Moroccan Judeoarab Dictionary the first of its kind..

Reported by Arutz Sheva:

(Apologies for the weird English)

Mordechai Hanoun has published the first dictionary of the Jewish Moroccan language. The two-year effort contains about 10,000 words, idioms, phrases and sayings from the Jewish Arabic of Morocco and their Hebrew translations. Hanoun told Arutz Sheva's Hebrew journal that words and phrases from English, French, Hebrew and Italian were mixed into this unique language, along with ancient Akkadian and Ugaritic. He also used the Hebrew word Me'arah, as in Ma'arat Hamachpelah, the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hevron, as an example of a word whose meaning (in this case that of "tomb") was preserved through the Jewish Moroccan language.

Hanoun said, "An injustice has been done to this language, which has been related to as vulgar and not as poetic as it is." He added that the time has come for people to get to know this language, which was created by the people. He thinks the general public, as opposed to academia, will take an interest in the language and the ancient heritage filled with stories and roots.


For all your English to Arabic and vice versa translations that will help you expand your business into the Middle East visit Arabic Language Experts at http://www.arabic.com.au/.

Should Everything be Translated?

Everything of value, yes. Thus says me. Define "value" - you ask. It is a relative term. But if it contains ideas, no matter how dangerous, it should be translated. This is why we fought for freedom of information and expression, for the right of minorities (linguistic and ideological) to be heard. Translation fosters understanding, and can also provide defence. Witness the CIA being lost in translation to get my point.

So articles like the one below make me feel unwell. Is this guy promoting linguistic censorship??

"Misunderstandings can be dangerous. The Chinese Whisper which turns ‘Send reinforcements, we’re going to advance’ into ‘Send three and four pence, we’re going to a dance’ might be apocryphal, but it highlights what can happen when one person fails to catch what another person has said. So, too, does the advert for Berlitz (‘Improve your English’), in which the frantic captain of a boat repeats, ‘Mayday! Mayday! We are sinking!’, only to have the German coastguard reply: ‘Yes? What are you thinking about?’ Generally, we try to minimise such risks – we ask people to repeat the sentence, stand closer, speak louder or rephrase. When two people are speaking different languages, though, they may completely fail to understand each other; in these situations, translators and interpreters are often engaged. It’s disconcerting, frustrating and sometimes terrifying to find that you can’t make sense of an utterance; students, politicians and soldiers are all indebted at some point to translation service providers.

However, sometimes people actively don’t want to understand. The translation of Hebrew-language books into Arabic, for instance, is still a controversial issue in the Arab world, with certain experts in Jordan contending that comprehensive translations risk providing ‘a bridge for cultural penetration and normalisation’. Debate has centred, recently, on the availability in Arabic of Benjamin Netanyahu's A Place under the Sun, which outlines his political views. While admitting that it is important to understand what they call the ‘Zionist ideology’ of Israel, some Arab scholars are concerned that a generation provided with Hebrew texts may come to see Israel as a legitimate state, in opposition to the stance of most Arab countries. This might seem perverse and self-defeating, but it’s a position that has been adopted by various peoples throughout history, not all of whom have seen themselves as being at war. Gaelic speakers in the West of Ireland, say, might refuse to have an English text translated for their children, no matter how useful or interesting it might be; Basque speakers might react in the same way to Spanish.

People can feel strongly about writing, speeches or television programmes because they see them as propaganda, as products of a certain ideology or simply as a reminder of a country and a way of life. Nowadays, as the internet continues to expand, we might see the translation and transmission of information as an inevitable and all-encompassing process, yet not everyone in the world wants to watch a subtitled version of Friends, read a translation of John F. Kennedy’s Berlin speech or, conversely, receive the English version of a pamphlet detailing Sharia law.

A balance between the two stances should probably be maintained. Few people want a world in which countries or continents mark themselves off from one another, refusing to communicate with those speaking another language. Equally, though, it should not be forgotten how important individual languages have been to the development of cultures and traditions; nor should it be forgotten that many kinds of speech are political acts in one way or another. Translation agencies exist to facilitate communication where facilitation is needed; they offer their services to anyone who wants or needs to communicate with those speaking a foreign language. If translation is not wanted, people will not ask, but translation agencies nonetheless ensure that they are familiar with the politics of translation, and with the various cultural or political fault-lines, around the world, which make translation a sensitive issue."

Balance? Writing is a political act, Mr. Specialist. Don't worry - it isn't agencies that will translate the important stuff. It will be the little folks for whom it matters. Agencies are after income not freedom, democracy and ethics. I understand, Mr. Specialist. And oh, do take off that grey, collarless shirt. Even your bosses are beginning to wear ties and suits nowadays!

For all your English to Arabic and vice versa translations that will help you expand your business into the Middle East visit Arabic Language Experts at http://www.arabic.com.au/.

