Translation – one of the forms of literary connections, which allows to comprehend intentions, ideas of a writer, the meaning of writer’s words, ways of his thinking. The importance of translation for the development of national literature and the work of writers was highlighted by many outstanding artists.
There are a lot of unexplored areas in the field of artistic translation from Kazakh into other languages and vice versa (especially in the case of foreign languages) and more needs to be done. In particular, translations of Kazakh poetry and prose into English are subject of great interest, taking into account the growing popularity and increasing proliferation of the English language in the world. Artistic translation can play valuable role as a means of mutual rapprochement of people. It is time to answer the following questions: what is the situation of translations of works of Kazakh writers and poets into foreign languages, in particular, into English, French, Yiddish, German, Arabic and other? What is the significance of these translations for the development of world literature? What is the role of these translations for closer acquaintance with Kazakhstan, with people, history, culture, language? This interest is natural because the works of Abai, Auezov, Seifullin and other authors are not the property only of the Kazakhs. Now, thanks to artistic translations, their work would be available to people in the most remote corners of the earth, speaking different languages. In this regard, one cannot help but mention the ethnic Kazakhs living in the far and near abroad who not only would like to listen and enjoy translations of the immortal works of literature written in their historical homeland, but also to bring these inexhaustible sources to their children, grandchildren, friends, who are usually not good at Kazakh. For these people, translation is a unique opportunity to comprehend the content and feel the aesthetic impact of beautiful work of verbal and artistic creativity in the Kazakh language. Without a doubt, these questions will make care many foreign citizens who permanently reside and work in the territory of the Republic of Kazakhstan. This will contribute to a deeper understanding, study of the Kazakh language and raising its status, which is especially important nowadays, when so much attention is paid to the development of the state language and the issues of languages trinity: Kazakh, Russian and English. Translated literature and general interest in translations from any language always raises the status of the language, since only a rich, well-developed language is capable to give the world the literature worth to be translated.
At present, there are not many translations from Kazakh into foreign languages, although there is a notable increasing trend. It remains to hope for an improvement of the quality of these translations. The translations from Kazakh into Russian and into the languages of the CIS peoples are not good either.
However, science is not interested in lists of untranslatable facts, but in ways of overcoming difficulties in translation. At the same time, it is necessary to realize that translation is not always possible. On the other hand, theory and practice do not have the right to capitulate to this fact, since the field of “translatable” is constantly expanding. Consequently, the scientific study of translation from the standpoint of various scientific disciplines and usage of different conceptual devices are no longer sufficient because new approaches to translation practice are emerging [1–3].
Kazakhstan is multinational and multilingual country, therefore, it would be fair to conduct research, to present in mass media the situation related to translations from the languages of different nations of Kazakhstan into Kazakh, Russian, and foreign languages. This would promote even greater stability in the country, mutual understanding and respect for its peoples. It is mentioned in the Address of the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan N.A. Nazarbayev to the people of Kazakhstan dated December 14, 2012: “Kazakhstan today is an important international center for intercultural and interdenominational dialogue ... In the twenty-first century, Kazakhstan should become a bridge for dialogue and interaction between East and West” [4].
It is no coincidence that the translator Nikolai Chukovsky called the translation “magic”: “Isn’t it magical that the spiritual wealth of one nation, sometimes even small numbered, but gifted and unique, as all other countries, can become the spiritual wealth of all human, whole universe? ... The main issue of the development of the artistic translation – the lack of public attention to it. Literary critics write about authors and keep silent about translators”. For this scientific researches in this area can be valuable.
In addition to the issues mentioned above, it would be advisable to include in the studies such areas as: “The history of translations in Kazakhstan”, “Philological traditions of translations in the world”, “Outstanding masters of translation in Kazakhstan, CIS and abroad”, “The best translations of the world classics”, “Mismatch of language systems and translation” (for example, briefly compare lexical and stylistic systems of Kazakh and English languages and show how this is reflected in the translation), “Translation through translation” (about translations from one language, for example, Kazakh, to another for example, English, through the third language, for example, from the Russian translation of the Kazakh poem). It would be interesting and useful to study areas devoted to the little-known aspects of the work of writers and poets, to little-studied pages in the history of Kazakh literature, for example: “Abai and the West”, “Acquaintance with multilingual translations of the same literary work”, “The influence of the East on the English Poetry”, “Poetry of nomads in translations into European languages”, “Shakarim as an translator of Russian literature”, “Features of the translation of Eastern literature into the languages of Europe”, “Russian translators of Kazakhs literature”, “Baron Poetry in the Kazakh language”, “Goethe and literature of the East” and others.
