From Gulf Daily News
A BILL which MPs said would have reinforced Arabic as Bahraini's official language was blocked by the Shura Council yesterday.
They said it would cause legal and practical problems, particularly if there were errors in the translation of documents, though the vote against was swung by just four votes.
Parliament had approved a bill which would have obliged all ministries and government organisations to produce their official letters and other documents in Arabic, with a second language as an option.
All official (such as road names) and commercial signs would have had to be in Arabic, with an option to put the name of franchises in another language, in smaller size.
The bill also stipulated that foreign and local companies have to present their products in the market mainly in the Arabic language, while Bahraini products sold abroad should only have the tag "Made in Bahrain" in Arabic.
It proposed fines of BD50 and BD200 for violators, while government employees would be punished according to the Civil Service laws.
Council services committee chairman Dr Bahiya Al Jishi was in favour, saying that Bahrain's Constitution stipulated that the country's official language was Arabic.
"In reality Arabic is second to English, which shouldn't be the case," she said.
"We have nothing against other languages, but they should be secondary, with Arabic being the country's main language, whether in official letters or signs."
"The bill doesn't speak about medical prescriptions or studies, considering that we know that it is very difficult to implement."
But council public utilities and environment affairs committee vice-chairman Abdulrahman Jawahery said that the bill would be very difficult to implement as a whole.
"Most of the experts in the government - whether consultants or engineers - are expatriates and having them present their letters in Arabic would be a waste of time and money, as translators must be hired," he said.
"Having people sign documents that they cannot understand is against the law and in translation words could be omitted or misinterpreted and this could harm the person signing it."
Council foreign affairs, defence and national security committee chairman Abdulrahman Jamsheer said that it would be ridiculous to have the names of franchises translated into Arabic. "For example, if a brand name is Global then it would be illogical to have 'Alami' as the main sign, because everyone knows the company by its original brand name," he said.
COMMENTARY:
Ok, the zeal misfired because it was poorly thought through. But the Arabists will continue pushing for it, for two reasons:
(a) because Arabic is the language of the Koran - forget about nationalism, that's not really the issue
(b) because they see that the standard of Arabic in their country is deteriorating, and that is bad for their cultural heritage.
If they manage to think it through so that it does not adversely affect overseas business, and if they - like Saudi Arabia - start seeing the light and educate their own instead of depending on expats, then that might create a minor renaissance for translators into English. I might even change bases :-)
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/.
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
MRI, Your Brain and Words
Brain imaging research has progressed to the point where researchers can detect regularities in the activation of the human brain when we ponder such words as "hammer" and "dresser."
At Carnegie Mellon University, Marcel Just and his colleagues have done just that, and have described it in an intriguing article in the journal PLoS One out on Tuesday. Just, a psychology professor and director of the Center for Cognitive Brain Imaging at Carnegie Mellon, tried to pinpoint what our brains do when we think of the words that represent commonplace items--building parts such as door, window and chimney, body parts such as arm, leg and eye, different types of tools, vehicles, vegetables, animals or pieces of clothing.
Just and his colleagues put 11 right-handed volunteers into an fMRI machine and had them read a list of 60 commonplace nouns six times over in varying random order, taking a moment to reflect upon each. As the subjects did so, the researchers documented the precise coordinates of the brain's activity in response. They sifted out the brain activity that was common to all the words--say, activation of visual processing areas that play a central role in reading--and looked for patterns of varying brain activation that would reveal regularities in the way we "think" about common things.
Not surprisingly, thinking about a single noun like "truck" or "butterfly" sparked activity in many different places in the brain. That's just more evidence that the brain is a far-flung network of regions and specialized cells that exchange information and coordinate efforts in even the simplest task. But four dominant patterns of brain activation seemed to emerge--clusters of brain activity that were so regular, Just and his colleagues were later able to identify what word a subject was pondering just by looking at its "fMRI activation signature."
Those activation patterns suggested that subjects were sorting commonplace nouns into four lines: things that are manipulated; things that are eaten; things that represent shelter, or an entryway into shelter; and finally, words that are long. Some of the brain regions lighted up when a "manipulation" noun was read were areas that typically activate when we imagine grasping something. When a "shelter" noun was read, brain areas that have been associated in past research with looking at, recognizing and identifying buildings and structures became activated. "Eating" nouns typically energized a region of the brain associated with the coordination and movement of the lower facial muscles.
What's more, Just and colleagues showed that when it comes to thinking about everyday objects, we don't each have unique patterns of brain activation: On the whole, the regular patterns of brain activation that distinguished, say, "arm" from "airplane," or "telephone" from "shirt" were similar across all 11 subjects.
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/.
At Carnegie Mellon University, Marcel Just and his colleagues have done just that, and have described it in an intriguing article in the journal PLoS One out on Tuesday. Just, a psychology professor and director of the Center for Cognitive Brain Imaging at Carnegie Mellon, tried to pinpoint what our brains do when we think of the words that represent commonplace items--building parts such as door, window and chimney, body parts such as arm, leg and eye, different types of tools, vehicles, vegetables, animals or pieces of clothing.
Just and his colleagues put 11 right-handed volunteers into an fMRI machine and had them read a list of 60 commonplace nouns six times over in varying random order, taking a moment to reflect upon each. As the subjects did so, the researchers documented the precise coordinates of the brain's activity in response. They sifted out the brain activity that was common to all the words--say, activation of visual processing areas that play a central role in reading--and looked for patterns of varying brain activation that would reveal regularities in the way we "think" about common things.
Not surprisingly, thinking about a single noun like "truck" or "butterfly" sparked activity in many different places in the brain. That's just more evidence that the brain is a far-flung network of regions and specialized cells that exchange information and coordinate efforts in even the simplest task. But four dominant patterns of brain activation seemed to emerge--clusters of brain activity that were so regular, Just and his colleagues were later able to identify what word a subject was pondering just by looking at its "fMRI activation signature."
Those activation patterns suggested that subjects were sorting commonplace nouns into four lines: things that are manipulated; things that are eaten; things that represent shelter, or an entryway into shelter; and finally, words that are long. Some of the brain regions lighted up when a "manipulation" noun was read were areas that typically activate when we imagine grasping something. When a "shelter" noun was read, brain areas that have been associated in past research with looking at, recognizing and identifying buildings and structures became activated. "Eating" nouns typically energized a region of the brain associated with the coordination and movement of the lower facial muscles.
What's more, Just and colleagues showed that when it comes to thinking about everyday objects, we don't each have unique patterns of brain activation: On the whole, the regular patterns of brain activation that distinguished, say, "arm" from "airplane," or "telephone" from "shirt" were similar across all 11 subjects.
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/.
Got website? Globalising?
According to Common Sense Advisory, more than 50 percent of Web users who purchased online buy only at Web sites where the information is presented in their language. (Going from Simple Translation to Successful Transactions on Global Websites, Common Sense Advisory, March 2007).
Here are the top tips to consider for translating Web content from Mark Tapling of the Language Weaver:
1. Pay attention to the content type
Every content type has an audience, a value that it serves for the business, and a value that it serves for the audience. Because of this, different content has different requirements for translation.
When looking to start or add additional translation, take a look at the content in your organization and consider other translation options to cost-effectively translate the information while still meeting the needs of the business and the audience.
2. Match the translation cycle to the business need
Some types of content only need to be updated and translated every time a new product or service is introduced, such as product documentation, marketing material and product oriented Web content. Other types of content should be translated as soon as they are written, such as bug fixes, FAQs and knowledge base articles, in order to save on ongoing support costs for known issues.
3. Don’t forget about search
When updating Web content, think about how users will find that information if they speak another language. Search is how most people will find information, so keep in mind that content needs to be translated to make it searchable in a visitor’s native language. Some sites pre-publish all translated content to make it visible to search engines, others don’t. Companies that don’t translate content up front are subjecting their site to an unreliable user experience delivered by a free translation plug-in. In theory, this can work, but remember that free translation sites aren’t trained to understand your brand voice and terminology so there is risk built in when putting translation in the hands of free translation.
4. Maintain control of your brand
Whether you use human translation, post-edit output from translation software or use automated translation, brand and term management is something that is crucial for a growing business. Your company has likely spent a lot of money on its brand, so you don’t want it to be at risk when expanding into new regions. For example, what should your product name be in Chinese or Japanese? How should you describe a particular experience with your product or service in another language?
Identify the brand voice you want to maintain, key product names and references, and company terminology up front so that you know how they should be represented in other languages. Working this out ahead of time also helps any translation project go smoothly and lets you maintain more control of your brand across languages.
5. Use the "NOTRANSLATE" tag
A site owner can control content by ensuring proper tagging of the information. While there are several page-level tags available to exercise this control, the most exciting one was recently added by Google. At the page level, site owners can now add a tag called “NOTRANSLATE.” This tag is interpreted by the crawler as a “do not translate” instruction. By setting the “NOTRANSLATE” tag, you ensure that Google’s automatic translation is not offered as an automatic option to anyone performing a search – especially for those pages or parts of your site where you want to make sure YOU, the site and brand owner, decide what the translation should look like without handing over control of the translation to Google’s algorithms. (My favourite tag of the year, that one!)
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/.
Here are the top tips to consider for translating Web content from Mark Tapling of the Language Weaver:
1. Pay attention to the content type
Every content type has an audience, a value that it serves for the business, and a value that it serves for the audience. Because of this, different content has different requirements for translation.
- Some types of content – like advertising material – are highly influential and need to be perfect, thereby requiring human translation.
- Other types of content - like documentation - need to be near perfect but don’t require the same nuance as other types of content; this type of content can be served up with translation software and post-edited by a human reviewer. (Maybe!)
- Some content - like knowledge bases and FAQs - simply needs to convey facts (but needs to do so quickly); automated translation software from Language Weaver can be effectively leveraged for this type of content. (Oooops! Can't judge the leverage.)
When looking to start or add additional translation, take a look at the content in your organization and consider other translation options to cost-effectively translate the information while still meeting the needs of the business and the audience.
2. Match the translation cycle to the business need
Some types of content only need to be updated and translated every time a new product or service is introduced, such as product documentation, marketing material and product oriented Web content. Other types of content should be translated as soon as they are written, such as bug fixes, FAQs and knowledge base articles, in order to save on ongoing support costs for known issues.
