La historia oficial, o ¿Traducción es Traición?

[ouij]

I had hoped to get a closer look at the text and context of the President's speech by tonight, but I've been side-tracked.

The Democrats actually broadcast a second rebuttal to the State of the Union address, delivered in Spanish by Los Angeles mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. Nobody told me about this--indeed, the mainstream media did not seem to

Comments

Question

[anonymous]

I'm not sure how I found my way to this blog. At any rate, it's a refreshing read. Your analysis is quite thorough, however, while I agree with your conclusion, I wonder if it occurred to you that the "translated" text might be the original. I imagine the party machine spit-out an English-for-Spanish response and then -- with all the condescension your conclusion implies -- had it translated with minimal effort, leaving out the flourishes because... who cares. In other words, the translation subtracted words and phrases, not the other way around. Not being a Spanish speaker myself, I just assume that whenever either of the parties provide a so-called English translation, they're presenting us with an original text.

We're all in this together.

Re: Question

[ouij]

Hi. Thanks for the comment.

The thought did occur to me while I was looking at it, especially considering Villaraigosa's sometimes cringeworthy delivery.

There were several points in the speech where the mayor seemed out of his depth--that he didn't operate in the language on a daily basis. It's entirely possible that the Party-approved English speech was simply mistranslated into Spanish, which translation Villaraigosa delivered...

If that were so, I am even more dismayed. I find it frankly scandalous that a party that claims to be making such an effort to reach out to the Spanish-speaking electorate couldn't find a single native speaker among its membership who was articulate enough to write a proper response.