Author Archives: Jonathan Pyner

About Jonathan Pyner

Jonathan Pyner is a poet, freelance writer, and translator. He has worked as an educator for nearly a decade in the US and Taiwan, and he recently completed a master’s of fine arts in creative writing.

Literary Translation and the Art of Capturing Nuance

1 month ago - Jonathan Pyner on December 15, 2020

Translation

literary translation, National Book Award, Spanish Translation

In our interview with Lisa Dillman, one of this year’s National Book Award Finalists in Literary Translation, she shared valuable insights about translating works from several Spanish-speaking regions.

Every translation project, literary or not, comes with its own set of challenges to remain true to the source yet make the language work in the target language, all the while persuading the reader that you were never there at all, or at least were there simply to help the language become language again. It takes research — no small amount of research — and deep attention to detail and nuance truly to capture the work in a translated text.

But translation is not just a challenge. It is also an immensely rewarding process replete with the joy of learning about other cultures, as well as one’s own, and seeking ways to reconcile the differences in languages.

We reached out to Lisa Dillman to learn about her prolific work in literary translation and the experiences and insights she has developed translating writers from several regions. Lisa was raised in California and studied Spanish at the University of California, San Diego before completing an M.A. in Spanish Literature at Emory University and a second M.A. in Literary Translation from Middlesex University in London.

She is co-editor (with Peter Bush) of the book Spain: A Literary Traveler’s Companion and has translated many novels and scholarly works, including Zigzag (by José Carlos Somoza), The Scroll of Seduction (by Gioconda Belli), Pot Pourri: Whistlings of a Vagabond (by Eugenio Cambaceres), Op Oloop (by Juan Filloy), The Mule, by Juan Eslava Galán (the original novel was turned into a motion picture), Critical Dictionary of Mexican Literature (by Christopher Domínguez Michael), The Frost on His Shoulders (by Lorenzo Mediano), Me, Who Dove into the Heart of the World (by Sabina Berman).

She also co-translated The Polish Boxer (by Eduardo Halfon) with a team of five (Ollie Brock, Danny Hahn, Thomas Bunstead and Ann McLean) and his novel Monastery with Daniel Hahn. Most recently, she has translated several works by Andrés Barba (After the Rain; August, October; Death of a Horse; and Such Small Hands) as well as Yuri Herrera’s Signs Preceding the End of the World and The Transmigration of Bodies. In 2016 she won the Best Translated Book Award for Signs Preceding the End of the World.

Most recently, Lisa was selected as a finalist for the National Book Award in Translation for her translation of The Bitch by Pilar Quintana.

How did you get started in literary translation?

I became interested in translation in my last year of undergrad. I had spent my junior year at the University of Barcelona, where I had an incredible experience studying literature and language, and when I returned to the US felt struck by how much “didn’t translate.” I don’t mean literally, but more philosophically, things along the lines of: What makes something funny? Or scandalous? I also became quite enamored of Spanish and Latin American literature, and from there sort of segued into the idea of “I want everyone to be able to read this!”

Can you tell us about a particularly memorable project?

As cliché as it sounds, all projects are memorable – honest! – albeit in different ways. So here are two divergent examples. Ten or so years ago, I translated a Spanish Civil War novel that featured a Moroccan character whose speech was represented phonetically, i.e. his accent in Spanish was textually legible. So in order to translate it, I spent days listening to recordings of Moroccans speaking English to make an analogous move in the target language.

I also struggled over whether the entire thing was culturally appropriate or not, and labored to try to ensure that the man wasn’t depicted as comical, that the narration didn’t come off as scornful or mocking of him. I felt fairly pleased with it, but the publisher decided to nix the entire concept and have him speak in standard Spanish. And in retrospect, I think that was probably the right decision.

A second example would be the project I’m working on right now: it’s a non-fiction account of a group of Peruvian Jews who are totally Orthodox, albeit not accepted by Israel or by other Peruvian Jews. The tale itself is fascinating, almost a cliffhanger, but from a translatorial perspective it’s also amazing because their Biblical knowledge involves a lot of comparing and contrasting of various Bible translations. And when you go to look up a certain chapter and verse, and see just how many versions there are in both English and Spanish, it’s staggering. Trying to find translations for certain prayers and mitzvahs is a challenge that’s also incredibly edifying.

Translators work in a myriad of industries, making it difficult to define a translator’s job. What do you feel are some unique challenges you have faced in literary translation? What do you share with translators working in other industries?

I think one of the somewhat unique challenges to literary translation is the fact that readers and reviewers often have the concept of “the original” lurking in their minds. So your work resides in this very odd space of tension. On the one hand, a translated novel really is and must be an autonomous text. On the other, it’s not your name on the cover, most of the time (or if it is, it’s in far smaller font). I believe David Bellos is the one who expressed this paradox so poignantly in saying that people are always keen to remark that translation is “no substitute for the original,” when the fact of the matter is that that is precisely what it is.

In general, though, the challenges of literary translation strike me as almost entirely akin to those of other types of translation. All translators deal with the extra-linguistic, i.e. translating terms, concepts or mindsets that are quite different in another language. When my ex-husband immigrated to the US, he had to have his academic transcripts professionally translated, and they decided that a 7 was equivalent to a C (in fact, I’d argue it would be an A or maybe an A-). In translating governmental or legal or educational documents, you come upon these tricky issues of equivalence – or non-equivalence – all the time because the systems of government and law and education are conceived differently. You have terms in a SL for referents that simply don’t exist in the TL. All of those concerns I think entirely analogous between literary and technical translation.

Computer-assisted translation (CAT) tools are gaining momentum in the translation industry, but have yet to prove their worth in unsupervised projects. Have you ever considered using CAT in any part of a project? Do you see CAT ever becoming a normal tool within the process of literary translation?

I never have, no. And I hope it will never become a normal tool in the literary realm, but I can think of many things I’ve hoped would not happen that later came to pass!

You have translated authors from several Spanish-speaking countries: Yuri Herrera (Mexico), Andrés Barba (Spain), Pilar Quintana (Colombia), Graciela Mochkovsky (Argentina), Alejandra Costamagna (Chile). What is it like entering a new idiom? Was any dialect easier to translate into English?

Translating a new Spanish is fun, it’s challenging, it’s daunting, and more than anything, it’s research. People outside the industry often seem shocked by how much of translation is research. Lots of that research is now far easier with the number of forums and such that you can find online. And of course human beings are walking dictionaries. So I do as much research and consultation as possible. And I am always in contact with my authors, peppering them with questions if they are open to that.

I don’t actually think I find any one dialect, per se, easier to translate than any other, but I do find certain genres easier to translate than others. Fiction that is a bit more “genre” often has more standard syntax, for instance. So historical fiction, for example, is easier to translate in linguistic terms. Of course it also has its own set of challenges, because the Anglophone readership is not familiar with the nuances of, say, the Spanish Civil War.

As a follow-up, can you share any insights about notable regional differences in the languages?

One thing I always find notable is “you.” In English it’s so straightforward. Singular, plural, formal, informal: it’s all “you.” Obviously, Spanish has the formal and informal, “usted” and “tú.” Then in addition to that, some parts of Central and South American use an alternate informal singular (“vos”), and Spain has an informal plural (“vosotros”) and so on. But more than the existence of these forms is the usage: how people determine what counts as formal or informal.

In Bogotá, you can hear parents treat their children formally and children treating their parents informally. In Spain, I remember being chastised for using the formal with an older person when I was in college and being gobsmacked. Textbooks basically say, “use the formal to show respect and the informal with peers or younger people” but it’s so much more nuanced, complex and localized than that!