Other Languages in Translation - Why Not?

In his article in The National, Indian novelist and literary critic Chandrahas Choudhury speaks of the need to translate the various Indian languages into English to make the country's extremely rich literature available to the world. It is an informative article, and I strongly encourage people to read it before it disappears.

As a translator of Arabic works myself, one paragraph in the whole article struck me as the problem of translating not just Indian, but any non-English literature into that "global language". And the further the language is from England and the US (followed by Europe) the harder it is to get it done:

"When these tantalising benefits are in everyone’s sights, why hasn’t translation from India’s many vernacular languages into English flourished? Several reasons might be advanced. First, although most Indians are bilingual or trilingual, they are usually so in an instrumental and not a literary way, and lack the acute cross-linguistic sensitivity to registers and cadences on which translation depends. Distressingly, even Indian writers who read literature in two languages typically work only in one. Second, until very recently, publishers generally reasoned that since the market for literary fiction written in English was not particularly large, the audience for translations into English would be even smaller and less profitable. Finally, the heterogeneity of India’s linguistic landscape is itself inimical to the development of a nationwide culture of translation: it is difficult for a translator from language X, however talented, to say anything meaningful about a peer’s translation from language Y. Only in the last few years have there been concerted efforts to bring translators from different languages together to exchange ideas about their craft. All this had led to the flawed understanding (perpetrated most prominently by Salman Rushdie in his influential 1997 anthology of Indian literature, Mirrorwork) that Indian writing in English is the richest and most vigorous of Indian literatures, and that works in translation are to be read only out of duty, as a democratic concession to less competent spirits."

How true. Where are Polish masterpieces by Prus, Sienkiewicz, Slowacki, Reymont, etc. in English? Where are the complete works of Karl May? What about Bulgarian, Macedonian, Albanian or Romanian writers? Should I even bother mentioning languages such as Khmer or Thai? What about the myth that Arabs don't write, promulgated by the absolute disinclination of US and UK publishers to print anything that is not related to the breaking of "social taboos", while tons of literary heritage materials are waiting for a scholar to bring them to light? Oh, but who is going to read it??

A few weirdos like me. And since they are of no financial value to anyone, maybe weirdos like me should be allowed to translate them and put them online as a part of some literary world heritage website, maybe funded by UNESCO - but minus the dirty politics of what is fit to print? We would all end up understanding each other better?

For all your English to Arabic and vice versa translations that will help you expand your business into the Middle East visit Arabic Language Experts at http://www.arabic.com.au/.

Luongo's "Gay Travels in the Muslim World" translated into Arabic

Not just that - as incredible as it seems - but Luongo is touring Lebanon, to be followed by Jordan, Palestine, and Egypt, with his book!

Not everyone is happy. The book, Gay Travels in the Muslim World, a compilation of stories penned by a collection of both Muslim and non-Muslim writers and edited by journalist Michael Luongo, has been translated into Arabic by publisher Arab Diffusion. The Arabic title "Rahalat Shazz" can be back-translated as "Travels of a Pervert", much to the dismay of both the authors and the gay community in the Arabic speaking world. The concern over the translation chosen by the publishers reflects a broader concern over the negative terminology used by Arabic media in general to descibe homosexuals. Gay rights organisations and individuals across the Arabic speaking world have been pushing for media adoption of the word "mithlyy" - a term without the negative connotations associated with "shazz", but linguistically very lame (it means, literally, "like me"). And although an Arab site for LGBTQ women states that "The Arabic language does not have positive words to express the emotional or sexual relations between two people of the same gender. The known expressions in formal or classical Arabic are negative and degrading: “shouzouz jinsi” (unnatural or abnormal sexuality), “loowat” (the homosexual act among men, in reference to the story of Prophet Lot in the Bible or Lut in the Koran), and “sihaq” (the homosexual act among women)," the Syrian writer Salwa Al Neimi would have disagreed. It is not the words that are offensive, it is the attitude.

“It was a real headache at first, and unintentional on the part of the publisher, and there were also issues of using a word more likely to escape Middle Eastern sensors since it can be interpreted in different ways” Luongo said, adding, “but when I talked with Middle Eastern civil rights groups they said it brought up in a very strong way the problems they have with terminology in the Arabic language and the media coverage of gay rights issues. So that is at least a positive outcome.”

An Algerian blogger Belphoros, writing in his blog, L'Algerie en Rose, points out that: "There exist few terms (for sexuality) in Arabic. We don't like to name things. In ignoring things, we think we erase them, deny them - but that does not work, its hypocrisy. We must face things and have the courage to name them; let's try to call a spade a spade." Or a gay person a "pervert"???????? He goes on to say: "Terminology relating to homosexuality is very derogatory.
There is a need for a neutral terminology to identify us, we must work to translate such terms, and enrich the Arabic dictionary…." The Arabic dictionary is rich, no worries. What needs to be enriched is people's mentality. It is sad that terms (and behaviours) that were acceptable in 12th century tolearnt Muslim world have now become indications of social pathology.