I would like to emphasize the educational function of translation, which can arouse the interest, the creativity of a person, elevate morally and encourage enriching one’s with culture of other worlds.
Under the artistic translation, one should understand not the copying of the original letter and the transfer of the phraseological units of the original, but the exact reproduction of the spirit of the work, the delivery of the author’s worldview by means of another language. The heart of each writer’s creative process is an idea and a poetic image, which are inseparable from the word and expressed in word. For a translator, the work itself as a whole living light-image that highlights all the details should be primarily important. Translation has its own rigid laws. Important task of a translator is to comprehensively reflect the original poetic system in all its forms: volume, sound, color, words, etc. It should be taken into account that there is no artistic translation without a certain understanding and interpretation of the original work, and in the process of translation the image undergoes reconstruction and there appears the possibilities of its various transformations – in time, in space, in the semantic components [5].
Translation is a multifaceted object of study. The questions of translation can be considered from different perspectives – philosophical, linguistic, cultural, psychological, etc. Since culture manifests itself primarily in language, language is the true reality of this very culture. Due to this the translation is considered not only as the process of interlanguage communication, but also as an intercultural dialogue, in the lexical meanings of words, national identity, which develops historically, and finds its expression through it. The words of each language have specific functioning laws. This is can be observed in the fact that during the translation from one language to another it is often necessary to use words and expressions that do not precisely coincide with the lexical meaning. These words are not exact equivalents of concepts, but words of a close meaning, they do not contain all the semantic and emotional nuances of the source language. For example, the Kazakh language is rich in types of singers-improvisers: zhyrshy, zhyrau kuyshі, olenshі, anshі, akyn, ertekshі. They cannot be conveyed identically by Russian words like a singer, a musician, a storyteller. The words of two languages close in meaning are not absolutely identical semantically [6]. “There is nothing committed untranslatable” or according to Umberto Eco translation is “to say almost the same thing” [7]. Every translator is a researcher of the culture the language he is using. The people with developed self-awareness value their ethnic identity, the uniqueness of their culture and their history. It is not accidental that Wilhelm von Humboldt wrote that language is the unified spiritual energy of the people miraculously imprinted in certain sounds. We can reveal the richness of the world and the multifacetedness of what we know through the diversity of languages.
It is accepted to distinguish three types of translation: word-for-word translation (literal), semantic translation, literary or artistic translation, the linguistic principle of translation.
Word-for-word translation (literal). This is a mechanical translation of the words of a foreign text and they occur in the text, without regarding to the syntactic and logical connections. It is used mainly as a basis for further translation work.
The semantic translation, with the correct transfer of the thought of the translated text, tends to maximally close the reproduction of the syntactic construction and the lexical composition of the original. Despite the fact that semantic translation often violates the syntactic norms of the translating language, it can also be applied at the first, at rough stage of work on the text, as it helps to understand the structure and difficult places of the script.
Artistic or literary translation. This kind of translation conveys the thoughts of the original in the form of correct literary speech, and causes the greatest number of disagreements in the scientific environment – many researchers believe that the best translations should be performed not mainly by lexical and syntactic correspondences as by creative findings of artistic relations, in relation to language consistency are subordinated [8].
Special difficulties arise when the languages of the original and the translation belong to different cultures. For example, the works of Arab authors abound with quotations from the Koran and hints about this topic. The Arabic reader recognizes them as easily as an educated European referring to the Bible or ancient myths. In translation, these quotes remain incomprehensible to the European reader. There are also different literary traditions: European comparison of a beautiful woman with a camel appears ridiculous, and in Arabic poetry it is quite common. A fairytale “Snow Maiden”, based on Slavic pagan images, it is not clear how to translate it into hot African languages. Difficulties are created by different cultures rather than different languages.
