Motherless Tongues: The Insurgency of Language amid Wars of Translation

268 Pages·2016·2.601 MB·

by  Vicente L. Rafael

tongues
MOTHERLESS

tongues
MOTHERLESS
The Insurgency of Language
amid Wars of Translation
vicente l. rafael
Duke University Press
Durham and London
2016
© 2016 Duke University Press
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
on acid-free paper ∞
Designed by Amy Ruth Buchanan
Typeset in Quadratt Pro by Copperline
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Rafael, Vicente L., author.
Motherless tongues : the insurgency of language amid
wars of translation / Vicente L. Rafael.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
isbn 978-0-8223-6058-2 (hardcover : alk. paper)
isbn 978-0-8223-6074-2 (pbk. : alk. paper)
isbn 978-0-8223-7457-2 (e-book)
1. Philippine languages—Political aspects.
2. Translating and interpreting— Political aspects—
Philippines. 3. United States—Languages—Political
aspects. 4. Philippines—Colonial influence.
I. Title.
p119.32.p45r34 2016
30.44'9599—dc23 2015034666
Cover art: “The Escolta business street,” from
Photographs of the Philippines taken by U.S. military
personnel (phlk 173). University of Michigan Library,
Special Collections Library.
In memory of
Catalina Leuterio Rafael
(1925–2010)

CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS xi
INTRODUCTION The Aporia of Translation 1
PART I Vernacularizing the Political
CHAPTER 1 Welcoming What Comes 21
Translating Sovereignty in the Revolutionary Philippines
CHAPTER 2 Wars of Translation 43
American English, Colonial Schooling, and Tagalog Slang
CHAPTER 3 The Cell Phone and the Crowd 70
Messianic Politics in the EDSA II Uprising
PART II Weaponizing Babel
CHAPTER 4 Translation, American English, and
the National Insecurities of Empire 99
CHAPTER 5 Targeting Translation 120
Counterinsurgency and the Weaponization of Language
PART III Translating Lives
CHAPTER 6 The Accidents of Area Studies 149
Benedict Anderson and Arjun Appadurai
CHAPTER 7 Contracting Nostalgia 162
On Renato Rosaldo
CHAPTER 8 Language, History, and
Autobiography 173
Becoming Reynaldo Ileto
CHAPTER 9 Interview 189
Translation Speaks with Vicente Rafael
NOTES 203
BIBLIOGRAPHY 233
INDEX 247
The degree of the historical sense of any age may be in-
ferred from the manner in which this age makes transla-
tions and tries to absorb former ages and books. . . . In
the age of the Revolution, the French took possession of
Roman antiquity . . . and the [the Romans], how forc-
ibly and at the same time naively they took hold of ev-
erything good and lofty of Greek antiquity, which was
more ancient! How they translated everything into the
Roman present! . . . They seem to ask us: “Should we not
make new for ourselves what is old and find ourselves
in it? Should we not have the right to breathe our own
soul into this dead body? For it is dead after all; how ugly
is everything dead!” They did not know the delights of
the historical sense; what was past and alien was an em-
barrassment for them; and being Romans, they saw it as
an incentive for a Roman conquest. Indeed, translation
was a form of conquest. Not only did one omit what was
historical; one also added allusions to the present and,
above all, struck out the name of the poet and replaced it
with one’s own—not with any sense of theft but with the
very best conscience of the imperium Romanum.
—FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE, The Gay Science
When I speak to you in your language, what happens
to mine? Does my language continue to speak, but in
silence? . . . Even to say that I speak to you is perhaps
claiming too much, it’s taking advantage of an illusory
power, of a simple breath. . . . Madness of language, but
how sweet, how tender in this moment.
—ABDELKEBIR KHATIBI, Love in Two Languages