A Critical Analysis of The Translation of Hitchhiker’s Guide to The Galaxy by Douglas Adam

I will try to present a critical analysis on Nil Alt’s translation of Douglas Adam’s The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, published in 2017 by Alfa Publishing House

Firstly, I would like to mention the book. As its name suggests, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is a guide on how to hitchhike in the galaxy. The book was actually a radio show in 1978, and after the appreciation the show got, Adams wrote a book out of it in 1979. It is actually “a trilogy in five volumes” as Adams puts it (but I will be analyzing just the first five chapters of the first book). The book, or the radio series, also became a play, a TV series, a computer game and a movie. Moreover, in Turkey, the book was published several times, including Saluki Budak’s translation for Edesos Publishing in 1991, Serhat Dalkır’s translation for Sarmal Publishing in 1996 – which was translated as Her Otostopçunun Galaksi Rehberi – and Nil Alt’s translation for Kabalcı Publishing in 2003 – which was republished in 2017 by Alfa Publishing.

The protagonist of the book is Arthur Dent, a “typical” English man who is not a hero, and actually a boring person. The story begins on a regular Thursday lunchtime, with many officers from the municipality coming to Arthur’s house to say that his house would be demolished because a new road has to go through there. However, what actually matters is that Vogons, an alien race, comes to demolish the Earth due to the exact same reason, because an intergalactical bypass have to be built. So, the Earth gets destroyed, and luckily, Arthur’s friend turns out to be an alien, they hitchhike to a spaceship together, and then Arthur becomes the last living Earthling. The rest is just crazy adventures.

When it was published, the book was a huge success, a lot of people have read it, and it has affected many things. For example, Altavista’s first translation service was named Babel Fish because in the book there is an actual fish which you can put in your ear for it to translate every known language. The band Radiohead named one of their songs after Marvin, a depressed robot in the book, as Paranoid Android. Also, an asteroid was named after Arthur Dent. Lastly, according to Google, the answer to the life, the universe and everything is 42, just as it is in the book.

Before starting my analysis, I would like to say a few words about the author Douglas Adams and the translator Nil Alt. Actually, there are a lot of things to say about Douglas Adams, but let’s briefly say that he is basically a genius who died at a very young age. He was a writer and editor of Doctor Who series. He has a very specific writing style and sense of humor, and what he is successful at doing is that he can combine things that you would never imagine together in a very natural and funny way. He is also the author of Dirk Gently’s Wholistic Detective Agency. On the other hand, the translator Nil Alt graduated from Robert College and then Istanbul University. She did her MA at Bogazici University, in Translation and Interpreting studies. She has translated many novels, essays and children’s books.

When performing my analysis, I will try to adopt the path Van der Broeck suggested - although mistakenly I have read the translated version first. Therefore, I will start by analyzing the stylistic features of the source text, and then carry out a comparative analysis to understand why the translator made certain choices.

Douglas Adams is an author that uses repetitions a lot, sometimes he modifies a phrase a little and then he restates it or repeats it. Onomatopoeias have also a great place in the book as well. Furthermore, the book contains a lot of satire, especially on human nature; the satire in the book is sometimes too obvious, and sometimes it is not. Adams also combines casual language and science language, and he is really good at building simple and monotony looking sentences, but he adds a surprise effect with shocking twists. In addition, he creates successful back and forth dialogues between the characters. Lastly, the book also includes Vogon poetry, which according to The Guide is the third terrible thing in the entire galaxy.

After identifying the stylistic features of the text, we can now proceed to the comparative analysis. Firstly, I will look at how the translator dealt with the repetitions in the text:

ST: “There was a terrible ghastly silence. TT: “Koruna bir sessizlik oldu.

There was a terrible ghastly noise. Korkunç bir gürültü oldu.

There was a terrible ghastly silence.” Korkunç bir sessizlik oldu.”

In this part, Adams repeats almost the same sentence three times. Nil Alt does not make many alterations in the translation and she also uses the same repetition. However, I do not think that “gürültü olmak” sounds natural in Turkish.

ST: “…a terribly stupid catastrophe occurred, and the idea was lost forever.”

TT: “…aptal bir felaket meydana geldi ve fikir sonsuza dek yitip gitti.”

ST: “But it is the story of that terrible stupid catastrophe…”

TT: “Ama o korkunç, aptal felaketin…”

ST: “…and until the terrible catastrophe occurred…”

TT: “…ve o korkunç felaket meydana gelene dek…

ST: “But the story of this terrible, stupid Thursday…”

TT: “Ama o korkunç, aptal perşembenin…”

In these sentences, Nil Alt again chooses to protect the repetition affect; however, she does it in a kind of inconsistent way. For “terrible stupid catastrophe”, she uses “aptal”, “korkunç” and “korkunç, aptal”. It would maybe fit better if she translated all in the same way.

ST: “…and was also deaf and dumb.”

TT: “…üstelik sağır ve dilsiz birini seçmiştim.”

ST: “…who also turned out to be deaf and dumb.”

TT: “…ama o da sağır ve dilsiz çıkınca…”

ST: “…the third man I spoke to turned out to be deaf and dumb and also blind…”

TT: “…üçüncü adam da sağır ve dilsiz, üstelik de kör çıkınca…”

In this example, Nil Alt again conveys the repetition effect, but she somehow euphemizes the sentences. It may be due to the fact that if someone calls a deaf person “dumb”, she may be subjected to a serious reaction. I believe that is why instead of saying “sağır ve aptal”, she preferred to say “sağır ve dilsiz.”

Now I will focus on how the translator conveyed the general style of the original text, and why she made certain word choices.

ST: “He had simply mistaken the dominant life form.”

