A few years ago, I read one of Finland’s most celebrated post-war novels: The Unknown Soldier or Unknown Soldiers by Väinö Linna. The copy I read was a modern translation into English by Dr. Liesl Yamaguchi. As a foreigner living in Finland, I have been told that Finns have regional dialects but it’s not something I can make out, certainly I don’t know the cultural signficance of each of the dialects and how Finns themselves perceive them. The translator’s note at the end specifically talked about how she had translated the conversations and for a native western English speaker, the book rang true.
As a foreigner working in Finland and as a native english speaker working with many nationalities, I question how my tone, choice of words, and choice of expressions map and translate into my colleagues’ mental models. At work though, the language I am concerned about is what I would call functional English. What about the much more complicated world of fiction translated into Finnish? In Unknown Soldiers, I had read Finnish fiction translated into English. However, the world of English media vastly outnumbers that of Finnish and in most book stores there is a large variety of English to Finnish translations. With that in mind, I invited Anna-Maija Ihander, a translator of fiction and entertainment, to talk about her experiences.
If words create the worlds we live in, how do these words create worlds in different languages?
Let’s find out.