An interesting comment was made by an anonymous lesbian Lebanese translator and writer in support of the term "Shazz".. "2- As an activist and a writer/translator, i always have a problem with the arabic terms for the different LGBTQ identities and issues related. If I were to translate “LGBT” i would end up with an awkward “م ث م ” which stands for: مثلي أو مثلية، ثنائي أو ثنائية، متغاير الجنس I don’t like it, and I still can’t find anything that adapts the concepts and describes the community well enough. In addition, my personal identity as a queer in terms of gender identity and sexual identity just doesn’t exist in any politically correct form. The term شاذ أو شاذة, is just so perfect, because technically the term means “irregular” and I am irregular, even in my political and social opinions, in my taste in music etc. It’s the historical connotation that is demeaning." As a translator, I agree.

Luongo was apparently approached by someone from the Saudi government who bought the book and asked about the possibility of presenting it in KSA. Either he was not Saudi, or he was illiterate, or what he wanted presented in Riyadh was a part of Luongo's body that would ensure he will never write again :-D

Despite the negative response to the title translation, the fact that Gay Travels in the Muslim World has been translated and published for distribution in Arabic is in itself a great achievement. As most literature and information regarding homosexuality is not translated or published into Arabic, those from the Arabic speaking world who cannot read or understand European languages have been denied the opportunity to achieve the awareness, education and self-affirmation that stems from the exposure to such discourse.

For all your English to Arabic and vice versa translations that will help you expand your business into the Middle East visit Arabic Language Experts at http://www.arabic.com.au/.

Arab Literature Breaks Taboos - in Translation

By Rayyan Al-Shawaf
From the Canadian The Globe and Mail - 02/-1/2010

A few weeks ago, Canada saw the English-language publication of Egyptian novelist Bahaa Taher's Sunset Oasis, which won the inaugural International Prize for Arabic Fiction in 2008. This year's winner was Azazeel, by Egyptian scholar and novelist Youssef Ziedan. Both books deal with Egyptian history. Taher sets his story at the very end of the 19th century, shortly after his country was occupied by the British, while Ziedan turns to the 5th century AD for his tale of internecine Christian conflict in Roman Egypt.

While both books were published in Arabic to wide acclaim, such is not the case with many novels and short stories written in Arabic, Farsi, Turkish and other languages of the Middle East, which end up being censored or banned outright (the Coptic Orthodox church lobbied the Egyptian government unsuccessfully to have Ziedan's book banned).

As a result, the ability to write in a Western language, or the availability of translation services, becomes imperative for many authors. With the freedom so afforded, writers from across the region are incorporating all manner of taboo subjects into their fiction, and often simultaneously revealing the rich and varied cross-cultural influences that have shaped them. An overview of six recent novels exploring Middle Eastern topics highlights this phenomenon.

"I'm trying to come to terms with the Holocaust, something that would try the patience of God himself, and behind it all is the figure of my father." So wrote "Rachel" (Rachid Helmut Schiller) in his diary a few months after discovering that his late father, a German who settled in Algeria following the Second World War, helped produce the Zyklon B gas used by the Nazis to murder millions of Jews and others. Rachel has since committed suicide - having apparently subjected himself to the sentence he feels his father deserved - and alongside his diary we have that of his brother "Malrich" (Malek Ulrich Schiller), a former Islamic extremist who now sees Islamism and Nazism as two sides of the same coin. Algerian novelist Boualem Sansal's novel The German Mujahid, translated from the French by Frank Wynne, consists of both diaries.

(...)

Unlike Sansal, who lives in Algiers and writes in French, Salwa Al Neimi lives in Paris and writes in Arabic. The Syrian Al Neimi has penned a short but sizzling novel about a liberated Syrian woman's steamy sex life in France. The narrator of The Proof of the Honey unabashedly proclaims: "I have a physical need for water, semen, and words. The three things I need in life. I cannot exist without them." Throughout, she details her torrid sexual encounters with vigour, though her apparent lack of faith in love resurrects a tired and simplistic dichotomy.

The narrator's frustration with contemporary Arab culture's suppression of desire and her ambitious mission to re-sexualize the Arabic language can be traced to her sexual awakening, which began with the discovery of surprisingly explicit commentaries on the joys of sex composed by Arab writers centuries ago.

This aspect of the book proves fascinating, though sometimes in an unintended manner; that so many Arab intellectuals and artists feel compelled to justify their controversial works by depicting them as continuing an illustrious Arab tradition - as Al Neimi has done - points up the burdensome weight of history and heritage in Arab societies.

