Dear Ludic Liberators,
A few weeks ago at June’s Ludic Liberation Lab, we played with Translation. I would tell you what you discovered in our investigations, but I’m not sure you would understand. . .
(get it? he he)
Perhaps this meme about what it’s like TO BE a translator can help:
There are actually at least 6 different versions of this meme, because apparently translators can’t agree on the images. LOL.
OK, Here’s what we actually learned:
1) TRANSLATION IS REALLY HARD. I mean, I always knew this was true, but at the Lab I really felt it. When playing translation games, it easily took us 10-15 minutes to translate a single sentence, and at the end we were certain that it was at best an approximation, not a perfect replica of the original utterance. The difficulty came from the recognition that each word contains within it not just a single meaning, but also the particular flavor of the meaning’s opposite; it contains the rejection of all the other possible words that could have been used in its place; it contains hundreds of years of cultural history that shaped and chiseled the word’s specific texture. Words are complexly seasoned, their umami hidden in secret recipes passed down through generations. The act of translation is the process of reverse engineering all of the above complexity in another tongue! Therefore, it’s hard!!!
2) TRANSLATION IS CREATIVE. Several of us at the lab have translated professionally, and have often viewed the task as primarily a technical one. But as we were challenged to tackle more playful texts, we realized that we could manage to actually re-formulate jokes or twisted turns of phrase using completely different words in another language that somehow managed to work in the same register, with the same kind of verbal bounce or mysterious moodiness. Translation is not simply mechanical – it’s an art and a craft!
3) TRANSLATION IS POWERFUL. The act of translation realizes a virtuality in the world that’s not yet actual. As long as I think my thought in English, it does not yet exist in Japanese, but its existence in Japanese is possible because the thought exists and because Japanese exists. Translation brings the thought-in-Japanese out of virtuality into a materiality; it makes something real in world! It’s an act of magic—of manifesting!
4) TRANSLATION IS DEEPENING INTO A TEXT. Translation demands a really close study, a scrutinizing of words, meanings, and relations between them. To translate something (manually and carefully) is to really understand it. If you think you love something, try to translate it!
4) TRANSLATION CAN BE DELIGHTFUL 😋 Finding a perfect word or phrase in the act of translation (even when working within the constraint of the same language) can deliver a genuine surprise, an opening, an epiphany, a satisfaction. We played a game of paleo-translation, tracing each word in our source text to its etymological beginning. I do this with “delight” now and find that it has nothing to do with light or bright or glow, but comes instead from Old French delit which comes from Latin delicere which means “to entice.” Of course delight is about allure, charm, seduction! How could we ever flirt without language and its intricacies, without the ability to disguise our real intentions and reveal only enough to invite someone to play? The act of translation is an act of burlesque!
5) TRANSLATION IS A GAME! A game is any free activity undertaken under a set of constraints (fight me on this!). So translation is a game! Translation games range from basic to advanced. The easiest rules are simply about re-building a limited set of words in another code-system using only the words available within the latter set. Advanced game versions involve rules of matching and amplifying subtle connotations, lyricism, rhythm, precision, status, flare—think rap battles, poetry, satire, debate! All of our play in Ludic Liberation Lab strives to remind us that we can change the games we play and the rules we play by. If you know more than one language (and if you use emojis in your texts, you know more than one language), then you can play translation games literally anywhere you encounter language—in the outside spoken and written world or in even inside your own head!
Try these games:
Describe something about your environment right now in the language you are most fluent in. The state of your desk, the sound outside your window, yourself as a character. Now translate it into emoji! Send your translation as a message to someone and ask them to guess what they think it means. Here’s my attempt… can you decode it??? 💃🗓📚🐛🦋🃏🔮 Play with the rules to make the game easier/harder/more fun. Try only one emoji per word/noun, send it to 3 friends and see whose guess is the best, etc.
Pick up the first book closest to you. Turn it to page 42. Find the first complete sentence. (Here’s mine: “We’ll discuss the use of casuals and adjuncts shortly.”) Now negate its meaning. What does negating involve? You decide. (My attempt: “They stayed silent about the waste of formals and full-timers for a long time”). What did you realize through the exercise of negating?
If you’re feeling extra playful, click on the little outline speech bubble between the heart and the square with an arrow at the end of this email, and post a public comment with your translation experiment! How fun would that be to keep playing? 🎲🎪🎭
A FEW LINKS:
If you’d like to follow the rabbit hole of playful translation deeper, check out this wonderful essay “When Translating Becomes a Ludic Activity”! 🐇
This episode of the podcast Imaginary Advice is not directly about multilingual translation but it is about playing with the rules of language, storytelling and writing by exaggerating what you’re not supposed to do when you write - “How to Write Badly Well” — it made me laugh out loud so many times!! 🤡
I feel like I haven’t said this recently, so just as a reminder: LUDIC LIBERATION IS NOT GAMIFICATION. I love to play, I love making games, but I’m very suspicious of most forms of gamification. This episode from the Conspirituality podcast with Philosopher Christopher Ba Thi Nguyen discusses the problem with gamifying our existence. 🎲 Remember, we’re ALREADY PLAYING the existential game and want to be more FREE to re-make our rules, not be more ruled by others’ external metrics.
ANNOUNCEMENT:
Ludic Liberation Lab will be taking a little summer break so there won’t be a LAB in July. Every gamemaker needs a pause/reset button! ⏸ We’ll return with new juice and vision! In the meantime, catch me this Friday at the DROP OUT PARTY hosted by Indigo Esmonde from The School of Faliure (you might remember Indigo as our guide from Failing at Gender). It’ll be a very fun playful space, I’ll be there leading a little “booth.” It’s free! 👯
HAPPY SUMMER & SOLSTICE!!!
Natalia
Gamemaker/Destroyer
"You may have already noticed there are no numbers on the Animal Spirit cards."
Negated, becomes:
I cannot later ignore the absence of yes letters under the Mineral Mind ...
then I got stuck because 'cards' doesn't seem to have a negation.