{"id":260100,"date":"2025-07-12T22:56:23","date_gmt":"2025-07-12T22:56:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/260100\/"},"modified":"2025-07-12T22:56:23","modified_gmt":"2025-07-12T22:56:23","slug":"in-defence-of-translation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/260100\/","title":{"rendered":"In defence of translation"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Yr Hobyd<\/a>. Image: Melin Bapur Books<\/p>\n

Adam Pearce<\/strong>, Editor, Melin Babur Books<\/a><\/p>\n

Given the obvious power difference between Welsh and English, and our long colonial relationship, is it right or wrong to translate English works into Welsh?\u00a0<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve been extremely pleased with the overall reception we have had since setting up Melin Bapur at the end of 2023 and launching in February 2024.<\/p>\n

Dozens of our customers have gone out of their way to give us great feedback and the support we\u2019ve had from Welsh institutions like Radio Cymru and nation.cymru has been great; even better has been the way talented authors and translators like Anna Gruffydd, Mary Burdett-Jones, Ian Parri, Peredur Glyn, Sharon Morgan and Richard Crowe have approached us and paid us the enormous compliment of entrusting us with publishing their work.<\/p>\n

Nevertheless I have been fascinated to note the occasional more negative comment we have received as well \u2013 nothing genuinely nasty or insulting, thankfully, but some comments specifically arising from our decision to publish Welsh translations of English books like\u00a0The Hobbit<\/a>,\u00a0The Time Machine<\/a>,\u00a0The Call of Cthulthu<\/a>,\u00a0The Vagina Monologues\u00a0<\/a>and the like \u2013 these comments have questioned either the value or the appropriateness of such things, and particularly, accusing us of somehow undermining the publication of original literature in Welsh.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a fair question to ask. Given the obvious power difference between Welsh and English, and our long colonial relationship, is it right or wrong to translate English works into Welsh?<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Arguments against<\/strong><\/p>\n

Based on the comments we\u2019ve received it seems that the arguments against translation from English, broadly speaking, are that:<\/p>\n

1) people will buy and read translations instead of original books by Welsh writers, thereby harming Welsh authors;<\/p>\n

2) there\u2019s no point as Welsh speakers generally can read English anyway, so they won\u2019t want to read translations.<\/p>\n

Keen observers will note that these two arguments are contradictory: if nobody wants to read them then how can they harm Welsh writers?<\/p>\n

Regardless, it\u2019s pretty easy to disprove the second point with the fact that people do buy and read these books. This argument is based on a misunderstanding of why people buy and read books (in Welsh or otherwise), which probably arises from a prejudice against translation as a process and an assumption that reading a text that has been translated is an experience that is on some essential level inferior.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Holes<\/strong><\/p>\n

This is not, however, how most people actually think. Needless to say we don\u2019t know everything about all our customers, but I would be willing to bet that the majority have already read these books in English, especially Yr Hobyd; they want them in Welsh not because they think that a Welsh version will be better (or worse), but because it will provide a different sort of experience. If anything the fact they already know the book is the whole point.<\/p>\n

But we\u2019ll come back to that, after addressing the idea that these books threaten or harm original writing in Welsh.<\/p>\n

The idea seems to be that readers will choose to buy and read Tolkien or Lovecraft or Eve Ensler instead of Welsh authors; therefore we are hurting them by publishing these books.<\/p>\n

\"\"The translated works and H. P. Lovecraft<\/p>\n

This argument might make sense on first glance, but the more you think about it, the more holes appear.<\/p>\n

The argument seems to take it for granted that the demand for books in Welsh is some kind of fixed quantity: that buying and reading any one book in Welsh means one doesn\u2019t buy or read another book in Welsh. Publishing, under this assumption, is a zero-sum business.<\/p>\n

This might be true of some products, like, say, washing powder: if I buy one brand I don\u2019t need to buy another.<\/p>\n

But reading isn\u2019t like that. Even it were, this argument betrays a lack of confidence in the value and appeal of the same original Welsh books it purports to defend.<\/p>\n

