tag:theconversation.com,2011:/id/topics/translation-14124/articlesTranslation – The Conversation2024-03-21T19:07:33Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2262252024-03-21T19:07:33Z2024-03-21T19:07:33ZPrestigious journals make it hard for scientists who don’t speak English to get published. And we all lose out<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/583287/original/file-20240320-17-ek0zj5.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C12%2C4288%2C2830&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/stem-cotton-gossypium-hirsutum-microscopic-view-170232521">D. Kucharski K. Kucharska/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>For the first time in history, a single language dominates global scientific communication. But the actual production of knowledge continues to be a multilingual enterprise.</p>
<p>The use of English as the norm poses challenges for scholars from regions where English is not widely spoken. They must decide whether to publish in English for global visibility, or publish in their native language to make their work accessible to local communities. And when they work in English, they end up <a href="https://theconversation.com/non-native-english-speaking-scientists-work-much-harder-just-to-keep-up-global-research-reveals-208750">expending more time and effort</a> writing and revising papers than their native English-speaking peers.</p>
<p>As gatekeepers of scientific knowledge, academic publishers play a key role in helping or hindering the participation of a multilingual scientific community. So how are they doing?</p>
<p>We reviewed the policies of 736 journals in the biological sciences and discovered the great majority are making only minimal efforts to overcome language barriers in academic publishing. Our research is <a href="https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rspb.2023.2840">published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B</a>.</p>
<h2>A wide range of inclusive policies</h2>
<p>Linguistically inclusive policies come in many forms, and can be implemented at each stage of the editorial process. They might aim to make publishing more multilingual. Alternatively – if sticking with English – they may aim to reduce the burden on non-native English speakers.</p>
<p>Allowing papers to be published in more than one language at the same time would resolve the dilemma many non-native English speaking scholars face about communicating locally or globally. However, only 7% of the journals we surveyed allowed this possibility. (A further 11% will allow multilingual versions of an abstract alone.)</p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/non-native-english-speaking-scientists-work-much-harder-just-to-keep-up-global-research-reveals-208750">Non-native English speaking scientists work much harder just to keep up, global research reveals</a>
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<p>Another possibility would be to implement machine translation tools to make versions of an article available in multiple languages on a journal’s website. There has been recent <a href="https://academic.oup.com/bioscience/article/72/10/988/6653151">progress in this area</a>, but only 11% of journals we surveyed have put it into practice. </p>
<p>Journals can also indicate they value submissions from authors from diverse linguistic backgrounds by explicitly declaring they will not reject manuscripts solely on the basis of the perceived quality of the English. Surprisingly, we found only two journals stated this.</p>
<p>Similarly, providing author guidelines in multiple languages would further encourage submissions from diverse authors. While 11% of the journals we examined translate specific sections of their guidelines to other languages, only 8% offer their entire guidelines in more than one language.</p>
<p>To ensure published research learns from the scientific contributions of <a href="https://besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1365-2664.14370">scholars from around the globe</a>, journals should explicitly allow or encourage non-English literature to be cited. Only one tenth of journals mention this in author guidelines.</p>
<p>Journals may also adopt measures to ensure work submitted by non-native English speakers is assessed fairly. One such measure is the provision of English-language editing services. </p>
<p>More than half the journals we surveyed refer authors to some kind of editing services; only 1% offer the service free of charge to authors. The cost of editing may impose a considerable <a href="https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0238372">financial burden</a> on scholars in lower-income countries.</p>
<p>Another measure is to educate reviewers and editors about language barriers and instruct them to assess the manuscripts based on their research attributes alone. This is something only 4–6% of journals implement.</p>
<h2>Drivers of inclusivity</h2>
<p>We also identify two key influences on a journal’s adoption of linguistically inclusive policy. </p>
<p>The first is impact factor, a measure commonly taken to represent the prestige of a journal. We found journals with higher impact factors tend to adopt less-inclusive policies, possibly because they mostly target English-proficient authors and readers.</p>
<p>The second influence is ownership by a scientific society. Journals owned by scientific societies tended to adopt more inclusive policies. They have also taken the lead in the movement to publish multilingual content.</p>
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<p>Many scientific societies have a mandate to <a href="https://anatomypubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ar.24735">foster diverse communities</a>. They are supported by their members and are well positioned to push for a cultural change in scientific publishing.</p>
<p>We also found that open access journals (which make research available to the public for free) were no more likely to adopt inclusive linguistic policies, nor were journals with more diverse editorial boards. </p>
<p>The apparent lack of influence of linguistically diverse board members is a puzzle. Perhaps editors who have experienced language barriers in their own professional life do not advocate for non-native English speaking authors. Or perhaps editorial boards have less power to define editorial policies than we might expect.</p>
<h2>Language barriers</h2>
<p>Language barriers deepen geographic divides, hampering knowledge sharing. Tackling them in academic publishing becomes critical to effectively address both regional and global issues, such as health and conservation.</p>
<p>In our study, we looked at a number of linguistically inclusive policies, but there are plenty of other things journals can do to help scientists from non-English speaking backgrounds. These range from <a href="https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adg9714">using artificial intelligence tools</a> to the re-negotiation of copyrights to <a href="https://academic.oup.com/iob/article/5/1/obad003/7008844">authorise the publication of translations</a> elsewhere.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/226225/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Henry Arenas-Castro does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A study of 736 biological science journals showed only a small fraction are making efforts to foster a multilingual scientific community.Henry Arenas-Castro, Postdoctoral Fellow, Yale University, The University of QueenslandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2187932024-03-08T05:39:20Z2024-03-08T05:39:20ZThe Three-Body Problem: Liu Cixin’s extraterrestrial novel is a heady blend of politics, ethics, physics and Chinese history<p>Liu Cixin’s The Three-Body Problem – the first of a popular trilogy titled Remembrance of Earth’s Past – has entertained and challenged readers since first appearing in Chinese in 2006. </p>
<p>The 2014 English translation, by acclaimed American science-fiction author Ken Liu, became the first work by an Asian author to win the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/aug/23/no-award-hugo-awards-following-controversy">Hugo Award for best sci-fi novel</a>. </p>
