From Übersetzbarkeit to le supplément: Benjamin, Derrida, and the Origin That Requires Translation

The Tower of Babel, Pieter Bruegel the Elder. Source: Wikipedia

Translation is a mode. To comprehend it as mode one must go back to the original, for that contains the law governing the translation: its translatability.

Translatability is an essential quality of certain works, which is not to say that it is essential that they be translated; it means rather that a specific significance inherent in the original manifests itself in its translatability. It is plausible that no translation, however good it may be, can have any significance as regards the original. Yet, by virtue of its translatability the original is closely connected with the translation; in fact, this connection is all the closer since it is no longer of importance to the original.

—Walter Benjamin, The task of the translator

Thesis

Walter Benjamin's The Task of the Translator argues that translatability (Übersetzbarkeit) is not an external property added to literary works but an essential characteristic of certain originals. Jacques Derrida radicalizes this insight in Des Tours de Babel and What Is a "Relevant" Translation? by showing that if an original is structurally open to translation, then it is never self-sufficient. The logic governing Benjamin's theory of translation can therefore be illuminated through Derrida's concept of the supplement: what appears to come after is already inscribed within the origin.

Translation Is Always-Already in Place

Translation is often understood as a secondary activity. An original text comes first, complete in itself, and the translator subsequently transfers its meaning into another language. Walter Benjamin's The Task of the Translator challenges this sequence. Translation is not an external operation performed upon an autonomous work but belongs to the work's own structure. Jacques Derrida, particularly in Des Tours de Babel and later in What Is a "Relevant" Translation?, develops this insight in a striking direction. His reading suggests that Benjamin's notion of Übersetzbarkeit (translatability) undermines the idea of a self-sufficient origin. Read through Derrida's philosophy, Benjamin's theory of translation begins to resemble the logic of the supplement: what appears to come afterward is already inscribed within the beginning.

Translatability and the Open Original

Benjamin famously declares that "Übersetzbarkeit ist eine Form" (Benjamin, 1968, p. 69). This seemingly simple statement transforms the status of translation. Rather than asking whether a translator can successfully reproduce an original, Benjamin asks whether the original itself possesses Übersetzbarkeit, an intrinsic capacity to be translated. Accordingly, "Translatability is an essential quality of certain works" (Benjamin, 1968, p. 70).

This claim carries an important consequence. The original cannot be regarded as a closed object whose meaning is complete before translation occurs. Instead, translation belongs to what Benjamin calls the work's Fortleben, its continued life. A translation does not merely preserve an earlier text; it participates in the unfolding of that text through history. The original therefore extends beyond its own historical moment toward future linguistic encounters.

Benjamin does not describe this openness as a deficiency. On the contrary, it testifies to the vitality of great works. Yet the very possibility of future translations already complicates the traditional distinction between primary and secondary, original and copy. If a work contains the principle of its own translatability, then translation is not simply added from outside.

Derrida's Reading: The Original as Debtor

Derrida recognizes the philosophical implications of Benjamin's argument and reformulates them using a different conceptual vocabulary. In Des Tours de Babel he writes that "the structure of the original is marked by the requirement to be translated" (Derrida, 1985, p. 227). This sentence is remarkably close to Benjamin's account of Übersetzbarkeit, but Derrida immediately draws a conclusion that Benjamin never explicitly formulates: "The original is the first debtor."

Here the vocabulary changes significantly. Benjamin frequently speaks of life, survival, growth, flowering, and renewal. Derrida instead introduces debt, petition, obligation, and lack. The shift is not merely stylistic. It expresses a different way of describing the same structural relation.

If the original requires translation, then it cannot be entirely self-sufficient. It awaits something that has not yet occurred. The translator does not simply owe fidelity to the source text; the source itself stands in a relation of dependence toward its future translations. Derrida's claim that the original "pleads for translation" reverses the conventional hierarchy without abolishing the distinction between original and translation.

The Supplement and the Structure of Translation

This reversal recalls Derrida's account of the supplement in Of Grammatology. A supplement appears to be secondary because it comes after an origin. Yet its arrival reveals that the origin was never complete by itself. The supplement fills an absence that was present from the outset, even if that absence remained unrecognized.

Translation exhibits precisely this structure. At first glance it resembles a supplement in the ordinary sense: an addition to an already existing work. Benjamin's theory, however, suggests otherwise. Since translatability belongs to the original, translation is not an accidental appendage but an expression of the original's own constitution.

Derrida provides the philosophical language capable of making this implication explicit. The original contains, from the beginning, a relation to what is not yet present. Translation is one instance of a broader structure that also appears in the concepts of trace, iterability, and différance. None of these notions simply denies the existence of origins. Rather, they deny that any origin is entirely present to itself. Every beginning bears within it the possibility—and indeed the necessity—of repetition, transformation, and supplementation.

Translation and the Question of Origin

Read in this light, Benjamin's essay is not only a theory of translation. It is also a meditation on the nature of origin. The original survives because it was never enclosed within itself. Its identity unfolds historically through encounters with other languages rather than remaining fixed at the moment of composition.

Derrida's reading does not replace Benjamin's argument with a deconstructive one. Instead, it exposes a consequence already latent in Benjamin's premises. If the original is structurally oriented toward translation, then its identity cannot consist in pure self-presence. Translation belongs to the original before any translator begins to work.

This perspective also clarifies why Derrida repeatedly returns to translation throughout his later writings. Whether discussing Babel, Shakespeare, or the problem of relevance, he consistently treats translation as a privileged site for thinking about the instability of origins. The translator does not merely follow the original; the translator reveals something about the original that could not otherwise become visible.

Conclusion

Benjamin's concept of Übersetzbarkeit and Derrida's logic of the supplement converge on a shared philosophical insight. Both challenge the assumption that what comes first is therefore complete in itself. Benjamin argues that certain works carry within themselves the possibility of translation. Derrida extends this argument by showing that such openness means the original is never entirely autonomous. The supplement does not replace Benjamin's theory of translatability; it offers a conceptual framework for understanding one of its deepest implications. Translation, accordingly, is more than the movement from one language to another. It reveals that every origin already bears the mark of what appears to come after.

References

Benjamin, W. (1968). The task of the translator (H. Zohn, Trans.). In H. Arendt (Ed.), Illuminations (pp. 69–82). Harcourt Brace.

Derrida, J. (1976). Of grammatology (G. C. Spivak, Trans.). Johns Hopkins University Press.

Derrida, J. (1985). Des Tours de Babel. In J. F. Graham (Ed.), Difference in Translation (J. F. Graham, Trans., pp. 165–207). Cornell University Press.

Derrida, J. (2001). What is a "relevant" translation? Critical Inquiry, 27(2), 174–200.