The history of words teaches us that food is the fuel of relationships. The word “companion”, from the Latin com “with” and panis “bread”, reminds us that food — and the brief respite allotted to people throughout history for sharing meals — feeds more than the physical body; it also nourishes generosity and friendship. To eat with someone implies a level of comfort with that person — a sense of security that mitigates the primordial fear that our provisions will be stolen from under our noses. The English “companion”, the Spanish “companero”, the Italian “compagno”, and the French “copain” all come from the Latin meaning “with whom one eats bread.”

Talk of the financial crisis and political instability seems to lead to one question: is economic Armageddon coming? As job security hangs in the balance, economic commentators disagree on which occupations are likely to suffer the most and experience decreased demand in the future. In this economic environment, translators are left to ponder: will my services still be needed?

The market for translators, although not completely immune to economic downturns, is more stable than may appear at first. In economic jargon, it may be characterized as “countercyclical,” meaning that the demand for translating and interpreting services fluctuates in the opposite direction to the swings of the business cycle. The more complex international business environment implies that there is a growing reliance on foreign investors and international financiers. Translators and interpreters, employed in almost all of the sectors of the economy, are integral facilitators of the globalization process, especially in times of limited consumer confidence, declining revenues, and borrowing constraints. In addition, international migration, estimated at about 200 million, and popular movements to liberalize immigration barriers create a constant demand for translators. In fact, the international market for translation services is growing at an impressive rate of between 5 to 7 percent and is expected to continue growing faster than the average of all occupations.

It is an interesting fact that as more and more people worldwide become aware of the benefits of acquiring multilingual skills, there doesn’t seem to be an impact on the demand for translation services. One would expect the global demand to fall at the same rate as the acquisition of English or Spanish rises. Recent statistics, however, offer a different view: the use of English as a language of cross-cultural communication is growing, and yet demand for English translators does not fall.

There are several possible explanations of this paradox…

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Recently, ALTA received a fax from a law firm with a request to translate an attached document. Strangely, the lawyers had received this document enclosed in an envelope with no return address, and with no English indication as to what the sender wanted done. We receive translation requests daily, but this one was quite odd. The lawyers couldn’t decipher the language that was printed on the tattered page. It was a single sheet of thick, yellowing paper, about half-filled with ornate characters that looked “maybe Arabic?” — as the lawyers wondered. But it was not Arabic.

It was not anything that we at ALTA had ever seen before. The mystery document was passed around the office and we attempted to identify the source language. A few of us offered educated guesses based on the diacritical marks and some other aspects of the script, but no one could determine the language exactly. We scanned it and sent it out to a few translators who specialize in East African, Middle Eastern, and East Asian languages. A couple of them responded with the theory that we had uncovered an example of a Manichean script that was banned centuries ago!

They were wrong. It took ALTA’s resident language sleuth and linguist, Wes Cook, to get to the bottom of the mystery.

Here is the story, in the Language Sleuth’s own words:

It was a dark and stormy night and the office was in a stir about a letter from a lawyer. The letter was written in an unusual alphabet that resembled some modern and some ancient scripts. But it certainly wasn’t Manichean.

Manichean script was used by the followers of the Gnostic religion of the founding prophet “Mani” between the third and sixth centuries. As a linguist, my professional opinion was that the document was some sort of hoax, and not, in fact, an example of any rare ancient language. So, I put on my sleuth hat and got to work.

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The best advice is simply: don’t!

I remember the first time I brought my French boyfriend, Laurent, home for the holidays. Although he made efforts, his English was limited. I was responsible for interpreting much of the small talk. It was no easy task — especially since he liked to tell a lot of jokes.

After being in France for a couple of years, I was at a point where I could actually “get” most French jokes. Also, I was already familiar with my boyfriend’s humor since he had explained his own jokes to me before. But something happened when I translated them for my American family. They made absolutely no sense at all. That’s how I learned that jokes are the hardest thing to translate!

I finally told Laurent to please stop telling jokes, but poor Laurent loved to make people laugh. It was an inherent part of his personality. Despite the fact that my parents already loved him and found him quite entertaining as he was, Laurent wanted desperately to share his unique wit. I wanted to help him.

Humor, however, is not universal. French-style humor, as I had learned, was very different from American-style humor. (Maybe that’s why I never really found my boyfriend’s jokes that funny in the first place.)

In England, for example, constant self-deprecation is the first step to humor. By contrast, the French sense of humor is fueled by ridicule and mockery that is directed toward others. Another frequent form of French humor is to exaggerate a statement to illustrate its falsehood. If you are gullible like me, you may not clue in to the “funny” factor.

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