<p>The book is among the most <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Best-Sellers-Chinese-Literature/zgbs/books/10397">widely-read works of modern Chinese fiction in English</a>, and Liu’s critical reputation and fan base (which includes <a href="https://medium.com/@jafrank09/when-obama-and-zuckerberg-are-your-fan-boys-on-cixin-lius-remembrance-of-earth-s-past-trilogy-97944ac11c0e">Barack Obama and Mark Zuckerberg</a>) continues to grow. A 30-episode <a href="https://wetv.vip/en/play/h31rop8wfso9jnh-Three-Body/c0045zkzkqr-EP30%3A%20Three-Body">Chinese adaptation</a> of the The Three-Body Problem aired in 2023; Netflix will release a condensed, eight-episode version <a href="https://www.netflix.com/tudum/articles/3-body-problem-teaser-release-date">later in March</a>. </p>
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<p>A key element of the book’s English-language success may be Ken Liu’s interventionist translation. With the author’s blessing, Liu rearranged the chapter order, reversing an earlier precaution taken by Cixin to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/03/magazine/ken-liu-three-body-problem-chinese-science-fiction.html">limit Chinese censors’ interest in the original</a>. </p>
<p>Thus, in English, the novel begins with the chaos and show trials of the Cultural Revolution. </p>
<p>That upheaval, which tore families apart, traumatising a generation, also marked Liu Cixin’s early childhood. His father, a member of a mining institute cadre, was sent from Beijing to work in the mines of Shanxi province. Some of his earliest memories are of gunfire and the armbands worn by the Red Guards. As the city where they lived became a flashpoint, young Liu was sent to live with his grandparents in the countryside for several years. </p>
<h2>The plot</h2>
<p>The protagonist in the novel’s first section is Ye Wenjie, a student who witnesses her father, a physics professor, being denounced and humiliated by Red Guards. They claim his teaching of theoretical physics is treasonous because it relies on the work of bourgeois Westerners.</p>
<p>Wenjie’s mother and sister sever all family ties with him, but Wenjie stubbornly refuses to incriminate her father or join the persecution. Even after he is killed, she refuses to compromise or cooperate.</p>
<p>A promising scientist herself, Wenjie’s loyalty to her father seems to doom her to jail or death, but instead she is mysteriously and unexpectedly moved to a lowly technical role on a secret base. </p>
<p>The rest of the novel takes place in Beijing “forty-plus years later” – that is, in the 2000s. Authorities and intellectuals are shaken by a sudden spate of suicides among top physicists, apparently because they have begun to question the very premises of their science. One writes in her suicide note: “Physics has never existed, and will never exist.” </p>
<p>Meanwhile, the authorities are monitoring a group enthralled by something called the three-body game. Our guide into the labyrinthine plot, with its admixture of spy thriller and The Matrix, is a nanoscientist called Wang Miao.</p>
<p>When Wang visits the game’s website and dons a virtual reality suit, he finds himself thrust into key moments of the history of a planet called Trisolaris. His sessions place him at moments when the planet’s civilisation is about to disintegrate due to either too many, or too few, suns. The suns’ unpredictable movements are caused by the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-body_problem#:%7E:text=In%20physics%20and%20classical%20mechanics,Newton's%20law%20of%20universal%20gravitation.">three-body problem</a>, a quandary of Newtonian physics for which there is still no general solution. </p>
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<p>Wang – often accompanied on his excursions by a roughhouse, brawny, trash-talking policeman partner called Da Shi – is convinced there is a link between the suicides and the game. He encounters the mother of one of the dead physicists, none other than Ye Wenjie. </p>
<p>As she explains to Wang what she knows about the deaths, recounting her past, (and we read some supplementary declassified documents), we learn the base where she worked had focused on making contact with alien life forms. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, the laws of physics seem to be unravelling. A countdown, in hours, appears – at first on Wang’s camera, then imprinted on his vision – almost as though someone were trying to send him a message, or drive him to insanity. The countdown will hit zero in some 50 days.</p>
<p>The numbers of this countdown disappear only when he shuts down his research project. Soon after, the cosmic background radiation of the universe (measured from an observatory) fluctuates at an announced time, seemingly to awe Wang. Evidently, great powers are attempting to stop his investigation. </p>
<h2>Big questions</h2>
<p>As the novel unspools, it becomes evident someone on Earth has attempted contact with extraterrestrials, and a response has been received. Indeed, Trisolarans, inhabitants of this distant planet, are on their way to earth – it’s a lot more promising than the sun-plagued planet where they live. </p>
<p>Trisolaris’ three suns have made the planet chronically unstable and existentially precarious. The vast distances in play mean that contact will not take place for hundreds of years – but what form will it take? And will the threat of alien invasion inspire Earth’s unification, or will it be the cause of further divisions? </p>
<p>Furthermore, it seems Trisolarans can act from afar. How might they act to destabilise humanity in the intervening years? The reader, however, will have to wait for first contact to occur later in the trilogy. For the moment, the question is whether humanity can, or even should, prepare to defend itself. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/at-least-were-not-being-exterminated-by-alien-attack-robots-watching-war-of-the-worlds-in-a-pandemic-167344">At least we're not being exterminated by alien attack-robots: watching War of the Worlds in a pandemic</a>
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<p>Linguistically, the novel’s style is workaday, the plot crammed with little implausibilities and outrageous conveniences, the structure a miracle of convolution. Nevertheless, this is an important and thought-provoking read. Little by little, the novel’s fundamental ethical, metaphysical, and epistemological concerns come to the fore. </p>
<p>Is the threat of alien invasion any more destructive than the menace we present to our own environment? Where are the limits of our technical advances, and will they tend to the betterment or the destruction of human civilisation? </p>
<p>What is the value of human civilisation? Is what we have worth defending? Given the messes of humanity’s own making, might a shot into the interplanetary dark offer something better?</p>
<p>Such infinite scale and high stakes are not unprecedented in science fiction, where myth-making, geopolitical resonances and apocalypses are stock in trade. (Star Wars, for instance, had deep roots in Greek and Nordic myth, and was invoked by the Reagan administration for its Strategic Defense Initiative.) But this novel brings the philosophical and historical resources of Chinese civilisation to the fore. </p>
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<h2>Hope or an apologia?</h2>
<p>Liu Cixin’s vision not only brings a whole civilisational history along with it, but can be read as a story of hope or an apologia for Chinese striving in the face of Western dominance. </p>
<p>The acclaim for his work is doubtless partly due to its novelty for the Anglophone reader, beginning, as it does, with modern Chinese history. The ravages of the Red Guards and the calculations made to survive the political traps of Maoist China predispose some characters to believe the worst when it comes to human nature. </p>
<p>The history of Trisolaris, transmitted to earthling (or at least Beijing) cognoscenti by means of the immersive game, draws evenly on both Chinese and Western analogies to explain what is drawing the aliens to make this pilgrimage across space. Perhaps the unromantic approach to extraterrestrial contact – in which it plays out as an imperial threat – also has its sources in Chinese thought. </p>