3. Don’t forget about search
When updating Web content, think about how users will find that information if they speak another language. Search is how most people will find information, so keep in mind that content needs to be translated to make it searchable in a visitor’s native language. Some sites pre-publish all translated content to make it visible to search engines, others don’t. Companies that don’t translate content up front are subjecting their site to an unreliable user experience delivered by a free translation plug-in. In theory, this can work, but remember that free translation sites aren’t trained to understand your brand voice and terminology so there is risk built in when putting translation in the hands of free translation.
4. Maintain control of your brand
Whether you use human translation, post-edit output from translation software or use automated translation, brand and term management is something that is crucial for a growing business. Your company has likely spent a lot of money on its brand, so you don’t want it to be at risk when expanding into new regions. For example, what should your product name be in Chinese or Japanese? How should you describe a particular experience with your product or service in another language?
Identify the brand voice you want to maintain, key product names and references, and company terminology up front so that you know how they should be represented in other languages. Working this out ahead of time also helps any translation project go smoothly and lets you maintain more control of your brand across languages.
5. Use the "NOTRANSLATE" tag
A site owner can control content by ensuring proper tagging of the information. While there are several page-level tags available to exercise this control, the most exciting one was recently added by Google. At the page level, site owners can now add a tag called “NOTRANSLATE.” This tag is interpreted by the crawler as a “do not translate” instruction. By setting the “NOTRANSLATE” tag, you ensure that Google’s automatic translation is not offered as an automatic option to anyone performing a search – especially for those pages or parts of your site where you want to make sure YOU, the site and brand owner, decide what the translation should look like without handing over control of the translation to Google’s algorithms. (My favourite tag of the year, that one!)
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/.
10 Tips On How to Come Across Polite in a Business Email
Here we go, thanks to One Hour Translations
1.Use the recipient’s correct title.
2. Use the correct greeting.
3. Introduce your company and yourself.
4. Write short, simple sentences. (This could backfire, though. Not all cultures respect simplicity as clarity)
5. Avoid idioms and slang language.
6. Do not refuse requests directly, and avoid criticism in emails or letters.
7. End your letters and emails properly.
8. Where possible, send the letter or email in the recipient’s native language. This shows that you respect and care for their language and culture. Using the recipient’s native language will usually be accepted very positively and will usually reduce cultural gaps or potential misunderstandings.
9. Use only native-speaking translators. The recipient will know immediately if the translator is not a native speaker of his or her target language. Avoid using machine translation (like Google Translate or Yahoo’s Babel Fish): automatic translation is still very far from producing an acceptable result. In many cases, it can completely distort the original meaning. (Sorry, had to copy this in its entirety)
10. If possible, use an independent proofreader who is also a native speaker of the target language: two pairs of eyes are always better than one. The proofreader can review the style, fix any typos and ensure the translation is perfect.
8-10 will cost you money. But it will cost you more if you offend your client.
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/.
1.Use the recipient’s correct title.
2. Use the correct greeting.
3. Introduce your company and yourself.
4. Write short, simple sentences. (This could backfire, though. Not all cultures respect simplicity as clarity)
5. Avoid idioms and slang language.
6. Do not refuse requests directly, and avoid criticism in emails or letters.
7. End your letters and emails properly.
8. Where possible, send the letter or email in the recipient’s native language. This shows that you respect and care for their language and culture. Using the recipient’s native language will usually be accepted very positively and will usually reduce cultural gaps or potential misunderstandings.
9. Use only native-speaking translators. The recipient will know immediately if the translator is not a native speaker of his or her target language. Avoid using machine translation (like Google Translate or Yahoo’s Babel Fish): automatic translation is still very far from producing an acceptable result. In many cases, it can completely distort the original meaning. (Sorry, had to copy this in its entirety)
10. If possible, use an independent proofreader who is also a native speaker of the target language: two pairs of eyes are always better than one. The proofreader can review the style, fix any typos and ensure the translation is perfect.
8-10 will cost you money. But it will cost you more if you offend your client.
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/.
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
Philadelphia Loves It
Republishing this here so as not to be accussed of bias against the whole of the US - here comes the wobbly health care from Philadelphia, and they are getting their priorities right (although the comments under the article are the same old "must speak English or die" variety).
"Methodist Healthcare System is dismantling the language barrier with a new translation system. A state-of-the-art interpretation service makes communication with anyone from any country easier.
When you are in the hospital, time is of the essence. The last thing you want to worry about is whether the health care professionals can understand you.
“It’s very frustrating if you are trying to take care of a patient and you can’t ascertain the information that you need to make the appropriate choices in their care,” said Pam Dwyer, RN, director of nursing operations.
Methodist is the first hospital system in the southern U.S. to offer this service, a connection to interpreters within 15 seconds of dialing the phone. Hospital personnel dial up an office in Philadelphia where thousands of certified medical interpreters are available to help speed up the question and answer process.
Patients are happy for the help. “They are surprised. They are happy. They feel relief,” explained Tatiana Sultzbach, manager of diversity and inclusion. “And what better way than to be able to communicate your health care issues in the language you prefer.”
Web cams enable deaf interpretation on the spot. Where there used to be delays of an hour or two for language help, that aid is now immediate.
“We love it. We absolutely love it,” stated Dwyer. “It is essential to taking care of our patients in a timely manner.”
“We’re here not only to service the people who speak English, but everybody who needs it,” added Sultzbach.
The top five languages used by Methodist so far are Spanish, Burmese, American Sign Language, Arabic and Swahili."
Funny how the comments on the article do not demand that the deaf become hearing or leave the country. Funny how people born native speakers don't see language deficiency as a disability, but as a national issue to be dealt with. And interesting, too, that when they start griping it is almost always about the Spanish-speakers.
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/.
"Methodist Healthcare System is dismantling the language barrier with a new translation system. A state-of-the-art interpretation service makes communication with anyone from any country easier.
When you are in the hospital, time is of the essence. The last thing you want to worry about is whether the health care professionals can understand you.
“It’s very frustrating if you are trying to take care of a patient and you can’t ascertain the information that you need to make the appropriate choices in their care,” said Pam Dwyer, RN, director of nursing operations.
Methodist is the first hospital system in the southern U.S. to offer this service, a connection to interpreters within 15 seconds of dialing the phone. Hospital personnel dial up an office in Philadelphia where thousands of certified medical interpreters are available to help speed up the question and answer process.
Patients are happy for the help. “They are surprised. They are happy. They feel relief,” explained Tatiana Sultzbach, manager of diversity and inclusion. “And what better way than to be able to communicate your health care issues in the language you prefer.”
Web cams enable deaf interpretation on the spot. Where there used to be delays of an hour or two for language help, that aid is now immediate.
“We love it. We absolutely love it,” stated Dwyer. “It is essential to taking care of our patients in a timely manner.”
“We’re here not only to service the people who speak English, but everybody who needs it,” added Sultzbach.
The top five languages used by Methodist so far are Spanish, Burmese, American Sign Language, Arabic and Swahili."
Funny how the comments on the article do not demand that the deaf become hearing or leave the country. Funny how people born native speakers don't see language deficiency as a disability, but as a national issue to be dealt with. And interesting, too, that when they start griping it is almost always about the Spanish-speakers.
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/.
Monday, January 11, 2010
The Ressurection of Ajami
Not a surname, no. It is a script. A few thousand years old. Looks like Arabic, but isn't. Writing in West Africa in Ajami began in the 17th century, increased in the 18th and 19th centuries and continued into the 20th. Since the languages involved have phonetic systems different from Arabic, there has often been modification of the Arabic script to transcribe them (a process not unlike what has been done with the Arabic script in non-Arabic speaking countries of the Middle East and with the Latin alphabet also in Africa.
This traditional Ajami script never died out although it has become greatly overshadowed by Romanized script. It suffered at the hands of zelous missionaries who saw in Romanization the path of "Mohammedan progress" (a bit like Ataturk, minus the nationalist sympathies).
Now the Senegal-born linguistics professor Fallou Ngom, director of the African Languages Program at Boston University, is is training the first generation of American scholars capable of reading Ajami.
Ngom is aware that Ajami script had been widely used across Africa for day-to-day writing in a dozen languages, and those writings had been largely overlooked in the official story of the continent - in part because so few historians could read them. What Ngom hopes is nothing less than to lay the groundwork for a reinterpretation of much of African history, using this widespread but little understood writing system to unearth new information about the daily life of Africans, the spread of Islam, the continent’s literary traditions, the Atlantic slave trade, and who knows what else.
This despite objections from other African scholars that the script was used primarily to record everyday, local concerns such as business deals and cultural practices, and is unlikely to be the source of significant new revelations.
The study of Africa’s history, particularly the region below the Sahara Desert, has traditionally reflected not only the biases of its historians, but also the limits of the written sources available to them. Official African documents tend to be in the languages of the outsiders who held power - either the Arab invaders who began arriving on the continent in the seventh century, or the Europeans who colonized it starting about a millennium later. These outsiders were there to convert the locals, trade them as slaves, and mine their natural resources, and colonial writings helped justify those commercial and religious interests, portraying sub-Sahara Africa as lacking literacy, history, and civilization. What little is known about Ajami texts is reason enough to push deeper. To study Ajami, as Ngom sees it, is to open the door to a different side of Africa, unlocking an oral tradition widely assumed to have vanished with its speakers, and offering an important corrective to the way Africa’s story has been told.
More information can be found here.
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/.
This traditional Ajami script never died out although it has become greatly overshadowed by Romanized script. It suffered at the hands of zelous missionaries who saw in Romanization the path of "Mohammedan progress" (a bit like Ataturk, minus the nationalist sympathies).
Now the Senegal-born linguistics professor Fallou Ngom, director of the African Languages Program at Boston University, is is training the first generation of American scholars capable of reading Ajami.Ngom is aware that Ajami script had been widely used across Africa for day-to-day writing in a dozen languages, and those writings had been largely overlooked in the official story of the continent - in part because so few historians could read them. What Ngom hopes is nothing less than to lay the groundwork for a reinterpretation of much of African history, using this widespread but little understood writing system to unearth new information about the daily life of Africans, the spread of Islam, the continent’s literary traditions, the Atlantic slave trade, and who knows what else.
