Category: Literature

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What’s New On the Shelf?

Pulpi the octopus invites you to have some candy and a bookmark!

I thought I’d give a shoutout to that unsung hero of local language resources, the LangLibrary – a title that I just invented to describe our humble but mighty pair of bookshelves in the Language Lab.

In addition to having a good number of printed copies of the required textbooks for language classes at Reed, the LangLibrary has a wide variety of literature for entertainment and information. From fables in traditional Chinese script to a magazine on (among other things) the Trans-Siberian railroad to a Nepali phrase book, the LangLibrary offers literature in many languages. I would say, though, that I’m most impressed with how many resources there are for learners of language classes taught at Reed. There’s textbooks, dictionaries, grammar books, script practice, and a book of idioms in Russian and English.

I’d like to give a particular shout-out to some of our newest additions as well as some items I found interesting. Yours truly brought in three Arabic storybooks for children and an Arabic script practice book that you can use dry-erase marker on, allowing you to easily and repeatedly scribble your way from alif to yaa’, as well as By Roman Hands: Inscriptions and Graffiti for Students of Latin, which I understand is in some demand in the beginner Latin classes (discipulae et discipuli, this is your hint to swing by the Lab!), and A New China for the intermediate Chinese students out there. I should mention that students in the past who felt moved to donate to the LangLibrary have just left their books on our figurative doorstep, hence how these books (and many others on our shelves) came here.

Moving away from the classroom towards beach reads (or perhaps armchair reads at this time of the year), I quite enjoy the look of Leben im Mittelalter. I might not know German, but I can identify a book on the Middle Ages when I see one. I also appreciate the Chinese translation of Der Steppenwolfe; it’s nice to see a translated work that wasn’t originally in English with a target language other than English.

Overall, I love the LangLibrary, and I hope to see it expand. Having studied Arabic at Reed, I’m biased when I say that I hope to see more comprehensive Arabic texts, whether for class or personal use. But I also hope to see a wider variety of casual literature at multiple levels of language learning across the board; from experience, I know that it can be hard to find literature that’s at your level of proficiency and that interests you personally. But who knows? Perhaps your next favorite is waiting for you in the LangLibrary…

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Chatting with Miriam

A picture of Miriam smiling. She is in front of a railing, overlooking a city, underneath a high grey sky.

I interviewed Miriam, a Russian tutor here at Reed. You can visit her drop-in tutoring hours on Thursdays from 6-8 PM in the Language Lab.

Could you introduce yourself?

My name is Miriam, otherwise known as Masha (in Russian); that name was given to me on my first day at Reed. I’m a senior Russian major, and I’m the Russian House HA (I’ve lived in the Russian house for three years (including this year)). I came in as a linguistics major, but I switched to Russian when I fell in love with it.

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Daniel Hahn’s “If This Be Magic: The Unlikely Art of Shakespeare in Translation” and My Profit On’t

My personal favorite jacket for the book; would you say these people are about to “kiss by th’book”?

Surprising as it may sound for someone who is in the ongoing process of learning 4 different languages (yes, I’m counting my native English) and “plays o’ th’ viol-de-gamboys” (that’s Twelfth Night for you), I’ve always been daunted by the prospect of learning individual characteristics of a language that I’m not currently studying. I’ve had to memorize the trees before I can even start looking at the forest. So when I saw the latest addition to my local library’s catalogue, Daniel Hahn’s If This Be Magic: The Unlikely Art of Shakespeare in Translation, I was intrigued and yet daunted. We’re old buds, the Bard and I, and I wanted to hear him speak in other tongues; but how was I supposed to appreciate the travails of translating Shakespeare into Turkish? One curious look later, and I was standing next to the bookstand reading about how to treat Mark Antony’s prophecy that the spirit of Caesar will “cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war” (Julius Caesar 3.1. 280), when the nearest equivalent to the exclamation “havoc” in Portuguese is devastaçao, a word with an inconveniently large syllable count for a twelve-syllable sentence.