The National Book Foundation selected The Bitch – your translation of Pilar Quintana’s novel – as a National Book Award Finalist in Translation. What was it about this work that you feel propelled it to this kind of success?

Quintana’s prose is gut-wrenching. Her tone is quite spare, almost minimalist, very unadorned. There’s nothing superfluous, she just cuts to the quick. So while the book is ostensibly about a woman’s frustrated attempts at motherhood, it’s also about other things that don’t form part of the plot. Poverty, and racism, and their intersection on Colombia’s Pacific coast are not commented upon, they’re simply there, as inexorable as the jungle where the main character lives.

What are you working on currently?

A book called Prophet of the Andes, which I mentioned earlier. It’s a non-fiction book by Graciela Mochkovsky, about a community of Peruvian Jews and it’s riveting.

Is there anything I haven’t asked, but should have?

Yes! What book would you love to be asked to translate next? Cristina Cerrada’s Europa. When I get the time, I hope to propose it to a few publishers.

Tags:literary translation, National Book Award, Spanish Translation

Jonathan Pyner

Journalist at MultiLingual Magazine | + posts

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4	5	6	7 EUATC Webinar: GDPR & Personal Data in Translation Overview EUATC Webinar: GDPR & Personal Data in Translation Overview January 7, 2021 08:00 - 16:00 See more details •	8	9	10
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18 Test Event Test Event January 18, 2021 23:00 - 23:00 See more details •	19	20	21 Translation, Transcreation, Transadaptation and the Science Behind Them Translation, Transcreation, Transadaptation and the Science Behind Them January 21, 2021 07:45 - 16:00 See more details LocLife™ — Onward: Inspiring Perspectives from Loc Leaders LocLife™ — Onward: Inspiring Perspectives from Loc Leaders January 21, 2021 09:15 - 14:00 See more details [Live Webinar] Present and Future of Natural Language Generation (NLG) in the Localization Industry [Live Webinar] Present and Future of Natural Language Generation (NLG) in the Localization Industry January 21, 2021 13:00 - 16:00 See more details LinkedIn Localization Initiatives LinkedIn Localization Initiatives January 21, 2021 18:30 - 21:00 See more details 20th ITRI International Conference: The Roles and Identities of Interpreters and Translators in an Ever-Changing World 20th ITRI International Conference: The Roles and Identities of Interpreters and Translators in an Ever-Changing World January 21, 2021 23:00 - January 22, 2021 23:00 See more details • • • • •	22 20th ITRI International Conference: The Roles and Identities of Interpreters and Translators in an Ever-Changing World 20th ITRI International Conference: The Roles and Identities of Interpreters and Translators in an Ever-Changing World January 21, 2021 23:00 - January 22, 2021 23:00 See more details •	23	24
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Insights from Translation Studies Scholar Sherry Simon

2 months ago - Jonathan Pyner on December 1, 2020

Language, Translation

Lviv, Montreal, The Space of Synagogues, Translation Studies

If one looks closely enough, a city reveals in every brick, window, and street sign a complex history and continuing tensions through its translational spaces. Sometimes these spaces of translation work to cover up a traumatic past, yet other times the city may preserve a site on purpose or accidentally. In either case, the city can speak back in fascinating ways.

We spoke with Sherry Simon, a professor of translation studies and the author of several books on translation, including Translation Sites: a Field Guide, Cities in Translation: Intersections of Language and Memory, Translating Montreal, and Gender in Translation. In our interview, she shared insights about the stories and memories a city can share, through the languages that fill it, have filled it, or one day may fill it again.

Can you tell us about yourself?

I teach in the French Department at Concordia University, an English language university, and I live in Montreal. That is a big part of it. Montreal is not only the place where I live, but the place that I began to write about and that shaped my ideas about language. That is to say, it is a city that had two strong languages, French and English, that were very much in tension with each other. As the years changed, the nature of these tensions changed, but they were very strong when I was growing up, so that really shaped me.

I started translating at a time when you simply referenced texts to help you figure out the best way to translate. You had a few prescriptive books telling you what were the best equivalents between French and English, and why it was tricky to translate between those two languages. Many words were the same. We have what we call false friends, or cognates, because historically the two languages overlapped many times. That is why we have so many words that look the same, but their histories and their current usage are very different. There were not many guides for understanding what translation was about.

Over the time that I began teaching until now, that situation has changed radically. There is a huge library on translation now, in an area called Translation Studies. It is no longer linguistics, or comparative literature, or Belle-lettres, as they say in French. It is a discipline unto itself. What has become clear to me is that translation is an absolutely fascinating window onto the world.

You can learn so many things by looking at those questions translationally. You can look at poetry. Poetry is in the translation; it is not lost in the translation. It is in the process of translation, and that is what makes it so interesting. You can learn a lot about history.

One of the things that has fascinated me most is looking at histories like those of Eastern Europe, where you see cities that have changed language regimes over the decades, especially around the periods of the first world war and the second world war, and when Communism came along. An entire city could essentially be re-wallpapered with a new language. All of a sudden, the citizens who were speaking a language on the sidewalk now speak another language on the sidewalk. That is a process of translation because the city is translated from one language to another. You can come to understand memory — memory of history, memory of traumatic circumstances — as processes enacted through language.

In your book Translation Sites, you explore the question of how translation and memory intersect in the life of the city and places within the city. Can you talk more about that? What is a translation site? How might one discover a translation site?

One of the elements that is so fascinating about some of the translation sites I explore is that their histories become invisible over time. The way in which you meet that history is often at an odd angle, or a glimpse, or something that opens unexpectedly and puts you into contact with the emotion of that past. The term ghost signs has been used in Eastern Europe. A crack in the surface of a building, a façade, peeling paint, a crumbling window will suddenly reveal another language that has been painted over. You must be attentive to small signs that are going to lead you to the history. They are often not necessarily official signs, or if they are official signs, their message might be different now.

A city rich with translation sites would be somewhere like Lviv, what was at one time Lemberg, in what is today Ukraine – you always have to say what is today because the city had four or five different names over time, and four or five different languages. There is a place there called The Space of Synagogues, where there were several synagogues – very significant synagogues – destroyed during WWII.

During the Soviet regime – the soviets were not wonderful at preserving the memory of the Jewish past in eastern Europe – those places were not commemorated, but they also were not always covered over, but rather left as derelict spaces. But then The Space of Synagogues was turned into a monument, which I discuss in detail in my book because it is such an interesting monument from a translational point of view.

But there is an interesting contrast between the time when it was just an abandoned space and now. It still had a strong meaning. Sometimes these spaces are places that people do not dare touch because they know it has such a history, but they do not do anything to it either. They just leave it abandoned. Sometimes abandoned spaces are the spaces that will show a translational history. I could go on for a long time with that question. Maybe another question to ask would be how are you attentive to those spaces? They are covered over, spaces that people have tried not to show, or spaces that have simply fallen into a kind of ignorance.

There once was an opera house in Prague that for around a half century was a German opera house that played the most modern, avant-garde repertoire: Wagner, Müller, Schoenberg. But with the nationalization of Czecho-Slovakia, it became a Czech space, as had happened during those times when nationalism and nationalization was carrying small countries like Czecho-Slovakia forward.

After the second world war, any reference to German was unsavory, so all the references to that past were eliminated, thus forgetting the tremendous cultural heritage of the German language in Eastern Europe. German was the language of culture in eastern Europe for centuries. It was not a bad language. It became a bad language – a language of the Nazis, the murderers, the assassins – but the language had a history over and beyond that.

