Translating means understanding, above all, how words slip and slide into each other, how they overlap, how they end up producing a fertile lexical promiscuity. Even the meaning of synonym, from the Greek σύν/syn- (to express, identify) and ὄνομα/onoma (name), suggests a type of translation, for a translation does nothing but give a different and, at the same time, fundamentally equal meaning to a pre-existing text. A translation, like a synonym, literally creates more pathways and more sense.
