The Map of Untranslatability

How to read a cell

• IN Arrives. The part is there in a comparable form.
• ~ Thins. A related form arrives, shifted or incomplete. The letters after the tilde name the shift.
• SRC The source language of that plate.
• — That language is not on the plate.
• MM Mechanism mismatch

  The job gets done, or attempted, by a different piece of grammar. The particle, the determiner, the tense, or the compound joint is not the same machine.

• LG Lexical gap

  The target lexicon has no established word for this. The thought can still be phrased. What is missing is the ready-made item.

• CO Connotation

  A word arrives, and it brings the wrong company: a neighboring sense, a false friend, or a narrowed flavor.

• RG Register

  The social key changes. Intimacy, formality, or the speaker’s stance is flattened or sharpened.

• SW Sound or wordplay

  A pun, echo, or near-rhyme depends on the source language’s sound. The other language has to drop it or build a different joke.

• CR Cultural reference

  The phrase cites a poem, a parable, a custom, or a book. Without that citation, the words are only their surface.

A plus sign means the lane, or another lane in that language, carries a second kind of fault. Patterns repeat the letter codes so the chart can be read without color. Activate a column heading to bring the worst faults in that language to the top.

Where it breaks

The plate scrolls sideways. The phrase column stays put.

The clusters

• Japanese 13 full breaks, 4 thinnings, 2 clean arrivals, as a target.
• German 15 full breaks, 4 thinnings, 2 clean arrivals, as a target.
• French 14 full breaks, 8 thinnings, 2 clean arrivals, as a target.
• Spanish 5 full breaks, 5 thinnings, 2 clean arrivals, as a target.
• Chinese 5 full breaks, 5 thinnings, 0 clean arrivals, as a target.
• English 20 full breaks, 10 thinnings, 1 clean arrivals, as a target.
• Portuguese 1 full breaks, 0 thinnings, 0 clean arrivals, as a target.

All plates

1. 01Gravity’s RainbowThe nouns can cross. The genitive is a different machine, and on the owner’s reading that machine was already about the book.
2. 02To be, or not to beGerman, French, and Spanish can keep a verb of being. The famous Japanese and Chinese lines step downstream, into living or into survival.
3. 03ungeheueres UngezieferEnglish can say “monstrous” and “vermin.” It cannot keep two un- words, and “insect” draws the creature Kafka would not have drawn.
4. 04À la recherche du temps perduThe French title is a search for lost time. The famous English and Chinese titles go off and become literature of their own.
5. 05Aujourd’hui, maman est mortemaman is a child’s word. “Mother” cools it. The passé composé cools again when English puts the death in the simple past.
6. 06The Importance of Being EarnestThe title is a homophone: earnest the virtue, Ernest the name. German can almost keep it. French builds a different pun. The usual Spanish title drops the pun and changes “being” to “being called.”
7. 07Das UnheimlicheEnglish has a word for the feeling. It does not have the home inside the word, and Freud’s essay is an argument about that home.
8. 08古池やThe pond, the frog, and the sound can be said in any language. The cutting word や cannot. A dash is a pause, not a kireji.
9. 09The Catcher in the RyeThe field can be translated. Burns cannot be assumed. French replaces the field with hearts. German keeps the catcher and still owes the reader the song.
10. 10The Sound and the FuryThe words “sound” and “fury” are easy. The title is a quotation. Leave the quotation out, and the idiot’s tale is no longer standing behind the book.
11. 11traduttore, traditoreThe sense is easy: the translator is a traitor. The proverb is the near-rhyme. Move it, and the moral arrives while the music stops.
12. 12l’esprit de l’escalierEnglish can calque it and be misunderstood, because esprit is wit, not a ghost. German calqued it, and the calque then changed its mind.
13. 13SchadenfreudeEnglish borrowed the whole word and lost the joints. Chinese already had a four-character idiom that does the job. The gap was never universal.
14. 14FernwehThe parts are obvious: far, and ache. The usual English substitute, wanderlust, is a different German word, and it aches less.
15. 15matar a saudade“To kill the longing” sounds violent in English. The idiom is a relief. Neighboring words — nostalgia, Sehnsucht, añoranza — each cover a slice and leave the rest.
16. 16litostThe chapter’s point is the gap. The translation does not hunt for a synonym. It keeps the word and teaches it. That is a lexical gap being handled, not a failure to handle one.
17. 17toskaThe break is the range. Anguish, yearning, and boredom are different English words. Toska is one Russian word that travels the whole scale.
18. 18木漏れ日Anyone can see the light. Japanese has made it one noun. English describes the scene. The gap is lexical, and it is only lexical.
19. 19物の哀れ“The pathos of things” is the usual gloss, and pathos is a Greek rhetorical word. Aware is an exclamation that became a critical term. Chinese borrows the characters and narrows the feeling toward sorrow.
20. 20侘び寂びEnglish fused two terms into one lifestyle word, then glossed it as “perfect imperfection.” Each half is older and stricter than the brand.
21. 21缘分“Fate” is too large, “chemistry” is too small, and “meant to be” is a story English tells with different machinery. Japanese 縁 is the closest relative, and it still does not say 分.
22. 22塞翁失马English “a blessing in disguise” is a different picture, a hidden good. The Chinese phrase cites a story. Japanese already has the story, as its own proverb.
23. 23福倒了The custom is a homophone. Translate the meaning and the inversion is a decoration. Describe the inversion and the arrival is gone. You need both, and only one language hears them as one.
24. 24sobremesaEnglish can say “we stayed and talked.” It has no noun for that stretch of time. Portuguese has the same form and, in current use, means a course of the meal.
25. 25sprezzatura“Nonchalance” is a French word English already had, and it misses the disdain. The courtier is not relaxed. He is performing the disregard of his own effort.
26. 26duendeTranslate it as “elf” and you have the folk being Lorca is not lecturing about. Translate it as “soul” and you have lost the folk being he is deliberately using. The collision is the term.
27. 27Übermensch“Superman” now wears a cape. The German word is over plus human. French surhomme and Spanish superhombre split the same problem in two different prefixes.
28. 28Du musst dein Leben ändernThe command translates. The Du does not, not into English you. French and Spanish can keep a singular intimate address. Japanese tends to drop the pronoun, and the address goes with it.