*****

Ironically, the punishments for lovers in Saudi Arabia, a country in good international standing, are just as severe, if not more so, than those in increasingly isolated Iran. The Consequences of Love, Eritrean Sulaiman Addonia's debut novel, is set in Jeddah. "I had been in this country for ten years," muses narrator Naser, a 20-year-old Eritrean refugee, "yet I had never talked to a girl or held a woman's hand."

All of that changes when a woman, her face and body concealed by the mandatory black abaya, begins passing notes to Naser, in which she writes forthrightly of her attraction to him. Naser dubs the girl "Fiore," Italian for flower (Italian colonialism in the Horn of Africa having left a lingering linguistic mark), and the two eventually progress beyond epistolary professions of love to an actual physical relationship.

The dangers are tremendous and ubiquitous; even when merely exchanging notes, Naser realizes that "just one careless moment could have me arrested by the religious police and that could lead to Punishment Square where lovers are lashed and sometimes even killed."

The fact that Fiore turns out to be beautiful reveals a lack of courage on Addonia's part, a quality that otherwise can be found in abundance throughout his novel. Indeed, not only does Addonia write frankly and movingly about forbidden love all the way through to the story's heart-wrenching and unflinchingly realistic ending, but he does so within the context of a scathing exposé of Saudi Arabia's myriad social ills: religious extremism, oppression of women, circumstantial homosexuality and exploitation of foreign labourers. The Consequences of Love is the real deal - passionate and potent.

*****

Kuwait isn't nearly as repressive as neighbouring Saudi Arabia - which is a good thing for headstrong Palestinian-Egyptian Nidali, the protagonist of A Map of Home, as she spends her childhood in Kuwait City. Randa Jarrar has crafted a warm, ribald and insightful evocation of life in Kuwait, Egypt and the US.

Much of the first half of the novel, however, is exasperatingly quaint, as precocious Nidali endures her parents' quarrels, hangs out with her diverse group of friends, and stuffs herself with za'tar burgers.

The Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990 infuses the heretofore languid tale with some much-needed drama, and the family's subsequent move to Egypt and later Texas allows Jarrar to explore cultural and linguistic acclimatization with a great deal of poignancy. Made aware in the US that she speaks a formal and somewhat stilted English, Nidali ruefully recalls "how in Egyptian my language was full of songs and lilts and catchy turns of phrase. I wished, then and for many months later, that I could translate the way I was, my old way of being, speaking, and gesturing, to English: to translate myself."

*******

Though one cannot speak of a unifying theme binding these very different novels together, all underscore the importance of Western languages, especially English, for authors writing from or about the Middle East. Written in French, The German Mujahid was banned in Boualem Sansal's native Algeria, but won the RTL-Lire prize in France. Though available in Lebanon - where it was published - Al Neimi's The Proof of the Honey was banned in several Arab countries (...) If Eritrean Addonia had not written his debut novel in English - his third language - from the safety of London, he might have met the same fate as several of the unfortunates in his novel, who suffer whippings and worse. And although it straddles cultures and, in a sense, languages, Jarrar's A Map of Home, with its frequently colloquial English and many Americanisms, to say nothing of its graphic descriptions of masturbation, would have had a hard time finding a home in the Arab world. In all instances, the publication of these books in English signifies the importance of this language for writers delving into controversial Middle Eastern subjects, and English-language readers are that much richer for it.

For all your English to Arabic and vice versa translations that will help you expand your business into the Middle East visit Arabic Language Experts at http://www.arabic.com.au/.

Soulful Publication in Abu Dhabi

The capital’s cultural agency has published a new edition of one of the rarest known works of Arabic literature, Soul of the Soul, an encyclopedia of poetry from the fifth Hijri, or Islamic, century, dating back approximately 1,000 years.

The Abu Dhabi Authority for Culture and Heritage (Adach) has published the first volume of the book, of which there are only two known surviving copies. One is in the National Library in Paris and the other in the Assad National Library in Damascus. The 2,790 poems contained in the book are considered to be among the most important in the Arabic language.

Ibrahim Saleh, a Syria-based scholar who researched and edited the new edition, said it was impossible to know who compiled the original Soul of the Soul, but it is believed it may have been one of the disciples of Al Thaalibi (961-1038), a prominent literary figure in the eastern part of the Islamic world during the fourth Islamic and 10th Gregorian century.

Mr Saleh said this theory was based on the fact that Al Thaalibi’s name is evoked with the utmost regard in the book, and the ancient text lists a compilation of his poetry, Yatimat Al Dahr (One of its Kind), as its primary source.

The full edition will be divided into 360 sections and the poems will be divided by theme, including one section for prose, which makes up about two per cent of the predominately verse content.

For all your English to Arabic and vice versa translations that will help you expand your business into the Middle East visit Arabic Language Experts at http://www.arabic.com.au/.