Academic Journal 4 - 'Translations'

I was confused at first when reading this play as to why these characters were studying classical languages – not that it isn’t a worthy pursuit, but the utility of this kind of knowledge in a largely agrarian setting eluded me. What I came to realize though is that it is all a part of Friel’s take on language as a tool of conquest. The languages they study are the languages of empires, classical Greek from the Hellenistic period and Latin from the Romans. Both were spread through conquest, and thus became critical to communication among the conquered. This is paralleled by the British military surveyors who are working to make a detailed map of Ireland (surely a helpful tool to retain control of the island), and to translate the Irish place names into English. Although they claim that their aim is to help the Irish join the world community, it is clearly the imposing of a conqueror’s language on the conquered. As Lancey and Owen work to translate local names, Owen muses on the strange way they came about (while marveling at the bewildering variety of recorded names for a single feature) and debates whether it is better to translate the sounds or the meaning. In either case, the translation doesn’t really mean what the original does.
This struggle carries over into the issue of the incoming national school, which is expected to replace the local hedge school almost entirely, providing a modern curriculum with study of the modern world in place of the hedge school’s emphasis on classical and historic learning. Of course, this instruction will include learning the English language at the expense of Irish. In this way, the British seem to be trying to rob Ireland of her history, renaming landmarks and reeducating the people in a calculated effort to bring the Irish firmly under control. Loosing their language will make it much harder for the folklore and history of the people to survive, allowing them to (in theory) rewrite not only the map, but the entire history of a people.