What Must Survive Translation?
Translation is more than replacing words. A sentence may be technically accurate while the distinction, instruction, humor, or relationship carried by the original no longer works. The question is what must survive the crossing.
Terminology and syntax may change. An example that is clear in one setting may confuse readers in another. Fidelity asks us to preserve the work the words were doing, even when a literal version prevents that work from being understood.
The same challenge appears when an idea moves from speech to writing, from expert language to public language, or from one medium to another. Each form preserves some things and distorts others.
A useful test reaches beyond sentence-level equivalence: can the reader still encounter the distinction the original made available?