<p>Where the Western tradition of science fiction seems preoccupied with dramas arising from the conflict between good and evil, or questions of salvation and atonement, Liu’s vision is almost geopolitical. </p>
<p>Chinese political history tends to presuppose that periods of chaos and peace will exist in alternation, and that political power is fundamentally self-interested. At times the book seems drawn to the brutal logic of the classical <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/chinese-legalism/">political philosophy of Legalism</a> as the best course for political stability in a volatile environment.</p>
<p>Such readings have lead <a href="https://read.dukeupress.edu/novel/article-abstract/56/2/163/381436/Carl-Schmitt-in-Outer-Space-On-Cixin-Liu-s-Dark">some scholars to conclude</a> that Liu’s image of potential conflict between the worlds falls on the side of statism or even a defence of totalitarianism. Others have seen his work as an <a href="https://journal.hep.com.cn/flsc/EN/10.3868/s010-009-020-0012-7">anti-colonial</a> and/or <a href="https://go.gale.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CA607065141&sid=googleScholar&v=2.1&it=r&linkaccess=abs&issn=00492949&p=AONE&sw=w">environmentalist</a> narrative, or a call for swifter technological advancement and greater collaboration among the nations of the earth. </p>
<p>A masterful elaboration on the extraterrestrial “what-if”, it is gratifying that a novel so steeped in Chinese thought and history is encountering such a wide audience. </p>
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<p><em>3 Body Problem is released on Netflix on March 21.</em></p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Josh Stenberg does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>With an adaptation of Chinese bestseller The Three-Body Problem soon to air on Netflix, Josh Stenberg parses the novel and its many themes.Josh Stenberg, Associate Professor in Chinese Studies, University of SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2159422023-12-07T13:26:48Z2023-12-07T13:26:48ZWhen research study materials don’t speak their participants’ language, data can get lost in translation<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/563460/original/file-20231204-23-ka52z2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C2032%2C1462&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Some approaches to translation are more true to the aims of the text than others.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/illustration/international-communication-translation-royalty-free-illustration/1150757275">arthobbit/iStock via Getty Images Plus</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Imagine your mother has cancer. You just heard about a promising new experimental treatment and want to enroll her in the study. However, your mother immigrated to the U.S. as an adult and speaks limited English. When you reach out to the research team, they tell you she is ineligible because they are recruiting only English speakers. </p>
<p>Unfortunately, this is an all too likely outcome of a scenario like this, because non-English speakers are frequently <a href="https://doi.org/10.5455/aim.2017.25.112-115">excluded from clinical trials</a> and research studies in the U.S.</p>
<p>Despite efforts to increase research participation, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1097/ACM.0b013e318208289a">racial and ethnic minorities remain underrepresented</a> in results. A review of 5,008 papers in three pediatric journals from 2012 to 2021 revealed that <a href="https://doi.org/10.1001/jamapediatrics.2022.3828">only 9% of these studies included non-English speaking</a> volunteers. </p>
<p>Language is a <a href="https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2013.301706">key barrier to participation</a>, as even those with some English proficiency are less likely to participate in studies when recruitment materials <a href="https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2013.301706">aren’t in their native language</a>. Language barriers also hinder a person’s ability to provide <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/eahr.500028">informed consent</a> <a href="https://doi.org/10.4103/0253-7176.70517">to participate</a>.</p>
<p>This problem is not likely to fade away. The number of people with limited English proficiency in the U.S. grew by 80% between 1990 and 2013, going from nearly <a href="https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/limited-english-proficient-population-united-states-2013">14 million to 25.1 million people</a>. As of 2022, this number rose to <a href="https://www.migrationpolicy.org/programs/data-hub/us-immigration-trends#lep">26.5 million people</a>. Excluding people with limited English proficiency is not only unethical, as these groups deserve the same access to experimental and evolving therapies as the English-speaking population, but also limits <a href="https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2013.301706">how applicable research findings are</a> to the general population.</p>
<p>One way to eliminate language barriers is by translating research documents. <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=NG1Yem8AAAAJ&hl=en">As a translation scholar</a>, I strive to discover ways to improve translation quality to benefit the research community and broader society. Translation in research, however, is not straightforward. Not only must the translated materials be accurate, they also have to serve their intended purpose.</p>
<p>The most commonly used method to evaluate translation quality in health research <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0163278716648191">is backtranslation</a> – translating the translated text into the original language and assessing how well it matches the original text. And yet, this method <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/135910457000100301">relies on outdated scholarship</a> from the 1970s, perpetuating serious misconceptions about how translation works.</p>
<h2>Understanding translation</h2>
<p>Translation involves much more than just transferring written words from one language to another. For many health researchers, the goal of translation is to <a href="https://doi.org/10.2307/411434">transfer meaning</a> so it remains intact in a new language. Along these lines, the translator is meant to be a conduit of perfect linguistic equivalence. Yet, current work in the field of translation studies indicates this perfect match or meaning transfer is <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Translation-Studies/Bassnett/p/book/9780415506731">only an illusion</a>.</p>
<p>A translator is not a conduit of meaning, but both a reader of the original text and a writer of the translation. As such, translators <a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9781315678627-90/positioning-theo-hermans">have their own positioning</a> in the world that comes with a set of conscious or unconscious values and knowledge that bias how they read and write. Translation is a <a href="https://translation.utdallas.edu/what-is-translation-studies/translation-and-reading/">process of interpretation</a> regardless of how objective a translator aims to be.</p>
<p>Furthermore, languages do not match structurally or culturally. For instance, the English sentence “I arrived late” structurally corresponds to the Spanish “Yo llegué tarde” because the grammar lines up. But because Spanish expresses subject information through verb endings (“lleg-ué”), the “Yo” is normally interpreted as contrastive, meaning that “I” was the one who arrived late as opposed to someone else.</p>
