Anonymous No.22749924]

>>22749402
I read Dostoyevsky translated to spanish and I still tought it was peak fiction.

[Anonymous No.22749975]

>>22749874
He barges into discussion, changes its topic and then places himself into position of authority and then defines the rules of engagement, which are on his terms.

The answer to his faggotry was an attempt to enlighten some of the obvious ignorance he had, and also a challenge to see if he's capable of being part of this discussion. Notice how he has no answer what the difference between analytic language and synthetic language actually is; this showcases that he's a midwit who doesn't understand the topic. Nor does he really expand into the topic of words changing their meanings, or losing some of them overtime etc. Finally, he proceeds to double down like a total retard and once again tries to get you to play his rules.

At that stage you do not owe him an answer. He has already proven that he is a disingenious languagelet who can't conceptualize the themes alluded to in this post. I suspect a terminal case of monolingualism, as well as lack of understanding of symbolic language and the deeper layers beyond that. The combatative nature reveals an underlying level of seethe as well.

TL:DR:
A piglet entered a fine restaurant to talk about the superiority of mud and goyslop. He also desperately wants to drag you into mud where he can beat you with experience. Why should you follow?

[Anonymous No.22750021]

>>22749266
More poetry books should be aimed at language teaching, having the original text and copious cultural and linguistic notes for each line, to the point that you do the translation, as if the translator guided you, offering possibilities of translation and the conotation each word would have if translated that way
Imagine, reading the Odissey, learning some Greek and learning about history/foreign cultures and getting a better grasp about how language and poetry works, all in one book
Starting the book knowing 0 Greek and being able to recite and understand the Odissey in the original for by the time you finish it

[Anonymous No.22750028]

>>22750021
Loeb is more or less sufficient for this.

[Anonymous No.22750030]

>>22750028
Really? I will check that out
Ive seen a couple of books on chinese poetry who are a bit like that too

[Anonymous No.22750137]

>>22749515
America is too busy going through its own downfall.

[Anonymous No.22750146]

desu getting competent enough in a language to read a wealth of works only takes like one book. Do the work, suffer through it and you'll be reading untranslated Heinigger and Deleulz in no time if you have any grey mass in your frontal lobe. People overestimate how different languages can be beyond some grammatical peculiarities, and thanks to the IPA subvocalizing has never been easier than in modern times.

[Anonymous No.22750165]

>>22750146
The problem is the vocabulary.

[Anonymous No.22750198]

>>22750165
You should own several good dictionaries anyway and be reasonably adept at using them.

[Anonymous No.22750211]

>>22750198
Duh, but you can't read fluently if every third word is unfamiliar. I know it because I tried.

[Anonymous No.22750847]

>>22749266
Learning process should be fun, as the tripfag said if you have to know ALL of them to be satisfied you probably care more about the self-image that it gives you vs. the actual experience.

>>22750146
based

>>22750211
My attention span is shit and I jump between 50 different things so my reading is never really fluid anyway.

>>22750021
Also based. Loeb is cool as anon said, Perseus (website) is my fav for indulging my dilettantism. Very well adapted to this purpose, the notes could be more complete but for most of the major stuff they have them.

[Anonymous No.22750851]

>>22750211
Building a basic vocabulary is much less effort than you'd assume, but again, it is work. That's what I meant by suffering through one book, since that one book alone is enough to get you up to speed if you're not disabled somehow. Difficulty varying depending on aspects like script, familiarity with the language's roots &c. but it is possible and frankly recommended.
The fact we don't have digital bilingual editions of every book ever translated by now, especially the classics, makes one think it's all a conspiracy to keep us stupid.

[Anonymous No.22750895]

>>22750851
>makes one think it's all a conspiracy to keep us stupid.
Maybe. But you don't even need to go that far. The truth is that if you're very smart or what is sometimes called "too smart for your own good," then you simply won't be successful and probably will not be the person in charge of crafting policy and making such meaningful decisions that impact the world, which is ruled by psychopaths who could not care less about things like our erudition any more than they need to for the sake of image.

[Anonymous No.22750911]

>>22749476
eat a dick you retarded nigga, frater dunked on your ass

[Anonymous No.22750912]

>>22749512
None of that is midwittery. It's the bare truth coming from somebody who has likely read much more with far more depth than you. It ain't that deep.

[Anonymous No.22750919]

>>22749975
>A piglet entered a fine restaurant to talk about the superiority of mud and goyslop. He also desperately wants to drag you into mud where he can beat you with experience. Why should you follow?
The funny thing is that you're the pig in this situation. None of the accusations you've made against FA are true. You have no idea who you're talking to and how much he mogs you.

[Anonymous No.22750924]

>>22749266
You don't have to learn French or German if you know English, English is good enough to translate them - so much similar ontology.

