Problematyka przekładu dawnej literatury ustnej Mexików i Majów

Abstract

Some aspects of the 15th‑18th century native American texts translation

The artistic verbal expression of the native inhabitants of the pre‑Hispanic Mesoamerica presented great variety of forms, among which there could be distinguished, for example, solemn speeches, ritual songs and even very complex performances, that could be compared to some forms of the European theatre. Most of these pieces were destroyed with the conquest and colonization of America. Some of them, however, survived, mainly thanks to the effort that some missionaries and their indigenous students made to register parts of the native oral tradition in the alphabetic writing. The present article presents chosen problems related with the translation of this kind of texts, one of the most important difficulties being a huge distance in time and space that separates the source and the target cultures.