<p>A perfect match in backtranslation often reflects a translation that is <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0163278716648191">too similar to the original</a>, such that it often contradicts the norms of the translated language. For instance, a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0163278705275342">health status questionnaire</a> translated “My thinking is clear” into Portuguese as “O meu pensamento é claro.” Despite good backtranslation results, patients in Brazil stated it was unclear. Changing it to “Consigo pensar claramente” (“I am able to think clearly”) communicated more effectively and naturally with the target population.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/563462/original/file-20231204-17-l9egxc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Health care professional holding clipboard while talking to a patient" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/563462/original/file-20231204-17-l9egxc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/563462/original/file-20231204-17-l9egxc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/563462/original/file-20231204-17-l9egxc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/563462/original/file-20231204-17-l9egxc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/563462/original/file-20231204-17-l9egxc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/563462/original/file-20231204-17-l9egxc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/563462/original/file-20231204-17-l9egxc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Patients with limited English proficiency are less likely to participate in research studies if the materials aren’t in their primary language.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/female-mental-health-professional-talks-with-royalty-free-image/917744736">SDI Productions/E+ via Getty Images</a></span>
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</figure>
<p>Translation scholars suggest that a more realistic, descriptive and explanatory approach to translation is one governed by <a href="https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315760506">what the commissioner wants to achieve</a> with the translation. Under this view, the translator makes decisions according to the type of text being translated and to the purpose of the translation.</p>
<p>How translators approach texts and what strategies they use to translate them varies with each document. Some texts require closer adherence to the words of the original than others. For instance, legal or regulatory considerations require translating the chemical ingredients list of a medication more closely to the structure of the source than a recruitment flyer that aims to convince readers to participate in a study. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0163278716648191">Translators of research documents</a> need to determine the needs of the specific text in collaboration with both the researchers and representatives of the population they’re studying.</p>
<h2>Translation affects research results</h2>
<p>Recent studies show that translation can affect data validity and reliability. An inadequate approach may result in translated materials that don’t work as intended. For instance, a survey may produce <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/eahr.500115">incomplete or incorrect data</a> if participants misunderstand or are unclear about the questions.</p>
<p>My team and I investigated how different translation approaches affected how readers responded to translated materials. We had bilingual participants review two versions of a survey measuring perceptions of stress. Each version was translated into Spanish in a different way. </p>
<p>One of the two translations was produced with a literal approach that aimed to be as equivalent as possible to the original, while the other followed a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0163278716648191">functionalist approach</a> that focused on achieving the purpose specified for the translation. In this case, the goal was to obtain data on how a Spanish-speaking population perceives daily stress.</p>
<p>We asked participants to review the two translated versions of the survey, then indicate any unclear sections and which version they preferred. We found that participants <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/eahr.500115">preferred the functionalist translation</a> and identified a higher number of problems in the translation focused on equivalence. Participants commented that the “equivalent” translation was more difficult to understand, too direct and seemed obviously translated.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/563463/original/file-20231204-25-uls439.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Close-up of the first page of the 'A' section of an English-Spanish dictionary" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/563463/original/file-20231204-25-uls439.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/563463/original/file-20231204-25-uls439.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/563463/original/file-20231204-25-uls439.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/563463/original/file-20231204-25-uls439.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/563463/original/file-20231204-25-uls439.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/563463/original/file-20231204-25-uls439.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/563463/original/file-20231204-25-uls439.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A literal translation may not best serve the aims of its commissioner.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/english-spanish-dictionary-royalty-free-image/483136313">parema/E+ via Getty Images</a></span>
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</figure>
<p>Other studies have shown that <a href="https://aclanthology.org/R15-1014">translated materials</a> <a href="https://doi.org/10.6035/MonTI.2018.10.2">are less accessible overall</a> compared with the original documents. Researchers have also found that some translation approaches increase reading complexity. One study found that a survey used to measure the health progress of patients translated with a functionalist approach <a href="https://doi.org/10.1044/2017_AJA-17-0018">had better readability</a> than published counterparts that used a more literal approach.</p>
<p>The translation process is complicated. Lack of awareness of its complexities can affect not only equitable participation in research but also the validity and reliability of its methodology and findings. But with the right approach, translation can increase a study’s reach, diversify its data and lead to new findings and ideas. Reaching out to a translation scholar before starting a project can help scholars prevent their data and research from getting lost in translation.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/215942/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sonia Colina works for the National Center for Interpretation at the University of Arizona. She has received funding from the National Institutes of Health</span></em></p>Translation involves more than just transferring words from one language to another. Better translations of study materials can improve both the diversity of study participants and research results.Sonia Colina, Professor of Spanish and Portuguese, University of ArizonaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2176652023-11-21T19:06:29Z2023-11-21T19:06:29Z‘Your United States was normal’: has translation tech really made language learning redundant?<p>Every day, millions of people start the day by posting a greeting on social media. None of them expect to be arrested for their friendly morning ritual. </p>
<p>But that’s exactly what happened to a Palestinian construction worker in 2017, when the caption “يصبحهم” (“good morning”) on his Facebook selfie was <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/oct/24/facebook-palestine-israel-translates-good-morning-attack-them-arrest">auto-translated</a> as “attack them.”</p>
<p>A human Arabic speaker would have immediately <a href="https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2017-10-22/ty-article/palestinian-arrested-over-mistranslated-good-morning-facebook-post/0000017f-db61-d856-a37f-ffe181000000">recognized “يصبحهم” as an informal way to say “good morning”</a>. Not so AI. Machines are notoriously bad at dealing with variation, a key characteristic of all human languages.</p>
<p>With recent advances in automated translation, the belief is taking hold that humans, particularly English speakers, no longer need to learn other languages. Why bother with the effort when Google Translate and a host of other apps can do it for us?</p>
