The news gods sent me a story about translation in India… into English:

Language No Bar

The translations described (and languages) are of the literary variety:

There is a revival of sorts as far as the translation of Sanskrit and Urdu literature is concerned. There is a huge market as many do not understand the languages but want to enjoy the literature. For them English comes handy.

Interestingly, the translation described is mostly into Indian English (quite a distinct thing), and directed at an Indian audience.

India is probably the most linguistically diverse country on the planet; perhaps 1600 languages are spoken there. I would love to learn more about the patterns of translation within the subcontinent: does translation into English dominate? Into Hindi? Which other language pairs see heavy translation, and in which directions?

Any Indophiles out there on the webbernets have some pointers to info about such patterns?

(I can’t google right now… they’re gonna kick me out of this restaurant!)

ps. Speak of the devil, another article about translation in India, this time mentioning English versions of the late great Satyajit Ray’s work in Bengali. Zeitgeisty.