Dragomans systematically mistranslated diplomatic correspondence to smooth over status hierarchies

Evidence

An important question is that of mistranslation, not just mistranslation by simple error or ignorance, but systematic, intentional mistranslation, of which there are interesting examples. I had occasion some time ago to look at the correspondence between London and Istanbul in the late sixteenth century, after the establishment of the first English embassy to the Ottoman government: letters from the Ottoman Sultans to the Queen of England and replies from the Queen to the Sultans; also correspondence with the Grand Vizier and other functionaries. The Sultan’s missives were of course in Turkish; a contemporary translation was provided in Italian which the English could understand; the reply was drafted in English, sent in Italian and presumably translated into Turkish. We do not have the letters from the Queen of England which reached the Sultan in their Turkish form; we have originals in English and translations in Italian but not the final form. We do have the successive versions the other way round, and they show systematic mistranslation right through. … It was, it seems, the general practice for the dragomans discreetly to modify the language, making it less imperious and more polite. One may safely assume that they were doing the same thing the other way round, and that when, for example, the Queen wrote to the Sultan expressing good will and friendship, in the Turkish version which reached the Sultan this became loyalty and humble submission. — Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans, 189

Categorization

• XREF: Systematic, interest-driven mistranslation is a concrete mechanism that qualifies Orientalist knowledge-production claims — representation is not merely one-directional fantasy but negotiated through intermediaries.
• DEEPTHINKING: Shows that ‘mistranslation’ between cultures was not error but systematic mediation designed to serve institutional purposes — a paradigm for understanding how cross-cultural legibility is always manufactured.
• SEED: Angle: the dragoman as the prototype for all modern interpreters/bureaucrats who translate between power structures by systematically distorting.