What I don't understand is why people think their cultural history will disappear because they change languages.
An IT person once said to the news of languages dying out: "Yes, but the information is preserved."
I don't think so. I haven't read Wittgenstein, but what I know from him is that meanings are preserved in specific languages. You can write down pghilosophy only with a certain set of words - which include only a certain set of meanings.
The problem comes in if you've tried to translate something yourself.
I did, I tried it, by translatuing a few short stories of mine into English, and once from English into German.
I do know that my set of English words isn't perfect at all. If I'd live severa decades in the UK or the US I'd surely have a much bigger set of words in my mind, which would mean I wouldn't be as limited in my translations as I'm nowadays.
The problem begins with what I know as "idioms". How do you translate idioms ? You can't. You most likely have to use a different idiom in the target language in order to preserve the meaning which was contained in the original idiom. And, yoiu've got to try to chose the *right* idiom in the target language.
"Out of the frying pan into the fire" is just a simple example of that. In the German language, for example, it is like this: "Vom Regen in die Traufe". It contains rain as the main metaphor, and even most German people won't recognise the word "Traufe" as a part of a building.
Here, for example, a direct translation wouldn't transport the desired meaning. Instead, I've got to chose another, similar thing from a known set of meanings embedded in a certain language.
Same goes for other words. My favourite example is the German word "Geist", which has several meanings in the English language - depending on the context, but for the same thing there exist only very few words in the German language. I would have to translate "wraith" as "Geist", too, for example. A "phantom" is a "phantom" in German language as well, but a "spirit" is also a "Geist". A thing like a Banshee doesn't even exist in German language ! Like a Kelpie as well. On the other hand, the English Language has no Klabautermann, I think.
Even wose is to try to transport very, very subtle things into another language. Feelings, for example. This is the field i had most problems with while translating.
Because feelings are no "information still preserved", but instead they are what they are : Feelings. Emotions. There are even emotions in languages other languages have no word for !
THe English variant of the German word "Angst", for example, doesn't transport the German meaning of "Angst" at all, if I understood this correctly. It is a German word, which has wandered into the English language, and received a
change of meaning there. Now, how do I translate the English "Angst" back into German ? I'd have to use several words for the same feeling, I guess.
I heard that really *professional* translators are capable of translating even so subtle things, but I can't say. I can only argue from my own perspective, and that is that I do sense a difference in German and in English languages.
And THEN you have thousands of other languages, too ... The far worst thing that can happen is when you translate something into one language, and from there into another one ... The end result can become quite distorted. Maybe that was what happened with several Maya Codices.