there may be words

This is not gonna be a super well-thought out nor structured post, but it's a post anyway because reading superborb's translation thoughts post gave me translation thoughts of my own. It catches! In a non-pandemic way.

And in the context of Chinese to English translation, said thoughts obviously circle back to 知否 aka known, unknown, further aka the Nirvana in Fire epic fix-it fic spanning a whole 100k words translated (or 44 chapters + 2 extras, all of which remain eternally shocking numbers).

(Also hence the title, because what are translators if not 卷帘人… or mainly because the song has burned this poem permanently into my brain. Literature-as-music is my favourite and possibly only kind of voluntary classical text consumption.)

Necessary caveats: (a) I primarily make translations and don't read them myself these days; (b) this pertains specifically to Chinese translation, for reasons I will probably end up elaborating on; and finally (c) while I've ostensibly framed this in context of 知否 it's only in the most general of terms (owing to me not having reread the entire translation since finishing it, among other things).

Anyway! I promised thoughts, so here they are…

( foreignisation vs localisation: decisions, decisions )

( translation as transformative work, and its impact )

( non-conclusion: it's all relative )

*sees a hanahaki au prompt over at 3SF*

*proceeds to have An Idea*

*but first: embarks on a half-hour mental digression of what my preferred Chinese term for hanahaki would be*

Obviously a completely expected and normal chain of events.

Anyway. In a very-direct translation of 花吐き病, the accepted terms appear to be 花吐病 or 花吐症 (per Fanlore and Baidu respectively) and a cursory search also turns up the pinyin in occasional English usage.

Which is… fine, I guess, except the word order makes no intuitive sense in Chinese and also where's the poetry of it? Even literal VD gets the more graceful-sounding 花柳病, never mind that I'm not gonna look up why that is because medical conditions are PG content for me.

So have my non-rigorously-considered proposals for alternatives:

• 花疾 as a slightly-archaic parallel to 心疾 (which appropriately enough covers both worry-induced ailments and actual heart disease). 花炎 would be an option except I don't think there's inflammation involved?
• 落花病 as the more-modern term – "fallen flower" at least sounds better to me than flower vomit while also being appropriately evocative. Also used as 落花症, because vocab-wise 病 generally refers to the illness itself while 症 is more symptoms/presentation, but both seem applicable in this case. Doubly appropriate because I just got reminded while searching that 落花有意，流水无情 is essentially poetic imagery for unrequited love. So yeah.
• 花痴 already exists as a term for someone easily infatuated with attractive people, but it'd be wasted if you didn't borrow it as slang for people with hanahaki (cue in-universe discourse™️ about how this term is #problematic and oversimplifes the condition, etc).

…and that's all so maybe now my hamster brain will allow me to write the remaining 1.8 sentences of that fic. Roundabout much?

ETA: Here is the fic! All three sentences of it. Also fun: come discuss the horrors of Dixing-esque hanahaki in the comments of this post.