Translating ' WHO ' and ' WHICH ' From Bulgarian into English ? Problems of Number and Gender Transfer

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There are a number of problems that a translator might have when translating wh- words from Bulgarian into English. In this paper, we will look at "who? and "which? in particular. Why is there a problem? In English, "who? and "which? do not take grammatical markers for gender and number, while in Bulgarian they do . In English and Bulgarian, gender is grammaticalized differently. This particularity is sometimes considered as a problem for certain Bulgarian translations and specifically, when gender seems to be important in the Bulgarian text. In this paper, we will deal with the notions of grammatical and semantic gender only because the former exists in Bulgarian and the latter is used in English. We will consider the problem of translator gender identity/awareness as irrelevant to the present study as it tends to introduce a dimension which more often than not deals with a secondary factor (that of the translator's biological sex) and does not seem to influence the grammatical side of the question directly.

Extraits

[...] sg./pl. Which do you prefer? pl. Which ones? (This serves for both the sg. and pl. since it is a question of choice of one or several items) 3 a relative determiner 4 a relative pronoun sg. Call again at 11, which time the meeting shall be over. sg. The book which you ordered today. pl. [...]

[...] In Bulgarian, the above- mentioned forms contain markers for number and gender. In addition, the number and gender markings have repercussions throughout the sentence. There are several different forms for and depending on the gender and number of the beings, objects or concepts the speaker refers to and on the role and play in a given sentence. The categories of gender and number for the interrogative pronouns are grammatically marked as follows: table no The relative pronouns are formed from the corresponding interrogative pronouns by adding to the end of the word. [...]

[...] The translation of The Deer by Georgi Grozdev was also a case in point. The diminutive was used to create a very particular atmosphere in Bulgarian. But it is possible to obtain the same effect in the English text without necessarily incorporating a gendered reference in the phrase. A translator could very well choose the adequate adjectives and adverbs in order to semantically imply the same thing. The overall impression of the reader is much more important than the exact correspondence in gender and number. [...]

[...] Many diminutive forms in Bulgarian will take a neuter gender marking. Grammatical gender can be marked syntactically and grammatical gender agreement patterns can produce an effect of gendered reference. This sometimes happens when the Bulgarian language shows no gender distinction in the first-person pronoun but gender concord is present throughout the rest of the sentence. In the English translation, there will be no gender distinction in the first-person pronoun and we will have no grammatical gender agreement either. We can illustrate this by the following sentences: “Аз не съм била там никога и не бих могла да Ви кажа.” have never been there and I cannot tell you.” In the Bulgarian, version the pronoun carries no marking for gender but gender concord is nevertheless present in the verbs in bold, where the feminine gender is detectable through the presence of an “a”-ending. [...]

[...] Дневник на тайните, Елена Алексиева EN said I was a jerk, which [singular-neuter] vexed me so much . Diary of Secrets, Elena Alexieva In Bulgarian, “което” is equivalent to “това, което той каза” (=the thing he said). Hence, it carries neuter gender markings. However, since it introduces a relative clause, the gender is of no importance in English and there is no need to translate it or to stress it implicitly If is a relative pronoun. case no (sg. & m.) BG . [...]