L'essentiel est invisible pour les yeux, Chinese versions: The "Bones"

How do Chinese translators tackle L'essentiel est invisible pour les yeux ('What is essential is invisible to the eye'), from 'The Little Prince'?

Here I look at 45 translations of Le Petit Prince into Chinese -- excluding adaptations and the plagiarised version of Liǔ 2004. Of these, 21 appear to be translated from the French, 23 from the English of Catherine Woods, and one is unclear.

Analysing the "bones" of this sentence presents its share of headeaches because the sentence patterns are all over the place, mainly due to the 是 ... 的 shì ... de construction.

1.THE PROBLEM OF INVISIBLE

2. BASIC SENTENCES
'The eyes cannot see essential things' | 'With the eyes cannot see essential things'

3. THE shì de CONSTRUCTION

4. MAKING L'ESSENTIEL THE TOPIC

5. OTHER PATTERNS WITH L'ESSENTIEL AS THE TOPIC

6. SENTENCE PATTERN NOT USING shì de

7. For the 'flesh' (the translation of individual words and expressions), see here

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1. THE PROBLEM OF INVISIBLE

The key word in this sentence is invisible, which in French and English is an adjective meaning 'which cannot be seen'. Western languages generally have similar adjectives (e.g., unsichtbar in German) -- but not Chinese. True, Chinese, like Japanese, does have the word 不可视 bùkěshì meaning 'unobservable' or 'invisible'. However, this is a specialised term that's confined to scientific or academic contexts. The adjective 無形 / 无形 wúxíng 'formless' might be an alternative, but this is mainly used in reference to something that's unseeable because it lacks a perceivable physical shape.

In this case, the actual meaning is that the eyes are incapable of seeing what is essential. In Chinese, the obvious choice is 看不见 kàn-bu-jiàn 'unable to see/be seen', or a similar expression. Virtually all translations choose this kind of expression.

But 看不见 kàn-bu-jiàn is not an adjective; it's a verb. To be exact, it's the negative potential form of the resultative verb 看见 kàn-jiàn 'to see'.

A resultative is a fairly simple structure in Chinese:

RESULTATIVE STRUCTURE

Verb

Complement of result
(adjective or verb)

看 kàn
'to look, to see'

见 jiàn
'to see'

Together the two parts represent an action (looking) and its result (seeing) -- thus the meaning is 'to see'. A majority of translations use precisely this simple resultative, 看见 kànjiàn, to translate invisible, although there is some variation. (For variation in resultatives meaning 'can see', see "Flesh")

(For more on resultatives, see these sites: Resultative Complements and The Complement of Result.)

The potential form of the resultative, meaning 'can see', can be formed in three ways:

POTENTIAL RESULTATIVE
	Auxiliary	Verb	Infix	Result
(1) Auxiliary verb 能 néng ('can')	能 néng	看 kàn	--	见 jiàn
(2) Infix 得 de	--	看 kàn	得 de	见 jiàn
(3) Auxiliary verb + infix	能 néng	看 kàn	得 de	见 jiàn

But the negative potential, 'can't see', can be formed in only one way:

NEGATIVE POTENTIAL RESULTATIVE
(4) Infix 不 bù ('not')	看 kàn	不 bu	见 jiàn

Literally, this means 'look not see'.

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2. BASIC SENTENCES

'The eyes cannot see essential things'

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Since 看不见 kàn-bu-jiàn is a verb it can take both a subject and an object. With 'eyes' as the subject, our basic sentence becomes:

BASIC SENTENCE, WITH 'EYES' AS SUBJECT
Subject	Verb	Object
眼睛 yǎnjing 'the eye'	看不见 kàn-bu-jiàn 'cannot see'	本质的东西 běnzhì de dōngxi 'essential things'

Note: 本质 běnzhì is Mainland Chinese standard. Taiwan standard is 本質, pronounced běnzhí.

"The eyes cannot see essential things"

眼睛 yǎnjing 'the eye' is treated as the agent of viewing, that is, the subject of the sentence. Just less than half of the 45 translators use this basic pattern.

'With the eyes cannot see essential things'

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Alternatively, pour les yeux 'to the eye' can also be treated as an instrumental, i.e., with the eyes. This finds favour with slightly more translators, perhaps because the previous sentence (On ne voit bien qu'avec le coeur) uses the instrumental 'with the heart'. Using an instrumental gives the two sentences a degree of parallelism.

