Published in Ezikov svyat (Orbis Linguarum), a scientific journal of the Faculty

of Philology at the SWU “Neofit Rilski”- Blagoevgrad, volume 15, book 2,

pp.49-53, 2017

Some Problems in Translating Bulgarian Dishes into English and Russian

Mariya Bagasheva-Koleva, PhD
SWU “Neofit Rilski”- Blagoevgrad
Bulgaria

Abstract: The paper deals with some problems in translating the names of traditional
Bulgarian dishes into English and Russian. It is mainly based on the methodology proposed
by two Bulgarian researchers, Sergej Vlahov and Sider Florin, who in 1980 published a study
on the “untranslatable” in translations, including the translation of realia. The names of
national dishes are considered as “ethnographic realia” (Garbovskii 2004: 483) and are part of
every nation’s culture and lifestyle. In my paper I discuss the different approaches to
translating realia and give some recommendations on the best possible ways to render the
names of Bulgarian dishes into English and Russian.
Key words: realia, translation, Bulgarian dishes, English, Russian

Introduction

The translation of realia has always been the most difficult and ‘tricky’
part in translation studies. Because when translating realia, the translator has to
be fluent not only in the source language, but also he has to have profound
knowledge of the culture, history, traditions, social order, political life, national
and regional specifics of the source and target languages. Insufficient awareness
of these specifics can result in inadequate translation which can fail to be
perceived by the recipient or be perceived in a wrong way. The problem arises
from the fact that realia in most cases are ‘untranslatable’, i.e. they do not exist
and they have no linguistic counterparts in the target language. Because of this
fact, Vlahov and Florin (1980: 36) define realia as non-equivalent and as exotic
lexis. The main task of any translator is to provide the adequate rendering of the
meaning content of the original including the non-equivalent lexis into the target
language.

According to A.V. Fyodorov (2002: 2006-207), it is more correctly to

speak about rendering rather than translating the meaning of realia as the term
rendering has a wider scope of meaning than translation and can be related to
extra-linguistic notions. The problems of “untranslatable” realia have been
investigated and studied throughout the years by many linguists (Barhudarov
1975; Vlahov, Florin 1980; Schweitzer 1988; Toury 1995; Grenon-Nyenhuis
2000; Fyodorov 2002; Garbovskii 2004, etc).

Defining the term

The word realia comes from Medieval Latin, in which it originally meant
‘the real things’, i.e. material things as opposed to abstract ones. 1 If we look at
the definitions given in dictionaries:

Cambridge Dictionary: “real objects or pieces of writing, used to help teach

students in a class”2 or

Merriam- Webster Dictionary: “objects or activities to relate classroom

teaching to the real life especially of peoples studies”3 or

Oxford Dictionaries: “objects and material from everyday life used as teaching
aids”4

we can see that the word realia is described as objects used in the classroom as
teaching aids. In the field of translation studies, however, the word realia is used
as a linguistic term and the meaning is radically changed. As Vlahov and Florin
(1980: 432) point out, realia does not mean objects, but signs or, more precisely,
words which signify objects of the material culture, especially pertaining to local

1
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Realia_(translation)
2
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/realia
3
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/realia
4
https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/realia
culture. They distinguish between realia-objects (used mostly outside translation
studies) and realia-words (used mostly inside translation studies) (ibid.)

Vlahov and Florin define realia as words (and composed expressions) of

the popular language representing denominations of objects, concepts, typical
phenomena of a given geographic place, of material life or of social-historical
peculiarities of some people, nation, country, tribe, that for this reason carry a
national, local or historical color; these words do not have exact matches in
other languages (1969: 438).5 For this reason, many scholars investigating realia
in language suggest various approaches to rendering the meaning of realia into
other languages.

