Dialect - could we translate it?

What is dialect?

Dialect is a form of a language that is spoken in a particular part of country or by a particular group of people. When we translate a book we can simply ignore the dialect and translate it as standard language. But an author has chosen to use dialect for a reason, dismissing that choice isn’t respectful of the author or his work. Of course, for some languages, ignoring the dialect may be the only solution. If we decide to translate the dialect, what choices do we have?

- Geographic translation – it means that we choose an equivalent region in the target culture and pick one of its dialects.

-  Translating socioeconomically – it means that a translator working with an upper class dialect in the source text chooses an upper class dialect in the target language. When the original author uses a lower-class dialect, the translator can use a lower-class dialect from another region. Translating socioeconomically can be challenging if the source cultures have very different populations and thus different class-based dialects.

Moreover, if an author chooses a dialect to suggest a character is stupid, an equivalent dialectical representation can be picked in the target language. But we can remember that not all languages have dialects with the same stereotypes.