As a native Portuguese speaker and professional translator, Hahn may appreciate Antony’s use of matança in that particular translation, but he doesn’t know most of the featured languages, so he has to rely mostly on his colleagues from around the world and linguistic detective work such as noticing visual and vocal patterns in the translated text to understand and enjoy the translations. Since Hahn isn’t telling one story, each chapter is relatively stand-alone, only connected by how they bring up some of the literary, linguistic, and social components that make Shakespeare, well, Shakespeare. Each section has a certain topic, such as verse, alliteration, metaphor, rhyme, or humor, and each topic is allocated several examples from distinct languages. Hahn shares corresponding anecdotes, translation histories, and personal opinions on relevant topics in his field such as ‘fidelity’, ‘“literal” translation’, and of course, what kind of process translation really is.

In particular, I feel like his analogy of translation (itself a borrowed analogy), as a body that renews millions of cells over so and so many years’ time while remaining the same creature, is one that cuts to the quick of debates over the goal of translating creative literature. An instruction manual may be appropriately reduced to simply informing about a subject, but a play may involve poetry or prose, comedy or tragedy, songs and music, and a bevy of spoken and embodied devices that may shun even giving information at all for the sake of an effect. Honoring the writer/playwright involves recognizing what choices were made to achieve that effect and recreating them in the target language. And sometimes, in the case of works in Early Modern English, the target language is Modern English!

But I can’t cover all of the points Hahn makes, so I highly recommend you read his book and learn a little more about translation, especially if you enjoy Shakespeare’s plays or sonnets. Even if you find the Bard hard to understand or enjoy, I would still say check it out. Hahn’s writing is really approachable, and he doesn’t usually expect the reader to know the entire scene, play, or stanza that he covers, just as he doesn’t expect you to recognize all of the languages at play. Whether you go through the whole book front to cover or flip to a random chapter like I did, I’m sure you can delight in multicultural, multilingual Shakespeare.

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The short and bright life of Shokan Valikhanov

Shokan was famously “besties” with Dostoevsky sparking rumors about their homoertoic relationships.

Shokan Valikhanov the father of modern Kazakh history and ethnography and simultaneously the most-known Kazakh scholar, ethnographer, historian. As a Russian Imperial officer, he explored Central Asia, mapping regions like Kashgar and recording significant cultural, geographic, and historical data while advocating for his people which didn’t save him from being a target of post-colonial criticism. Lang Labbies are starting our weekly rubric of “not-so-Russian-Russian literature” focusing on literature written in Russian by not necessarily Russian personas.

Shokan Valikhanov was born in Kostanay, Eastern Kazakhstan and spent his youth in his father’s traditional nomadic yurt. Shokan’s family was very respected by the government of the Russian Empire, and Walikhanov’s father was awarded, during his life, six appointments as senior Sultan of Kushmurun region. Born into privelege, Shokan raveled extensively in Central Asia in the late 1850s after having graduated from the military academy in Omsk.

Walikhanov collected materials on Kazakh judicial practices in 1863. This was part of a government-backed project given by Duhamel, and led to the 1864 Memorandum on Judicial Reform. In 1864, Shoqan was assigned to help with Colonel Cherniaev’s continued conquest of Central Asia. Cherniaev’s forces marched west from the fortress of Vernoe (modern-day Almaty). Chernaiev advanced towards the Khanate of Kokand, planning to attack the fort at Aulie-Ata (modern-day Taraz). Shoqan unsuccessfully pushed for a negotiated result without violence. 

Young Valikhanov was a big proponent of Westernization although was critiqued by his fellow ethnographers for “playing the double game” due to his primarily russian education and deep friendship with writers such as Fyedor Dostoevsky.

In spite of it, Shokan remained the face of Kazakh intelligentsia — his early death at just 29 years old left a large hole in the history of Kazakh ethnography written in Russian. One of Shokan works (in both Russian and English) I would recommend to our readers is “Chinese Turkestan and Dzungaria: Walikhanov and other Russian travellers”, The Russians in Central Asia, London, Edward Stanford, 1865.

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Learning French to read Duras with Qiuyi!