So only now as the years have passed can we begin to appreciate that. But if you are walking in Prague, you will likely not know that it was a German-speaking opera house. You must have the local knowledge.

In your book Gender in Translation, you discuss several notable women translators since the Renaissance. Are there any women translators that you can highlight for our readers?

The women translators in whom I was particularly interested were from the 1920s. There was a woman called Willa Muir, who with her husband was the first translator of Kafka. There was also Constance Garnett, about whom many people know because she is criticized as a bad translator of the Russian classics.

But she translated of her time, and there is a movement now to defend what she did because she had this job to do and she did it in record time. Not only that, but she was also a sympathizer, an anarchist, and she was very interested in the Russian modernists and the political ideas of late 19th century Russians. She did a lot to promote those ideas, not just translate.

The same was true of Willa Muir. She was a very active thinker. So what I love about these women – three or four of them I talk about it my book – is that they translated because they loved the works they were translating, and because they were doing it as part of their political projects, as thinkers, as women who had independent takes on the ideas of their time.

Especially Constance Garnett. She is one of the few names that people know as a translator, and they know her name because they criticize her, naturally. But this is unfair. Certainly one could improve upon her translations, but it is unfair not to take in the historical circumstances during which she was translating, and how quickly she was obliged to do it, and with how little help. That is what is interesting about a whole shift that is happening currently in translation studies: to look at the whole picture, and not just take the text and compare it to the other text. Who was the person? Why were they doing it? How did they work with their publisher? What changes did the publisher make over the heads of the translators?

You have discussed the use of the term multilingual as insufficient in describing cities, that terms like translational or connectional might paint a more accurate picture. What do you see as the differences in these terms?

The way I see the word multilingual used, like multicultural, is often in a descriptive way to talk about how many. When you talk about New York as multilingual, often that description implies how many languages. Of course this description is appropriate – New York has over 200 languages. But what strikes me about that is what does that actually tell you? What does it tell you about what you hear on city streets? What does it tell you about how people interact with one another? Where are the spaces where people speak these languages? Where are the neighborhoods? How important are these languages? How often are they spoken? How often are they translated into English? How often is English translated into them?

What seems to me to be the fascinating thing about translation is that it is always about connection, it is always about a relationship. You cannot speak about translation without invoking a direction. Does it go from English into Punjabi or Punjabi into English? And what does that mean? Those two different directions say different things about power of a language.

If you are a migrant, you will translate yourself constantly into the major language. That is what you must do in order to survive as an immigrant, to integrate into your new society. You translate yourself into. You are not going to find the major culture translating itself into you. That is a very strong dissonance, the weights of those directions.

And that applies all across thinking about translation: the cultural weight of those directions, whether you are translating up or down, out or in. Those are useful terms for thinking about those different weights, but also intensities of translations, and spaces of translation, where those activities of translations take place, and why, and under whose hospices.

So multilingual is a term that means a lot to us. We understand that there are many languages, and those languages exist in a territory, but translation takes that understanding one step higher to allow you to understand the idea of incorporation, how individuals and languages are incorporated into a larger whole.

Can you talk about the concept of counter-translation?

It came to me as I was writing the introduction of my book. The way I use it is in the context of these cities that have been translated over, or a history that has been translated over, as in languages that have been effectively suppressed and eliminated and murdered. If you talk about Yiddish in Eastern Europe: Yiddish no longer exists in eastern Europe because the people who spoke that language were murdered. So that is a suffocation or elimination of language.

But what happens in those cases is that after a period of time, or in a period of post-trauma, or post-violence, something happens where those languages can acquire a new voice. I will go back to The Space of Synagogues in Lviv, which is a monument devised in such a way that languages begin to speak again, and that the languages spoken in a city with a violent history could be spoken again. So I say translation is a pendulum. It comes and knocks down and eliminates, but conditions can allow a rebirth of the language through political, collective voices, through the desire that the language come to be expressed again.

Another example of such violence is the example of First Languages in Canada. I give an example of the National Gallery in Canada, which is the flagship symbolic art institution of the country. A couple of years ago, it re-did its entire collection of art to include First Nations art as the founding art of the nation – not as some ethnological art that you have to look for in another museum, but an art that was fully integrated into the history of the country.

What the museum did to consolidate this was to use First Nations’ languages as part of the labeling of the art. You usually see labels communicate information about the art as a neutral conveyor of information. But in this case, the labels themselves were written in First Nations’ languages. To me, this was another example of counter-translation: here were languages that were revived through translation. I call this an as-if translation, in that they are not necessarily saying the same thing, but it is a way of bringing the language to life in relation to the art. Of course, this is just a symptom of First Languages being revived in many other areas like theater, cinema, new street signs, etc.

Altogether, there is a whole movement of re-translation into First Nations languages that had been suppressed for centuries. These kinds of reversals, I find satisfying because they are desirable reversals. That is what I mean by counter-translation.

What are you working on right now?

I am actually getting started on a new project today. I am going to do something local. We have a large park here in Montreal, which we refer to as the Mountain. It is a local monument, and it has had a special place in the city since the city’s founding. It has a fascinating language history, so I am going to tell the story of the Mountain through language.

Tags:Lviv, Montreal, The Space of Synagogues, Translation Studies

Jonathan Pyner

Journalist at MultiLingual Magazine | + posts

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4	5	6	7 EUATC Webinar: GDPR & Personal Data in Translation Overview EUATC Webinar: GDPR & Personal Data in Translation Overview January 7, 2021 08:00 - 16:00 See more details •	8	9	10
11	12	13	14	15	16	17
18 Test Event Test Event January 18, 2021 23:00 - 23:00 See more details •	19	20	21 Translation, Transcreation, Transadaptation and the Science Behind Them Translation, Transcreation, Transadaptation and the Science Behind Them January 21, 2021 07:45 - 16:00 See more details LocLife™ — Onward: Inspiring Perspectives from Loc Leaders LocLife™ — Onward: Inspiring Perspectives from Loc Leaders January 21, 2021 09:15 - 14:00 See more details [Live Webinar] Present and Future of Natural Language Generation (NLG) in the Localization Industry [Live Webinar] Present and Future of Natural Language Generation (NLG) in the Localization Industry January 21, 2021 13:00 - 16:00 See more details LinkedIn Localization Initiatives LinkedIn Localization Initiatives January 21, 2021 18:30 - 21:00 See more details 20th ITRI International Conference: The Roles and Identities of Interpreters and Translators in an Ever-Changing World 20th ITRI International Conference: The Roles and Identities of Interpreters and Translators in an Ever-Changing World January 21, 2021 23:00 - January 22, 2021 23:00 See more details • • • • •	22 20th ITRI International Conference: The Roles and Identities of Interpreters and Translators in an Ever-Changing World 20th ITRI International Conference: The Roles and Identities of Interpreters and Translators in an Ever-Changing World January 21, 2021 23:00 - January 22, 2021 23:00 See more details •	23	24
25	26	27 Slator Design Thinking Webinar \| Video On Demand Slator Design Thinking Webinar \| Video On Demand January 27, 2021 23:00 - 23:00 See more details •	28 [LIVE WEBINAR] Deep Adaptive in MT – closing the gap with human parity [LIVE WEBINAR] Deep Adaptive in MT – closing the gap with human parity January 28, 2021 13:00 - 16:00 See more details [LIVE WEBINAR] Deep Adaptive in MT – closing the gap with human parity [LIVE WEBINAR] Deep Adaptive in MT – closing the gap with human parity January 28, 2021 13:00 - 16:00 See more details [LIVE WEBINAR] Deep Adaptive in MT – closing the gap with human parity [LIVE WEBINAR] Deep Adaptive in MT – closing the gap with human parity January 28, 2021 13:00 - 16:00 See more details [LIVE WEBINAR] Deep Adaptive in MT – closing the gap with human parity [LIVE WEBINAR] Deep Adaptive in MT – closing the gap with human parity January 28, 2021 13:00 - 16:00 See more details • • • •	29	30	31

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Chinese Project Promotes Local Dialects, but in What Capacity?

