When watching foreign films, I often wonder whether the translation is, in fact, accurate. Unless a viewer is a native speaker, he is at the mercy of an unknown translator. Inaccurate translation can lead to confusion, or even unintended laughter. In some cases, the trouble starts with a title. For example, in Portugal, Sofia Coppola’s acclaimed film Lost in Translation became Meetings and Failure in Meetings. In China, the French thriller Leon turned into Hit Man Is Not as Cold as He Thought. And then there’s the great American classic Home Alone which the French translated to Mom, I Missed the Plane.

Translation does not have to be literal to be correct, but it does have to attempt to convey the original idea as closely as possible. This of course introduces a good deal of subjectivity: For instance, how well does the title Wings of Desire, from the German Der Himmel Uber Berlin, literally meaning “the sky over Berlin,” capture the main idea of the film?

Read the rest of this entry »

To translate a controversial text may very well mean putting one’s life on the line. Western history offers several examples of tortured and slain translators and interpreters, and as apt as we are to think that those barbaric times are over, the late 20th century saw one of the most appalling incidents of violence against a translator.

During the Protestant Reformation it was not uncommon for the ruling powers to round up and apprehend people who opposed strict Roman Catholicism. Our first translator-martyr not only opposed the dogmatism of his time, but rendered his 1526 translation of the Bible based on the philosophy “If God spare my life…a boy that driveth the plough shall know more of the Scripture than [the Pope].” William Tyndale (c. 1494 — 1536) translated the Bible into early Modern English in such a successful way that many portions of the King James Bible reflect his work. Unfortunately, his integrity as a translator resulted in Tyndale’s death: He was apprehended, strangled, and burned at the stake in Antwerp, Belgium.

Read the rest of this entry »

Not surprisingly, non-profit organizations with a global outreach are among the largest employers of translators and interpreters. However, the impact of non-profits on the translation and interpretation service industry, which relies on the existence and protection of linguistic heterogeneity, is ambiguous. There is, in fact, an interesting dichotomy: on the one hand, non-profit institutions promote preservation of multilingual diversity; on the other hand, they impede this process.

In order to understand how non-profit institutions impact the demand for translation and interpretation services we need to take a closer look at two different kinds of non-profits.

Although statistics vary, over 30,000 international non-profit organizations are registered annually around the world–25,000 of which are characterized as non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and about 5,000 are intergovernmental entities (IGOs). Generally sharing humanitarian goals, NGOs and IGOs have crucial distinctions in their positions on translation and language policies. The origin of this distinction is partially ideological. The function of most IGOs, especially the ones under UN jurisdiction, is to monitor the power imbalances among various nation-states, including disputes arising from linguistic differences.

Read the rest of this entry »

Beyond Words is happy to celebrate our first International Translation Day!

September 30th — the feast-day of St. Jerome, patron saint of translators, was originally instituted as Translation Day by UNESCO, upon the request of the International Federation of Translators (FIT), twenty years ago.

Cheers to all of the translators, interpreters, and linguists whose hard work renders our world into a more meaningful place.