<p>In fact, some Anglophone universities are making precisely this argument to <a href="https://www.axios.com/2023/08/30/west-virginia-university-foreign-language-classes">dismantle their language programs</a>.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, language technologies are nowhere near being able to replace human language skills and will not be able to do so in the foreseeable future because machine language learning and human language learning differ in fundamental ways.</p>
<h2>How machines learn languages</h2>
<p>For machine translation, algorithms are trained on large amounts of texts to find the probabilities of different patterns of words. These texts can be both monolingual and bilingual.</p>
<p>Bilingual training data comes in the form of human-translated parallel texts. These are almost always based on the standard version of the training language, excluding dialects and slang phrases, as in the example above.</p>
<p>Diversity is a characteristic of all human languages, but diversity is a problem for machines. For instance, “deadly” means “causing death” in most varieties of English, and that is what appears in the training data. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.macquariedictionary.com.au/blog/article/609/">Australian meaning</a> of “excellent” (from Aboriginal English) puts a spanner in the works. If you input “<a href="https://deadlys.com.au/">Deadly Awards</a>” into any translation app, what you’ll get in your target language is the equivalent of “death-causing awards”.</p>
<h2>How machines store languages</h2>
<p>The internal linguistic diversity of English, as of any other language, is accompanied by great diversity across languages. Each language does things differently. </p>
<p>Tense, number or gender, for example, need to be grammatically encoded in some languages but not in others. Translating the simple English statement “I am a student” into German requires the inclusion of a grammatical gender marking and so will either end up as “I am a male student” or “I am a female student”.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-is-this-the-end-of-translation-156375">Friday essay: is this the end of translation?</a>
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</em>
</p>
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<p>Furthermore, some languages are spoken by many people, have powerful nation states behind them, and are well resourced. Others are not.</p>
<p>“Well resourced” in the context of machine learning means that large digital corpora of training data are available.</p>
<p>The lists of language options <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09500782.2021.2010744">offered by automated translation tools</a> – like the list of 133 languages in which Google Translate is currently available – erase all these differences and suggest that each option is the same.</p>
<h2>AI speaks English</h2>
<p>Nothing could be further from the truth. English is in a class of its own, with over 90% of the training data behind large language models <a href="https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/3442188.3445922">being in English</a>.</p>
<p>The remainder comes from a few dozen languages, in which data of varying sizes are available. The majority of the world’s 6,000+ languages are simply missing in action. Apps for some of these are now being created from <a href="https://aclanthology.org/2020.findings-emnlp.445.pdf">models “pre-trained” on English</a>, which further serves to cement the dominance of English.</p>
<p>One consequence of inequalities in the training data is that translations into English usually sound quite good because the app can draw both on bilingual and monolingual training data. This doesn’t mean they are accurate: one recent study found about half of all questions in Vietnamese were <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14790718.2023.2224013">incorrectly auto-translated as statements</a>.</p>
<p>Machine-translated text into languages other than English is even more problematic and routinely riddled with mistakes. For instance, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y--NX0aVnSQ">COVID-19 testing information auto-translated into German</a> included invented words, grammatical errors, and inconsistencies.</p>
<h2>What machine translation can and can’t do</h2>
<p>Machine translation is not as good as most people think, but it is useful to get the gist of web sites or be able to ask for directions in a tourist destination with the help of an app.</p>
<p>However, that is not where it ends. Translation apps are <a href="https://bmchealthservres.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12913-018-3823-1">increasingly used in high-stakes contexts, such as hospitals</a>, where staff may attempt to bypass human interpreters for quick communication with patients who have limited proficiency in English.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-problem-with-machine-translation-beware-the-wisdom-of-the-crowd-171913">The problem with machine translation: beware the wisdom of the crowd</a>
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</em>
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<p>This causes big problems when, for instance, a patient’s discharge instructions state <a href="https://bmchealthservres.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12913-018-3823-1">the equivalent of “Your United States was normal”</a> – an error resulting from the abbreviation “US” being used for “ultrasound” in medical contexts.</p>
<p>Therefore, there is consensus that translation apps are suitable <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/nop2.1099">only in risk-free or low-risk situations</a>. Unfortunately, sometimes even a caption on a selfie can turn into a high-risk situation.</p>
<h2>We need to cultivate human multilingual talent</h2>
<p>Only humans can identify what constitutes a low- or high-risk situation and whether the use of machine translation may be appropriate. To make informed decisions, humans need to understand both how languages work and how machine learning works.</p>
<p>It could be argued that all the errors described here can be ironed out with more training data. There are two problems with this line of reasoning. First, AI already has more training data than any human will ever be able to ingest, yet makes mistakes no human with much lower levels of investment in their language learning would make.</p>
<p>Second, and more perniciously, training machines to do our language learning for us is incredibly costly. There are <a href="https://www.businesstoday.in/technology/news/story/microsofts-water-usage-surges-by-thousands-of-gallons-after-the-launch-of-chatgpt-study-397951-2023-09-11">the well-known environmental costs of AI</a>, of course. But there is also the cost of dismantling language teaching programs.</p>
<p>If we let go of language programs because we can outsource simple multilingual tasks to machines, we will never train humans to achieve advanced language proficiency. Even from the perspective of pure strategic national interest, the skills to communicate across language barriers in more risky contexts of economics, diplomacy or healthcare are essential.</p>
<p>Languages are diverse, fuzzy, variable, relational and deeply social. Algorithms are the opposite. By buying into the hype that machines can do our language work for us <a href="https://faculty.washington.edu/ebender/papers/Bender-CogSci-2022.pdf">we dehumanise what it means to use languages to communicate</a>, to make meaning, to create relationships and to build communities.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>The author would like to thank Ava Vahedi, a Master of mathematics student at UNSW, for her help in writing this article.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/217665/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ingrid Piller receives funding from the Humboldt Foundation. </span></em></p>Machine translation can seem alarmingly good – but it’s still no substitute for human language knowledge.Ingrid Piller, Distinguished Professor of Applied Linguistics, Macquarie UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2116312023-08-17T13:31:43Z2023-08-17T13:31:43ZSix books to read this Women In Translation month – recommended by our experts<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/543043/original/file-20230816-29-p8ed5q.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=35%2C17%2C1961%2C1179&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Harvill Secker/The Feminist Press at CUNY/Amazon Crossing/Dedalus Ltd/Deep Vellum Publishing/Other Press</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Only a third of books translated into English are by women authors. August is <a href="https://www.womenintranslation.org/witmonth">Women in Translation</a> month, which hopes to address this imbalance by getting more people reading and buying – and publishers translating – books by women. In a bid to do our part we asked a few of our experts to recommend some of their favourite books.</em></p>