3 months ago - Jonathan Pyner on October 22, 2020

Geopolitics

China, Language Preservation, Uighur Genocide

Surveying a wide swath of regions, Chinese officials aim to preserve and promote local dialects. The country’s human rights record, however, stands at odds with the recent measures.

Home to hundreds of dialects and ethnic minority languages, China has begun a project to preserve language resources and protect the record of the region’s rich linguistic history. The Chinese Ministry of Education and the State Language Commission began conducting surveys in 2015 to determine the state of local dialects around China. The survey has found that at least 100 local dialects are endangered, prompting the National People’s Congress (NPC) deputy to put forth proposals to protect endangered languages and promote inheritance of dialects.

The project stands to become the largest language preservation project in the world. As of this month, the project has collected more than 10 million entries for 123 Chinese dialects and ethnic minority languages after surveying the language resources of over 1,700 locations. Along with the language surveys, the NPC has made a call to promote local dialects in schools, though apparently in the form of

In terms of the spoken languages, much of the world associates Chinese language with either Mandarin — often referred to as “Putonghua,” or common tongue, in Mainland China — or possibly Cantonese, the predominant language spoken in the southern Guangdong province. The Chinese Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) and the rise of television and film media prompted the Chinese Government to enact policies that would make Mandarin the predominant language for mass broadcasts, most mainstream media, and most educational disciplines. Mandarin is often a second language, and an increasingly necessary language to learn.

However, while Mandarin is the official language of the country, the linguistic diversity of China is immensely diverse. Besides Mandarin and Cantonese, both distinct from one another, 14 million people speak a dialect commonly referred to as Shanghainese, and Shanghai is made up of even more languages. Language is not tethered to region, either. Hakka is a cultural language of the Hakka people, who live among several provinces.

In statements for a 2005 New York Times article, one linguist from the Fujian province in China said, “We have an expression, that if you drive five miles in Fujian the culture changes, and if you drive 10 miles, the language does.”

Similarly, a professor of linguistics said in the same article, “No one can clearly answer the question how many dialects there are in China. The degree of difference among dialects is much higher than the degree of difference among European languages. In Europe they call them languages, but in China we share a culture, so the central government would like to consider that one language is shared by many different peoples. It is simply a different definition.”

Needless to say, the project of collecting records of all these languages will be a massive undertaking, not to mention pressing. Many of the measures to promote Mandarin since the Cultural Revolution have resulted in a sharp decreases in opportunities for speakers of local languages to maintain their own dialects, especially with laws requiring Mandarin instruction in many K-12 educational disciplines. In fact, just in August this year, ethnic Mongolian communities in the Inner Mongolian Autonomous Region (IMAR) — located in China’s north border with Mongolia — staged mass school boycotts in response to a new curriculum that would scale back education in the local Mongolian language.

Likewise, in the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) and Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region (XUAR), many of the local dialects are in danger due to similar educational policies as those in IMAR. In its report on China’s “Bilingual Education” in TAR earlier this year, the Human Rights Watch suggested that “TAR authorities are using a strategy of cultivated ambiguity in their public statements while using indirect pressure to push primary schools, where an increasing number of ethnic Chinese teachers are teaching, to adopt Chinese-medium instruction at the expense of Tibetan, such as allocating increasing numbers of ethnic Chinese teachers who do not speak Tibetan to positions in Tibetan schools.”

Considering the threat many of these languages face due to Chinese language policies, one might see the creation of a language preservation project as an attempt to make up for human rights abuses that necessitated such preservation measures in the first place. Furthermore, the cultural erasure occurring in many of the autonomous regions begs the question of whether these recent measures are meant to protect people, or rather simply to preserve language as artifact while the cultures themselves go extinct.

While the project to survey, protect, and promote local dialects in China is still new and will likely evolve in upcoming years, human rights advocates stress that such measures must be complemented with active cultural preservation as well. In her Atlantic story on Chinese repression of the Uighur people in Xinjiang, Yasmeen Serhan writes, “Safeguarding a culture requires more than simply maintaining a historical record of its existence. Cultures, after all, can’t be placed behind glass like museum artifacts; much like the people who inhabit them, cultures are meant to grow, adapt, and evolve.”

Preserving and promoting local dialects and ethnic minority languages will thus require not merely the collection of documents, but an even more more massive undertaking: promoting the cultures themselves. The project has so far resulted in a rich collection of language data and resources, and likely a better understanding of China’s broad swath of cultures and languages. How this information will translate to policy, or reform, still remains a question.

Tags:China, Language Preservation, Uighur Genocide

Jonathan Pyner

Journalist at MultiLingual Magazine | + posts

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4	5	6	7 EUATC Webinar: GDPR & Personal Data in Translation Overview EUATC Webinar: GDPR & Personal Data in Translation Overview January 7, 2021 08:00 - 16:00 See more details •	8	9	10
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Emsi Language Services Industry Overview Projects Growth

3 months ago - Jonathan Pyner on October 6, 2020

Language Industry News and Events

Emsi, Interpreting, Job Report, Language Service Industry

An exclusive Emsi report outlines several variables around the language services industry, including salary, job growth, job training, and demographic breakdown.

Emsi, a data modeling firm based in the United States, recently gave MultiLingual a look at its third quarter 2020 data set on the US language services industry, providing a status of job postings as well as the industry’s projected growth over the next two years. The industry has seen steady growth over the past few years, although the COVID-19 pandemic has caused a disruption and re-organization in demand. Here are a few takeaways from the report.

As of 2019, translators and interpreters made up over 40,000 jobs in the US, with average annual earnings of over $50,000. The report projects growth of over 19% by 2022, though these numbers depend on region. For example, the San Francisco Bay Area’s southern regions exceed the national growth average at around 23%, whereas the San Diego region projects a slower rate of 14%, according to the report.

Most jobs are found under the category of “Other Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services,” making up almost 40% of jobs in 2019. The “Other” category represented over 20%, while “Education and Hospitals” at the local level followed at around 17%. Both population size and region play a role in job rate with California, Texas, and New York leading.

The job demand remained steady between early 2017 and 2020, but Emsi reports a rise in demand in 2020, corresponding with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and health-related language services. The past couple months have seen a return to the national average.

LanguageLine Solutions represented the majority of unique job postings with over 20,000, and Soliant Health, Inc had over 6,000 postings. The top three job titles are bilingual interpreters, interpreters, and sign language interpreters, and the top hard skills for job postings are language translation, pronunciation, and language interpretation.

Among both industry and language-specific occupations, age demographics spread fairly evenly among people between 19-64, with the highest concentration of those 25-34 years of age. Furthermore, women make up around two-thirds of the industry, with well over two-thirds of those holding language service occupations. White workers also hold most industry positions at 70% but hold less than 50% of language occupations, with Hispanic or Latino workers representing the next highest demographic at around one-third of workers.

In terms of educational training, most in the industry hold a bachelor’s degree, though as many as 20% hold a master’s degree or higher. Spanish language and literature ranks highest among educational programs, with University of Wisconsin-Madison, UCLA, and BYU ranking among the top schools.