The different approaches can be classified into four main groups according to
Fyodorov (2002: 207):

1) Transliteration or transcription, i.e. using the transliterated or

transcribed word or its root and combining it with suffixes of the target
language;
2) Neologism, i.e. creating a new word or phrase based on elements and
morphological relations which exist in the target language. This is
generally a descriptive or periphrastic translation;
3) Approximate translation, i.e. where the meaning is rendered by means
of a word with a similar or close meaning clarified in the context;
4) Hiponymous translation or generalization, i.e. the meaning of the word
is rendered by means of a generic term.6

Other scholars who have studied realia (e.g. Schweitzer 1988; Toury 1995;
Grenon-Nyenhuis 2000; Garbovskii 2004) have suggested similar approaches
which are basically the same described by Vlahov and Florin in their book
“Untranslatable in translation” (1980). In their book, Vlahov and Florin (1980:

5
http://courses.logos.it/EN/3_33.html
6
The translation from Russian is mine.
93) suggest a comprehensive classification of the approaches of rendering realia
into the target language, which classification includes four main types and
several sub-types:

1) Transcription or transliteration
2) Neologism (calque, half calque, appropriation, semantic neologism)
3) Realia substitution
4) Approximate translation (generalization, functional analogue,
description, explanation, interpretation, contextual translation).

To translate realia, various strategies exist: they range from phonetic

transcription to translation of the overall meaning. Israeli scholar Gideon Toury
(1995) offers one way of defining such solutions. According to his
characterization, each of these can be placed between two extremes: adequacy
(closeness to the original) and acceptability (making the word entirely
consistent with the target culture).7

All these different approaches can be used simultaneously in a translation

depending on the type of realia and the lexical resources of the target language
which can facilitate the adequate rendering of realia.

In the case of menus, translation is rarely an option (maybe in a few cases),

because the names of dishes reflect the national, cultural, historical identity of
people, very often they reflect some regional even personal specifics. As a
result, translating the name of the dish will not give foreigners the same meaning
as it has for Bulgarians. Another difficulty arises from the fact that due to its
limited space (menus are lists of dishes), there is little context for explanation or
interpretation as is the case with longer texts. Therefore, when translating dishes,
the translator has to choose some other approaches to render the meaning of the
dish so as to keep their national and cultural specifics as far as possible.

7
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Realia_(translation)
 The names of national dishes are considered as “ethnographic realia”
(Garbovskii 2004: 483). Vinogradov (1978) classifies them as “everyday life
realia”. Vlahov and Florin (1980) also define dishes under the headings of
“ethnography” and “everyday life” realia.

Data analysis

In my paper, I have tried to investigate the possible approaches in which

traditional Bulgarian dishes can be adequately translated or rendered into
English and Bulgarian. I have studied the best approaches having in mind that
Bulgarian and Russian are Slavic languages, whereas English is not. And if this
fact predetermines the choice of the best approach or not. My analysis is based
on examples provided by the students at the South-West University who study
English Philology and Applied Linguistics and are in their 3 rd and 4th years of
study. I have instructed them to translate a list of dishes into English and
Russian, respectively, but to translate them in such a way that when a foreign
tourist reads the menu, he will be able to understand what he is ordering, i.e.
their translations should be adequate and acceptable. My analysis is based on
520 examples excerpted from students’ translations – 320 in English and 200 in
Russian.

As Bulgarian and Russian share the same alphabet, whereas English is

completely different, this fact reflected to a great extent on the choice of the
appropriate approach to rendering the meaning of realia.

In English, transcription and transliteration is the approach used in one

third of the cases – 116 out of 320 or in 36% of the cases. This can be explained
by the students’ desire to preserve the Bulgarian sound of the dish. These are the
cases of traditional Bulgarian meals such as Shopska salad, Kyopoolu, Turshiya,
Lyutenitsa, Moussaka, Banitsa, Mekitsi, Tutmanik, etc. These names are part of
the Bulgarian cuisine and it is better to preserve their original pronunciation. In
case of Turshiya, the functional equivalent pickles or pickled vegetables has
also been used, which is also a preferred approach in almost half of the cases of
transcription and transliteration (49 out of 116 or 42%), e.g. Kyopoolu –
eggplant mash, Bobena chorba – bean soup, Kebabche – grilled meatball, etc. In
all cases of transcription and transliteration they use the approach of
explanation as well, i.e. the ingredients and the way of preparation of the dish
are given in brackets following the name of the dish. E.g. Shopska salad
(tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, onions, with grated white cheese on top). If the
dish has no specific name, the descriptive approach is the most usual (93 out of
320 or 29%), e.g. Свинска пържола по ловджийски – Pork steak cooked in a
hunter’s manner. Translation or approximate translation has been used in
cases when the name of the dish is descriptive in Bulgarian as well, e.g.
Мешана скара – Mixed grill, Салата от прясно зеле с моркови – Cabbage
salad with carrots, Салата от домати със сирене и чесън – Tomato salad
with white cheese and garlic, etc. (109 out of 320 or 34%). Translation has been
used along with transcription in 14 cases, e.g. Ovcharska salad – Shepherd’s
salad, Snejanka/ Mlechna salad – Salad “Snow White”, Lyutenitsa –
Homemade chutney, etc. In case of Snejanka salad, I do not think that the
translation will shed light on the type of salad, as Snow White as a character has
no association with milk for the western people as is the original idea in
Bulgarian. The descriptive approach will be more appropriate along with
transcription, e.g. Snejanka salad (yoghurt, fresh cucumbers, garlic and
walnuts).