<p><em>This is by no means an exhaustive list, but a starting point for you to go and discover more wonderful books by women from all over the world that have been translated into English.</em></p>
<h2>1. <a href="https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/412741/little-aunt-crane-by-geling-yan/9780099569633">Little Aunt Crane</a> by Yan Geling, translated from Chinese by Esther Tyldesley</h2>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="Book cover featuring a woman in a red scarf and holding an umbrella." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/543004/original/file-20230816-31-1ytir0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/543004/original/file-20230816-31-1ytir0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=917&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543004/original/file-20230816-31-1ytir0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=917&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543004/original/file-20230816-31-1ytir0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=917&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543004/original/file-20230816-31-1ytir0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1153&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543004/original/file-20230816-31-1ytir0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1153&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543004/original/file-20230816-31-1ytir0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1153&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Harvill Secker</span></span>
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<p>Little Aunt Crane shocks readers with its powerful opening. The second world war is ending and the Japanese have surrendered. The village of Sakito in north-eastern China is full of Japanese nationals and as the Chinese draw in, the elders decide to preserve their honour. The villagers embark on a mass suicide. There is only one survivor, 16-year-old Tatsuru. </p>
<p>Tatsuru, alone and in a country hostile to Japanese people, attempts to flee but is captured by human traffickers and sold to a wealthy Chinese family looking for a surrogate. Her name is changed to Duohe and she is told she must bear the children of their son while pretending to be the sister of his wife, Xiaohuan. An unlikely bond develops between the two women in this story that spans several decades of Mao’s rule.</p>
<p>Little Aunt Crane is a powerful novel about identity, love and family that also manages to trace the intricate emotional, ethical and even political challenges in post-war China. It’s a rare example of a Chinese novel that focuses on a Japanese protagonist in the post-war era, highlighting the struggles of women like Duohe and Xiaohuan. </p>
<p><em>Reviewed by Beixi Li</em></p>
<h2>2. <a href="https://www.feministpress.org/books-a-m/la-bastarda">La Bastarda</a>, by Trifonia Melibea Obono, translated from Spanish by Lawrence Schimel</h2>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="Purple book cover featuring a white ring and text." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/543006/original/file-20230816-19-f4anvz.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/543006/original/file-20230816-19-f4anvz.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=915&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543006/original/file-20230816-19-f4anvz.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=915&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543006/original/file-20230816-19-f4anvz.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=915&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543006/original/file-20230816-19-f4anvz.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1149&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543006/original/file-20230816-19-f4anvz.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1149&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543006/original/file-20230816-19-f4anvz.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1149&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">The Feminist Press at CUNY</span></span>
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<p>“Come on, try it. You’ll like it. You’re in the forest – the Fang forest is a free space. Now you’re free.” Freedom is not something orphaned narrator Okomo is accustomed to. Which makes this particular scene of queer sexual desire – away from the heterosexual, patriarchal traditions of the village – all the more exhilarating. Okomo’s family belong to the Fang community, the largest ethnic group in mainland Equatorial Guinea. </p>
<p>This short, sharp, addictive novel follows Okomo as she decodes and navigates the restrictive norms of Fang culture and searches for her estranged father. The narrative is laden with rules and hierarchies that structure Okomo’s existence and the characters around her are distinguished by their position, their relationships and their achievements. </p>
<p>Yet Trifonia Melibea Obono – and Lawrence Schimel, through his translation from Spanish – draw us to those who do not fit within these hierarchies. In these relationships between outcasts there is sanctuary to be found, away from the structural and physical violence, away in the shelter of the forest.</p>
<p><em>Reviewed by Olivia Hellewell</em></p>
<h2>3. <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/37660359-the-golden-hairpin">The Golden Hairpin</a> by Cece Qinghan, translated from Chinese by Alex Woodend</h2>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="Book cover featuring a hand reaching for a bird cage." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/543005/original/file-20230816-19-7z7nqn.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/543005/original/file-20230816-19-7z7nqn.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=901&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543005/original/file-20230816-19-7z7nqn.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=901&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543005/original/file-20230816-19-7z7nqn.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=901&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543005/original/file-20230816-19-7z7nqn.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1132&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543005/original/file-20230816-19-7z7nqn.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1132&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543005/original/file-20230816-19-7z7nqn.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1132&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Amazon Crossing</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>The Golden Hairpin is a historical crime novel set during the reign of Emperor Yizong of Tang (AD859 to AD873) of China. The main character, Huang Zixia, is accused of murder. She disguises herself as a boy and infiltrates the palace to try to clear her name.</p>
<p>Huang Zixia finds herself caught up in mysteries, which must be solved against a background of treacherous court battles and intrigue. In China, Huang Zixia’s hairpin is as iconic as Sherlock Holmes’s deerstalker hat and pipe and she is an intelligent and courageous female sleuth. </p>
<p>If you are interested in Chinese culture, especially the Tang Dynasty, you will love this beautifully written and intricately plotted novel.</p>
<p><em>Reviewed by Beixi Li</em></p>
