there confound their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech. So the Lord scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth; and they left off to build the city. Therefore is the name of it called Babel; because the Lord did there confound the language of all the earth: and from thence did the Lord scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth.
In the beginning, the tale goes, there was no need for translation. There was one people, one language. But people wanted to do whatever they could imagine. People don’t need armies of workers to do this; all they need are armies of readers. So God gave each person — in future, each people — a different language, so that they could not communicate the expressions of their imagination, at least in the form of language. All the other arts communicate fine after the destruction of the Tower of Babel; only those using the medium of language were cursed, sent into a state of eternal confusion. And so only the linguistic arts require translation in order to spread abroad upon the face of the earth. To add insult to injury, of all the performing arts we consider only translation to be impossible.
God placed a curse on mankind that could be defeated in only one way: by translating. Thus translation is ultimately a clever form of blasphemy, the building of many little bridges instead of one big tower. Mankind has invented numerous ways to overcome the part of the curse that spread us across the face of the earth: ships, roads, airplanes, the Internet. But translation is the only way that has been invented to overcome the curse of a profusion of languages. Lingua francas have come and gone, but they have usually been only regional or imperial. Esperanto was a failure. Only now is English threatening to become the first language understood around the world. Yet at the same time, small languages are being revived and preserved like never before. And English is hardly a worldwide project to build another tower to heaven, to end the curse of Babel. It is fallout from the spread of American entertainment, fashion, and businesses, following on the footsteps of a more conscious spread of British culture in the years before. In any event, most of the people who speak English as a second or third language still read in their first language and watch their movies dubbed. In fact, the greatest
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