Alfred Amonn, Replik (1924)

Alfred Amonn’s Replik is a polemical journal reply to Stephan Raditz’s fourteen-point defence of his translation of Walras. Following those points in order, Amonn restates the grounds for his earlier adverse assessment and argues that the disputed renderings betray failures of both linguistic competence and economic understanding. The reply’s significance lies in the connection it establishes between translation and conceptual fidelity: an apparently small lexical error can change the mathematical object, monetary function, or historical claim under discussion. Its sharp personal attacks accompany a substantive insistence that scholarly translation requires more than plausible German wording.

Amonn establishes his governing criteria at the outset:

Zur Uebersetzung eines wissenschaftlichen Werkes sind vor allem folgende zwei Voraussetzungen notwendig: erstens wissenschaftliches Verständnis für die Bedeutung der zu übersetzenden Begriffe und zweitens rein sprachliches Verständnis für die zu übersetzenden Worte.

English translation: For the translation of a scholarly work, the following two prerequisites are necessary above all: first, scholarly understanding of the meaning of the concepts to be translated, and second, purely linguistic understanding of the words to be translated.

The first disputed example makes the distinction concrete. Raditz’s rendering of the addition of two mathematical functions as a combination of money’s functions confuses two different meanings of “function.” Mathematical functions express dependencies between quantities; monetary functions describe the fulfilment of economic purposes, such as serving as a measure of value or medium of exchange. Amonn explains that the functions at issue express valuations arising respectively from use and exchange. His objection therefore concerns the structure of Walras’s reasoning, not an optional refinement of terminology. Raditz’s defence, in Amonn’s account, compounds the initial mistake by failing to recognize the conceptual distinction on which the criticism rests.

The second point shifts from disciplinary knowledge to linguistic method. Amonn rejects the translation of à tort as törichterweise and Raditz’s justification through an alleged common word stem. He treats this as guessing from the sound of a foreign expression instead of consulting an appropriate reference. His further comment about Walras’s appreciation of Jevons clarifies the earlier criticism: he did not mean that Raditz had expressly denied that appreciation, but that knowledge of Walras’s judgment should have alerted him to the mistranslation. Across these opening points, contextual understanding and lexical verification operate as complementary safeguards.

The middle of the reply moves briskly through further disputed examples. Amonn sends readers back to his earlier criticism where Raditz dismisses objections as groundless, and refuses to accept “writing errors” or “errors of haste” as adequate answers. His treatment of location du capital en monnaie distinguishes the French sense of renting from the broader meanings of Latin locatio. Likewise, he counters Raditz’s claim that Walras called the vertical axis an abscissa by referring to Walras’s mathematical introduction, where the horizontal and vertical axes are explicitly distinguished. These examples extend the opening argument: resemblance between words and confident assertion cannot substitute for checking the relevant language and source.

The monetary terminology gives that argument particular economic force:

»Numéraire« kann wohl mit »Wertmaßstab« oder »Verrechnungsmittel«, niemals aber mit »Zahlungsmittel« übersetzt werden.

English translation: “Numéraire” can indeed be translated as “measure of value” or “unit of account,” but never as “means of payment.”

For Amonn, this is another instance in which translation must preserve a functional distinction rather than collapse related monetary concepts. He mockingly suggests that Raditz’s preferred rendering may arise from associating numéraire with number and then payment. The point belongs to the same methodological criticism as the earlier examples: verbal association is unreliable when the text assigns a term a definite analytical role.

Amonn also rejects inadequate reference materials as an excuse. If only a pocket dictionary was available, the translation could have waited until better resources were accessible. Nor does an error become harmless merely because an attentive reader can detect it. His discussion of silver demonetization makes especially clear that the objection concerns what the translated text actually asserts, rather than what its translator says he intended:

Hier kommt aber einzig und allein der Umstand in Betracht, daß der Wortlaut der Uebersetzung im Gegensatz zu dem des Urtextes von der Demonetisation des Silbers spricht, als läge keine geschichtliche Tatsache, sondern nur eine hypothetische Annahme vor.

English translation: Here, however, the only relevant circumstance is that the wording of the translation, unlike that of the original text, speaks of the demonetization of silver as though it were not a historical fact but merely a hypothetical assumption.

A similar objection governs billon. Amonn had proposed monetary renderings, with a qualification based on Walras’s treatment elsewhere of limits on the coins’ payment power. Translating the term simply as “alloy” may appear to avoid interpretation, but in this context Amonn regards that supposed neutrality as a failure to think through its meaning.

The final numbered point introduces a limited concession. Amonn maintains that the later version of the Théorie de la Monnaie was only modestly longer, but acknowledges that choosing the edition to translate was a matter of subjective judgment. Raditz did not need to justify himself on that issue. Amonn nevertheless refuses the demand for an exhaustive inventory of errors:

Meine Aufgabe war doch nicht, die Uebersetzung nach Art einer Schularbeit zu korrigieren, sondern bloß zu zeigen, daß ich mein negatives Werturteil nicht leichtfertig abgegeben habe.

English translation: My task was, after all, not to correct the translation like a school assignment, but merely to show that I had not delivered my negative judgment lightly.

This closing distinction defines the reply’s scope: the examples substantiate a critical verdict rather than supply a replacement translation. A final observation about the two editors’ retreat from their declared joint responsibility extends the criticism from individual mistakes to scholarly accountability. Despite its combative tone, the article consistently measures translation against a demanding standard: preserving concepts, verifying language, and taking responsibility for the published text.