<h2>4. <a href="https://www.dedalusbooks.com/our-books/book.php?id=00000378#:%7E:text=This%20volume%20brings%20together%20six,Yugoslavia%20until%20the%20early%201990s.">Take Six: Six Balkan Women Writers</a>, translated from <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Bosnian-Croatian-Montenegrin-Serbian-language">Bosnian-Croatian-Montenegrin-Serbian</a> and Macdeonian by Will Firth, and Slovenian by Olivia Hellewell</h2>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="Book cover featuring two paintings of women." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/543007/original/file-20230816-22-63htsy.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/543007/original/file-20230816-22-63htsy.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=915&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543007/original/file-20230816-22-63htsy.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=915&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543007/original/file-20230816-22-63htsy.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=915&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543007/original/file-20230816-22-63htsy.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1149&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543007/original/file-20230816-22-63htsy.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1149&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543007/original/file-20230816-22-63htsy.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1149&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
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<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Dedalus Ltd</span></span>
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<p>Anthologies can be tricky things and grouping writers together by arbitrary labels is not without its problems. But this anthology, which brings us six writers from six countries that were part of Yugoslavia until the early 1990s, is an excellent example of what a good anthology can do. </p>
<p>As one of its translators, I am biased, but this collection showcases a variety of forms and styles and provides the opportunity to dip in and discover writing that is not otherwise easy to come by in English translation.</p>
<p>Under one cover, readers can find autobiographical pieces, little-heard accounts of women’s lives in rural Bosnia, meandering travel prose, a genre-defying polyphonic story about time and space and stories connected by small objects or by settings. As a translator of the Slovenian stories, I am especially fond of the humour that Ana Svetel’s stories inject into the collection.</p>
<p><em>Reviewed by Olivia Hellewell</em></p>
<h2>5. <a href="https://fireflypress.co.uk/books/blue-book-of-nebo/">The Blue Book of Nebo</a>, written and translated from Welsh by Manon Steffan Ros</h2>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="Blue book cover featuring a rabbit's head crossed out." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/543010/original/file-20230816-19-elkj6x.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/543010/original/file-20230816-19-elkj6x.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=960&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543010/original/file-20230816-19-elkj6x.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=960&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543010/original/file-20230816-19-elkj6x.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=960&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543010/original/file-20230816-19-elkj6x.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1206&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543010/original/file-20230816-19-elkj6x.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1206&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543010/original/file-20230816-19-elkj6x.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1206&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Deep Vellum Publishing</span></span>
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<p>Told as a series of diary entries, The Blue Book of Nebo is a moving tale of a mother-son relationship after an unspecified apocalypse devastates the UK. Rowenna and her teenage son Dylan survive alone in their Welsh village, growing their own food and raiding nearby houses for tools and books. </p>
<p>The book is a knowing take on the young adult post-apocalypse novel. It reminded me, in the best way, of nuclear novels like <a href="https://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/news/2243130.children-dust-louise-lawrence/">Louise Lawrence’s Children of the Dust</a> (1985) or <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Children_of_Schewenborn">Gudrun Pausewang’s The Last Children of Schewenborn</a> (1983). </p>
<p>Manon Steffan Ros usually writes in Welsh. The English version is a beautiful reflection on reclaiming the Welsh language – an aspect of the novel which was, intriguingly, introduced in translation. Last year the novel became the first ever translated book to win the <a href="https://yotocarnegies.co.uk/2023-winners-announced/#:%7E:text=For%20the%20first%20time%20in,translated%20by%20Manon%20Steffan%20Ros.">Yoto Carnegie Medal</a> for children’s literature.</p>
<p><em>Reviewed by Carol O'Sullivan</em></p>
<h2>6. <a href="https://otherpress.com/product/as-we-exist-9781635422849/">As We Exist: A Postcolonial Autobiography</a> by Harchi Kaoutar, translated from French by Harchi Kaoutar and Emma Ramadan</h2>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="Book cover featuring a Polaroid picture of a woman holding a baby." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/543012/original/file-20230816-23-gpnjf5.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/543012/original/file-20230816-23-gpnjf5.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=914&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543012/original/file-20230816-23-gpnjf5.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=914&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543012/original/file-20230816-23-gpnjf5.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=914&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543012/original/file-20230816-23-gpnjf5.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1149&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543012/original/file-20230816-23-gpnjf5.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1149&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543012/original/file-20230816-23-gpnjf5.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1149&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Other Press</span></span>
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<p>Harchi’s literary memoir retraces the author and sociologist’s formative years in eastern France. Born in a loving, hardworking family from the Moroccan diaspora, Harchi dispels the myth of a multicultural France to capture the injustices of a society where “the figure of the Muslim embodies the myth of the enemy within”. </p>
<p>Harchi describes various forms of sanctioned violence imposed on post-colonial citizens that fall under the banner of state racism, including marginalising women and banning religious symbols from state schools. Harchi’s elegant prose recalls the fear experienced within many communities when <a href="https://www.lemonde.fr/en/france/article/2023/06/29/in-2005-three-weeks-of-rioting-shook-france-after-the-deaths-of-two-teenagers_6039444_7.html">the death of two teenagers</a> fleeing from the police led to three weeks of violent riots against police brutality and increased cultural divisions in 2005. </p>
<p>Written in powerful poetic language, Harchi’s book eloquently describes how growing up as an outsider shaped her identity and awakened her political awareness. This timely translation provides a pertinent insight into contemporary French society.</p>
<p><em>Reviewed by Nicole Fayard</em></p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p><em>Looking for something good? Cut through the noise with a carefully curated selection of the latest releases, live events and exhibitions, straight to your inbox every fortnight, on Fridays. <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/newsletters/something-good-156">Sign up here</a>.</em></p>
<hr><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/211631/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span><a href="mailto:nicole.fayard@le.ac.uk">nicole.fayard@le.ac.uk</a> has previously received funding from the British Academy.
