Languages demonstrate, when translating from one to another, that there is no exact proportion between them and that there is no correct way to say in one language what is written in another.
A concrete example can be found in the book The Twins, The Dream (Las gemelas, El sueño). In this book, Ursula K. Le Guin and Diana Bellessi translate one another, taking some of each other's poems.
The particular characteristics of each language and the nonexistence of a single correct way to translate give rise to each author's interpretation of the other's poem.
For example, Le Guin uses certain impersonal phrases in the English third person, which does not always specify the feminine or masculine form of some nouns, which Diana Bellessi always translates into the feminine, which in Spanish implies referring to her/them.
The Twins1
Tiny dream children,
soulchildren,
silver and turquoise,
very old children.
One in your ear like a whisper
under the tawny hair,
by the river in the shadow of palms
and shadow of poplars.[…]
Las Gemelas
Diminutas niñas del sueño,
niñas almas,
plata y turquesa,
niñas tan antiguas.
Una en tu oreja como un susurro
bajo el leonado pelo,
en la sombra de álamos y la sombra
de palmas sobre el río.[…]
From Le Guin's genderless noun children, Diana Bellessi deduces a feminine subject: girls.
The sexual relation cannot be written, and this impossibility becomes apparent when attempting to translate from one language to another. Yet translation requires us to choose, to take a position. Languages are spoken differently. Some do not require the definition of gender in certain nouns. Others, by contrast, force the choice in order to say something.
From the bias of interpretation involved in translation there emerges, beyond meaning, a style.
Although there may be no correct or proportional way to translate a poem, the bias of interpretation – in translation as well as in analytic practice – maintains a certain relation to style, which seeks to say something in any language.
[1] Le Guin, U. K., and Bellessi, D., The Twins, The Dream, Texas: Arte Publico Press, 1996.