TT: “Ama üzerinde araştırma yaptığı egemen canlı türünün seçimi hakkında hata yapmıştı.”

Although the translation contains a misinterpretation, I do not mean to hunt errors. Here, I want to draw attention to the fact that the translator chose to explain the sentence instead of leaving it shortly as the original, and she added “üzerinde araştırma yaptığı” part, even though it was clear that the text is talking about a “research” in the previous sentence.

ST: “The ships hung in the sky in much the same way that bricks don’t.”

TT: “Gemiler, tuğlaların asla duramayacağı gibi gökyüzünde asılı duruyorlardı.”

I have particularly wanted to add this sentence into my paper because I believe this is one of the sentences that clearly shows Douglas Adams’ style and how unpredictable he is. Even though this sentence seems like impossible to translate – or it is impossible to create the same effect let’s say – I think Nil Alt managed the translate it nicely. The sentence actually lost its effect slightly, but I can say that it is a successful translation transferring the correct meaning and most of the effect.

ST: “’Six pints of bitter,’ said Ford Prefect…”

TT “’Altı tane sert Arjantin bira,’ dedi Ford Prefect…”

In this sentence, Nil Alt chose to domesticate the beer part because only in Turkey people call a 70 cl beer glass “Arjantin”.

Now, I will examine the translation of “people” as “halk”.

ST: “…most of the people on it were unhappy for pretty much of the time.”

TT: “Üzerinde yaşayan halkın büyük bölümü çoğu zaman mutsuzdu.”

ST: “…lots of the people were mean, and most of them were miserable, even the ones with digital watches.”

TT: “…halkın çoğunun durumu kötüydü ve onların büyük bölümüyse sefildi, dijital kol saati olanlar bile.”

ST: “…for saying how great it would be to be nice to people for a change…”

TT: “…bundan böyle halka iyi davranmanın ne kadar iyi olacağını dile getirdiği için…”

Nil Alt chose to translate “people” as “halk”. However, when I checked the definition of “halk” from TDK, all of the definitions included a common word: ülke – country. So, we can refer that being a “halk” is somehow related to living in the same country or belonging to a nation. Yet in the source text, the intended meaning includes all of the people living in the Earth – namely humans. Even though and (2) seem nice and natural, it sounds somehow unnatural. Instead of saying “halk”, “üzerinde yaşayanlar” or “canlılar” could be a better option.

I will now proceed to analyze the translation of made-up names.

Celestial Home Care Omnibus - Gökyüzü Evinizin Bakım Derlemesi

Fifty More Things to do in Zero Gravity – Sıfır Yerçekiminde Yapılacak Elli Üç Şey Daha

Where God Went Wrong? – Tanrı Nerede Yanlış Yaptı?

Some More of God's Greatest Mistakes – Tanrı’nın En Büyük Hatalarından Birkaçı Daha

Who is this God Person Anyway? – Bu Tanrı Da Kimmiş?

Encyclopedia Galactica – Ana Galaktika Ansiklopedisi

Pan galactic gargle blaster – Pan galaktik gargara bombası

The President of the Mid-Galactic Arts Nobbling Council – Orta Galaktik Sanat Onur Kurulu Başkanı

From these examples, it is seen that Nil Alt preferred to domesticate most of the times. For instance, she translates “Encyclopedia Galactica” – a reference to Encyclopedia Britannica – as “Ana Galaktika Ansiklopedisi”, since the popular version of the real encyclopedia in Turkey was Ana Britannica. On the other hand, the original text itself has a somehow “foreignizing” effect since the items mentioned are already alien to all people of the Earth. Nil Alt successfully manages to convey this “foreign” effect in Turkey while at the same time preserving the alliterations, assonances and puns – as in the example of “Pan galactic gargle blaster – Pan galaktik gargara bombası”.

Lastly, I will take a look at the translation of Vogon poetry in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. In the book, Vogon poetry creates a humorous effect. It has a proper grammar, one can identify the verbs and nouns; however, the words are mostly made up and the “real” words used are usually words that we are not used to see used together.

“Oh frettled gruntbuggly...

Thy micturations are to me

As plurdled gabbleblotchits on a lurgid bee.”

“Senin işemelerin banadır…

Ey lekecikli homurtu böcekçiği

Hastalıklı bir arının üzerindeki bir sürü gevezelik lekesi gibi.”

“Groop I implore thee,

My foonting turlingdromes.

And hooptiously drangle me with crinkly bindlewurdles,

Or I will rend thee in the gobberwarts with my blurglecruncheon,

See if I don’t!”

“Zor da olsa bul onu

Yalvarıyorum sana.

Ve üzerimke buruşuk gürndüz sefartlarından halka halka ağ at

Yoksa seni bulandıran çatırdağımla parçanklara büldürtürüm seni,

Bak bakalım vazgeçiyor muyum?”

In the source text, the humorous effect is created by the use of unfamiliar, or rather not real words. In both of the examples, Adams consistently uses those strange words to create Vogon poetry. When the translation is examined, we again see that Nil Alt uses words they usually do not go together. However, while in the first example she only uses real words which are indeed familiar to us, in the second example, she starts to use made-up words. In the book, these poems are in consecutive pages. Therefore, this situation builds an inconsistency.

Overall, in the translation, it is clear that Nil Alt tried to transfer the linguistic features of the source text. She manages to deliver the humorous effect and the “strangeness” of the text. I would say the possible strategies she adopted may be domestication and calque and – inevitably – foreignizing. The translation is sometimes inconsistent, but I believe while translating, Nil Alt was aware of the linguistic characteristics of the book, and she did made effort to convey the repetitions, satire and strange language use.