From Language to Language

Translation and Hospitality

Abstract

This text offers a philosophical exploration of translation, presenting it not as a merely practical or linguistic task, but as a deeply existential, political, and metaphysical experience. The reflection begins by acknowledging that, historically, translation was often seen as a technical issue, with little philosophical weight. It was only through the contributions of thinkers like Schleiermacher, Humboldt, Heidegger, Rosenzweig, Benjamin, and Derrida that translation emerges as a central philosophical question. At the heart of the analysis is the dialectic between the “own” and the “foreign.” Translation is framed as an experience of the foreign, which in turn reveals the limits of what is considered one’s own language or culture. This encounter with otherness can take two fundamental directions: either an attempt to domesticate the foreign by assimilating it, or a more radical and ethical path - embracing estrangement, allowing the foreign to transform one’s own language. The text traces this tension through historical and theoretical developments. The Romantics, such as Schleiermacher and Humboldt, advocate for a form of translation that preserves the foreignness of the original, as a way to elevate and refine the native language. Heidegger, on the other hand, emphasizes the return to the “own” through the foreign, seeing translation as a way of “finding a home” (Heimischwerden). For him, language is tied to the homeland, and translation is a spiritual journey that reclaims linguistic identity through confrontation with the Other. However, the analysis becomes more complex and politically charged in the 20th century, particularly with Jewish thinkers like Franz Rosenzweig and Walter Benjamin. Rosenzweig, responding to the erasure of Hebrew through centuries of Christian translations (especially Luther’s German Bible), calls for a form of translation that does not substitute or overwrite, but instead respects the radical otherness of the original. He proposes a method that highlights the strangeness of the source text in the target language, thus resisting assimilation. This concept deeply influences Benjamin, who sees translation as a theological and messianic act: it is not about fidelity to a fixed original, but about revealing the potential of a text to live on and grow in another language. Benjamin’s famous idea of the “pure language” (reine Sprache) is central to this view. For him, translation is the site where languages come into contact not just to communicate, but to conspire together in expressing what no single language can say alone. Each language bears fragments of a greater linguistic totality, and translation allows these fragments to resonate with one another. This messianic vision looks forward not to a return to an original unity (as in the myth of Babel), but to a future convergence of languages in mutual transformation. Derrida, extending these insights, argues that language is never truly “owned.” It is always already the language of the other. Thus, any act of speaking or writing is also an act of translation - both interlinguistic and intralinguistic. The self is formed in and through this translation, which means that every speaker is, in a sense, in exile within their own language. This radical expropriation challenges nationalist or monolingual ideologies, revealing the inappropriability of language. In the final sections, the author brings these reflections to bear on the contemporary globalized world. The rise of “globish” or “globanglish”- a simplified, technocratic version of English - threatens to flatten linguistic diversity in favor of efficiency and uniformity. This monolingual trend is seen as a symptom of a deeper crisis: the reduction of language to a tool for exchange, the disappearance of dialogical and poetic uses of language, and ultimately the loss of meaningful difference. Against this backdrop, the act of translation regains its subversive power. It becomes a political and ethical gesture - one that resists the homogenization of global discourse and reclaims the richness of linguistic plurality. Translation is not just about converting words; it is about preserving worlds, opening borders, and keeping alive the potential for alternative futures. It serves as a form of repair and redemption, echoing Jewish theological notions of restoring what has been broken. In this vision, the translator is not a neutral intermediary but a transformative agent. Translation is understood as a form of liberation - a way to challenge imposed meanings, reclaim suppressed voices, and anticipate a multilingual and more just humanity. Ultimately, translation is not only a philosophical concern but a critical practice for resisting linguistic imperialism and fostering global solidarity through the dialogue of languages.