Opinion: It depends where you put the virgula
This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts.
I don’t speak Spanish, but I’m intrigued by this translation of the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. It appeared in a nice thorough EFE explainer that made it to the front page of yesterday’s La Opinion:
‘Una milicia bien regulada, en caso de ser necesaria para mantener la seguridad de un Estado libre, el derecho de la gente a tener y portar armas, no debe ser infringido’, dice la Segunda Enmienda, escrita en 1787, hace más de 200 años.
(I even like the goofy gloss, which instructs or reminds you that the Constitution is more than two centuries old.)
If you recall Dennis Baron’s recent OpEd on the question of the ‘regulated, being’ controversy, you’ll be pleased to note that the Spanish translation places the same commas in the same places. However, note that the phrase ‘en caso de ser necesaria’ removes the indeterminacy that the founders’ dangling participle introduced. Babelfish translates this one back into English as: ‘in case of being necessary...’
Of course, translating very libremente, we can find all sorts of gems, like the ‘security of a free state’ line (which in some ways I prefer to ‘the common defense’). Here’s what Babelfish makes of the entire Enmienda:
A regulated affluent military service, in case of being necessary to maintain the security of a free State, the right of people to have and to carry arms, does not have to be infringed.
What’s weird is that, leaving out the funny stuff [that, by the way, is another dangling participle that introduces ambiguity into this sentence], this re-trans does convey important pieces of the Second Amendment’s meaning. ‘The right of the people to keep and bear arms,’ for example, survives with remarkably little disfigurement.
Anyway, I have neither axe to grind nor gun to check on this matter, except to note what every translator knows: Nothing means exactly what it says. Speakers of Spanish and eager learners alike are urged to try and do a better translation, in either direction.