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Voices From the Past: Remarks on the Translation and Editing of Published Danish Sources for West African History During the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 May 2014

Selena Axelrod Winsnes
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Extract

For the past four years I have been engaged in translating into English and editing published Danish sources for west African history. Having begun with pure translation I soon realized that, were the translations to be clear and, indeed, comprehensible, editing was sine qua non. A translation I made last year of H. C. Monrad Bildrag til en Skildring of Guinea Kysten og dens Indbyggere (Copenhagen, 1822) is finished, but not yet edited. But the main thrust of my work so far has been preparing an edited translation of Paul Erdmann Isert, Reise nach Guinea und den Caribäischen Inseln in Columbien (Copenhagen, 1788).

It has been in the course of this work that I have been made aware, both by reading and by personal communication, of the growing interest in new and careful translations of the early sources. In this paper I shall address six aspects of the work: a brief overview of the current situation regarding Danish sources for west African History from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries; a review of the available printed Danish sources and the status of their translation into other languages; a discussion of technical problems; a discussion of some of the traps of translation and interpretation; the early sources' use of earlier sources; the modern sources' use of early sources. It is my intention, here, to present a case showing the need for new and carefully edited translations of the early sources for west African history, and to champion the recognition of this field of endeavor as something far more than “just translation.”

Type
Research Article
Information
History in Africa , Volume 14 , 1987 , pp. 275 - 285
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 1987

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References

Notes

1. Isert, Paul E., Voyages en Guinée(Paris, 1793).Google Scholar

2. van Dantzig, Albert, “English Bosman and Dutch Bosman: A Comparison of Texts,” HA 2(1975) to 9(1982).Google Scholar

3. Brown, S.W., “From the Tongues of Africa,” Plantation Society in the Americas, 2(1983), 37–61.Google Scholar

4. Raunkjaer, L., Laegen Paul Iserts Breve frà dansk Guinea 1783-1787 (Copenhagen, 1917).Google Scholar

5. Jones, Adam, German Sources for West African History, 1599-1669. (Wiesbaden, 1983)Google Scholar; idem., Brandenburg Sources for West African History, 1680-1700 (Wiesbaden, 1985).

6. de Marees, Pieter, Description and Historical Account of the Gold Kingdom of Guinea (London, 1986).Google Scholar

7. Brown, , “From the Tongues of Africa.” 47Google Scholar

8. Rask, Johannes, Ferd til og fra Guinea (Oslo, 1969).Google Scholar

9. Fage, J.D., “Some Remarks on Beads and Trade in Lower Guinea in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries,” JAH, 3 (1962), 343–47CrossRefGoogle Scholar, notes this problem.

10. Isert, Voyages.

11. Rask, Ferd…Guinea; Bosman, Willem, A New and Accurate Description of the Coast of Coast (London, 1705)Google Scholar; Monrad, H.C., Bidrag til en Skildring af Guinea Kysten og dens Indbyggere (Copenhagen, 1822)Google Scholar; Bowdich, T.E., Mission From Cape Coast Castle to Ashantee (London, 1819).Google Scholar

12. Jones, German Sources, 21n6, addresses this problem. See also Hodgen, Margaret T., Early Anthropology in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (Philadelphia, 1964), 409.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

13. Brown, , “From the Tongues of Africa,” 58.Google Scholar

14. Isert, , Reise, 180, 232–33.Google Scholar

15. Rask, Ferd…Guinea, III.

16. Ibid., 138.

17. Monrad, Bidrag 78n.

18. Thonning's map of 1838 can be found in Carstensen, E., Indberetninger fra Guinea, ed. Nørregaard, Georg (Copenhagen, 1964).Google Scholar

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27. Jones, German Sources.

28. Ibid.

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