Between French and Breton: The Politics of Translation

Abstract

This article explores the political implications of different types of translation between French and Breton. The bilingual parallel text publication practice of militant poets active in 1960s and 1970s Brittany is discussed in relation to their perception of Brittany as an 'internal colony', and against the French State's attitude towards regional languages. I argue that the Breton versions of these poems that appear alongside the French function as a synecdoche for racial and cultural oppression and injustice across the world. Translations into Breton from other minority cultures are shown to allow the mapping of political allegiances, and a sense of solidarity. The literature produced in the wake of Gwalarn, a periodical which was characterized by its enthusiasm for translation into Breton, is contrasted with the basically Romantic literature produced by nineteenth-century Breton enthusiasts. For Gwalarnistes translation into Breton from world literature was a key in escaping the cliché-ridden Brittany that had become familiar in Breton literature. The article concludes by considering the implications of translation out of a minority language and into the politically dominant language. Drawing on work in postcolonial translation studies, as well as comments by Welsh writers and critics on the issue of translation, I suggest that translation can be complex and indeed dangerous in the case of a minority culture such as Brittany's, and conclude that there can therefore be no all-encompassing theory of translation.

Keywords:

• BRITTANY
• TRANSLATION
• POETRY
• INTERNAL COLONIALISM
• MINORITY LITERATURE