In his famous Afterword to Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov closed with: My private tragedy, which cannot, and indeed should not, be anybody’s concern, is that I had to abandon my natural idiom, my untrammelled, rich, and infinitely docile Russian tongue for a second-rate brand of English, devoid of any of those apparatuses–the baffling mirror, the black velvetContinue reading “On First And Second Languages V – Nabokov’s Lament”
Tag Archives: Hindustani
Of First and Second Languages – I
Costica Bradatan‘s essay ‘Born Again in a Second Language‘ made me think my own homes in the two languages I speak: English and Hindi/Urdu/Hindustani. Because I grew up in India, English is often termed my ‘second language.’ I, however, describe English as my ‘first language’ because it is the language in which I posses the greatestContinue reading “Of First and Second Languages – I”
Reflections on Translations – IV: Embedded, Untranslated Text, and Tintin
Louis Mackay has an interesting article at the London Review of Books Blog (‘Tintin in China’, 11 June 2012) , which continues an examination–commenced by Christopher Taylor (LRB, 7 June 2012)–of the Chinese artist Zhang Congren’s influence on Tintin‘s creator Hergé. (In particular his influence on one of Hergé’s earliest Tintin adventures, The Blue Lotus.) Zhang influencedContinue reading “Reflections on Translations – IV: Embedded, Untranslated Text, and Tintin”
Samir Chopra 