This despite objections from other African scholars that the script was used primarily to record everyday, local concerns such as business deals and cultural practices, and is unlikely to be the source of significant new revelations.
The study of Africa’s history, particularly the region below the Sahara Desert, has traditionally reflected not only the biases of its historians, but also the limits of the written sources available to them. Official African documents tend to be in the languages of the outsiders who held power - either the Arab invaders who began arriving on the continent in the seventh century, or the Europeans who colonized it starting about a millennium later. These outsiders were there to convert the locals, trade them as slaves, and mine their natural resources, and colonial writings helped justify those commercial and religious interests, portraying sub-Sahara Africa as lacking literacy, history, and civilization. What little is known about Ajami texts is reason enough to push deeper. To study Ajami, as Ngom sees it, is to open the door to a different side of Africa, unlocking an oral tradition widely assumed to have vanished with its speakers, and offering an important corrective to the way Africa’s story has been told.
More information can be found here.
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/.
Translation Prizes Go to Titles, Not Translators
The British Times article on the 10th talks about the August Schlegel and Ludwig Tieck prizes for Translation, presented by the Times Literary Supplement’s Translation Prizes:
"The translators of seven books published in English last year, each out of a different language, will be honoured. The paradox of their work is that successful translators pass unnoticed. A good English translation will read as if the book were written in English in the first place. A translation that is clumsy or stilted will scream its presence."
"Among this year’s award-winners, The Accordionist’s Son by Bernardo Atxaga, translated from Spanish by Margaret Jull Costa, dramatises the Basque country after the Spanish Civil War. The novella Burning Secret by Stefan Zweig, translated from the German by Anthea Bell, is one in a series of recent translations of the work of an outstanding 20th-century writer. An Austrian Jew who committed suicide in exile in 1942, his library in Salzburg having been razed by the Nazis, Zweig is revered in France as well as Germany and Austria. Yet he is unjustly barely known among English readers."
Well, well.. Many excellent writers are unjustly barely known in the English world, because the English world is not interested of poking its nose into the realms of others, whereas it pushes its own literary and not so literary works (Why is Stephen King translated??) into any other language where the populace is silly enough to want to fork money for it.
This weekend, Brisbane is hosting yet another Bookfest - the world's largest fundraising second-hand book sale. It has been my habit to attend each and every and look for books translated into English from other languages. They open a more interesting world to me than reading the local same-thing, same-thing porridge. The reason why it is quite easy to find them is that local libraries get rid of them very quickly on the basis that they are not being borrowed by the public. Suits me!
"The translators of seven books published in English last year, each out of a different language, will be honoured. The paradox of their work is that successful translators pass unnoticed. A good English translation will read as if the book were written in English in the first place. A translation that is clumsy or stilted will scream its presence."
"Among this year’s award-winners, The Accordionist’s Son by Bernardo Atxaga, translated from Spanish by Margaret Jull Costa, dramatises the Basque country after the Spanish Civil War. The novella Burning Secret by Stefan Zweig, translated from the German by Anthea Bell, is one in a series of recent translations of the work of an outstanding 20th-century writer. An Austrian Jew who committed suicide in exile in 1942, his library in Salzburg having been razed by the Nazis, Zweig is revered in France as well as Germany and Austria. Yet he is unjustly barely known among English readers."Well, well.. Many excellent writers are unjustly barely known in the English world, because the English world is not interested of poking its nose into the realms of others, whereas it pushes its own literary and not so literary works (Why is Stephen King translated??) into any other language where the populace is silly enough to want to fork money for it.
This weekend, Brisbane is hosting yet another Bookfest - the world's largest fundraising second-hand book sale. It has been my habit to attend each and every and look for books translated into English from other languages. They open a more interesting world to me than reading the local same-thing, same-thing porridge. The reason why it is quite easy to find them is that local libraries get rid of them very quickly on the basis that they are not being borrowed by the public. Suits me!
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/.
.. and why should you learn English?
Just as an addendum to the previous post on the need to master Arabic before you attempt English (if you are an Arab, that is), here we go - this time from Bahrain:
"Give me job. I am graduate." Probably the shortest job application I have ever received. It arrived on my desk at the GDN some years ago, on a torn piece of paper. The applicant remembered to put a stamp on the envelope, but forgot to include his own address - not that we would have been interested anyway in interviewing someone so devoid of the basics.
This may be an extreme example, but it was no surprise to me to read that 60 per cent of graduate job-seekers in Bahrain emerge from university with poor English language skills.
Why should Bahrainis have to learn English to get a job in their own country, you may ask and I would have to agree that it is galling - but it is also a reality. The Arab language may be complex and its script beautiful, but it is not an international language and in this global village businesses must be able to communicate at home and abroad. The most commonly used language in international communications, certainly in business and banking, is English. Some may resent this but it is also an inescapable reality. Bahrain is also a cosmopolitan community, home to people of many nationalities and, once again, the common language between them is English.
So for Bahrainis looking for work, whether it is serving petrol at the pumps, or making and breaking fortunes in the dealing room, a good command of the English language is not just an advantage, it is a necessity. The government has recognised this and has introduced the teaching of English at a much earlier stage in its national schools, to give children a better start and to improve their chances of good careers later in life. That so many university graduates are emerging with only their own language at their command is a serious flaw, in a country seeking to propagate a knowledge-based economy.
It may not be fair, but this is a small country and those who speak only its native language will have limited futures ahead of them. That does not mean that the Arabic language should be sacrificed, far from it. It embodies the national character and heritage and should remain in everyday use.
But a business that cannot communicate with the outside world will fail and they know that, which is why young Bahrainis who can speak, read and write English will always be at the front in the jobs queue.
The writer? A certain Mr. Horton. Yes, you guessed right - a monolingual. English. Yes, yes, I know...The sad thing is that they actually published this in an English Gulf daily :-(
Appaling this patronising prescription that the Arabic should "embodies the national character and heritage and should remain in everyday use", while English "should be used for business and academic endevour". It is a prescription for the death of Arabic, which - unless it becomes involved in business and academia, will atrophy and stop evolving. We are already having problems in translating science, with many of the newer generation opting simply to transliterate from English, while the Arabic Language Forum in Egypt is asleep. Arabic was once rich in scientific language, richer than Latin and Greek, but these "archaic" terms are forgotten by the Internet and SMS generation of Arabs bred and raised on ART and Haifa Wahbe. So the blame is not totally on Horton Bek. He is just socialised into neo-colonialism :-D The real blame is on those who allow their language and culture to be relegated, in their own countries, to "everyday use".
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/.
"Give me job. I am graduate." Probably the shortest job application I have ever received. It arrived on my desk at the GDN some years ago, on a torn piece of paper. The applicant remembered to put a stamp on the envelope, but forgot to include his own address - not that we would have been interested anyway in interviewing someone so devoid of the basics.
This may be an extreme example, but it was no surprise to me to read that 60 per cent of graduate job-seekers in Bahrain emerge from university with poor English language skills.
Why should Bahrainis have to learn English to get a job in their own country, you may ask and I would have to agree that it is galling - but it is also a reality. The Arab language may be complex and its script beautiful, but it is not an international language and in this global village businesses must be able to communicate at home and abroad. The most commonly used language in international communications, certainly in business and banking, is English. Some may resent this but it is also an inescapable reality. Bahrain is also a cosmopolitan community, home to people of many nationalities and, once again, the common language between them is English.
So for Bahrainis looking for work, whether it is serving petrol at the pumps, or making and breaking fortunes in the dealing room, a good command of the English language is not just an advantage, it is a necessity. The government has recognised this and has introduced the teaching of English at a much earlier stage in its national schools, to give children a better start and to improve their chances of good careers later in life. That so many university graduates are emerging with only their own language at their command is a serious flaw, in a country seeking to propagate a knowledge-based economy.
It may not be fair, but this is a small country and those who speak only its native language will have limited futures ahead of them. That does not mean that the Arabic language should be sacrificed, far from it. It embodies the national character and heritage and should remain in everyday use.
But a business that cannot communicate with the outside world will fail and they know that, which is why young Bahrainis who can speak, read and write English will always be at the front in the jobs queue.
The writer? A certain Mr. Horton. Yes, you guessed right - a monolingual. English. Yes, yes, I know...The sad thing is that they actually published this in an English Gulf daily :-(
Appaling this patronising prescription that the Arabic should "embodies the national character and heritage and should remain in everyday use", while English "should be used for business and academic endevour". It is a prescription for the death of Arabic, which - unless it becomes involved in business and academia, will atrophy and stop evolving. We are already having problems in translating science, with many of the newer generation opting simply to transliterate from English, while the Arabic Language Forum in Egypt is asleep. Arabic was once rich in scientific language, richer than Latin and Greek, but these "archaic" terms are forgotten by the Internet and SMS generation of Arabs bred and raised on ART and Haifa Wahbe. So the blame is not totally on Horton Bek. He is just socialised into neo-colonialism :-D The real blame is on those who allow their language and culture to be relegated, in their own countries, to "everyday use".
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/.
Mastering Native Tongue Helps Mastering Others
English monolinguists, sit up and hear:
“When Arab students do not learn proper Arabic grammar, their English will suffer because they lack a strong linguistic foundation in their mother tongue. By improving their Arabic skills, students will be able to improve their English as well”, says a language expert.
As parents in the Arab world seek bilingual education for their children, they are increasingly opting for schools that educate them in languages such as English or French.
This has resulted in an increase in the number of Arab students fluent in the regional dialect. Such students are becoming less proficient in Modern Standard Arabic (MSA), the accepted form of Arabic used in writing and formal speech. Abbas Al Tonsi, an Arabic professor and expert at the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar (SFS-Qatar), is building an innovative solution to this incongruity.
Al Tonsi and his team were recently awarded a grant by the Qatar National Research Fund (QNRF) to study Arabic language instruction in Qatari schools, and to help identify some of the current shortcomings. The team has proposed a study to explore ways in which the demand for English education is affecting the Arabic language skills of Qatar’s youth, and address the challenge of maintaining strong linguistic skills of native Arabic speakers who spend many of their formative school years in English language schools. Their research will focus on addressing the needs of heritage learners, native Arab students raised in Arab countries who lack formal instruction of MSA.
