L’Austin Translation
Or, the art of being self-explanatory.
In the Summer of 2019, on the first day of August, I departed for the exciting, eventful, and self-improving adventure a lot of students from my generation experienced in their life: spending a year abroad. Although, in the end, it didn’t go as planned for me as well as thousands (if not millions) of my fellow students and travelers, because of the breakout of the world pandemic of Covid-19, the memories of my exchange year in Austin, Texas will remain in my head as the most challenging and life-changing part of my young adulthood. When I returned home to France, in which the state of total quarantine had been implemented a week before my arrival, I attempted, in the great amount of free time available I had to spend with my family, to explain and sum up my experience and relation with the city. Austinites are proud of their city. And when I say “proud,” I mean “Proud.” They always seem to identify themselves as such, way before identifying as Northern or Eastern or Western or Central or Southern Americans. The pride of this gigantic community even goes beyond that, in the sense that they self-proclaimed Austin as being the “world capital city of music.” Being a musician myself, I was more than excited to travel to a city full of music enthusiasts, to Stevie Ray Vaughan’s city!
Every community has a motto representing their philosophy, or interests. For instance, fans of the T.V. show “Community” have their “Six seasons and a movie!” (translated to “Six saisons et un film !”), projecting their desire for a future collaboration between all the members of the cast to make a movie in the same trend of its creator, the witty and very often referred as genius (by his fans), Dan Harmon. Rock music fans—or “rockheads”—very often use the phrase “Party hard [insert name]” (translated to “Méga-teuf [insérez nom]”), referencing to the 1992 comedy movie “Wayne’s World”; a movie about two “rockheads” hosting a public-access T.V. show in their parents’ basement, who are being brought under the lights of big productions. Austinites have: “Keep Austin Weird.” This motto embodies the will of its inhabitants to conserve the cultural diversity of every single members of its community into a sort of multicultural dissonance, echoing this notion of the “weird,” making the creation of a deeper culture to be inherited by future generations possible. And when you arrive in Austin, you’ll notice that the city is, indeed, weird. The first day, you’ll go to a bar and listen to a Country Rock band playing. The second, you’ll go dance into a Latino club. The third day, you’ll attend a comedy show hosted by a goofy Pakistani guy (my roommate) trying to form a cult inside a co-op. On the fourth day, you’ll see some vultures on your patio, and chickens on your doorstep. And on the fifth day, you’ll learn of a mass shooting that killed 22 people in El Paso on the news…
As Shelley Bueche explained in “Culturemap Austin,” the first mention of “Keep Austin Weird” that lead to the commercialization of the term was brought by Red Wassenich, a librarian working at Austin Community College. Its use, then, spread across the city and slowly began to be referenced as a slogan promulgating the will of local businesses to “buy local.”
“Keep Austin Weird” is, in my opinion, a self-explanatory slogan. When said in Texas, or in the U.S. in general, people will immediately associate it with Austinite culture. Now, how do I explain it to my parents? They don’t speak a word of English. How do I explain the entire philosophy of a city, that has been summed up in one single phrase over the years, without losing their attention in the process? The first solution that comes to mind is, of course, a translation. Let’s give it a try!
“Gardons Austin étrange !”
In this very literal and syntactically correct translation, we encounter one major issue. It ain’t making no sense at all! The verb “to keep, garder” in French, possesses a very literal meaning: To keep something for oneself (thus, losing the “community” aspect of the original meaning). The use of the synonym “to conserve” (translated to “conserver”) wouldn’t be appropriate either, for it bears an objectification action to it (I would use “to conserve” more to designate an inanimate object rather than a collective of people). I used the verb “to keep” at the first-person plural helping to keep the “community” sense of the original slogan. For future translations, I should keep that in mind. In reaction to this, a new question arises: how can I keep both the “community” and “conservative” aspects of the original motto in a self-explanatory manner, without losing meaning in doing so? We need to find another translation for the verb “to keep,” and we can find that in the term “rester.” “To stay,” in a more literal English translation. “Rester,” in French, possesses this what-I-like-to-call “conservative” aspect, which can also, sometimes, work in English as well, for we both say “keep” and “stay safe” (translated to French as “restons en sécurité,” but not as “gardons en sécurité”). I now have my verb. As the “community” aspect should be kept in priority, I am going to use, just as I did in the first translation, the first-person plural: “restons.” I will also keep the term “étrange, Weird,” resulting in the phrase:
“Restons étranges,”
“Let’s keep being weird.” The first observation I can make is that the English translation of the French translation begins to lose its rhetorical properties as a slogan. Furthermore, another aspect we lose in the process, is the “self-explanatory” aspect.
As being “weird” is part of the culture promulgated by the community, I think that one safe way to change it to a more “self-explanatory” term, would be to translate it to:
“Restons nous-même,”
“Let’s keep being ourselves.” But again, here, we lose another aspect: Austin. When referencing such a culture, especially abroad, it is very important to keep the most iconic and central aspect of the original meaning. Here, the central point is being part of the colorful and tumultuous community of Austin. Thus, the term that would embody all the aspects of “self-explanation, community and weirdness” the best is the noun “Austin” itself:
“Restons Austinites,”
“Let’s keep being Austinites.” I would go as far as using the very French way of creating a slogan, using a triad; thus, echoing our “Liberté, égalité, fraternité”:
“Restons étranges ; Restons nous-même ; Restons Austin,”
Keeping it with four syllables each for rhythm’s sake. That way, I think my parents can finally understand the way of life my fellow Austinites are living and sharing with hundreds, if not thousands of students and travelers like myself.
PLUTO 
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