Lost in Translation

"Lost in Translation"

As I began to read "Lost in Translation" by Soo Ji Min, I thought to myself, "This is going to be boring." Not only were my assumptions wrong, but I actually thought the reading was quite interesting.

In his quest to seek out the language of Chulym, K. David Harrison teamed up with Vassilij Gabov to translate the Russian language. The thing that nobody knew was that Gabov himself was a native speaker of Chulym. The part of the article that I felt was most interesting was that Gabov never told Harrison he could speak Chulym. When asked why he didn't tell Harrison that he spoke Chulym, Gabov said that he did not think his Chulym was up to normal standard. It was not until later in the article that I started to really understand why Gabov felt uncomfortable sharing his knowledge. According to the article, "Stalin ordered Chulym and other Siberian children to attend boarding schools and prohibiited the instruction of any non-Russian language. Chulym was viewed as a gutter language."

Even though the series of interviews with Harrison took place long after Stalin was in power, I think Gabov hid his knowledge by habit. This is apparent when Gabov speaks of his journal that he kept when he devised a system of writing down the Chulym language. The article states, "When Gabov shared his creation (of his journal) with a Russian acquaintance, he was promptly ridiculed for his attempts,..., he threw away his journal and did not write agian."

After reading the article, I started to imagine what it would be like if I were in a similar situation. What if English was banned and I was no longer allowed to speak my native language? What if I was forced to speak a new language and was separated from others who spoke English? What if I was made ashamed of my own culture? Though its hard to imagine, I start to understand why after all those years Gabov still would not admit to his knowledge of the Chulym language. If you are told over and over again that you should not do a specific thing, that it is wrong, you believe what you are being told. And that is exactly why I believe Gabov didn't share the information he had.

Language is the most important form of communication. I find it impossible to imagine the world without some form of it. Language can define our community, our culture, and most importantly us.

I found "Lost in Translation" to be really interesting, although, a bit sad at the same time. I've heard talk about the increase in the amount of languages that are dying, but it is not often that I think about how much a language really affects an entire culture. The part of the article that really sticks out to me is when Soo Ji Min discusses how important fishing once was to to the Middle Chulym people. The Chulym language once included facts and detailed accounts of fishing practices, but with the loss of the language, the knowledge is also lost.

Today, the language program at OU consists of what I thought to be a broad range of languages (compared to highschool at least). Upon reading the selection, I was reminded that our world is composed of more dialects that can even be counted. It makes me think back to a Human Geography class that I took fall quarter. In the class we discussed the different languages all around the world, and the fact that some countries have 1,000's of different spoken languages. I know I pay attention to a total of what can't be more than five languages in the world. It is so easy to disregard all of the languages that once existed or are now barely existing. To put this into context, I am trying to imagine what it would be like if suddenly our own language disappeared within the next few years. I can only sum up the result as a country of really lost people.

"Lost in Translation" ends somewhat positively as we find out that Gobav is using his knowledge of Chulym to write a storybook that will be published. While the storybook will give an example of the language, it will not be anywhere close to reviving it. Now as the