The first six months of the project will be dedicated to conducting a large field study of the different Arabic language curricula used within Qatar’s school system.
Source:THE PENINSULA
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/.
“When Arab students do not learn proper Arabic grammar, their English will suffer because they lack a strong linguistic foundation in their mother tongue. By improving their Arabic skills, students will be able to improve their English as well”, says a language expert.
As parents in the Arab world seek bilingual education for their children, they are increasingly opting for schools that educate them in languages such as English or French.
This has resulted in an increase in the number of Arab students fluent in the regional dialect. Such students are becoming less proficient in Modern Standard Arabic (MSA), the accepted form of Arabic used in writing and formal speech. Abbas Al Tonsi, an Arabic professor and expert at the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar (SFS-Qatar), is building an innovative solution to this incongruity.
Al Tonsi and his team were recently awarded a grant by the Qatar National Research Fund (QNRF) to study Arabic language instruction in Qatari schools, and to help identify some of the current shortcomings. The team has proposed a study to explore ways in which the demand for English education is affecting the Arabic language skills of Qatar’s youth, and address the challenge of maintaining strong linguistic skills of native Arabic speakers who spend many of their formative school years in English language schools. Their research will focus on addressing the needs of heritage learners, native Arab students raised in Arab countries who lack formal instruction of MSA.
The first six months of the project will be dedicated to conducting a large field study of the different Arabic language curricula used within Qatar’s school system.
Source:THE PENINSULA
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/.
Texas So Poor It Can't Afford Interpreters?
"Police officers arriving at a murder scene at a north side apartment complex could not speak Spanish to the residents, so a cameraman from a local TV station translated until bilingual officers arrived hours later. It is a situation that plays out across Houston several times a week as officers who speak only English rely on wrecker drivers, bystanders or victims' children to act as translators if bilingual officers are not available."
This is not a report from a third world country, or some war-torn conflict zone in the Middle Chaos. This is, ladies and gentlemen, Houston, TX. The state of the guy who was known for being less than mono-lingual, a bit oily, and into world conflicts.
Mooooo...
Makes you wonder if the recession is really so bad in the USA that the Houston Police Department cannot afford hiring professional interpreters (something the Australian Government provides for free in such cases) or whether they are so backwards that they just don't get it. The comments underneath the rather shameful article make me think it is the second.. "Why can't they learn English?" Hey, why can't you learn Vietnamese, Mr. Cowhide?
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/.
This is not a report from a third world country, or some war-torn conflict zone in the Middle Chaos. This is, ladies and gentlemen, Houston, TX. The state of the guy who was known for being less than mono-lingual, a bit oily, and into world conflicts.
Mooooo...
Makes you wonder if the recession is really so bad in the USA that the Houston Police Department cannot afford hiring professional interpreters (something the Australian Government provides for free in such cases) or whether they are so backwards that they just don't get it. The comments underneath the rather shameful article make me think it is the second.. "Why can't they learn English?" Hey, why can't you learn Vietnamese, Mr. Cowhide?
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/.
Google Legal Dictionary Available
From the Law Librarian Blog
Google has invaded the legal world in yet one more way. It now offers a dictionary which includes legal terms. It's not exactly going to challenge Black's for authority or definitions, but it seems to have some value. Search for res ipsa loquitur and there will be a set of results that define and link to further information. Random comparisons with Black's entries show nothing for fettering of property, and feorme, but definitions for terms such as feoffment, food safety and inspection service, and Hatch Act certainly appear.
As for the Anglo-Saxon term feorme, which is a portion of the land's produce owed by the grantee to the terms according to the terms of the charter (Do I owe West any money for reproducing that?), a general Google search will bring up some results in context. The site also features and English to 28 language term translator, and language to English service. The page is not linked from any of the Google Menus, but can be found here or by searching Google dictionary in the main search page.
Be aware, all of the examples in the addendum are not actually from Google's new dictionary. Instead, they are a different view of the same information you would see if you put the phrase [define: removal action] in the regular google search box. They are just "web definitions" available from reputable or obscure websites alike. To see what Google's new dictionary looks like, try a non-law word, like ennui . Compare that with removal action. With ennui, we see the parts of speech, definition, etc., with web definitions below and removal action is only web definitions.
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/.
Google has invaded the legal world in yet one more way. It now offers a dictionary which includes legal terms. It's not exactly going to challenge Black's for authority or definitions, but it seems to have some value. Search for res ipsa loquitur and there will be a set of results that define and link to further information. Random comparisons with Black's entries show nothing for fettering of property, and feorme, but definitions for terms such as feoffment, food safety and inspection service, and Hatch Act certainly appear.
As for the Anglo-Saxon term feorme, which is a portion of the land's produce owed by the grantee to the terms according to the terms of the charter (Do I owe West any money for reproducing that?), a general Google search will bring up some results in context. The site also features and English to 28 language term translator, and language to English service. The page is not linked from any of the Google Menus, but can be found here or by searching Google dictionary in the main search page.
Be aware, all of the examples in the addendum are not actually from Google's new dictionary. Instead, they are a different view of the same information you would see if you put the phrase [define: removal action] in the regular google search box. They are just "web definitions" available from reputable or obscure websites alike. To see what Google's new dictionary looks like, try a non-law word, like ennui . Compare that with removal action. With ennui, we see the parts of speech, definition, etc., with web definitions below and removal action is only web definitions.
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/.
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/.
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/.
Dow Jones has a new translation gadget
From VIP Live Wire
Dow Jones Factiva has launched the beta version of a new translation tool. It uses technology from Language Weaver, and as with other automated translation systems, the results are mixed. However, this free service gives a general indication of meaning and will thus open a significant volume of international content to business researchers.
VIP readers will already be aware of the various free online tools for translating text and web pages, including Yahoo's Babelfish and Google Translate. They are useful for getting the sense of source material but still no match for the human translator.
Factiva's tool is a welcome addition, being an integral part of the system, thus saving the researcher time. It allows articles to be machine-translated from seven languages (Spanish, French, Italian, German, Russian, Chinese Traditional, and Chinese Simple) into English as well as English into the same languages. Translation between these languages (i.e., French to Spanish) is not available as yet.
Not all content is available for translation. The Factiva announcement states that 5,800 sources from approximately 360 information providers are currently available including Dow Jones, Interfax, N.C.N. Limited of Xinhua News Agency, Russica-Izvestia Information, South American Business Information and Newsquest Digital Media.
Clicking the Translate Article icon above available articles shows the languages options in a pop-up box. A new window opens to display the translation. At the moment there is no indication from the headings list whether an article can be translated, so users need to open the full article to find out. Changing this would be a useful modification.
Translation programmes are based on different approaches and systems – Babelfish uses SYSTRAN, and Google and Language Weaver have both developed statistically based technology. Looking at some German language examples (into and from English), Factiva's Language Weaver translation gave the gist, but had some difficulties. Users with a high need for such tools may want to compare Babelfish, Google Translate and Language Weaver to see which best fits their needs for international business news.
One should always turn to a professional human translator for mission critical information in a foreign language, however, for those of us who regularly research international markets, free online translation has been an important tool for quickly accessing content. Despite the mixed results, the results can provide key clues for further research. Even Factiva has this warning in place:
"The content of this translation is generated by way of automated translation software and is no substitute for a professional human translator. Only the text from the Dow Jones Factiva service is translated; additional web sources and links to the Internet are not translated as a part of this service. Dow Jones does not take responsibility for the accuracy, reliability or completeness of this translation and the results of this translation are “as is.” Dow Jones makes no representations or warranties of any kind with respect to the translation on this site or its contents and disclaims any liability, loss or damages suffered based on the user’s reliance of any kind or for any purpose with respect to the content of this translation."
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/.
Dow Jones Factiva has launched the beta version of a new translation tool. It uses technology from Language Weaver, and as with other automated translation systems, the results are mixed. However, this free service gives a general indication of meaning and will thus open a significant volume of international content to business researchers.
VIP readers will already be aware of the various free online tools for translating text and web pages, including Yahoo's Babelfish and Google Translate. They are useful for getting the sense of source material but still no match for the human translator.
Factiva's tool is a welcome addition, being an integral part of the system, thus saving the researcher time. It allows articles to be machine-translated from seven languages (Spanish, French, Italian, German, Russian, Chinese Traditional, and Chinese Simple) into English as well as English into the same languages. Translation between these languages (i.e., French to Spanish) is not available as yet.
Not all content is available for translation. The Factiva announcement states that 5,800 sources from approximately 360 information providers are currently available including Dow Jones, Interfax, N.C.N. Limited of Xinhua News Agency, Russica-Izvestia Information, South American Business Information and Newsquest Digital Media.
Clicking the Translate Article icon above available articles shows the languages options in a pop-up box. A new window opens to display the translation. At the moment there is no indication from the headings list whether an article can be translated, so users need to open the full article to find out. Changing this would be a useful modification.
Translation programmes are based on different approaches and systems – Babelfish uses SYSTRAN, and Google and Language Weaver have both developed statistically based technology. Looking at some German language examples (into and from English), Factiva's Language Weaver translation gave the gist, but had some difficulties. Users with a high need for such tools may want to compare Babelfish, Google Translate and Language Weaver to see which best fits their needs for international business news.
One should always turn to a professional human translator for mission critical information in a foreign language, however, for those of us who regularly research international markets, free online translation has been an important tool for quickly accessing content. Despite the mixed results, the results can provide key clues for further research. Even Factiva has this warning in place:
"The content of this translation is generated by way of automated translation software and is no substitute for a professional human translator. Only the text from the Dow Jones Factiva service is translated; additional web sources and links to the Internet are not translated as a part of this service. Dow Jones does not take responsibility for the accuracy, reliability or completeness of this translation and the results of this translation are “as is.” Dow Jones makes no representations or warranties of any kind with respect to the translation on this site or its contents and disclaims any liability, loss or damages suffered based on the user’s reliance of any kind or for any purpose with respect to the content of this translation."
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/.