Today we’re speaking with Qiuyi, our drop-in French tutor! We chatted about the experience of learning French from the beginning level, adjusting to intermediate classes, and Marguerite Duras. Meet Qiuyi in the Language Lab during her drop-in tutoring hours!

Leilani: Hi Qiuyi! To begin the interview, could you tell me a little bit about yourself and how long you’ve been speaking French?

Qiuyi: Yeah! My name is Qiuyi, and I’m a sophomore majoring in Comparative Literature. This is my second year learning French, so I’m a new learner.

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Book recommendation: In Other Words by Jhumpa Lahiri

Jhumpa Lahiri, "In Other Words." Jhumpa Lahiri, an Indian woman wearing a brown sweater, sits at a desk with two large books open on it.

As we approach the end of the semester, I thought I’d recommend a for-funsies book to read over winter break: In Other Words by Jhumpa Lahiri (2015). Last semester, I wrote a blog post on journaling as an effective language-learning strategy. Jhumpa Lahiri’s memoir expands on this idea of writing in a second language (Italian), and also talks more on her experience living in Rome, Italy, to immerse herself in the language. Lahiri is the author of The Namesake (2003) and Interpreter of Maladies (1999), and this is her first nonfiction book.

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Petit Poulet, Henry Hühnchen, Pollito Tito… also known as Chicken Little

Petit Poulet, aka Chicken Little, looking at his computer. “Le ciel est en train de tomber!”

THE SKY IS FALLING, and you can read that in three other languages on TheFableCottage.com. I discovered this website with a friend as we attempted to read bedtime stories in each other’s languages. TheFableCottage is a multilingual library of bedtime stories written in French, German, Spanish, and also Italian! Each story has a few features that make it really helpful for beginning students: audio recordings, captioned video animations, illustrations, and English translations if you get stuck. All of their free short stories can be found on each language’s respective website: TheFrenchExperiment.com, TheGermanProject.com, and TheSpanishExperiment.com. (Stories can also be accessed on TheFableCottage, but not all of them are free.) This is a great resource for beginner-level students, as the grammar and vocabulary are written using everyday and simple language. These stories expand upon the beginner-level language you’ve learned so far using a story you’re likely already familiar with. Having an additional resource like this can supplement what you learn in class and in your textbook by creating a new context where you use your target language. For example, you may have introduced a photo of your family to your 100-level class, but you can practice that same family vocabulary in the context of Goldilocks and the Three Bears. I found the short stories on TheFableCottage to be the perfect resource for anyone in their first year of a language class, and I recommend that you check it out!

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They play spoons in Vermont?…


As a way to engage more of our students with language programs at Reed, we will be starting a series of interviews with our dear language tutors. Miriam (or Masha!) has a lot to share about her experience!

There is always a backstory to every language journey. Tell me more about your background and what inspired you to undertake a not-so-easy language like Russian.

Learning languages is my thing,especially being a linguistics major. I started with Hebrew, French, some Spanish and moved on to German. And coming to college I wanted something totally different which was Russian – I loved it, it’s my absolute favorite. 

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A Translation Project

I admire translators. Fan translators, in particular, who are often well-respected in Internet spaces involving content from another country. They relay information quickly for English-speaking fans so everyone can take part in the joy. But having read countless “translator’s notes”, I’ve constantly started thinking about how often meaning and nuance might get lost in translation, and how huge misunderstandings can spring from a mistranslation. I wanted to try translating text myself to experience how difficult it could be.

The first task was finding a text to translate. Translation differs across mediums, but I chose to translate an excerpt from a novel. Novel translation differs from other types of translation, such as interpreting dialogue, which I understand to be more literal. For novel translations, factors such as preserving the author’s style and intent must be taken into account.

The book I translated from is《废墟曾经辉煌》 (Fei Xu Ceng Jing Hui Huang) by female fiction writer Zhang Ling (张翎). It’s a book of lighthearted travel anecdotes, and the section I attempted translating was 成都散记 (Chengdu San Ji), a three part collection of prose about the city of Chengdu. 

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