Emsi data comprises a hybrid dataset derived from official government sources such as the US Census Bureau, Bureau of Economic Analysis, and Bureau of Labor Statistics. Leveraging the unique strengths of each source, the data modeling team creates an authoritative dataset that captures more than 99% of all workers in the United States. This core offering is then enriched with data from online social profiles, resumés, and job postings to give a complete view of the workforce.

Tags:Emsi, Interpreting, Job Report, Language Service Industry

Jonathan Pyner

Journalist at MultiLingual Magazine | + posts

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Iowa Translators Persist Despite English-Only Voting Laws

4 months ago - Jonathan Pyner on September 22, 2020

Translation

EMBARC Iowa, Iowa, Mid-Iowa Organizing Strategy, Steve King, Tom Vilsack

As the 2020 election approaches, translators in Iowa are working against prohibitive laws to translate and distribute informational materials to multilingual communities across the state.

Iowa’s “English-only” law dates to 1918 after World War I, when Governor William Harding signed the Babel Proclamation into law, which made English the only language legally permitted in the state. Although it was repealed only five months after Harding signed it, former Iowa Governor Tom Vilsack revived the English-only legislation in signing the Iowa English Language Reaffirmation Act into law. The act states that all official documents “on behalf of, or representing the state and all of its political subdivisions shall be in the English language.”

According to Yale Law and Policy Review, lawmakers said the act was meant to encourage assimilation to Iowa culture, and Vilsack said the law would encourage people to learn English. However, the Review outlined the eventual outcome that led to widespread disenfranchisement, stating, “As a result, eligible voters in Iowa who did not understand English were prevented from registering to vote in state and national elections.”

Some county auditors tried to respond to the problem by translating voter forms or providing multilingual how-to videos. In retaliation, Republican US Representative Steve King sued the Iowa secretary of state in 2007 for violating the law, arguing that if someone were a US citizen, they must prove English proficiency, eliminating the need for translation, according to King.

Despite the resistance from some lawmakers, however, many translators and voter-advocacy groups persist in translating voting materials to better serve Iowa’s non-English speaking communities. Iowa-based translator Iris Tun makes videos translating information from English to both Burmese and Karen, two of the languages spoken in Myanmar. EMBARC Iowa airs the informational videos in multiple languages. Tun also translates voter registration forms at her church for free.

“Even though they become a citizen, they got citizenship, they’re really scared because a lot of people, they talk about voters, if you do something wrong, you make a mistake, the police come and get you and you can go to jail,” Tun said.

Jan Flora and Terry Potter of A Mid-Iowa Organizing Strategy (AMOS), who translate voter forms into Spanish and distribute them to other organizations throughout the state, also expressed concern, especially going into an election during the pandemic. “In this COVID year, since it’s so complicated, and things have become so messy, what we’re trying to do is, first of all, make sure people are encouraged to register,” Potter said. “And then ultimately, that they vote whichever way they’re most comfortable with.”

“One of the terms that I found difficult to translate was the word ballot. In some dictionaries it has balota, but my experience in Latin America has said to me that didn’t ring true,” Flora said. “So we ended up with papeleta de voto, which is interpreted as a small piece of paper.”

Sue Lloyd, the county auditor for Buena Vista County, mentioned her county was notified in December 2016 of the federal requirement Section 203 of the Voting Rights Act, which stipulates “The law covers those localities where there are more than 10,000 or over 5 percent of the total voting age citizens in a single political subdivision…who are members of a single language minority group, have depressed literacy rates, and do not speak English very well.”

“I think there’s interest because I’ve been contacted by some other counties asking about the forms and what I’ve been told. And I tell them that we’re the only ones that can accept those forms for Iowa,” Lloyd said.

Tags:EMBARC Iowa, Iowa, Mid-Iowa Organizing Strategy, Steve King, Tom Vilsack

Jonathan Pyner

Journalist at MultiLingual Magazine | + posts

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Telehealth Firm Amwell to Adopt Google AI, Translation Tech

4 months ago - Jonathan Pyner on September 9, 2020

Technology

AI, Amwell, Google, ML, telehealth, translation

Promising advances to the telehealth services industry, Amwell will integrate Google Cloud AI capabilities for natural language processing and medical transcription services, among other new services.

Since the onset of the pandemic, telehealth services have skyrocketed. A Department of Health and Human Services statistical report found that in April, about 43% of primary care visits through Medicare were via telehealth. Before the pandemic, more than 99% of Medicare-funded visits were in-person appointments. From March through early July, the agency says, more than 10 million Medicare beneficiaries used telehealth services. With broad telehealth coverage more vital than ever, though, demands for language services have risen considerably as well.

Seeing the opportunity for growth, Google recently pledged to invest $100 million into Amwell, formerly known as American Well, a company that builds technology for virtual doctors’ visits. Launching in 2006, Amwell currently works with 55 health plans, which support over 36,000 employers and represent more than 80 million covered individuals, as well as 150 of the nation’s largest health systems. It has powered more than 5.6 million telehealth visits for its clients, including over 3 million since the shutdown began.

The partnership will leverage Google’s artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) technologies to create a comprehensive virtual care experience for patients and providers that goes beyond visits and includes services like self-triage or remote patient monitoring (RPM) capabilities. Google plans to work closely with Amwell to integrate its AI capabilities into Amwell’s virtual care platform, particularly in natural language processing and medical transcription services. This could have interesting implications for the language service industry, particularly the life sciences sector.

Additionally, Amwell will move parts of its business from Amazon Web Services to Google Cloud, recognizing Google Cloud as its “preferred global cloud partner.” Specifically, Amwell will move some video performance capabilities to Google Cloud. The two companies will also collaborate on technology and work to expand Amwell’s footprint in the sector.

“With this partnership, Google Cloud and Amwell see an opportunity to improve patient and clinician telehealth experiences through technologies that can automate waiting room and checkout; provide automated language translation services; advance population health by making it easier for more patients to receive care; and assist payers and providers in routine tasks, by intelligently triaging cases and reducing clinician burnout,” mentioned a Google Cloud blog post.

The post went on to describe how machine translation is being integrated into the system: “A conversational chatbot agent is immediately available to assist you, in your preferred language, by asking about your symptoms and the reason for your visit, and provides this information to your physician before she enters your virtual exam room. During your appointment, you continue to speak in your preferred language to your physician, while cloud-based artificial intelligence (AI) provides live, translated captioning of the conversation.”

Tags:AI, Amwell, Google, ML, telehealth, translation

Jonathan Pyner

Journalist at MultiLingual Magazine | + posts

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Beowulf Translated with a 2020-Style Makeover

5 months ago - Jonathan Pyner on September 2, 2020

Language in the News

Beowulf, Maria Dahvana Headley, Old English, The Mere Wife

Following her 2018 novelized retelling of the epic poem, Maria Dahvana Headley has written a new translation of Beowulf that adopts a contemporary vernacular and political lens.

A new feminist translation of Beowulf by acclaimed author Maria Dahvana Headly has just been published to rave reviews. Mixing many of the classic poetic and narrative strategies with a 2020 lens, Maria Dahvana Headley has exploded into the age-old task of translating the English language’s oldest work of literature.

Joining in conversations with such notable translations as those by JRR Tolkien, Seamus Heaney, and Peter Liuzza, Headley follows in the tradition of determining a unique formal proposition for the behemoth undertaking. Where the others might rely on a classic formalism, Headley takes advantage of contemporary tools to depict a new take.