Biblical Script from 10C BC translated
From University of Haifa
A breakthrough in the research of the Hebrew scriptures has shed new light on the period in which the Bible was written. Prof. Gershon Galil of the Department of Biblical Studies at the University of Haifa has deciphered an inscription dating from the 10th century BCE (the period of King David’s reign), and has shown that this is a Hebrew inscription. The discovery makes this the earliest known Hebrew writing. The significance of this breakthrough relates to the fact that at least some of the biblical scriptures were composed hundreds of years before the dates presented today in research and that the Kingdom of Israel already existed at that time.
The inscription itself, which was written in ink on a 15 cm X 16.5 cm trapezoid pottery shard, was discovered a year and a half ago at excavations that were carried out by Prof. Yosef Garfinkel at Khirbet Qeiyafa near the Elah valley. The inscription was dated back to the 10th century BCE, which was the period of King David’s reign, but the question of the language used in this inscription remained unanswered, making it impossible to prove whether it was in fact Hebrew or another local language.
Prof. Galil’s deciphering of the ancient writing testifies to its being Hebrew, based on the use of verbs particular to the Hebrew language, and content specific to Hebrew culture and not adopted by any other cultures in the region. “This text is a social statement, relating to slaves, widows and orphans. It uses verbs that were characteristic of Hebrew, such as asah (”did”) and avad (”worked”), which were rarely used in other regional languages. Particular words that appear in the text, such as almanah (”widow”) are specific to Hebrew and are written differently in other local languages. The content itself was also unfamiliar to all the cultures in the region besides the Hebrew society: The present inscription provides social elements similar to those found in the biblical prophecies and very different from prophecies written by other cultures postulating glorification of the gods and taking care of their physical needs,” Prof. Galil explains.
He adds that once this deciphering is received, the inscription will become the earliest Hebrew inscription to be found, testifying to Hebrew writing abilities as early as the 10th century BCE. This stands opposed to the dating of the composition of the Bible in current research, which would not have recognized the possibility that the Bible or parts of it could have been written during this ancient period.
Prof. Galil also notes that the inscription was discovered in a provincial town in Judea. He explains that if there were scribes in the periphery, it can be assumed that those inhabiting the central region and Jerusalem were even more proficient writers. “It can now be maintained that it was highly reasonable that during the 10th century BCE, during the reign of King David, there were scribes in Israel who were able to write literary texts and complex historiographies such as the books of Judges and Samuel.” He adds that the complexity of the text discovered in Khirbet Qeiyafa, along with the impressive fortifications revealed at the site, refute the claims denying the existence of the Kingdom of Israel at that time.
The contents of the text express social sensitivity to the fragile position of weaker members of society. The inscription testifies to the presence of strangers within the Israeli society as far back as this ancient period, and calls to provide support for these strangers. It appeals to care for the widows and orphans and that the king - who at that time had the responsibility of curbing social inequality - be involved. This inscription is similar in its content to biblical scriptures (Isaiah 1:17, Psalms 72:3, Exodus 23:3, and others), but it is clear that it is not copied from any biblical text.
The deciphered text:
Hebrew transliteration:
[.......................................]
1′ ‘l t‘Å w‘bd ‘[t .......]
2′ Å”pt [‘]b[d] w’lm[n] Å”pt yt[m]
3′ [w]gr [r]b ‘ll rb [d]l w
4′ ‘[l]mn Å”qm ybd mlk
5′ ‘[b]yn [w]‘bd Å”k gr t[mk]
English translation:
[............................................................]
1′ you shall not do [it], but worship the [Lord].
2′ Judge the sla[ve] and the wid[ow] / Judge the orph[an]
3′ [and] the stranger. [Pl]ead for the infant / plead for the po[or and]
4′ the widow. Rehabilitate [the poor] at the hands of the king.
5′ Protect the po[or and] the slave / [supp]ort the stranger.
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/.
A breakthrough in the research of the Hebrew scriptures has shed new light on the period in which the Bible was written. Prof. Gershon Galil of the Department of Biblical Studies at the University of Haifa has deciphered an inscription dating from the 10th century BCE (the period of King David’s reign), and has shown that this is a Hebrew inscription. The discovery makes this the earliest known Hebrew writing. The significance of this breakthrough relates to the fact that at least some of the biblical scriptures were composed hundreds of years before the dates presented today in research and that the Kingdom of Israel already existed at that time.
The inscription itself, which was written in ink on a 15 cm X 16.5 cm trapezoid pottery shard, was discovered a year and a half ago at excavations that were carried out by Prof. Yosef Garfinkel at Khirbet Qeiyafa near the Elah valley. The inscription was dated back to the 10th century BCE, which was the period of King David’s reign, but the question of the language used in this inscription remained unanswered, making it impossible to prove whether it was in fact Hebrew or another local language.
Prof. Galil’s deciphering of the ancient writing testifies to its being Hebrew, based on the use of verbs particular to the Hebrew language, and content specific to Hebrew culture and not adopted by any other cultures in the region. “This text is a social statement, relating to slaves, widows and orphans. It uses verbs that were characteristic of Hebrew, such as asah (”did”) and avad (”worked”), which were rarely used in other regional languages. Particular words that appear in the text, such as almanah (”widow”) are specific to Hebrew and are written differently in other local languages. The content itself was also unfamiliar to all the cultures in the region besides the Hebrew society: The present inscription provides social elements similar to those found in the biblical prophecies and very different from prophecies written by other cultures postulating glorification of the gods and taking care of their physical needs,” Prof. Galil explains.
He adds that once this deciphering is received, the inscription will become the earliest Hebrew inscription to be found, testifying to Hebrew writing abilities as early as the 10th century BCE. This stands opposed to the dating of the composition of the Bible in current research, which would not have recognized the possibility that the Bible or parts of it could have been written during this ancient period.
Prof. Galil also notes that the inscription was discovered in a provincial town in Judea. He explains that if there were scribes in the periphery, it can be assumed that those inhabiting the central region and Jerusalem were even more proficient writers. “It can now be maintained that it was highly reasonable that during the 10th century BCE, during the reign of King David, there were scribes in Israel who were able to write literary texts and complex historiographies such as the books of Judges and Samuel.” He adds that the complexity of the text discovered in Khirbet Qeiyafa, along with the impressive fortifications revealed at the site, refute the claims denying the existence of the Kingdom of Israel at that time.
The contents of the text express social sensitivity to the fragile position of weaker members of society. The inscription testifies to the presence of strangers within the Israeli society as far back as this ancient period, and calls to provide support for these strangers. It appeals to care for the widows and orphans and that the king - who at that time had the responsibility of curbing social inequality - be involved. This inscription is similar in its content to biblical scriptures (Isaiah 1:17, Psalms 72:3, Exodus 23:3, and others), but it is clear that it is not copied from any biblical text.
The deciphered text:
Hebrew transliteration:
[.......................................]
1′ ‘l t‘Å w‘bd ‘[t .......]
2′ Å”pt [‘]b[d] w’lm[n] Å”pt yt[m]
3′ [w]gr [r]b ‘ll rb [d]l w
4′ ‘[l]mn Å”qm ybd mlk
5′ ‘[b]yn [w]‘bd Å”k gr t[mk]
English translation:
[............................................................]
1′ you shall not do [it], but worship the [Lord].
2′ Judge the sla[ve] and the wid[ow] / Judge the orph[an]
3′ [and] the stranger. [Pl]ead for the infant / plead for the po[or and]
4′ the widow. Rehabilitate [the poor] at the hands of the king.
5′ Protect the po[or and] the slave / [supp]ort the stranger.
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/.
Sick of PDF files you need to translate?
Here is a tip from the Globalisation Group:
If you did not create the original file, you may need some additional help locating it. Here is a tip to help identify the format of the original file and its location. In the PDF, press Ctrl+D or go to "File">"Properties..." and read the "Description" tab.
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/.
Several fields in this tab can be prove useful. As highlighted in the above image, the source file format may be revealed by the "Title" (name or file extension), "Application," or "PDF Producer" fields. The file may have been created by Word, Excel, PowerPoint, InDesign, Illustrator, Frame Maker, Quark, or any number of applications. Also, clues to the location of the original file may be revealed in the "Author" or (rarely) the "Location" fields. The properties are not guaranteed to include the information you need 100% of the time, but more often than not, they will at least point you in the right direction.
If the PDF file is actually a scanned image, then hopefully the properties will give you a clue as to which scanner was used. Then you'll need to contact the individual who scanned the file to identify whether or not an editable electronic version exists so that you can take advantage of the many benefits listed above.
Alternatively, if the PDF is a scanned image, you can use OCR software such as OmniPage, or ABBY, and then convert the file to a Word document. Be careful though: MS Word files converted from PDFs have been known to drive CAT tools up the garden path.
You can get these nifty tips from the Globalisation Group by subscribing to their newsletter.
If you did not create the original file, you may need some additional help locating it. Here is a tip to help identify the format of the original file and its location. In the PDF, press Ctrl+D or go to "File">"Properties..." and read the "Description" tab.
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/.
Several fields in this tab can be prove useful. As highlighted in the above image, the source file format may be revealed by the "Title" (name or file extension), "Application," or "PDF Producer" fields. The file may have been created by Word, Excel, PowerPoint, InDesign, Illustrator, Frame Maker, Quark, or any number of applications. Also, clues to the location of the original file may be revealed in the "Author" or (rarely) the "Location" fields. The properties are not guaranteed to include the information you need 100% of the time, but more often than not, they will at least point you in the right direction.
If the PDF file is actually a scanned image, then hopefully the properties will give you a clue as to which scanner was used. Then you'll need to contact the individual who scanned the file to identify whether or not an editable electronic version exists so that you can take advantage of the many benefits listed above.
Alternatively, if the PDF is a scanned image, you can use OCR software such as OmniPage, or ABBY, and then convert the file to a Word document. Be careful though: MS Word files converted from PDFs have been known to drive CAT tools up the garden path.
You can get these nifty tips from the Globalisation Group by subscribing to their newsletter.
Thursday, January 07, 2010
nFluent in gibberish?
These are my comments on the CNN feature about IBM's attempt to create an "instantaneous translation" gadget.
