Outlining the
origin and history of translation, in Almario’s "Kasaysayan ng Pagsasalin ng Pilipinas", demonstrates the significance of translation as the foremost activity
in the interaction and engagement of cultures around the world. True to its
etymology, to translate – from the Greek transferre
or translatus – means “to convey” or “to
ferry across”. Translation is thus an act of transference; meaning the act of
transferring something from one (linguistic/cultural) form to another. Traces
of this transference, in ancient civilizations for instance, are manifested and
revealed by studying translation activity – the dialogue, exchange, and contact
between cultural groups.
With
transference of course comes the peripheral interplay of knowledge and power
for both the translator and the translated — resulting in either violence in
the collective episteme (from Spivak’s “epistemic violence”) or in the
collective consciousness and emancipation of a cultural group. The Philippines
is a nation that enacts this very idea of translation as transference, both in
its (epistemologically) violent and emancipative sense. The relationship
between translation and colonialism, in the case of the Philippines, is
manifested in the transference, among other things, of Christian religious
system to hopefully displace the pre-colonial belief system of the natives.
The publication
of Doctrina Christiana (“The
Teachings of Christianity”) in 1593 for instance, with its said versions in
Spanish (Mexico, 1539), Chinese, Portuguese (Goa, India, 1557), and later in
the Visayan language (1610), reveals the extent of the colonial project —
deemed to be violent because translation-as-transference here involves the
imposition, obliteration, and displacement of an existing knowledge system of a
cultural group. Ironically however, this very act of translation is also
employed to resist the epistemic violence inherent in colonization.
In the
Philippines, translation as transference, particularly of ideas on liberation
and freedom from 19th century Europe, furthered the country’s
understanding of national consciousness and emancipation. As Almario’s article
indicated, the translation of The
Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen (Ang mga Karampatan ng Tawo, 1891-92) introduced the liberal
ideologies of France to Filipino propagandists. Moreover, the translation of
Rizal’s works into Tagalog and regional languages promoted the Filipino
imagining of the nation. Translation – or in the Greek sense, the “ferrying
across” of liberal thoughts and nationalist ideas played a significant role in
shaping Philippine history and in imagining the Philippines as a nation.
(I'd like to comment further that Almario, in his survey, excluded translated works from the region (e.g. visayan version of Doctrina Christiana in 1610, Alonso Tomas' first translation of J. Rizal’s El Filibusterismo in 1911, Vicente Flores's visayan translation of Dumas’ Konde sa Monte Cristo in 1928 etc. etc). A lot of translation works from the regions I found in Resil Mojares' book "Cebuano Literature: A Survey and Bio-Bibliography with Finding List")