One of the most apparent differences that stand out is Headley’s angle on the Anglo-Saxon word “Hwæt,” which has received a great deal of interpretation over the centuries about how best to capture a modern equivalent. The term shows up often in the epic poem as a kind of linguistic interjection or call-to-attention, signaling a speaker has an important statement to make.

Heaney translated the word to “so,” as in, “So. The Spear-Danes in days gone by / and the kings who ruled them had courage and greatness. / We have heard of those princes’ heroic campaigns.” Headley, on the other hand, opted for the modern slang word “Bro,” for its wealth of connotations and frequent usage in today’s vernacular.

“Bro! Tell me we still know how to talk about kings!” Headley writes. “In the old days, / everyone knew what men were: brave, bold, glory-bound. Only / stories now, but I’ll sound the Spear-Danes’ song, hoarded for hungry times.”

The distinctive translation decisions did not stop there. Another notable revision had to do with the character known as Grendel’s Mother. Depicted in most earlier translations as a monster, Headley describes her version of Beowulf’s chief antagonist as “a formidable noblewoman, a warrior, as is accurate to the Old English words used to describe her.”

More of a transcreation than a straight translation — one might even say the work is localized for a modern audience — Headley’s version still uses alliteration and cadence, which were present in the Anglo-Saxon original.

The recent translation follows Headley’s 2018 work The Mere Wife, which is itself a retelling of Beowulf set in 21st century suburbia and place much more emphasis on Grendel’s mother’s story. With all the disputes over the years about which words and stories receive the greatest emphasis, Headley suspected something could have been missed in earlier translations.

“This translation actually came utterly out of the work I did to write The Mere Wife,” she said in a 2018 interview. “Initially, when I started working on Mere, I was certain that I’d find a popular translation in which Grendel’s mother isn’t a monster, but a warrior. Um, no. The scholarship on this point dates to the 70s, but it hasn’t made its way into most translations.”

Besides Heaney’s version, Headley cites a number of other translations that she relied on in this project, including Meghan Purvis’s translation and Beowulf By All’s translation. However, like any translation, Headley admits, even with these texts to rely on, she still had a vision for a deep project that was all her own.

“Language is a living thing,” she writes in her introduction. “And when it dies, it leaves bones. I dropped some fossils here, next to some newborns. I’m as interested in contemporary idiom and slang as I am in the archaic. There are other translations if you’re looking for the courtly romance and knights.”

Tags:Beowulf, Maria Dahvana Headley, Old English, The Mere Wife

Jonathan Pyner

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Gallaudet University Partners with Apple and AppTek

5 months ago - Jonathan Pyner on August 27, 2020

Business News, Technology

AI, Apple, Apptek, ASR, Gallaudet University, ML, MT

In a moment when universities need the latest technology more than ever, Gallaudet University has announced two important partnerships with Apple and AppTek, which aim to provide its deaf and hard-of-hearing students with tools necessary to succeed in an increasingly technological world.

As the fall term commences, Gallaudet University has announced a couple exciting pieces of news for its deaf and hard-of-hearing students. Gallaudet is a federally chartered private university for the education of the deaf and hard of hearing located in Washington, D.C. In a statement on Thursday morning, Gallaudet University President Roberta J. Cordano announced that the university would begin a partnership with Apple to improve access and expand academic and career opportunities for Gallaudet students.

In her statement, the president said, “Beginning this fall, Gallaudet will provide all students and faculty with an iPad Pro, Apple Pencil, and SmartFolio for iPad Pro to support their learning and teaching. Students and teachers at the Laurent Clerc National Deaf Education Center will also participate in this new initiative.”

Providing students better access to the most up-to-date technology, the partnership will also establish an Apple scholarship program for students of color with disabilities. The scholarship will go to students pursuing studies in information technology, computer science, and other science, technology, and math related fields.

“Gallaudet has been at the forefront of advancing education and acceptance of Deaf culture in this country for more than 150 years,” said Lisa Jackson, Apple’s vice president of Environment, Policy and Social Initiatives. “We are honored to work together with this incredible institution to create even more opportunities for Gallaudet students and for all underserved and underrepresented communities.”

Furthermore, through the Connected Gallaudet initiative, Gallaudet students will participate in research projects to design bilingual applications. One project in particular was also announced this week, which revealed a partnership between Gallaudet University and AppTek, a leader in artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) for automatic speech recognition (ASR) and machine translation (MT).

This application aims to provide video conference participants with live closed captions and deliver more control of the user interface (UI), allowing users to enhance the readability of real-time conversation transcripts and enjoy a more meaningful flow of spoken content.

“While much of the world is relying heavily on videoconferencing applications to communicate safely during the COVID-19 pandemic, commonly used applications unfortunately do not provide reliable, real-time capabilities that allow deaf and hard of hearing participants to engage fully,” said Mike Veronis, AppTek Chief Revenue Officer and Program Manager for the 21st Century Closed Captioning project. “We are passionate about and humbled at the opportunity to collaborate with Gallaudet on bridging that gap by developing new tools to give the deaf community greater freedom, control, and access to virtual communication.”

Integrating AppTek’s ASR platform, the application will incorporate the latest AI and ML technologies to enable this assistive service, which will be available to users on demand. Over time, Gallaudet also intends to incorporate multilingual capabilities using AppTek’s Multilingual Automatic Speech Recognition and Neural Machine Translation technologies.

Along with new technology and the application development project, Gallaudet University will also grant some students the opportunity to take part in the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference (AWDC) through the partnership with Apple. The annual event brings together over 5,000 developers, innovators, and entrepreneurs for engineering sessions, forums, laboratories, and keynote presentations about the latest app and software innovation.

Tags:AI, Apple, Apptek, ASR, Gallaudet University, ML, MT

Jonathan Pyner

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4	5	6	7 EUATC Webinar: GDPR & Personal Data in Translation Overview EUATC Webinar: GDPR & Personal Data in Translation Overview January 7, 2021 08:00 - 16:00 See more details •	8	9	10
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18 Test Event Test Event January 18, 2021 23:00 - 23:00 See more details •	19	20	21 Translation, Transcreation, Transadaptation and the Science Behind Them Translation, Transcreation, Transadaptation and the Science Behind Them January 21, 2021 07:45 - 16:00 See more details LocLife™ — Onward: Inspiring Perspectives from Loc Leaders LocLife™ — Onward: Inspiring Perspectives from Loc Leaders January 21, 2021 09:15 - 14:00 See more details [Live Webinar] Present and Future of Natural Language Generation (NLG) in the Localization Industry [Live Webinar] Present and Future of Natural Language Generation (NLG) in the Localization Industry January 21, 2021 13:00 - 16:00 See more details LinkedIn Localization Initiatives LinkedIn Localization Initiatives January 21, 2021 18:30 - 21:00 See more details 20th ITRI International Conference: The Roles and Identities of Interpreters and Translators in an Ever-Changing World 20th ITRI International Conference: The Roles and Identities of Interpreters and Translators in an Ever-Changing World January 21, 2021 23:00 - January 22, 2021 23:00 See more details • • • • •	22 20th ITRI International Conference: The Roles and Identities of Interpreters and Translators in an Ever-Changing World 20th ITRI International Conference: The Roles and Identities of Interpreters and Translators in an Ever-Changing World January 21, 2021 23:00 - January 22, 2021 23:00 See more details •	23	24
25	26	27 Slator Design Thinking Webinar \| Video On Demand Slator Design Thinking Webinar \| Video On Demand January 27, 2021 23:00 - 23:00 See more details •	28 [LIVE WEBINAR] Deep Adaptive in MT – closing the gap with human parity [LIVE WEBINAR] Deep Adaptive in MT – closing the gap with human parity January 28, 2021 13:00 - 16:00 See more details [LIVE WEBINAR] Deep Adaptive in MT – closing the gap with human parity [LIVE WEBINAR] Deep Adaptive in MT – closing the gap with human parity January 28, 2021 13:00 - 16:00 See more details [LIVE WEBINAR] Deep Adaptive in MT – closing the gap with human parity [LIVE WEBINAR] Deep Adaptive in MT – closing the gap with human parity January 28, 2021 13:00 - 16:00 See more details [LIVE WEBINAR] Deep Adaptive in MT – closing the gap with human parity [LIVE WEBINAR] Deep Adaptive in MT – closing the gap with human parity January 28, 2021 13:00 - 16:00 See more details • • • •	29	30	31

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Chinese-Language Curriculum Designated As Diplomatic Mission

5 months ago - Jonathan Pyner on August 25, 2020

Language in the News

China, Confucius Institutes, Mike Pompeo, USA

In a rebuke from American officials, a Chinese-language education group will now be designated as a diplomatic mission. The new measures follow years of controversy surrounding the group.

