Babel

by R.F. Kuang

‘Betrayal. Translation means doing violence upon the original, means warping and distorting it for foreign, unintended eyes. So then where does that leave us? How can we conclude, except by acknowledging that an act of translation is then necessarily always an act of betrayal?’

English did not just borrow words from other languages; it was stuffed to the brim with foreign influences, a Frankenstein vernacular.