Translation is a tricky business, with false friends and idiomatic phrases just waiting to catch us out. We all know the Inuit have more words for snow than we have, rather more even than national rail services, but who would have interpreted ‘Felicissima notte‘ to mean anything other than ‘Good night’, without knowing local customs?
“THE ITALIAN GOOD NIGHT.– In Northern Europe, we may, without impropriety, say, ‘good night’ to departing friends at any hour of darkness ; but the Italians utter their ‘Felicissima Notte‘ only once. The arrival of candles marks the division between day and night, and when they are brought in, the Italians thus salute each other. How impossible it is to convey the exact properties of a foreign language by translation ! Every word, from the highest to the lowest, has a peculiar significance, determinable only by an accurate knowledge of national and local attributes and peculiarities.–Goethe.”
Stamford Mercury, 14th August, 1829