(a) I hate scientific reductionism and the bruhaha of "technology can do all". It can't. Technology cannot bring you back from the dead, cure you of cancer, make someone fall in love with you, make your kid brighter - or suddenly translate fluently into a score of languages.
(b) "We have a web page interface, where you type in a URL and it automatically translates the web page for you (...) "We also have an app that you can put on a web page and when users arrive... they can pull down a menu and change the language. "The ability to translate URLs is something that our customers love a lot, because once you translate the page, you can click on all the links and suddenly you are exploring the foreign language web as an English speaker." As a native English-language speaker, I find web pages written/translated into poor English annoying, disrespectful and not generating trust in the business/person behind it. Same, I assume, applies to any native speaker of languages X, Y or Z. I don't just want to get an idea about what's there. I want to enjoy the cleverness of the writer. I want to be sure I understand what the writer means - the idioms, the metaphor, the innuendo, the sarcasm and the stuff between the lines.
(c)"n.Fluent" began in 2006 as one of 10 innovations sponsored by IBM's chairman Samuel J. Palmisano. The company decided that the language barrier was a key issue, both for global businesses and companies with clients worldwide and so resolved to find ways of addressing the problem." More BS. Language is only one aspect of the many problems. I can learn to speak fluent Japanese in a vacuum, and it will not make me a good communicator with the Japanese. There are things such as cultural issues, perceptions, beliefs, unforgotten histories, economic inequalities, etc. that affect your way of penetrating a foreign market. Language is not actually the biggest of these issues.
(d)"Google are currently working on a tool that will translate not only web pages -- but web searches as well (...) Imagine what it would be like if there was a tool built into the search engine which translated my search query into every language and then searched the entire world's web sites." Awful, that what! I get enough gibberish when I do searches in English, and I have two other languages I am fluent in that I can do the same search in. Using the "Advanced Search" on Google already allows me to find websites with my favourite words in specific languages. At least here I have the choice to filter - badly, since my Arabic pulls down more Farsi websites than Arabic anyway. Imagine what it would be like if you were now getting million more hits because your search phrase is mistranslated in another language: "spirit" becomes "soul" instead of "alcohol". Or "balls" become.. you get the gist, right?
(e)"..the Tele Scouter will mean conversations won't get lost in translation. Unveiled last November the device is a set of headsets and glasses that can automatically translate spoken words and display them on a tiny retinal display." Oh, imagine a specialist telling his dying patient who does not speak English that there is nothing more they can do.. through this Tele Scouter, hanging over one eye, obliterating the patient and relegating him to some exotic item on the hospital bed. Or imagine a lover declaiming his poem in in Arabic to his new British girlfriend.. "Oh my gazelle, your oranges are like a full moon .. oh, my eye, oh, my night.. and sorry I can't look into your beautiful blue eyes because I need to squint into my Tele Scouter." Give me a break, mate!
(f) "Vernacular and jargon can be particularly problematic for translation software, so "n.Fluent" has been designed to learn from its mistakes and pick up specific terms used within IBM. To do this the project has been opened up to all 400,000 staff working for IBM around the world, and uses this "crowd sourcing" to access their expertise to feedback on the project. Over a two-week period in October last year IBM launched a "worldwide translation challenge" to its workforce, which resulted in two million words of text being translated. Incentives in the form of charitable donations and other prizes were offered to staff who took part." And how many of these 400,000 staff - mostly new grads - are linguistically aware of the subtleties of vernacular and jargon in two languages to be able to correct the language? Or is it basically "open to interpretation", where "God, she hit me hard" can be both "she assaulted me" and "I am madly in love with her"? And what happens when this vernacular, a living, breathing, pulsating creature, changes?
Now, the crux of the matter:
(g)"Rapid, accurate translation of such literature published online can deflect calls from call centers, and bring significant savings." When our Dell (or rather Dill) laptop started behaving badly (and it does it religiously), we phoned the Australian Tech Support Centre. The call was deflected to India (nothing unusual). India has a rather poor telecommunication infrastructure, and it was the monsoon season, so we heard crackling and distant moaning (must have been the operator drowning), but at least there was a human being you could vent your spleen on at the other end. Now we will be getting little pop-ups telling you in gibberish English (or another language) that your problem cannot be solved due to a SQL database problem on the website. Contact us for a solution. Oooops, another gibberish pop-up, still a SQL database problem. Enjoy! Don't pull too hard on your hair, it won't regrow.
"Whoever wins the fight for market share, be it IBM, Google or others hoping to close the language divide, advanced translation software looks set to make a huge splash and businesses should get ready: it looks like the world may be about to shrink yet again." The world won't shrink. That's against natural laws. But our brains surely will!
(a) I hate scientific reductionism and the bruhaha of "technology can do all". It can't. Technology cannot bring you back from the dead, cure you of cancer, make someone fall in love with you, make your kid brighter - or suddenly translate fluently into a score of languages.
(b) "We have a web page interface, where you type in a URL and it automatically translates the web page for you (...) "We also have an app that you can put on a web page and when users arrive... they can pull down a menu and change the language. "The ability to translate URLs is something that our customers love a lot, because once you translate the page, you can click on all the links and suddenly you are exploring the foreign language web as an English speaker." As a native English-language speaker, I find web pages written/translated into poor English annoying, disrespectful and not generating trust in the business/person behind it. Same, I assume, applies to any native speaker of languages X, Y or Z. I don't just want to get an idea about what's there. I want to enjoy the cleverness of the writer. I want to be sure I understand what the writer means - the idioms, the metaphor, the innuendo, the sarcasm and the stuff between the lines.
(c)"n.Fluent" began in 2006 as one of 10 innovations sponsored by IBM's chairman Samuel J. Palmisano. The company decided that the language barrier was a key issue, both for global businesses and companies with clients worldwide and so resolved to find ways of addressing the problem." More BS. Language is only one aspect of the many problems. I can learn to speak fluent Japanese in a vacuum, and it will not make me a good communicator with the Japanese. There are things such as cultural issues, perceptions, beliefs, unforgotten histories, economic inequalities, etc. that affect your way of penetrating a foreign market. Language is not actually the biggest of these issues.
(d)"Google are currently working on a tool that will translate not only web pages -- but web searches as well (...) Imagine what it would be like if there was a tool built into the search engine which translated my search query into every language and then searched the entire world's web sites." Awful, that what! I get enough gibberish when I do searches in English, and I have two other languages I am fluent in that I can do the same search in. Using the "Advanced Search" on Google already allows me to find websites with my favourite words in specific languages. At least here I have the choice to filter - badly, since my Arabic pulls down more Farsi websites than Arabic anyway. Imagine what it would be like if you were now getting million more hits because your search phrase is mistranslated in another language: "spirit" becomes "soul" instead of "alcohol". Or "balls" become.. you get the gist, right?
(e)"..the Tele Scouter will mean conversations won't get lost in translation. Unveiled last November the device is a set of headsets and glasses that can automatically translate spoken words and display them on a tiny retinal display." Oh, imagine a specialist telling his dying patient who does not speak English that there is nothing more they can do.. through this Tele Scouter, hanging over one eye, obliterating the patient and relegating him to some exotic item on the hospital bed. Or imagine a lover declaiming his poem in in Arabic to his new British girlfriend.. "Oh my gazelle, your oranges are like a full moon .. oh, my eye, oh, my night.. and sorry I can't look into your beautiful blue eyes because I need to squint into my Tele Scouter." Give me a break, mate!(f) "Vernacular and jargon can be particularly problematic for translation software, so "n.Fluent" has been designed to learn from its mistakes and pick up specific terms used within IBM. To do this the project has been opened up to all 400,000 staff working for IBM around the world, and uses this "crowd sourcing" to access their expertise to feedback on the project. Over a two-week period in October last year IBM launched a "worldwide translation challenge" to its workforce, which resulted in two million words of text being translated. Incentives in the form of charitable donations and other prizes were offered to staff who took part." And how many of these 400,000 staff - mostly new grads - are linguistically aware of the subtleties of vernacular and jargon in two languages to be able to correct the language? Or is it basically "open to interpretation", where "God, she hit me hard" can be both "she assaulted me" and "I am madly in love with her"? And what happens when this vernacular, a living, breathing, pulsating creature, changes?
Now, the crux of the matter:
(g)"Rapid, accurate translation of such literature published online can deflect calls from call centers, and bring significant savings." When our Dell (or rather Dill) laptop started behaving badly (and it does it religiously), we phoned the Australian Tech Support Centre. The call was deflected to India (nothing unusual). India has a rather poor telecommunication infrastructure, and it was the monsoon season, so we heard crackling and distant moaning (must have been the operator drowning), but at least there was a human being you could vent your spleen on at the other end. Now we will be getting little pop-ups telling you in gibberish English (or another language) that your problem cannot be solved due to a SQL database problem on the website. Contact us for a solution. Oooops, another gibberish pop-up, still a SQL database problem. Enjoy! Don't pull too hard on your hair, it won't regrow.
"Whoever wins the fight for market share, be it IBM, Google or others hoping to close the language divide, advanced translation software looks set to make a huge splash and businesses should get ready: it looks like the world may be about to shrink yet again." The world won't shrink. That's against natural laws. But our brains surely will!
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/.
And where was the interpreter??
Good grief!
A Slovakian goal-keeper with no English and a Scottish interviewer with very little brains. It is painful to watch, but it has become an internet hit.
It's not the classic cliche of "lost in translation", but rather one of being "lost without one".
I thought soccer was an international game. Obviously not in Scotland.
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/.
A Slovakian goal-keeper with no English and a Scottish interviewer with very little brains. It is painful to watch, but it has become an internet hit.
It's not the classic cliche of "lost in translation", but rather one of being "lost without one".
I thought soccer was an international game. Obviously not in Scotland.
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/.
From Klingon to Na'avi - the progress of xenolinguistics
Among other topics, the hit movie Avatar has been getting a lot of attention for the constructed language of the inhabitants of its far-away forested land of Pandora. To lend extra authenticity to the Na’vi — the tall, blue-skinned, vaguely feline humanoids living on the distant world of Pandora — Avatar director James Cameron enlisted the help of a linguist to construct a full-fledged language, with its own peculiar phonetics, lexicon and syntax. From the mind of Paul Frommer, a professor at the University of Southern California, was born a language, with mellifluous vowel clusters, popping ejectives and a grammatical system elaborate enough to make a polyglot blush.