BASIC SENTENCE, WITH 'EYES' AS INSTRUMENT
Subject	Prep. phrase	Verb	Object
人 rén 'person'	用眼睛 yòng yǎnjing 'with the eye'	看不见 kàn-bu-jiàn 'cannot see'	本质的东西 běnzhì de dōngxi 'essential things'

"A person cannot see essential things with the eyes"

In Chinese, the phrase 用眼睛 yòng yǎnjing 'with the eye' comes before 'cannot see' instead of after it. This is due to the requirements of the grammatical structure of Chinese. Interestingly, there is some variation in the way that 'with the eyes' is translated. (For the translation of 'with the eyes', see "Flesh")

The object in both sentences is 'essential things', although there is a split among translators over the expression used for l'essentiel. (For the translation of 'essential', see "Flesh")

One translator actually bases his final translation squarely on the basic sentence pattern, although the choice of vocabulary is somewhat more elaborate:

TRANSLATION BASED ON THE BASIC SENTENCE
Subject	Prep. phrase	Verb	Object
Omitted	單是透過雙眼 dān shì tòuguò shuāngyǎn 'just through the two eyes'	看不見 kàn-bu-jiàn 'cannot see'	事情的真像 shìqíng de zhēnxiàng 'true image of things'

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3. THE 是 ... 的 shì ... de CONSTRUCTION

But most translators are not content with the basic sentence. Apart from one (see below), they all use a structure that I'll call the 'shi de construction'. In this construction, the words 是 shì and ... 的 de act as a 'frame' around a particular part of the sentence. The construction opens with 是 shì, and closes with 的 de (usually concluding the sentence).

The shi de construction is possibly one of the most poorly explained phenomena in Chinese grammar. One problem is that it has such a broad range of uses, with one use shading into another in a way that defies simple categorisation. We won't even start to try and describe its uses here. What we can say is that 是 shì stresses or emphasises what follows it; 的 de then concludes the sentence with a sense of affirmation, explanation, or assertion.

Using 是 ... 的 shì ... de on our two basic sentences, we get this:

ADDING 是 ... 的 shì ... de
	Subject		shi	Verb + Object	de
	眼睛 yǎnjing 'the eye'		是 shì	看不见本质的东西 kàn-bu-jiàn běnzhì de dōngxi 'cannot see essential things'	的 de
	Subject	Prep. phrase	shi	Verb + Object	de
(instrumental)	Omitted	用眼睛 yòng yǎnjing 'with the eye'	是 shì	看不见本质的东西 kàn-bu-jiàn běnzhì de dōngxi 'cannot see essential things'	的 de

Here, 是 ... 的 shì ... de is being used in an emphatic function, with the emphasis placed on 'cannot see essential things'. The rationale for this is immediately apparent in a comparison of this sentence with the previous sentence.

CONTRASTIVE COMPARISON OF CONTENT IN THE TWO SENTENCES
Sentence	Means	Result
1.	with the heart	can see (essential things)	YES
2.	with the eyes	can see essential things	NO

The key point to be emphasised is that, with the eyes, ESSENTIAL THINGS CANNOT BE SEEN.

However, only 9 translators (one-fifth of the total) use this particular sentence pattern. The reason appears to be that while this pattern is perfectly adequate for expressing the meaning, it doesn't match the order of the original English and French.

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4. TOPICALISATION

Looking at the French original, we see that the sentence opens with l'essentiel as the theme, and then makes a statement about that theme. Most translators appear to have been influenced by this thematic structure of the original French and English in framing this sentence. The original order of elements is:

ORDER OF ELEMENTS IN FRENCH AND ENGLISH
	Subject	Copula	Adjective plus Prep Phrase
French	L'essentiel	est	invisible pour les yeux
English	What is essential	is	invisible to the eye

To bring the translation closer to the originals, 33 translators (three-quarters of the total) make l'essentiel into the topic of the sentence. This is simple enough because 'topicalisation' is very common in Chinese.

This is how our sentence looks after l'essentiel has been yanked up to the start of the sentence to serve as its topic:

TOPICALISATION
	TOPIC	Subject		shi	Verb	de
	本质的东西 běnzhì de dōngxi 'essential things'	眼睛 yǎnjing 'the eye'		是 shì	看不见 kàn-bu-jiàn 'cannot see'	的 de
	TOPIC	Subject	Prep. phrase	shi	Verb	de
(with instrumental)	本质的东西 běnzhì de dōngxi 'essential things'	Omitted	用眼睛 yòng yǎnjing 'with the eye'	是 shì	看不见 kàn-bu-jiàn 'cannot see'	的 de

The topicalised versions mean:

"Essential things, the eyes cannot see" or
"Essential things, (a person) cannot see with the eyes"

These two sentence patterns are used by 22 translations (about half of the total). Fifteen are based on 用眼睛 yòng yǎnjing ('with the eyes'), seven are based on 眼睛 yǎnjing as the subject of the sentence.

