note on this yagán translation

To fulfill this translation of Perec’s text into Yagán, the 1987 edition of the “Yámana – English Dictionary” by the Rev. Thomas Bridges (1842-1899), first published in 1933 with the collaboration of the priest and ethnologist Martín Guisinde, was used. Strictly speaking, the dictionary is a transcription of the manual work developed by Brigdes, who used the English phonetic alphabet to write and define sounds of the Yagán language. The dictionary contains Yagán language terms defined in English, set out in non-alphabetical order, but by sounds.

Counting only on this material and considering that we were working with an almost extinct language, the translation methodology used to create these works was a very particular one. In the first place, it had to be assumed that it would not be a translation like so many others, since it would not be possible to have a complete paragraph in Yagán, but only some key concepts from the original text. Then, once chosen, the almost complete reading of the mentioned dictionary was carried out, looking for Yagán (or Yámana) words, the definition of which coincided as closely as possible with the idea contained in the former. Thus, the 5 concepts of the works were reached, which were then made with felt letters in Santiago, traveled to Navarino Island, and were photographed in the Omora Ethnobotanical Park.