Problems in translating from Czech to Euskera - Carlos Cid

Due to the non-existence, historically, of relations between Bohemia and the Basque Country, and to the lack of people with knowledge of both languages and translations made between one language and another, there is no basic methodology for translating Czech into Euskera. Nevertheless, in this article, Karlos Cid Abasolo, Translator into Euskera of "The ridiculous loves" by Milan Kundera (still unpublished) and of poems by several authors and who has also translated poems by Miroslav Holub into Spanish, deals with several of the difficulties he has encountered in his translations of the works of Jaroslav Hasek, Bohumil Hrabal and Milan Kundera.

He begins by speaking of the "abysm" which exists between the Czech language en its spoken and written forms and the way in which both are reflected in literature, in terms which have no bearing on the Basque case, in which the spoken language has had little influence on literature. To do this, the author analyzes this phenomenon, focusing his attention on vocabulary, phonetics and morphology, the use on nominal syntagma, verbal prefixes, verb system, syntax, proper and place names, surnames, etc.

To sum up, he points out that the difficulties which exist in translating Czech to Euskera are of a generic (due to vast structural differences between both) and historical nature, and are also due to the non-existence, until a short time ago, of translations and to the consequent lack of a translation model for both languages.