'cause i sure just did

i've been like trying to finally make my way through my unread books and i bought this one way long ago when i didn't know better and was just like "i recognize that this is a Mythology Subject" and now i'm finally looking at it and like

let's say the words "sloppy academics" are not strong enough

i knew it was going downhill when i was reading the introduction and the dude was like

"now i'm going to be referring to this as shamanism, and there's some people who question whether that's the appropriate word to use, but i'm using it because..." and then proceeded to defend his broad application of the word shaman in a way that implies he either does not understand or does not want to understand what the actual criticism is

like he literally says "It [the word shaman] has been applied widely, however, and there seems no reason to be pedantic in using alternative words belonging to individual cultures."

like, bruh

that is exactly the problem people have

is that it has been applied widely

and that the thing you're discussing in this book ("celtic shamanism") is in fact very different from tunguscan shamanism, and also very different from other things people have called shamanism, like native american cultures, and that lumping all these things together and implying they're all the same is pretty shitty when they're demonstrably different

also that "shamanism" is poorly defined and the poor definition we have is questionable at best

but your defense is "shamanism is a broad thing found all over the world, so why should we use different words when referring to this global thing?"

and then the last paragraph of the introduction was maybe my favorite stupid and terrible argument i've ever seen

like, my knowledge of linguistics and translation is some knowledge of more than one language and having taken linguistics 101 and i literally don't need more to pull it apart

'cause okay so this book is theoretically about 6th century british bard taliesin, right

so its gotta analyze the dude's poetry

which is recorded in old welsh

so like probably you gotta translate those for your audience a bit?

but then here's his paragraph about the translation methodology

"Whilst many [of the poems] are translated word for word, we have not hesitated, where it seemed appropriate, to manifest the meaning through the metaphors of the poems."

so, like, you translated metaphors and meaning, yes, i believe that's called 'translating'

"Much of the material attributed to Taliesin was written in a verse form called awdl, which is more or less untranslatable in modern English."
yeah, that's the case for like all poetry, this is not unusual

"We have, therefore, opted for a more literal and flexible form, rather than attempt a word order which would appear, in English, strained."
emphasis mine, because hold up

yes, correct, normally you try to translate so that things read smoothly in the destination language

so this sentence implies to me

that this guy is under the impression that a word for word translation would mean literally plugging each word individually into a translator and then, just, leaving them in order?

OH BUT HE CONTINUES

"One of the reasons why the Taliesin material has never been fully appreciated is because of the way earlier writers have sought to provide versions which are as exact as possible,"

a, you know, normal thing to do if you want to academically analyze the meaning of the poetry, the thing this book claims to want to do, like this book isn't selling itself as a literary translation for casual enjoyment, it's claiming to be doing analysis to learn about taliesin's cultural and religion beliefs

"... the way earlier writers have sought to provide versions which are as exact as possible, without ever taking into account the meaning behind the words, which are indeed often obscure and difficult."

guys, these motherfuckers are translating esoterically

they are attempting to find the esoteric meaning of the words and translatethat**

"The approach we have taken is that of a painstaking study of the words and their meaning"
you know, as opposed to normal translators, who study the words but don't have a fucking clue what they mean i guess

"Our translations should, therefore, be looked upon as 'versions', rather than perfect translations"
> implying they think any translation isn't a 'version'
> implying a perfect translation is possible
"(though we have taken care to be as exact as possible)"
L M F A O

YEAH BUD I'M SURE YOU'VE TAKEN CARE TO BE AS EXACT AS POSSIBLE

IS THAT WHY THE SAMPLE OF POETRY INCLUDED AFTER THE ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS FEATURES NO TRANSLATOR'S NOTES AND ALSO MANAGES TO FOLLOW A STRICT ABCDC RHYME SCHEME?

"oh, the awdl doesn't translate into english verse, so instead we rewrote it into a totally different verse style, that's normal and good academia"

you may be wondering, is this where alterz threw the book aside? no

we're on page seven

pages 8 and 9 are blank, page 10 is the cover page for part 1, and page 11 is blank again

the first page of the first chapter is only half a page, and is strictly factual and fine, okay

the second page is half image and half text and literally that half page of text featured so many things that were like [CITATION NEEDED] or just made unfounded assumptions that i couldn't keep reading

two literal paragraphs so densely packed with bullshit that i couldn't handle it

anyway don't read anything by john or caitlin matthews, they're hacks

/pained linguist noises/

/hiss

yikes

Eeeee noooooo

:《

/hissing in History Degree

what a crock of shit