Such a high-quality translation is impossible if there is no qualification, which we understand as the basis of the translator’s skill, as to have deeper development of the original signs of the psychology of people from whose language the work is translated [9].
The translator must be a master of the artistic word, subtly feel the soul of the people, in whose language the original is created. The skillful translator ensures language consistency, therefore, he/she fulfills his task the more accurately and fully. According to I. Kashkin, every experienced translator knows because of the mismatch of language systems and aesthetic norms, it is necessary to replace certain original parts with others that arise only in translation. However the skillful artistic translator also keeps the boundaries allowed by the original. It is known that the translation is done for those who do not know and do not understand the original language. Therefore, first of all, during the translation, it is necessary to pay attention to the main content of the original, then to the details reflecting the semantic and artistic features of the text. “The task of a translator, according to V. A. Zhukovsky, is being able to create and find in translation all the beautiful things that are given in the original.” The skillful translator, before translating the work, studies the content, semantic and artistic features of the original, the originality of the author’s style, because it is important not only know the original language well, but to be able to think in that language. For example, Mukagali Makatayev, an outstanding Kazakh poet, whose poetic attitude to the world is based on desire for the truth of being, fusion and harmony with nature, where word by being converged broadcasts about the inmost sources of Kazakh spiritual culture. Artistic translation into Russian of selected poetic works by M. Makatayev was performed by the Kazakh poet-translator Zhanat Baymukhametov, known for his translations of Western European poetry. Trying to express in Russian almost the same thing that was said in the original language, with his translations of the poetic creations of Makatayev, he presented the opportunity for the Russian-speaking reader to feel the third rhyme of the Kazakh verse, the wonderful charm and depth of the poetry of Makatayev.
“As you know, the core of any artistic translation is that, having arisen, dissolve in the nature of the original text. The uniqueness of Mukagali Makatayev’s poetic works is the fact that, being produced on the motherland of the Kazakh language, they are the accumulators of those subtle ideas and meanings, which reveal the essence of not only Kazakh poetry, but also poetry as such. Having made an attempt to translate the “spirit” and “letter” of Makatayev’s poetry from Kazakh into Russian, from the very beginning of this complex but fascinating enterprise, I decided to adhere to this translation a strategy as difficult to implement, as well as promising from the position of approaching the language of the original text. With my translation of the poetic works of Makatayev I tried to give the Russian-speaking reader the opportunity to feel the third rhyme of the Kazakh verse, the taste of Makatayev’s text, to express in Russian almost the same things what is said in the original language” [10].
First of all, the linguistic principle of translation supposes the re-creation of the formal structure of the original. However, the proclamation of the linguistic principle can lead to excessive adherence of the translation the original text – to a literal, linguistically exact, but weak artistic translation, which would be one of the varieties of formalism, when foreign language forms are accurately translated, styled according to laws of a foreign language. In cases where the syntactic structure of the translated sentence can be expressed in a similar way in translation, the literal translation can be considered as the final version of the translation without further literary processing. However, the coincidence of syntactic means in two languages is relatively rare; most often in artistic translation occurs another violation of the syntactic norms of the translated language. In such cases, we come across a certain gap between content and form: the author’s thought is clear, but the form of its expression is alien to the translated language. Literally accurate translation does not always reproduce the emotional effect of genuine. Actual and artistic reality is in constant contradiction with each other. Undoubtedly, the translation is based on language resource and without translation of words and phrases there is no artistic translation. The translation process itself also relies on knowledge of the laws of both languages and on the understanding of the laws of their correlation. Compliance with language laws is required for both the original and the translation, but artistic translation is not only a correspondence of linguistic relations.
The cultural (conceptual) picture of the world is a reflection of the real picture through the prism of concepts formed on the basis of human representations, with the help of sense organs and passed through his consciousness, both individual and collective [11]. The cultural picture of the world is specific and different for different peoples. This is due to a number of factors: traditions and customs, way of life, social structure, beliefs, geography, climate, natural conditions, history, etc.
Thus, multicultural and multilingual education is necessary for the formation agents of intercultural communication, professionals, who meet the world standards, competitive specialists, communicative personalities, who are capable to work in a multicultural environment, who possess a sense of respect for the spiritual values of other cultures, and the ability to live in peace and harmony.