Deaf History and Culture in Spain: A Reader of Primary Documents

NOTES ON THE TRANSLATIONS

NOTES ON THE TRANSLATIONS ! All of the translations in this volume are my own, with a few exceptions. Sonja Musser Golladay translated two of the selections by Lope de Vega Carpio specifically for this collection. Some of the selections have already appeared in published form in English (Teresa de Cartagena’s Grove of the Infirm, Juan Pablo Bonet’s Simpli fication of the Letters of the Alphabet and Method of Teaching Deaf-mutes to Speak, and A. Farrar’s “Historical Introduction” to Bonet’s Simplification). The piece by Oliver Sacks was originally written in English but subsequently published only in Spanish. Portions of the material translated here, particularly in parts I and II, have already been translated into English by A. Farrar in the historical introduction to the translation of Bonet’s Simplification (1890). Although in many cases I have relied on these translations, in others I have sought to make the texts more readable, having a more general audience in mind. Three types of notes appear in this volume. Notes from the original texts begin with “Author’s note.” Where my own notes accompany my own translation, I have used “Editor’s note.” Finally, notes from another translator begin with “Translator ’s note.” The greatest challenge of translation in this volume has involved the words used to reference deaf people and their natural language. In the first case, the selected documents reveal a progression from mudo (mute) to sordomudo (deaf-mute) to simply sordo (deaf). This progressive change reflects a shifting understanding of deafness that I have preserved by using the translations I have just mentioned. In the same vein, in many of the later documents the word mimica (literally “mimicry”) is used to refer to the natural language of deaf people. This has been, until recently, the preferred term used by deaf people in Spain, connoting familiarity, respect, and xxv xxvi DEAF HISTORY AND CULTURE IN SPAIN even love, which are lost in the context of English translation. Accordingly, I have translated this most often as “signing” (but on occasion as “visual language”) to use an English equivalent that preserves these same connotations. In most cases, I have also included the original Spanish in brackets where appropriate. ...