galaxyrocker wrote:I'm going to take a slightly different spin on this. For minority languages, I would argue it is detrimental. However, it's not detrimental to your language abilities as much as it is to the literary culture of the language itself. I'm speaking solely from my experience with Irish, so please take this all with a grain of salt.
However, what I've seen is that translations get all the media attention when they're released. There's little-to-no press hype, outside of the publishing houses, for books that are written only in Irish. But every Irish language magazine/newspaper, and sometimes even the English ones, pick up on when Irish translations are planned, especially if it's a very well known book (the Irish translation of Game of Thrones is one I'm thinking of). I think this itself is detrimental to the literary culture, as it takes away influence that those who are developing said culture could have. When all the focus is to appeal to the mass of English speakers who want to read the latest English book in Irish (or classics, as Matilda is set to be translated this year), it harms the promotion of Irish books. It also promotes the outside literary culture over the development of the native Irish culture, and how people are interacting with Irish themes in Irish. Instead, we just get hyped about reading the same books we've read in English, dealing with English themes, etc. and it comes at the expense of Irish language literature itself.
So I try to not read translations, especially if it's a book that's come from English. I'd be more willing to read something like the book Eoin P. Ó Murchú translated from Scottish Gaelic to Irish, or something from Basque, etc., though I still tend to prefer literature that was written in Irish at first (and the older the better as the Irish is much richer)
I'd say the translations of the popular stuff are actually crucial for keeping the languages really alive. Yes, it is wrong that the original books in the language don't get enough hype and praise, and marketing. I agree. And yes, the translated literature can affect the culture "too much". But there are two huge reasons, why translations are important, especially the popular ones.
1.The key to keeping a smaller language alive are the kids and teens. They need to form a strong relationship to the language. If they cannot read a popular work in it, but only stuff they find "boring", "too intellectual", "not cool", they won't form this relationship. Giving them what they want is important for keeping them not only interested, but for keeping Irish (or any language in a similar situation) seen as a real tool that improves your life. Not as a historical residue, that is just taught at schools (because adults enforcing this are dumb and old fashioned), and is dead as soon as you leave the classroom. That's what the Game of Thrones translation does. It can and should lead them to further exploring the Irish bookshelves in the store or a library, sure. But it cannot be replaced by something totally unknown.
2.While it seems very noble to strive for keeping the individual traditions alive, we are all part of a bigger european, euroamerican, and global culture. Sure, you can take protecting your culture and keeping it authentic and "clean" very seriously and limit the blows from the outside. But the price is turning the region and its people into a sort of a museum. The Song of Ice and Fire is a part of our shared global culture now. Why create artificial divisions between us? And also further deepen the perception of some languages/cultures as superior and some inferior? Because even if you could forbid publishing translated GoT, it wouldn't generate more books in Irish, it wouldn't improve either the quantity or the quality. The Irish natives are at least usually bilingual, but in many other cases, it would just mean cutting people off.
I used to think a lot more like you. And I still think non English content needs a lot more support, a lot more marketing, outlawing of the geoblocking, and so on. And we need many more international hits from non anglophone countries (for example Poland could have a dozen more Sapkowskis, if only it tried to push their authors abroad like for example the scandinavian countries). But some time ago, I realized that in spite of all the issues (such as the original being always superior in some ways), one should not take the international and translated works for just a damaging element, and reading/watching them for a personal failure as a learner.
For example Harry Potter is everyone's culture in some ways. It will still be a book about British kids with lots of British stuff. But the knowledge of these books and love for them is international. A Spanish native, an Irish native, or a Hungarian native of my generation are much more likely to want to talk about Harry Potter than their highly original (and in some ways much more valuable) classics or poetry.
So, I prefer originals in many ways, I try to not go for the anglophone works (anyways, most English stuff right now is not too original, it has become a sort of a fantasy/scifi factory and even mediocre works get translated, while new masterworks are imprisoned in other original languages). But I don't think learners should beat themselves up for reading translations. And there can be value to reading several translations of something.
Btw hasn't someone clever said, that the main language of Europe is translation? I think it is true. We should not turn the continent into a set of museums, slowly abandonned by the young people. We should support translations from many more languages. Btw it will also give us much better odds at finding the next Song of Ice and Fire, written originally in Irish.