Researchers are cataloging and translating the 10,000 Arabic inscriptions coating the walls and ceilings of Spain’s Alhambra palace.

Many inscriptions consist of aphorisms, terse sayings embodying a general truth, such as “Be sparse in words and you will go in peace” and “Rejoice in good fortune, because Allah helps you.”

What the researchers have found so far is that, contrary to popular belief, verses from the Koran and poetry represent only a tiny minority of the messages in classical Arabic that cover the Alhambra, Europe’s finest example of Muslim architecture.

“They do not make up not even 10 percent of what has been studied so far,” explained Mr Castilla. Instead the elegant Arabic script contains a large amount of sloganeering, predominantly praise for the Nasrid dynasty who ruled Granada for two and half centuries.

The Nasrid motto - “There is no victor but Allah” - is the most common inscription found so far.

The next most common messages are isolated words like “happiness” and “blessing” that are thought to be expressions of divine wishes for the Muslim rulers of Granada.

Until now there have only been partial studies of what the inscriptions meant, including one ordered by the Catholic monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella who sought to purge Spain of Muslims after the reconquest of Granada in 1492.

“It seems incredible that there is no exhaustive catalogue (of the inscriptions) in the 21st century,” said Mr Castilla.

Many of the inscriptions are wrapped around arches and pillars, making them hard to read with the naked eye from ground level.

Further complicating the task is the fact that artisans who did the engraving used an elaborately cursive script, which can be difficult to read. Calligraphy was a major art form in a culture that banned human images.

The researchers hope to have 65 percent of the inscriptions catalogued and translated into Spanish by the end of the year and the entire project finished in 2011.

The inscriptions will be later translated into English and French.

A DVD and book have been published containing the findings in the Alhambra’s 14th-century Comares Palace.

{via the Daily Grail}

{images by cconaty}

If you have up to three English words you’d like to have rendered in Sanskrit, Kiran Paranjape - an orthopedic surgeon in India - will do it for you for free, and very quickly. Go to his blog and scroll down a little until you see the form to email him for instructions.

He’ll also translate one to three words into other languages, including Bengali, Japanese, Chinese, and Hebrew.

You might not even need to submit, since he’s already translated thousands of words, phrases, and names, which he posts. “Love” and “peace” are pretty popular. And there’s “sister,” “know thyself,” “no regrets,” “forgiveness,” “strength,” “honor,” “thank you,” “Be the change,”  etc. People have paid a little more for longer phrases like “Live and let live,” “Faith justifies neither violence nor ignorance,” and “Enveloped in rich mysterious flesh.”

The scholarly book Translation and the Classic: Identity as Change in the History of Culture includes the fascinating article “Translation and the ‘Surreptitious Classic’: Obscenity and Translatability” by Deborah H. Roberts, Chair of Classics at Haverford College:

Euphemism by generalization seems to be particularly common in translations of Martial, where the frequency of obscenity poses a particular challenge to those who aim at complete editions. So, for Martial’s ‘cunnum Charinus lingit et tamen pallet’ (1.77.6, Charinus licks cunt and is still pale) Bohn’s version has ‘Charinus indulges in infamous debauchery - and yet he is pale’ and the Pott/Wright versified translation has ‘And e’en his vices do not make him blush.’ Similarly, where Martial has ‘Pedicatur Eroc, fellat Linus’ (7.10.1, Eros gets buggered, Linus sucks), we find ‘Eros has one filthy vice, Linus has another’, and ‘Eros and Linus are debauched, you say.’ …

We find similar vagueness in Aristophanes’ Lysistrata, in the passage in which Lysistrata draws the other women’s attention to the absence of any source of sexual satisfaction (107-110):

[Greek text omitted]

“Not even s spark of a lover is left.
And ever since the Milesians betrayed us,
I haven’t seen a dildo eight fingers long

Which might have been a leather source of help.”

A number of stranslators omit the dildo altogether, but Rogers’s translation offers a kind of place-holder for the unnamed object:

“No husbands now, no sparks, no anything.
For ever since Miletus played us false,
We’ve had no joy, no solace, none at all.”

Lest you think that wimpy translations of Martial are relics of the prudish past, Joseph S. Salemi’s accurate, unblushing translations stirred things up in 1990:

Responses were predictable: after reading some of my Martial translations in public, I was excoriated by the usual contingent of born-again Christians and militant feminists. Some academic careerists quietly urged me to drop the project of translating so repellent an author, lest I offend those inscrutable forces that dole out promotion and tenure. Editors showed even less spine; only six American journals out of fifty-four would publish selections from Martial–and this from a literary establishment that proclaims itself a defender of artistic freedom against Senator Helms. Typical was the comment of one trendy New York editor: “I enjoyed your translations immensely, but I could never print them.”