When it comes to learning a new language, vocabulary memorization and grammar rules make up part of the learning process. Depending on the instructor, textbook, and even political environment, language instruction can have ulterior motives. At least, that is what many academic institutions and the current administration believe of the Confucius Institutes.

In recent years, the Chinese language education group operating in the US has drawn criticism over its curriculum, which has led dozens of universities to close institutes hosted on campus. The accusations center around the organization ties to the Chinese Communist Government and suspicions that the language program is responsible for spreading Chinese Communist propaganda.

Pressure against Confucius Institutes has ramped up recently with the US announcing that it now designates the group a diplomatic mission, according to a report by the New York Times.

“The goal of these actions is simple: to ensure that American educators and school administrators can make informed choices about whether these CCP-backed programs should be allowed to continue, and if so, in what fashion,” said Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in a press statement last week. “The United States wants to ensure that students on U.S. campuses have access to Chinese language and cultural offerings free from the manipulation of the Chinese Communist Party and its proxies.”

Though the move will change the status of the Confucius Institutes, the new designation does not mean that academic institutions still hosting the programs will need to close them. However, the organization will now be required to give the State Department lists of employees and property holdings, along with information on all its institutes and centers.

Still, the Chinese Communist Party responded to the move, accusing the administration of further aggravating tensions between the two countries. In a daily briefing, China’s foreign ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian claimed the accusations had no basis. “The relevant US approach is to demonize and stigmatize the normal operation of China-U.S. cooperation projects. We strongly deplore and oppose it,” Zhao said at a daily briefing. He said China would “reserve the right to make further responses to this matter.”

Currently, the Confucius Institutes operate in about 500 K-12 classrooms and 65 US university campuses, though those numbers are shrinking due to concerns over propaganda and the interference in academic independence over issues like Hong Kong and Tibet. China considers the institutes in the same class as related organizations in the west, like the British Institute, the Alliance Françaises, and Germany’s Goethe Institutes. A notable difference, critics contend, is that those entities are not housed in universities.

Tags:China, Confucius Institutes, Mike Pompeo, USA

Jonathan Pyner

Journalist at MultiLingual Magazine | + posts

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	January 2021
				1	2	3
4	5	6	7 EUATC Webinar: GDPR & Personal Data in Translation Overview EUATC Webinar: GDPR & Personal Data in Translation Overview January 7, 2021 08:00 - 16:00 See more details •	8	9	10
11	12	13	14	15	16	17
18 Test Event Test Event January 18, 2021 23:00 - 23:00 See more details •	19	20	21 Translation, Transcreation, Transadaptation and the Science Behind Them Translation, Transcreation, Transadaptation and the Science Behind Them January 21, 2021 07:45 - 16:00 See more details LocLife™ — Onward: Inspiring Perspectives from Loc Leaders LocLife™ — Onward: Inspiring Perspectives from Loc Leaders January 21, 2021 09:15 - 14:00 See more details [Live Webinar] Present and Future of Natural Language Generation (NLG) in the Localization Industry [Live Webinar] Present and Future of Natural Language Generation (NLG) in the Localization Industry January 21, 2021 13:00 - 16:00 See more details LinkedIn Localization Initiatives LinkedIn Localization Initiatives January 21, 2021 18:30 - 21:00 See more details 20th ITRI International Conference: The Roles and Identities of Interpreters and Translators in an Ever-Changing World 20th ITRI International Conference: The Roles and Identities of Interpreters and Translators in an Ever-Changing World January 21, 2021 23:00 - January 22, 2021 23:00 See more details • • • • •	22 20th ITRI International Conference: The Roles and Identities of Interpreters and Translators in an Ever-Changing World 20th ITRI International Conference: The Roles and Identities of Interpreters and Translators in an Ever-Changing World January 21, 2021 23:00 - January 22, 2021 23:00 See more details •	23	24
25	26	27 Slator Design Thinking Webinar \| Video On Demand Slator Design Thinking Webinar \| Video On Demand January 27, 2021 23:00 - 23:00 See more details •	28 [LIVE WEBINAR] Deep Adaptive in MT – closing the gap with human parity [LIVE WEBINAR] Deep Adaptive in MT – closing the gap with human parity January 28, 2021 13:00 - 16:00 See more details [LIVE WEBINAR] Deep Adaptive in MT – closing the gap with human parity [LIVE WEBINAR] Deep Adaptive in MT – closing the gap with human parity January 28, 2021 13:00 - 16:00 See more details [LIVE WEBINAR] Deep Adaptive in MT – closing the gap with human parity [LIVE WEBINAR] Deep Adaptive in MT – closing the gap with human parity January 28, 2021 13:00 - 16:00 See more details [LIVE WEBINAR] Deep Adaptive in MT – closing the gap with human parity [LIVE WEBINAR] Deep Adaptive in MT – closing the gap with human parity January 28, 2021 13:00 - 16:00 See more details • • • •	29	30	31

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Geological Sciences in Cape Town to Translate Terms

5 months ago - Jonathan Pyner on August 20, 2020

Terminology, Translation

Geological Sciences, isiXhosa, University of Cape Town

A project at the University of Cape Town has begun to translate geological terms into the country’s official languages. The team hopes future scientific discourse will better represent the country’s rich linguistic diversity.

Speakers of South Africa’s 11 official languages may soon be able to hold academic discourse in geological sciences exclusively in their own language for the first time. A project called “Reclaiming the Rocks: Ukuthetha ngezifundo zomhlaba ngesiXhosa” began this year at the University of Cape Town (UCT), as part of the Geological Sciences Department’s effort to better represent the languages spoken in South Africa. The department hopes the project will help connect people who have historically been excluded from academic discourse about their geological heritage.

Early in 2020, UCT lecturer Dr. Rosalie Tostevin conducted a survey of the Geological Sciences Department, which found a wide diversity of languages spoken among students and staff. It also indicated strong interest among students to participate in translation projects. Recruiting a team of researchers and student translators, Tostevin hopes to transform geology departments, museums, and public outreach events.

“Despite English being a first language for under 10% of the population, it dominates scientific discourse, alienating huge sections of the population. People engage more and understand better when the conversation is in their native tongue,” said Tostevin.

Led by UCT master’s student Batande Getyenga, the team of translators will begin producing a geological dictionary in isiXhosa, a language spoken by over 8 million native speakers and over 19 million total speakers. If the project becomes a success, the team plans to expand translations into other South African Languages.

