Lilas y violentas

Looking at what translations are on shelves is interesting.

It's hard to get solid numbers, but maybe 3-4% of books coming out in the US are translations from other languages. In other countries, it sees to be in the low double digits for some languages but potentially much higher.

A thing I've noticed personally is that fun genre fiction seems to be particularly likely to be translated from English in other places and almost never a translation here in the US unless we're looking at manga or the recent wave of danmei novel translations. Readers of literary fiction are a little more open to translated works for multiple reasons, including that literary fiction publishers hire translators who don't suck.

The UK, reportedly, has more translations on shelves, though the entire Anglophone world is prone to these problems.

Here's an example of the sort of discussion I've found while searching just now.

The point is: a regression analysis of the available data seems to suggest that in this translation universe, the tendency for the percentage of translations is to decrease with the number of publications in that language. (More precisely: the percentage of translations decreases with the increase in the share of the language of total world-wide publications.) Given the high number of English language publications, a low percentage of translations into English is to be expected. The disappointing volume and low visibility of translation into English correlate with the global dominance of English language publishing, and might be seen as its effect.

Or, put more simply, English speakers are well-fed, so what do we need translations for?

Beaded Evening Dress

c. 1950

by Ann Lowe

It can almost certainly tell different species apart based on the shape of those air bladders. And it can tell if a fish has something weird inside it, like a metal hook. In Hawaii, false killer whales often pluck tuna off fishing lines, and “they’ll know where the hook is inside that fish,” Aude Pacini, who studies these animals, tells me. “They can ‘see’ things that you and I would never consider unless we had an X-ray machine or an MRI scanner.”

This penetrating perception is so unusual that scientists have barely begun to consider its implications. The beaked whales, for example, are odontocetes that look dolphin-esque on the outside—but on the inside, their skulls bear a strange assortment of crests, ridges, and bumps, many of which are only found in males.

Pavel Gol’din has suggested that these structures might be the equivalent of deer antlers—showy ornaments that are used to attract mates. Such ornaments would normally protrude from the body in a visible and conspicuous way, but that’s unnecessary for animals that are living medical scanners.’

I'm not sure if I ever shared this story before here, but in Curacao, when I was allowed to assist in a guest interaction programme, there was suddenly consternation in the pool behind us. A guest had entered the water and the dolphins were going crazy, paying no heed to the trainers anymore. The lead trainer that was with me gave the dolphins to me to watch over while she went to help. When she came back she told me what had happened. The guest that had caused so much uproar had left the water again and was asked if he had done anything to upset the dolphins. He hadn't, and he couldn't imagine what was wrong... until he mentioned he had a pacemaker. The younger dolphins in the pool had never seen someone with a pacemaker before and apparently it rocked their world.

Me when I write for 2 hours: 500 words

P-p-p-p-p Pingu! Pingu!!🐧🎣✨ (description in alt text)