Exile and Discourse on Translation

Abstract

The Catéchisme préparatoire au baptême has been translated into various languages of Congo. These translations were made by Flemish Catholic missionaries in the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century. Jules Garmyn translated the Catéchisme préparatoire au baptême in Tshiluba (1898); Camille Van Ronslé in Bobangi (1898), Kikongo (1900) and Lingala (1911); Jules Van Houtte in Lonkundu (1912). The missionaries were non-native translators. They translated into languages that were not their native languages, into languages they had learned according to their mission. The missionaries had understood that translation was a powerful instrument that helped to spread the faith. Translation is done from a functional perspective. It had to help to change radically the habits and customs of local people. The Catéchisme préparatoire au baptême is a text steeped in the Western culture and tradition. We will ask how the missionaries treated the lexical and metaphorical characteristics of the source text and how the translations functioned in Congolese cultures, cultures for which the source text is a deeply strange element. This theme will be discussed only briefly. It would divert the reader from the core of our contribution: the place of the notion of exile in discourse on translation. The notion of exile is often understood in a subjectified way. The notion is centered on the author or translator who are in a situation of exile. Antoine Berman and Walter Benjamin will help us to try to understand the notion of exile in another way, in a desubjectified way. The languages, the texts, the original, the translation are in a situation of exile. We will ask what the notion of exile could bring to the understanding of a movement – a movement from Belgium to Congo – in which the Catéchisme préparatoire au baptême is taken.