Do we really think that the only reason people read original Welsh books is that they can\u2019t get translations of the books they really want to read? And that \u2013 in order to protect original writing in Welsh \u2013 we need to restrict readers\u2019 access\u00a0 to other books in Welsh, in case they might prefer them?<\/p>\n

I believe that there is more value to Welsh literature than that!<\/p>\n

Opening doors<\/strong><\/p>\n

Of course in reality, Welsh books already have to compete with Tolkien, J. K. Rowling and the rest, regardless of whether or not they\u2019re available in Welsh; just as they compete with the television and social media and Netflix and the gym and everything else people choose to do in their spare time.<\/p>\n

In fact Welsh readers already read Tolkien, but before we brought out Yr Hobyd they were doing it in English.<\/p>\n

Sure, bring out a new book in Welsh (whatever it is) and it might mean someone doesn\u2019t read another book in Welsh. But it might also mean they read one fewer book in English, or that they spend less time doing something else, and more time reading in Cymraeg. The book Yr Hobyd is probably most likely to push off someone\u2019s reading list is The Hobbit!<\/p>\n

(I\u2019ve been accused of Thatcherism for making this argument!)<\/p>\n

And this brings us to the point of publishing these books, which is the very real possibility that they are actually bringing people into reading in Welsh who wouldn\u2019t otherwise do it.<\/p>\n

Many of our customers have contacted us to say exactly this; many of them are learning Welsh and want the book as an exercise to improve their Welsh (which of course is another great reason why it\u2019s important we have these books).<\/p>\n

Younger readers, too, or other fluent speakers who don\u2019t currently read at all in Welsh, but want to, yet don\u2019t feel the current offer in Cymraeg caters for them, or don\u2019t know where to start, or worry that they\u2019ll struggle to understand and want the crutch of a familiar book.<\/p>\n

Gateway<\/strong><\/p>\n

Of course there\u2019s no guarantee these people will go on to read another book in Welsh, but even if they don\u2019t, we\u2019ve helped them to read a book in Welsh they would not otherwise have read, which is surely valuable in itself.<\/p>\n

If this is just the start, then better still. The other half of our mission with Melin Bapur is to republish the (original) Welsh literature of the past, and to use the translations as a \u2018gateway\u2019 into this exciting world.<\/p>\n

Perhaps I haven\u2019t convinced you, but that\u2019s ok: you don\u2019t have to buy our translations (no doubt that\u2019s me being Thatcherite again?), but do check out the original Welsh books that represent about three quarters of Melin Bapur\u2019s offer!<\/p>\n

It\u2019s possible to overstate the argument, and I don\u2019t wish to be misunderstood: something extremely valuable would be lost if the only Welsh books available were translations.<\/p>\n

I want to see original Welsh writers supported too, and this is one of the reasons we don\u2019t compete with the traditional Welsh publishing industry for Books Council grants (which don\u2019t seem to be offered for translations anyway).<\/p>\n

But the current situation, where virtually nothing is published in translation for adults, is so far away from this nightmare scenario that it is if anything too far in the opposite direction.<\/p>\n

Publishing popular stories are what normal, healthy, living languages do, and our reluctance to do so in Welsh seems to speak more of our own insecurities than anything else.<\/p>\n

There is more than enough room in Wales for the occasional Hobyd \u2013 after all, they\u2019re famously quite small!<\/p>\n

A version of this article in Welsh<\/a> appeared originally on www.melinbapur.cymru<\/a><\/p>\n

Support our Nation today<\/p>\n

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\n the people of Wales.<\/strong>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Yr Hobyd. Image: Melin Bapur Books Adam Pearce, Editor, Melin Babur Books Given the obvious power difference between…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":260101,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3938],"tags":[3444,77,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-260100","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-books","8":"tag-books","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114842736500387919","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260100","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=260100"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260100\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/260101"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=260100"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=260100"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=260100"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}