Aithihyamala: Translating Text in Context

Abstract

Aithihyamala (1909) is a compilation of oral legends and folktales in Malayalam by Kottarathil Shankunni. A hundred years since its first publication, and many translations hence, re-translating it into English to suit the contemporary reader comes with its own share of challenges. Overcoming the barrier of archaic language was one thing as was the translation of cultural contexts and culture itself.Butmore demanding was the employment of a contemporary politically correct lens to the stories themselves, and exercising it in translation in such a manner that while the translation and the translatordo remain invisible, the text is suitably modified in places so that blatant prejudices and partisanship inherent in the text do not overshadow the stories themselves. The paper discusses how the translator employed either domestication or foreignization and sometimes a combination of both in order to make sense of the canonical Malayalam text in English, and the rationale for employing each approach so as to make the text relevant and meaningful to the contemporary reader.