Zsuzsanna Gahse is an Austrian-German-Swiss author; she fled to the West with her Hungarian family in 1956 and has since lived in Vienna, Stuttgart and Lucerne - today she lives in Müllheim (Canton Thurgau, Switzerland). Her literary work is situated between prose and poetry, between narrative and dramatic texts. She has received numerous prizes and awards for her approximately 30 book publications and translations.

At the beginning of the 1980s, Helmut Heißenbüttel, who unfortunately is rarely mentioned today, asked me to contribute to his radio series "radioessay". The project was to be about literary focal points in Hungary at the time. Consequently, I had to do a lot of reading and translate passages from magazines and books. When the programme ended, Heißenbüttel quoted Hannah Arendt, namely that logic is built into everyone's head through their mother tongue. An unforgettable quote that I still think about, that I consider in my own head and can only confirm to a limited extent, although I am grateful to Arendt and Heißenbüttel for giving me food for thought. In any case, what is certain is that it was Heißenbüttel who guided, led, attracted and steered me towards translation.

But logic is by no means confined or walled in by one's mother tongue. Everyone can implement several types of coherence into their thinking. The German language is extremely good for my thoughts, I am happy about everything I can discover in English, and I could keep my head above water with Spanish, finding huge stimulation in the process. So I would respond to Arendt or Heißenbüttel by saying that different languages broaden and enhance the power of imagination. In simple terms, the building blocks of other languages allow you to travel the world, and even with minimal knowledge, provide newly energised ways of thinking. For example, I know little about the Oceanic languages, only what I have read, but the nature of their fascinating strangeness is immediately apparent on first acquaintance. I would like to get closer to these languages and the basic ideas that underpin them.

But what is a translation? When I claimed in my first paragraph that Heißenbüttel steered, led, attracted and guided me, translation was already involved in this sentence. I could also have chosen words like "bugsieren"(manoeuvred), "vorantreiben"(pushed towards), "den Weg weisen"(shown the way) or "dirigieren"(lead). Obviously, you can translate from your own language into your own language, which is fun and helps to give a different slant. As an exercise in writing schools, in so-called creative writing courses for aspiring writers, such attempts would be recommended, advisable, purposeful and stimulating (here again we have a list of comparable terms).

If someone wants to translate a text from an older German into modern German, they will see that words also change within a language. Over time, words translate themselves. They change, are reshaped and their meaning can fluctuate. And since words have their moods, the mood also shifts with the changes. Therefore, there is no such thing as a completely exact and permanently valid translation.

One aspect of innovation and change is vocabulary that migrates from other languages. These words, crouching like lizards, are often inconspicuous at first, but gradually become established and can eventually find their place in the lexicon. One such word is 'bank' and several technical terms related to banking. You could tell long stories about these.

It is well known that for years, English terms have been flying over into the German language for years, jumping over like fleas. Words like ‘triggern’( to trigger) for example. German is teeming with fleas! Let's see how long they last, whether they remain permanent. words and switch to the construction of sentences.

Finally, I’ll leave individual words and move on to the construction of whole sentences. Most European languages have a common origin, and their commonality - called Indo-European languages - has extended far beyond Europe. However, despite this commonality, there are also differences, for example in sentence structure. The differences between phrases in Spanish, English or Greek in particular have their own charm.

Basque, Turkish, Finnish and Hungarian, to name but a few, are not Indo-European languages, and it is a privilege to be able to orientate oneself in such a different idiom. The reorientation is a gain, not only because the difference in the basic rules gives you a more flexible way of thinking (which I would also like to have with the Oceanic languages), but also because, from this external perspective, similarities between the Slavic, Romance, Germanic, etc. languages become visible.
Such similarities is particularly evident in attempts at translation.

But if someone speaks Italian or English well, they are not translating as they speak.They are immersed in the language, with its orientation, mood and fundamental disposition, and thinking coherently in that language. In this respect, languages are an excellent tool for excercising logic.