The reason that this sentence pattern is so heavily favoured is obvious. By framing 看不见 kàn-bu-jiàn, the shi de construction allows it to stand in exactly the same position as invisible in French. The sentence becomes almost a direct reproduction of the order and elements of the original French. Indeed, it may even be something of a habit among translators to translate French or English predicative adjectives, such as invisible, using the shi de construction. Shi de is very commonly used with predicative adjectives in Chinese (e.g., see here), and it provides a very natural equivalent to predicative adjectives in Western languages.

(Interestingly, more than two-thirds of translators using this pattern follow the original French/English by treating the eyes as an instrument. The tendency is most notable in translations from the English. One could not be blamed for suspecting that 'direct translation' may be involved.)

In addition, one translator deletes the topic altogether as being understood from the previous sentence.

OMITTING THE TOPIC
TOPIC	Prep. phrase	shi	Verb	de
X	光凭眼睛 guāng píng yǎnjing 'only with the eyes'	是 shì	看不到 kàn-bu-dào 'cannot see'	的 de

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5. OTHER SENTENCE PATTERNS WITH TOPICALISATION

Apart from 看不见 kàn-bu-jiàn 'cannot see', 是 ... 的 shì ... de is also used to frame other segments of the sentence.

1. Seven translators move 眼睛 yǎnjing 'the eyes' inside the frame, like this:

'INVISIBLE TO THE EYES'
TOPIC	shi	Subject	Verb	de
本质的东西 běnzhì de dōngxi 'essential things'	是 shì	眼睛 yǎnjing 'the eyes'	看不见 kàn-bu-jiàn 'can't see'	的 de

眼睛看不见 yǎnjing kàn-bu-jiàn 'the eyes can't see' is virtually being treated as a single unit meaning 'invisible to the eyes'.

For some reason this pattern is found only with 'eyes' as subject. It isn't found with the instrumental. That is, 本质的东西是用眼睛看不见的 Běnzhì de dōngxi shì yòng yǎnjing kàn-bu-jiàn de ('Essential things with the eyes cannot be seen') is not found in any of the translations.

2. Four translators take the negative element outside the frame and use 不是 bú shì ('is not') instead of 是 shì. As a result, the content inside 是 ... 的 shì...de must be positive.

PUTTING THE NEGATIVE OUTSIDE THE FRAME
	TOPIC	bu shi	Subject		Verb	de
	本质的东西 běnzhì de dōngxi 'essential things'	不是 bú shì	眼睛 yǎnjing 'the eye'		看得见 kàn-de-jiàn 'can see'	的 de
	TOPIC	bu shi	Subject	Prep. phrase	Verb	de
(with instrumental)	本质的东西 běnzhì de dōngxi 'essential things'	不是 bú shì	Omitted	用眼睛 yòng yǎnjing 'with the eye'	看得见 kàn-de-jiàn 'can see'	的 de

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6. TRANSLATION NOT USING 是 ... 的 shì ... de

One translator doesn't use 是 ... 的 shì ... de at all. This translator uses a more classical-sounding construction.

	TOPIC				Subject		Verb
	重要的东西 zhòngyào de dōngxi, 'important things'		并 bìng	非 fēi 'is not'	眼睛 yǎnjing 'the eye'	所 suǒ	见 jiàn 'see'

This uses 非 fēi 'not', a classical-sounding form, in preference to modern 不是 bú shì 'is not'.

并 bìng is an emphatic form used before a negative. Using 并 bìng serves to emphasise that the eyes can NOT see essential things, forming a contrast with the previous sentence stating that only the heart can see clearly.

所 suǒ is a particle, one of the most difficult to use for non-native speakers. Here it can be regarded as a particle indicating that the following verb takes an object. For example, in this phrase:

我所爱的人
Wǒ suǒ ài de rén
'The person that I love'

所 suǒ indicates that 我 wǒ is the subject and 人 rén is the object.

In this case, the structure is similar, except that the object has been omitted. It can be understood as: 眼睛所见 ( 的东西 ) yǎnjing suǒ jiàn (de dōngxi) '(thing) that the eyes see'. In other words, the sentence means 'Essential things, are not (a thing) that the eyes see'.

Structurally, this is quite similar to saying:

重要的东西，不是眼睛能看得见的
Zhòngyào de dōngxi, bù shì yǎnjing néng kàn-de-jiàn de
'Important things, the eyes cannot see'

Other translations using 所 suǒ can be found at "Flesh"

While the range of variation among sentence patterns is rather large, what is truly intriguing is the fact that the range of variation and distribution of types is very similar between translations from the English and the French. A full list of sentences in each type can be found at popups for French-based translations, English-based translations, and translations of unknown provenance.

RESULTATIVE STRUCTURE
Verb	Complement of result (adjective or verb)
看 kàn 'to look, to see'	见 jiàn 'to see'