Motherless Tongues: The Insurgency of Language amid Wars of Translation PDF
Preview Motherless Tongues: The Insurgency of Language amid Wars of Translation
tongues MOTHERLESS tongues MOTHERLESS The Insurgency of Language amid Wars of Translation vicente l. rafael Duke University Press Durham and London 2016 © 2016 Duke University Press All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper ∞ Designed by Amy Ruth Buchanan Typeset in Quadratt Pro by Copperline Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Rafael, Vicente L., author. Motherless tongues : the insurgency of language amid wars of translation / Vicente L. Rafael. pages cm Includes bibliographical references and index. isbn 978-0-8223-6058-2 (hardcover : alk. paper) isbn 978-0-8223-6074-2 (pbk. : alk. paper) isbn 978-0-8223-7457-2 (e-book) 1. Philippine languages—Political aspects. 2. Translating and interpreting— Political aspects— Philippines. 3. United States—Languages—Political aspects. 4. Philippines—Colonial influence. I. Title. p119.32.p45r34 2016 30.44'9599—dc23 2015034666 Cover art: “The Escolta business street,” from Photographs of the Philippines taken by U.S. military personnel (phlk 173). University of Michigan Library, Special Collections Library. In memory of Catalina Leuterio Rafael (1925–2010) CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS xi INTRODUCTION The Aporia of Translation 1 PART I Vernacularizing the Political CHAPTER 1 Welcoming What Comes 21 Translating Sovereignty in the Revolutionary Philippines CHAPTER 2 Wars of Translation 43 American English, Colonial Schooling, and Tagalog Slang CHAPTER 3 The Cell Phone and the Crowd 70 Messianic Politics in the EDSA II Uprising PART II Weaponizing Babel CHAPTER 4 Translation, American English, and the National Insecurities of Empire 99 CHAPTER 5 Targeting Translation 120 Counterinsurgency and the Weaponization of Language PART III Translating Lives CHAPTER 6 The Accidents of Area Studies 149 Benedict Anderson and Arjun Appadurai CHAPTER 7 Contracting Nostalgia 162 On Renato Rosaldo CHAPTER 8 Language, History, and Autobiography 173 Becoming Reynaldo Ileto CHAPTER 9 Interview 189 Translation Speaks with Vicente Rafael NOTES 203 BIBLIOGRAPHY 233 INDEX 247 The degree of the historical sense of any age may be in- ferred from the manner in which this age makes transla- tions and tries to absorb former ages and books. . . . In the age of the Revolution, the French took possession of Roman antiquity . . . and the [the Romans], how forc- ibly and at the same time naively they took hold of ev- erything good and lofty of Greek antiquity, which was more ancient! How they translated everything into the Roman present! . . . They seem to ask us: “Should we not make new for ourselves what is old and find ourselves in it? Should we not have the right to breathe our own soul into this dead body? For it is dead after all; how ugly is everything dead!” They did not know the delights of the historical sense; what was past and alien was an em- barrassment for them; and being Romans, they saw it as an incentive for a Roman conquest. Indeed, translation was a form of conquest. Not only did one omit what was historical; one also added allusions to the present and, above all, struck out the name of the poet and replaced it with one’s own—not with any sense of theft but with the very best conscience of the imperium Romanum. —FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE, The Gay Science When I speak to you in your language, what happens to mine? Does my language continue to speak, but in silence? . . . Even to say that I speak to you is perhaps claiming too much, it’s taking advantage of an illusory power, of a simple breath. . . . Madness of language, but how sweet, how tender in this moment. —ABDELKEBIR KHATIBI, Love in Two Languages
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