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Preface
- University of Nebraska Press
- Chapter
- Additional Information
xvii preface Charles T. Gehring and William A. Starna In a perfect world there would be no need for translators or their translations. However, acknowledging our imperfect state, we must be prepared to deal not only with thousands of languages but also with the various historical stages in the development of these languages and their dialects. For historic texts such as Adriaen van der Donck’s A Description of New Netherland, a translator needs to be familiar with both the subtleties of a language spoken and written four hundred years ago and, of course, its particular cultural and social contexts. Absent such knowledge a translator can only produce a literal translation devoid of the original’s linguistic nuances and sense of time and place. In this situation, then, a translator perforce resorts to the mechanical process of translating word for word—often with the assistance of rudimentary reference materials—reducing complex thoughts to inaccurate depictions or silently eliminating troublesome words, phrases, and even entire clauses. The translation of Van der Donck’s Description by Jeremiah Johnson in falls into this category. It has been known for many years that Johnson’s translation was defective, as the introduction to the most recent reprint of his work concedes: “Johnson was not a professional writer, and his translation is not consistently graceful. He seems to have had difficulty with certain seventeenth century Dutch xviii | Preface constructions—particularly reflexives and other pronouns. A Description probably deserves and may some day get a more polished translation; but the fact remains that Johnson’s is still the only one in print.”1 Not to belabor the point, one example, demonstrating why a new translation is needed, should suf- fice. In the opening pages of his work Van der Donck offers brief details contrasting certain Dutch physical features with those of the Native people of New Netherland, writing, “Op de borst ende omtrendt den mont gantsch kael / ende den Vrouwen ghelijckt / de onse heel hayrigh.” Johnson translates this passage thus: “Their men on the breast and about the mouth were bare, and their women like ours, hairy.” Diederik Goedhuys correctly translates the same passage: “The Indian men are entirely bald on the chest and around the mouth like women; ours, quite hairy.” Such errors abound in the Johnson translation, as the assessment by Dutch scholar Ada van Gastel made clear nearly two decades ago.2 As important as it is that the translator do justice to the original language, it is also critical that the text be placed in its appropriate cultural context. We have attempted to do so by annotating Van der Donck’s treatise, providing readers with historical, ethnological, and linguistic information of special note and, where necessary, clarifying observations on natural history. We also offer comment on Dutch and Englishlanguage literature relating to the New World, in particular New England and New Netherland, that Van der Donck had at his disposal as an educated person of the mid-seventeenth century. As it was then common for writers to “borrow” observations from other published work, we have suggested possible sources of this information. It should also be noted that Van der Donck wrote in a highly educated style, full of complex constructions, contemporary metaphors, and historical allusions . It is the translator’s challenge to approach the original with the closest equivalent in the target language. [18.232.188.122] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 01:28 GMT) Preface | xix Where Johnson failed, Goedhuys succeeded. But Johnson’s failings were caused more by the paucity of reference works available to him in the nineteenth century than by his intellectual abilities. Without access to the massive Dutch dictionary —Woordenboek der Nederlandsche Taal (–)—with its extensive historical definitions in contexts from printed sources going back to the sixteenth century, the translator is left to fly blind, assisted by only very basic dictionaries with their one-to-one correspondences in contemporary usages. It is impressive that translators in the nineteenth century, such as Johnson, were able to translate as well as they did with what they had at their disposal. Diederik Goedhuys, on the other hand, was able to work on this new translation for a summer at the New Netherland Project, where he had access to every possible reference source available for the translation of a seventeenth -century publication. In addition to the Woordenboek and the reference collection of the New York State Library, he could examine original copies of both editions of...