Called Na’vi (also the name of its speakers), the language is an example of what’s known as “cinematic xenolinguistics” – a language constructed solely for a film, in the manner of the Klingon language of Star Trek fame. It is now a full linguistic system of 1000+ words.
Last month, New York Times published an article about xenolinguistics, saying that "among discerning science-fiction movie fans expectations are more sophisticated now when it comes to alien tongues," hence the need for such linguistic geeks and nerds as Marc Okrand (the creator of Klingon) and Paul Frommer.
Arika Okrent details how the rise of Klingon has spawned a passionate subculture of fans versed in the Klingon language - from operas to Eminem raps. Cameron is noted to say that Na'avi will outrun Klingon: there is already a corpus of the language on YouTube.
And oh, since I love swearwords in all languages - skxawngs (pronunced, to my humonoid ears, as "skaaun") means "moron"!
Below is a videoclip about the Na'avi language.
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/.
Called Na’vi (also the name of its speakers), the language is an example of what’s known as “cinematic xenolinguistics” – a language constructed solely for a film, in the manner of the Klingon language of Star Trek fame. It is now a full linguistic system of 1000+ words.
Last month, New York Times published an article about xenolinguistics, saying that "among discerning science-fiction movie fans expectations are more sophisticated now when it comes to alien tongues," hence the need for such linguistic geeks and nerds as Marc Okrand (the creator of Klingon) and Paul Frommer.
Arika Okrent details how the rise of Klingon has spawned a passionate subculture of fans versed in the Klingon language - from operas to Eminem raps. Cameron is noted to say that Na'avi will outrun Klingon: there is already a corpus of the language on YouTube.And oh, since I love swearwords in all languages - skxawngs (pronunced, to my humonoid ears, as "skaaun") means "moron"!
Below is a videoclip about the Na'avi language.
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/.
Tuesday, January 05, 2010
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 “Ł Ų« Ł ” which stands for: Ł Ų«ŁŁ Ų£Ł Ł Ų«ŁŁŲ©، Ų«ŁŲ§Ų¦Ł Ų£Ł Ų«ŁŲ§Ų¦ŁŲ©، Ł ŲŖŲŗŲ§ŁŲ± Ų§ŁŲ¬ŁŲ³ 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 Ų“Ų§Ų° Ų£Ł Ų“Ų§Ų°Ų©, 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 exposƩ 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/.
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 exposƩ 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/.
3 Most Common Wrong Opinions about Translators
Alexandra Gamanenko is a senior Ukrainin translator and editor of the Literary Translation Department at Design Studio. I read her entry and thought: it needs to be reproduced, so that more people get to read it.
So here we go:
(1)"Translator" is a profession: Wrong! There is no such thing as “just translator” anymore — almost all translators work in their own niches, translating types of texts they are familiar with in the fields they have at least basic knowledge. Such an approach helps translators ensure the highest quality and save time, both clients’ and their own. That is why a translator, who works with texts on IT or medicine, will refuse to take, say, an article on theoretical physics or a book of nursery rhymes.
In actual fact, the Australian Institute of Interpreters and Translators has a Code of Professional Conduct which bars its members from taking work they are not competent in on ethical grounds.
(2)The only thing a good translator needs is to know well is some foreign language. A bit like saying that all I need to be a dentist is a set of teeth! Knowing a foreign language is important. But so is knowing well the translator's NATIVE language. People assume that if some language is somebody’s mother tongue, they know it well. But there are millions of native speakers who have poor vocabulary and lack speaking or writing skills. People who can’t express their thoughts well enough in their native language will make mediocre translators. Being literate does not make you a Stephen King, does it?
(3) ALL good interpreters and translators can do each other’s work WELL. Sure. Define "well" and "good", please? Translating and interpreting require completely different skills. Of course, there are those who can combine do both jobs equally well, but not everyone. A shy bookworm with a stage fright can make an excellent translator, but never be a good interpreter.
Alexandra promises to write more. I can't wait :-)
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/.
So here we go:
(1)"Translator" is a profession: Wrong! There is no such thing as “just translator” anymore — almost all translators work in their own niches, translating types of texts they are familiar with in the fields they have at least basic knowledge. Such an approach helps translators ensure the highest quality and save time, both clients’ and their own. That is why a translator, who works with texts on IT or medicine, will refuse to take, say, an article on theoretical physics or a book of nursery rhymes.
In actual fact, the Australian Institute of Interpreters and Translators has a Code of Professional Conduct which bars its members from taking work they are not competent in on ethical grounds.
(2)The only thing a good translator needs is to know well is some foreign language. A bit like saying that all I need to be a dentist is a set of teeth! Knowing a foreign language is important. But so is knowing well the translator's NATIVE language. People assume that if some language is somebody’s mother tongue, they know it well. But there are millions of native speakers who have poor vocabulary and lack speaking or writing skills. People who can’t express their thoughts well enough in their native language will make mediocre translators. Being literate does not make you a Stephen King, does it?
(3) ALL good interpreters and translators can do each other’s work WELL. Sure. Define "well" and "good", please? Translating and interpreting require completely different skills. Of course, there are those who can combine do both jobs equally well, but not everyone. A shy bookworm with a stage fright can make an excellent translator, but never be a good interpreter.
Alexandra promises to write more. I can't wait :-)
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/.
Some think of it as Neo-colonialism
I came across this interesting article two days ago a starling proof that when one wants to see something that does not exist, the lack of the thing does not prevent the vision.
The thing that does not exist is an attempt to convert all African Universities into teaching in Arabic. What exists is a conference on teaching Arabic language and culture at some African universities, mostly in those African countries which have a large Muslim minority: Nigeria, Mali, Chad, Cameroon, the Comoros Islands, Tanzania, Ghana, Cote d’Ivoire, Senegal, Benin, Niger, Mauritania and Ethiopia.
And it was merely an academic conference, not even a state policy.
The writer of the article saw it as "an attack on African culture" and "attempt to arabise African education". So let us have a look at this "African education". In which languages is tertiary education provided in these countries? Amharic? Swahili? Hausa? No! In English and French - the languages of the former colonising powers. And whereas the writer states that the conference "sought to subjugate the traditional cultural, scientific, political and spiritual values of indigenous African cultures" and "an attack on a grass root resurgence in moves to reclaim African identity and culture across the Continent", I would dare to mention that "grassroots" don't usually make it to universities in Africa on account of inability to afford the luxury. A bit like in the good old days of Marxism, where the real working class was called derisively lumpen proletariat, the African "grassroots" are too busy getting clean water, anti-malaria and AIDS medication and bread to worry in which language the middle classes will get their education.
Besides, I don't really see much difference between former colonial landlords and former slave traders when it comes to history. Or maybe we have forgotten that most of these poor souls were sold to the USA and French colonies? Nationalisms can be rather blinding that way, they always need a scapegoat for their own incompetence.
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/.
The thing that does not exist is an attempt to convert all African Universities into teaching in Arabic. What exists is a conference on teaching Arabic language and culture at some African universities, mostly in those African countries which have a large Muslim minority: Nigeria, Mali, Chad, Cameroon, the Comoros Islands, Tanzania, Ghana, Cote d’Ivoire, Senegal, Benin, Niger, Mauritania and Ethiopia.
And it was merely an academic conference, not even a state policy.
The writer of the article saw it as "an attack on African culture" and "attempt to arabise African education". So let us have a look at this "African education". In which languages is tertiary education provided in these countries? Amharic? Swahili? Hausa? No! In English and French - the languages of the former colonising powers. And whereas the writer states that the conference "sought to subjugate the traditional cultural, scientific, political and spiritual values of indigenous African cultures" and "an attack on a grass root resurgence in moves to reclaim African identity and culture across the Continent", I would dare to mention that "grassroots" don't usually make it to universities in Africa on account of inability to afford the luxury. A bit like in the good old days of Marxism, where the real working class was called derisively lumpen proletariat, the African "grassroots" are too busy getting clean water, anti-malaria and AIDS medication and bread to worry in which language the middle classes will get their education.
Besides, I don't really see much difference between former colonial landlords and former slave traders when it comes to history. Or maybe we have forgotten that most of these poor souls were sold to the USA and French colonies? Nationalisms can be rather blinding that way, they always need a scapegoat for their own incompetence.
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/.
"Arabian" Library Software
So now we have horses run libraries, even as big as the one at the American Culture Centre in Alexandria, Egypt!!
The Indian (who else?) press advised us today that "Asia's first Arabic Version of Library Management Software System "LIBRARIAN" was commissioned at American Culture Centre, Alexandria, Egypt by CR2 Technologies Ltd., Ahmedabad with their strategic partner ACML, Alexandria, Egypt (...) Arabic version of LIBRARIAN® would help the Arabian speaking people in developing their reading culture & to raise the level of literacy & education & managing the learning resources. This would spur overall objective to promote knowledge-based societies across the Arab world."
Arabian refers to horses, Mr. Indian Writer. Arabs happen to speak Arabic, and last time I checked where normal human beings, not four-legged race species!
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/.
The Indian (who else?) press advised us today that "Asia's first Arabic Version of Library Management Software System "LIBRARIAN" was commissioned at American Culture Centre, Alexandria, Egypt by CR2 Technologies Ltd., Ahmedabad with their strategic partner ACML, Alexandria, Egypt (...) Arabic version of LIBRARIAN® would help the Arabian speaking people in developing their reading culture & to raise the level of literacy & education & managing the learning resources. This would spur overall objective to promote knowledge-based societies across the Arab world."
Arabian refers to horses, Mr. Indian Writer. Arabs happen to speak Arabic, and last time I checked where normal human beings, not four-legged race species!
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/.
Plurk Twitters in Tongues - for free?
Plurk, a microblogging site, is taking off where Twitter is struggling.
Plurk offers services in 33 different local languages, including Russian, Hindi, Chinese in traditional and simplified character forms, Arabic, Hebrew, Greek and Japanese; with 45 more getting ready for release. While Twitter is behind in this language support race, they have quickly added Italian, French and Spanish within the last month in response.
