#you cant always have mountains of translators notes watching movies with subtitles or something

[eraserheadadult]

it was specifically watching funeral parade of roses & stop hibari kun that sent me on a rabbit hole about this lol but oh my gd queer translation is so interesting... how do you translate stuff thats so deeply culturally specific. how would you translate "dyke" or "faggot" into another language when the roots of these words and why theyre used to describe gay people are so convoluted

you could never translate them literally. every single language has words for queer people like this both self id and derogatory terms. i mean translated literally "queer" just means "strange"...

even if a translator has good intentions (and they dont always, bc theyre humans w their own biases) they risk misrepresenting someones identity or calling them a slur. pronouns are kind of a wild clusterfuck in any language but neopronouns? gender neutral terms?

theres genders/sexualities in other languages and cultures that cannot possibly be translated. the way we think about these things can just be mutually incoherent

and if youre dealing with works that use older terms whose meanings have shifted or that have been discarded its almost impossible. its kind of an exercise in futility but im so fascinated by this!!