[Anonymous No.22750931]

>>22750847
>t. pseud whose denial went so far that he thinks he's "reading" in foreign languages just because he can reproduce his method of skimming a few words here and there just enough to shit up /lit/ with your takes
truly the next level of pseudery

[Anonymous No.22750962]

>>22749266
It's not just the language itself though. Even in English, you are likely missing countless connotations the author expected you to notice but you did not because you did not grow up in the same culture he did. We can still appreciate a lot of what these classics did, but they cannot really be enjoyed today on the same level as they were enjoyable to read back when they were released. This is just exacerbated on an exponential level with translated books.

[Anonymous No.22751444]

>>22749311
He's right you vvvv....

[Anonymous No.22751446]

>>22749476
>analytic and synthetic languages
Word order.... booya!!!

[Anonymous No.22751459]

>>22749476
This post is actually peak lit. Explaining basic linguistic concepts as if they are profound insights. A seethe-a-thon of the highest order. Chip chip son, go back your pdf of Stefan Muller and let us know when you are all finished!

[Anonymous No.22751468]

>>22749298
>when half of the people on this site can’t get a job
All the more time to learn then.

[Anonymous No.22751486]

>>22751459
You are right that these are basic concepts, but the problem is that they get handwaved away constantly, so it needs to be restated.

[Anonymous No.22751505]

>>22749512
He's right. Are you going to show you actually know these texts and languages in and out? The tripfaggot has yet to show himself a midwit, but your telling shyness speaks bounds of midwittery.

[Anonymous No.22751534]

>>22749975
>analytic language and synthetic language actually is; this showcases that he's a midwit who doesn't understand the topic. Nor does he really expand into the topic of words changing their meanings, or losing some of them overtime etc. Finally, he proceeds to double down like a total retard and once again tries to get you to play his rules.
not any of those anons, but i've devoted my life to linguistics academically, am one of the top 1% most qualified in the world, and let me tell you: nobody learned gives a fuck about your childish interrogations. what he asked of you is completely reasonable, but evidently, you don't care about these languages enough to name authors that would provide the clear validation and common ground for real conversation, that would show you actually care about these languages you pine after.

[Anonymous No.22751589]

>>22749311
Why does he need to arbitrarily be interested in in books from these hyper-specific eras? Why aren't the classics from each of these countries enough? Why is wanting to understand these books on a level beyond understanding that can be gained from a translation means he only wants to appear cultured? Essays on Dostoevsky aren't enough because if you can't glean these meanings on your own readings, something substantial is lost in the experience. If anything, you are the one who just wants to appear cultured by pretending it is not a problem.

>>22749266
Don't let these idiots get you down OP, you are just shattering their fragile egos.

>>22751534
Midwit alert

[Anonymous No.22751607]

>>22751589
>Why aren't the classics from each of these countries enough?
because naming those is an easy enough task for midwits like you. if he were really interested in them, hed already have reached step 2.

[Anonymous No.22751615]

I've read so many great books in translation and had a good time. You can tell me that it's not what the author intended or that I'm losing all the nuance or that I am in fact reading a completely different book but I really don't care if the thing that I do read is still amazing.

I just like reading cool stuff bros

[Anonymous No.22751619]

>>22751607
So ultimately, it really is just about appearing more cultured to you rather than genuine understanding. Figures for a midwit.

[Anonymous No.22751624]

>>22751619
yes. thats exactly it samefag op.

[Anonymous No.22751657]

>>22751624
Crying samefag is the last resort of an anon BTFOd.

[Frater Asemlen !XS8vrClKs2 No.22751688]

>>22749975
I speak English and Romani fluently, I can harshly parse Sanskrit and basic enough Hebrew, I am studying Greek but also have a decent amount of study of its grammar and lexicon, especially interested in hesychius of alexandria’s work concerning obscure grammar and word usages, so no I’m not monolingual and i am not at all against the study of languages, rather my reason for the prior post is plain, if there was serious interest in these languages there’d be serious interest in specific works and authors.

>>22751589
It’s not “hyper specific” it’s “not popular on the modern iteration of /lit/“ I specifically mentioned pre 1800 Russian lit because it’s very well loved and praised in Russia, respected, but has no clout on lit, I mention any Chinese because in reality they won’t have anything beyond a vague idea, it’s why I say he won’t have 5 Greek authors with considerable corpus, etc.
>only wants to appear cultured
Because his options and the fact that actually naming the works he’s interested in is being avoided, it’s an interest in the idea of being associated with these, not an authentic relationship with them.

>essays aren’t enough

Why? Language differences are substantial things even if they can be subtle, there is nothing he could personally gain which could not also be written down and explained, there is nothing numinous about the process of reading, he may not experience it with an identical aesthetic, but sufficient aesthetic translations and one’s superior to original do indeed exist, which when unified with a study of the meaning through essays will give an equivalent if not deeper grasp than just reading it normally would.

[Anonymous No.22751692]

>fall for the language learning meme.
>spend my 20’s learning 3 other languages
>become almost fluent in them
>it doesn’t make a difference in English or the original

I want my youth back, bros. Oh well, I can flex on anons I guess