While Twitter blames the difficulties of localising in Asian languages, Plurk seems to have solved the same issue with their language strategy: they send out an e-mail with a string of English to volunteer translators to localize the content and send it back. Head translators lead teams of users, and they vote for the best language usage when they run into unusual English slang or a new phrase. Many translators come from the open-source community and are willing to work without pay. Their only reward, aside from Plurk in their own language, is a virtual Rosetta Stone badge they can put on their Plurk user profile.
There is a surprising amount of people who have a strong desire to localize for free a site to have it in their own language. Plurk is not the only such website - Facebook is also dependant on crowd-translation.
Beats me why. Maybe I am a greedy capitalist, or just read in too many languages to bother translating for free, or maybe it is a generational gap. The motto seems to be "If you preach information for free, you need to slave for it". Fair enough!
But it doesn't always work well - one irate user wrote: "This is complete nonsense. It isn't localized in 33 languages or anywhere near it. The only localization I can see is for the word "is" in the two languages I checked - and in one of them (Irish) it's syntactically incorrect as the developers have failed to understand the most basic concepts of internationalization. All BS." :-D
Still some work left for us, professional, paid translators. Hurray!
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/.
Doctors in Translation
Ofri, D. (2010) Medicine in Translation: Journeys with my patients. Beacon Press.
For two decades, Dr. Danielle Ofri has cared for patients at Bellevue, the oldest public hospital in the country and a crossroads for the world's cultures. In Medicine in Translation, she introduces us, in vivid, moving portraits, to the patients she has known. They have braved language barriers, religious and racial divides, and the emotional and practical difficulties of exile in order to access quality health care. Sharing their journeys with them over the years, Danielle has witnessed some of their best and worst moments, and come to admire their resilience and courageous spirit.
Danielle introduces us to her patients: Samuel Nwanko, who was brutally attacked by a Nigerian cult in his homeland and is attempting to create a new life in America; Jade Collier, an Aussie who refuses to let a small thing like a wheelchair keep her from being a homegrown ambassador to New York City; Julia Barquero,
a Guatemalan woman who migrated to the States to save her disabled son but cannot obtain the lifesaving heart transplant she needs because she is undocumented. We meet a young Muslim woman threatened at knifepoint for wearing her veil, and the spitfire SeƱora Estrella, one of Danielle's many Spanish-speaking patients, whose torrent of words helps seal Danielle's resolve to improve her own Spanish, an essential skill in today's urban hospitals. And so she, her husband, and their two young children and seventy-five-pound dog relocate to Costa Rica, where they discover potholes the size of their New York City apartment, a casual absence of street signs or even street names, tangy green-skinned limon dulce dangling in the playground, and sudden rains surging over the craggy edges of roadside ditches. Ultimately, Danielle experiences being a patient in a foreign country when she gives birth to their third child, a "Costarricense" girl.
With controversy over immigrants in our society escalating, and debate surrounding health-care reform becoming increasingly urgent, Ofri's riveting stories about her patients could not be more timely. Living and dying in the foreign country we call home, they have much to teach us about the American way, in sickness and in health.
To read more about Dr. Danielle Orfi, see her blog. You can also read a review of the book in New York Times.
*******
Another beautiful piece by a doctor in a multicultural setting, Dr. Nell Burger Kirst from the University of Michigan, was posted on the New York Times today. I quote a part that particularly touched me:
"Words are paramount in the business of medicine. Diagnoses are illuminated by the patients’ own accounts of their illnesses. Treatment options are discussed using conditional verbs, plans described in the future tense. And in the end everything is documented. We have become so dependent on our words — so reliant on the phrases and spiels we know by rote — that it is almost impossible to imagine what we would do without them.
But there is communication without words, too — an honest-to-goodness human presence that transcends language. Sometimes it is just as essential to healing as our precise and formulaic words.
In medical school I worked with a young infectious-disease physician from India. She was consulting on the case of a middle-aged Indian man who had cancer and a hospital-acquired infection. His infection had improved, but his cancer had become quite aggressive, and I accompanied her to his room to discuss what had become a very poor prognosis.
To learn how to carry on this kind of end-of-life discussion, medical students practice on actors trained to simulate dying patients. It’s a valuable exercise, but a difficult one. I always found myself hung up on the details of what I was supposed to say — important details, like the patient’s life expectancy, remaining treatment options and the logistics of palliative care and hospice services.
When it came to real patients, I found myself similarly fixated on the particulars, doing my best to learn the drill: What lab or exam findings let the physician know it was time for this discussion? Would insurance pay for hospice care? Could she wait for her daughter to fly in from Phoenix before making the decision?
The Indian patient lay quietly in his hospital bed, his wife beside him, elegant in an embroidered dress and a sheer blue headscarf. The doctor began speaking to them in English as the husband and wife took turns translating unfamiliar words into Hindi. I listened closely as always, concentrating on the facts of the case.
I suspect the English was on my account, for when it became clear that the couple was having too much difficulty understanding, the doctor gave up and began speaking in fluent Hindi. I kept listening, but now the music of the language was all I could follow.
English words were peppered in only occasionally — a sentence punctuated by the word “suffering,” then a paragraph weaving “comfortable” and “hospice” into a string of Hindi. I was behind a veil, seeing the dialogue only in silhouettes.
Yet somehow, being outside the language finally allowed me into the heart of it. The conversation was beautiful, hypnotic, meditative. With words out of the way, I could focus on the elements I had always been too distracted to notice — the doctor’s slow and lilting tone, her attentiveness to the patient’s body language, the white-knuckled hands of the husband and wife locked together, a lifetime of love, fear, resignation and hope flickering back and forth in the glances they exchanged.
After several minutes, the patient looked my way and asked, “Should we speak in English, so she can understand?” I was humbled by his generosity, but there was no need; I understood better than I ever had before."
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/.
For two decades, Dr. Danielle Ofri has cared for patients at Bellevue, the oldest public hospital in the country and a crossroads for the world's cultures. In Medicine in Translation, she introduces us, in vivid, moving portraits, to the patients she has known. They have braved language barriers, religious and racial divides, and the emotional and practical difficulties of exile in order to access quality health care. Sharing their journeys with them over the years, Danielle has witnessed some of their best and worst moments, and come to admire their resilience and courageous spirit.
Danielle introduces us to her patients: Samuel Nwanko, who was brutally attacked by a Nigerian cult in his homeland and is attempting to create a new life in America; Jade Collier, an Aussie who refuses to let a small thing like a wheelchair keep her from being a homegrown ambassador to New York City; Julia Barquero,
a Guatemalan woman who migrated to the States to save her disabled son but cannot obtain the lifesaving heart transplant she needs because she is undocumented. We meet a young Muslim woman threatened at knifepoint for wearing her veil, and the spitfire SeƱora Estrella, one of Danielle's many Spanish-speaking patients, whose torrent of words helps seal Danielle's resolve to improve her own Spanish, an essential skill in today's urban hospitals. And so she, her husband, and their two young children and seventy-five-pound dog relocate to Costa Rica, where they discover potholes the size of their New York City apartment, a casual absence of street signs or even street names, tangy green-skinned limon dulce dangling in the playground, and sudden rains surging over the craggy edges of roadside ditches. Ultimately, Danielle experiences being a patient in a foreign country when she gives birth to their third child, a "Costarricense" girl.With controversy over immigrants in our society escalating, and debate surrounding health-care reform becoming increasingly urgent, Ofri's riveting stories about her patients could not be more timely. Living and dying in the foreign country we call home, they have much to teach us about the American way, in sickness and in health.
To read more about Dr. Danielle Orfi, see her blog. You can also read a review of the book in New York Times.
*******
Another beautiful piece by a doctor in a multicultural setting, Dr. Nell Burger Kirst from the University of Michigan, was posted on the New York Times today. I quote a part that particularly touched me:
"Words are paramount in the business of medicine. Diagnoses are illuminated by the patients’ own accounts of their illnesses. Treatment options are discussed using conditional verbs, plans described in the future tense. And in the end everything is documented. We have become so dependent on our words — so reliant on the phrases and spiels we know by rote — that it is almost impossible to imagine what we would do without them.
But there is communication without words, too — an honest-to-goodness human presence that transcends language. Sometimes it is just as essential to healing as our precise and formulaic words.
In medical school I worked with a young infectious-disease physician from India. She was consulting on the case of a middle-aged Indian man who had cancer and a hospital-acquired infection. His infection had improved, but his cancer had become quite aggressive, and I accompanied her to his room to discuss what had become a very poor prognosis.
To learn how to carry on this kind of end-of-life discussion, medical students practice on actors trained to simulate dying patients. It’s a valuable exercise, but a difficult one. I always found myself hung up on the details of what I was supposed to say — important details, like the patient’s life expectancy, remaining treatment options and the logistics of palliative care and hospice services.
When it came to real patients, I found myself similarly fixated on the particulars, doing my best to learn the drill: What lab or exam findings let the physician know it was time for this discussion? Would insurance pay for hospice care? Could she wait for her daughter to fly in from Phoenix before making the decision?
The Indian patient lay quietly in his hospital bed, his wife beside him, elegant in an embroidered dress and a sheer blue headscarf. The doctor began speaking to them in English as the husband and wife took turns translating unfamiliar words into Hindi. I listened closely as always, concentrating on the facts of the case.
I suspect the English was on my account, for when it became clear that the couple was having too much difficulty understanding, the doctor gave up and began speaking in fluent Hindi. I kept listening, but now the music of the language was all I could follow.
English words were peppered in only occasionally — a sentence punctuated by the word “suffering,” then a paragraph weaving “comfortable” and “hospice” into a string of Hindi. I was behind a veil, seeing the dialogue only in silhouettes.
Yet somehow, being outside the language finally allowed me into the heart of it. The conversation was beautiful, hypnotic, meditative. With words out of the way, I could focus on the elements I had always been too distracted to notice — the doctor’s slow and lilting tone, her attentiveness to the patient’s body language, the white-knuckled hands of the husband and wife locked together, a lifetime of love, fear, resignation and hope flickering back and forth in the glances they exchanged.
After several minutes, the patient looked my way and asked, “Should we speak in English, so she can understand?” I was humbled by his generosity, but there was no need; I understood better than I ever had before."
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/.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)