Literary and cultural exchange: translation trends in the Nordic and Baltic countries

Abstract

Translation practices in countries where the national language makes up a small percentage of the total languages in the world reveal an interesting literary-cultural relation between the source and target language communities. Increasingly, English has become the world language of translation, often used as both the main source and target language. Within the Nordic and Baltic countries, we find a literary field that provides a fitting environment for translations between the national languages. This paper aims to investigate the translation practices occurring between Estonia and the Nordic and Baltic countries and its correlation to the sharing of cultural solidarity. Translation practices between Estonian and the other Baltic and Nordic languages will be the primary focus of this paper, with a secondary focus on the use of English as a major language of translation. This paper presents the translation trends from 2006-2008 based on the data collected from UNESCO’s Index Translationum. Overall, this paper aims to investigate what these translation trends reveal about the current socio-cultural relations between the source and target culture.

Three Milestones of Latvian Translation Criticism

“…The second half of the 19th century saw an expansion of various translated texts and when Latvian native literature sprang up it was very much an imitation of the cur-rent translations. Secular translation is well known to go hand in hand with birth of nation building (Chernetsky 2011;Kumar 2013;Easlick 2014;Ožbot 2021). From the very beginning the focus was on the Latvian language-the goal was to prove that Latvian was not the primitive language of the peasants, but could well serve the modern needs of the emerging nation.…”

The Abrupt Turns in Translation Policies in Latvia during the Occupations (1939-1946)

“…Secular vernacular translation has often helped to initiate national literary traditions and even nation-building (Chernetsky, 2011;Easlick, 2014;Kumar, 2013;Ožbot, 2021). The Latvian nation emerged late in the 19 th century and did so as a cultural nation: the aim of national liberation was to develop the language and culture (Levits, 2012, pp.…”