Although the students translated a Bulgarian menu, there I have included

four meals which are not Bulgarian but are traditional for some other nation, e.g.
Супа гулаш (Hungarian), Домати Шмеркезе (German), Пиле Чахохбили
(Georgian), Борш (Russian). Their names have been transcribed into English
(Goulyash soup, Chahohbili chicken, Borsh) or written in their original
(Tomatoes Schmerkӓse). As a matter of fact, the names of these dishes in
Bulgarian are transcriptions of their original names.

In Russian, as it is a Slavic language as Bulgarian, the most usual way to

render realia is NOT by transcription or transliteration as is the case with
English. Because the two languages are closely related, in the majority of cases
translation has been the approach used by the students. It can be explained by
the relatedness of Bulgarian and Russian, being both Slavic languages, as well
as by the closeness of their history, culture, traditions, political life, etc., which
results in similar ethnographic realia, especially in the scope of cooking. Sharing
similar “backgrounds”, it is not difficult to understand the names of traditional
Bulgarian dishes when translated into Russian. Therefore, the most usual
approach used by the students has been translation of the name of the dish - in
134 cases out of 200 or in 67%. E.g. Млечна салата- молочный салат,
Овчарска салата – салат Пастуха, Мусака класическа – Мусака
класическая, Мусака с тиквички – Мусака с кабачками, etc. In all the cases
of translation, after the translated name the ingredients of the dish have been
included, e.g. Салат пастуха (овощи с сыром и ветчиной), Рулет из фарша
„Стефани“ (с отварным яйцом и солёнными огурцами), etc. However, the
original traditional Bulgarian names, such as Шопска салата, Лютеница, Тас
кебаб, Баница, Тутманик, have been kept the same in the Russian translations.
The approach of transliteration has been attested in 20 cases out of 200 or in
10%. The same approach of transliteration but combined with translation
has been used in cases of foreign dishes such as Супа гулаш (Hungarian),
Домати Шмеркезе (German), Пиле Чахохбили (Georgian), Борш (Russian) –
Суп гуляш, Помидоры „Шмеркезе“ (с творогом и кислым молоком),
Цыплёнок Чахохбили, Борщ.

Due to the closeness of cultures, there are dishes which are part of both
Bulgarian and Russian cuisines. In this case the approach of realia substitution
has been used, e.g. Кьопоолу – Баклажанная икра, Туршия – Соленье, Супа
топчета – Суп с фрикадельками, Мекици – Пончики с сахарной пудрой, etc.
This approach has been attested in 32 cases out of 200 or in 16%.

Conclusion

As a result of the analysis of English and Russian examples, the following

conclusions, regarding the approaches of rendering realia into these two
languages, can be drawn:

In English, the most appropriate approaches used when rendering the

names of Bulgarian dishes are transcription and transliteration, functional
equivalent, explanation or descriptive approach and translation or approximate
translation. Whereas in Russian, the most appropriate approaches are translation,
transliteration, a combination of translation and transliteration and realia
substitution. The differences arise from the fact that English is a Germanic
language, uses Latin script, and historically, culturally, socially and politically
has been quite distant from Bulgarian, which requires more explanations when
regarding the rendering of Bulgarian cuisine. On the other hand, Russian, like
Bulgarian, is a Slavic language, they share not only the same Cyrillic alphabet,
but both languages are closely related in historical, political, cultural, social
aspects, which makes mutual understanding easier.

The adequacy and acceptability as well as appropriate understanding of

original text are the factors that the translator has to have in mind when dealing
with realia. The choice of appropriate approach depends on the target audience
and the purpose of translation as well as on the source and target languages.
Awareness of all these factors is what makes a good translator.

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