Although Tostevin will write up summarized versions of the country’s geological record for the team to translate, the team will have to work together to develop translations for technical terms where none exist. Currently, terms like “fossil” or “dinosaur” have no equivalents in isiXhosa, so Tostevin sees this process as an opportunity to generate new, more intuitive and accessible vocabulary.

The project has already gained international recognition, receiving the European Geosciences Union’s public engagement grant—a grant awarded to outreach projects that aim to raise awareness of geosciences outside the scientific community. The team plans to use the grant money to launch a new website and to compensate the geology students involved in the high-skilled translation work.

“South Africa’s geological record is exceptional and relevant to our daily lives,” Tostevin Said. “Millions of tourists are drawn to Table Mountain every year; vineyards depend on the fertile soils of the Bokkeveld shales; and the economy is built on gold, mineral and diamond deposits. The rocks also hold the story of life on Earth – from the first traces of life to the rise and fall of the dinosaurs.”

Tags:Geological Sciences, isiXhosa, University of Cape Town

Jonathan Pyner

Journalist at MultiLingual Magazine | + posts

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About Jonathan Pyner

Literary Translation and the Art of Capturing Nuance 1 month ago - Jonathan Pyner on December 15, 2020 Translation literary translation, National Book Award, Spanish Translation

Literary Translation and the Art of Capturing Nuance

In our interview with Lisa Dillman, one of this year’s National Book Award Finalists in Literary Translation, she shared valuable insights about translating works from several Spanish-speaking regions.

How did you get started in literary translation?

Can you tell us about a particularly memorable project?

Translators work in a myriad of industries, making it difficult to define a translator’s job. What do you feel are some unique challenges you have faced in literary translation? What do you share with translators working in other industries?

Computer-assisted translation (CAT) tools are gaining momentum in the translation industry, but have yet to prove their worth in unsupervised projects. Have you ever considered using CAT in any part of a project? Do you see CAT ever becoming a normal tool within the process of literary translation?

You have translated authors from several Spanish-speaking countries: Yuri Herrera (Mexico), Andrés Barba (Spain), Pilar Quintana (Colombia), Graciela Mochkovsky (Argentina), Alejandra Costamagna (Chile). What is it like entering a new idiom? Was any dialect easier to translate into English?

As a follow-up, can you share any insights about notable regional differences in the languages?

The National Book Foundation selected The Bitch – your translation of Pilar Quintana’s novel – as a National Book Award Finalist in Translation. What was it about this work that you feel propelled it to this kind of success?

What are you working on currently?

Is there anything I haven’t asked, but should have?

Translate your book: Think big, share globally

Weekly Shorts | January 15, 2021

SBA Closes Comments on Controversial Proposal

Maldonado named Women in Localization president

Industry Events

January 2021

Weekly Newsletter

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Insights from Translation Studies Scholar Sherry Simon 2 months ago - Jonathan Pyner on December 1, 2020 Language, Translation Lviv, Montreal, The Space of Synagogues, Translation Studies

Insights from Translation Studies Scholar Sherry Simon

Can you tell us about yourself?

In your book Translation Sites, you explore the question of how translation and memory intersect in the life of the city and places within the city. Can you talk more about that? What is a translation site? How might one discover a translation site?

In your book Gender in Translation, you discuss several notable women translators since the Renaissance. Are there any women translators that you can highlight for our readers?

You have discussed the use of the term multilingual as insufficient in describing cities, that terms like translational or connectional might paint a more accurate picture. What do you see as the differences in these terms?

Can you talk about the concept of counter-translation?

What are you working on right now?

Localization Unconference – Canadian Edition

Memsource Buys Phrase

Weekly Shorts | January 15, 2021

InterpretAmerica Closes

Industry Events

January 2021

Weekly Newsletter

Career Opportunities

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Chinese Project Promotes Local Dialects, but in What Capacity? 3 months ago - Jonathan Pyner on October 22, 2020 Geopolitics China, Language Preservation, Uighur Genocide

Chinese Project Promotes Local Dialects, but in What Capacity?

Surveying a wide swath of regions, Chinese officials aim to preserve and promote local dialects. The country’s human rights record, however, stands at odds with the recent measures.

Global Growth at DiDi

Friday Roundup | Aug 29, 2020

Stamp Released to Honor Communist Manifesto Translation

Chinese-Language Curriculum Designated As Diplomatic Mission

Industry Events

January 2021

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Emsi Language Services Industry Overview Projects Growth 3 months ago - Jonathan Pyner on October 6, 2020 Language Industry News and Events Emsi, Interpreting, Job Report, Language Service Industry

Emsi Language Services Industry Overview Projects Growth

An exclusive Emsi report outlines several variables around the language services industry, including salary, job growth, job training, and demographic breakdown.

Adaptive Globalization Releases Linguist Salary Report

Conferences Canceled, How Will Translators Network?

Celebrating Translators and Interpreters: International Translation Day 2019

How ISO relates to LSPs

Industry Events

January 2021

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Iowa Translators Persist Despite English-Only Voting Laws 4 months ago - Jonathan Pyner on September 22, 2020 Translation EMBARC Iowa, Iowa, Mid-Iowa Organizing Strategy, Steve King, Tom Vilsack

Iowa Translators Persist Despite English-Only Voting Laws

As the 2020 election approaches, translators in Iowa are working against prohibitive laws to translate and distribute informational materials to multilingual communities across the state.

Weekly Shorts | January 15, 2021

SBA Closes Comments on Controversial Proposal

Maldonado named Women in Localization president

ATA Offers Payment Plan to Struggling Members

Industry Events

January 2021

Weekly Newsletter

Career Opportunities

Featured Podcasts

Featured Vendors And Organizations

Literary Translation and the Art of Capturing Nuance

1 month ago - Jonathan Pyner on December 15, 2020

Translation

literary translation, National Book Award, Spanish Translation

Insights from Translation Studies Scholar Sherry Simon

2 months ago - Jonathan Pyner on December 1, 2020

Language, Translation

Lviv, Montreal, The Space of Synagogues, Translation Studies

Chinese Project Promotes Local Dialects, but in What Capacity?

3 months ago - Jonathan Pyner on October 22, 2020

Geopolitics

China, Language Preservation, Uighur Genocide

Emsi Language Services Industry Overview Projects Growth

3 months ago - Jonathan Pyner on October 6, 2020

Language Industry News and Events

Emsi, Interpreting, Job Report, Language Service Industry

Iowa Translators Persist Despite English-Only Voting Laws

4 months ago - Jonathan Pyner on September 22, 2020

Translation

EMBARC Iowa, Iowa, Mid-Iowa Organizing Strategy, Steve King, Tom Vilsack

Telehealth Firm Amwell to Adopt Google AI, Translation Tech

4 months ago - Jonathan Pyner on September 9, 2020

Technology

AI, Amwell, Google, ML, telehealth, translation

Beowulf Translated with a 2020-Style Makeover

5 months ago - Jonathan Pyner on September 2, 2020

Language in the News

Beowulf, Maria Dahvana Headley, Old English, The Mere Wife

Gallaudet University Partners with Apple and AppTek

5 months ago - Jonathan Pyner on August 27, 2020

Business News, Technology

AI, Apple, Apptek, ASR, Gallaudet University, ML, MT

Chinese-Language Curriculum Designated As Diplomatic Mission

5 months ago - Jonathan Pyner on August 25, 2020

Language in the News

China, Confucius Institutes, Mike Pompeo, USA

Geological Sciences in Cape Town to Translate Terms

5 months ago - Jonathan Pyner on August 20, 2020

Terminology, Translation

Geological Sciences, isiXhosa, University of Cape Town