Lost in Translation

In my review of Finn MacCool, one of Morgan Llywelyn's reamrkable novels interpreting Irish legends, I mentioned a question that came to me while reading the novel. How much deeper meaning or emotional content is lost when a word in another language is written in English? This is hardly an original question on my part. The very existence of the expression lost in translation demonstrates that. But I just had occasion to wonder about it when a skillful author fails to quite evoke a character's feelings with the use of a single word.

There is a scene where the Irish legendary hero Finn MacCool is faced with the son of the High King he served, now High King himself. The young man demands an apology for some perceived wrong, something his father never asked of Finn. Our hero, realizing that the principle was less important than keeping the tolerance if not acceptance of the High King says the words, "I apologize." Llywelyn describes how hard it is for Finn to say it, how his tongue "did not know how to shape the words", but something was missing. I had the feeling that something in the word in its early Irish Gaelic form must have conveyed more than the readily thrown out modern English word. There must have been a touch of shame, of admitting to something virtually unforgivable or dishonorable. The character of Finn in the novel is a roiling mass of poignant feelings and qualities. No way the simple word "apologize" can mean to him what it means when I say it to someone whose email I failed to respond to promptly.

I am looking for an Irish Gaelic historian to answer my question, but the answer is no doubt evident. Perhaps it is the culture, perhaps the linguistics, but clearly the apology lost a great deal in translation. No fault to Llywelyn. Some things just can't be expressed.