Affiliations: Chair of Leicester Freeva; member of the Executive Board of the ASMCF (no financial interest in either) and member of staff at the University of Leicester (no financial gain).</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Beixi Li, Carol O'Sullivan, and Olivia Hellewell do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Mysteries from China, short stories from the Balkans, a French-Morrocan autobiography and more.Beixi Li, PhD Candidate, Translation Studies, University of BristolCarol O'Sullivan, Associate Professor in Translation Studies, University of BristolNicole Fayard, Associate Professor in French and Francophone Studies, University of LeicesterOlivia Hellewell, Assistant Professor in Peninsular Spanish and Translation Studies, University of NottinghamLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2087812023-06-30T14:15:44Z2023-06-30T14:15:44ZControversy over poems at British Museum shows urgent need for more recognition for translators<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/534799/original/file-20230629-23-ebdusz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=9%2C4%2C3210%2C2269&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Interior of the British Museum.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/london-uk-february-8-2014-interior-256886218">MarkLG/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The British Museum has had to apologise after <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2023/jun/22/british-museum-offers-to-pay-translator-after-plagiarism-row">a translator’s words</a> were used without permission. Writer and translator <a href="https://yilinwang.com">Yilin Wang</a> shared on Twitter that their translations of work by the Chinese feminist poet Qiu Jin appeared in the museum’s exhibition, <a href="https://www.britishmuseum.org/exhibitions/chinas-hidden-century">China’s Hidden Century</a>, without consent.</p>
<p>The museum’s subsequent press release <a href="https://www.britishmuseum.org/sites/default/files/2023-06/Public%20statement%20on%20copyright%20issue%20linked%20to%20the%20exhibition%20China%27s%20hidden%20century.pdf">cited</a> “unintentional human error”. It explained that it had corresponded privately with Wang and had now offered a fee for the use of the translations. Along with the Chinese poems, these were then removed from the exhibition. But the removal of the texts has also fuelled criticism of the museum, and sparked a debate about the role of translators. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1670305203206385665"}"></div></p>
<h2>Translation and copyright</h2>
<p>Literary translation is <a href="https://www.societyofauthors.org/SOA/MediaLibrary/SOAWebsite/Guides/Guide-to-Copyright-and-Permissions.pdf">legally recognised</a> as an act of original artistic production. This means that translated literary texts enjoy their own copyright status, independent of the source texts. While Qiu’s work is now out of copyright because she died in 1907, <a href="https://yilinwang.com/qiu-jin-translation-larb/">Wang’s translations</a> are not.</p>
<p>The role of original creativity in translation practices is <a href="https://www.societyofauthors.org/Where-We-Stand/Credit/Name-the-Translator#:%7E:text=Name%20the%20Translator%20is%20an,the%20name%20of%20the%20translator.">frequently ignored or underestimated</a>. It’s common to talk about reading “author X” rather than “translator Y’s translation of author X”. Even the Nobel Prize conveniently sidesteps <a href="http://mulosige.soas.ac.uk/nobel-prize-non-european-languages/">the role of translators</a> and their creative work when it confers its annual literary honour.</p>
<p>Recently, however, literary publishing has increasingly recognised the role of translators. In 2016, the <a href="https://thebookerprizes.com/the-booker-library/prize-years/international/2016">International Man Booker Prize announced</a> it would now split winnings evenly between the author and the translator. Translators are gaining visibility and it is becoming more and more difficult to pretend they don’t exist.</p>
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<em>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/international-booker-prize-2023-our-experts-review-the-six-shortlisted-books-204578">International Booker Prize 2023: our experts review the six shortlisted books</a>
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<p>Translations are creative acts that take place in specific cultural contexts. They transform source texts into new, original literary works, and they can advocate for the source text and writer by introducing them to new readers.</p>
<p>Wang <a href="https://wordswithoutborders.org/read/article/2021-06/june-2021-queer-barriers-privileges-and-invisible-labor-yilin-wang/">has written</a> about the power dynamics of literary translation, including the barriers to access and participation faced by translators who are “outsiders” and translators of colour. In their essay writing, they draw specifically on their experience of systemic prejudice while translating Qiu Jin’s poetry. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/534803/original/file-20230629-21-4yk1k7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="black and white photography of Qiu Jin in a large robe." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/534803/original/file-20230629-21-4yk1k7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/534803/original/file-20230629-21-4yk1k7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=795&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534803/original/file-20230629-21-4yk1k7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=795&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534803/original/file-20230629-21-4yk1k7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=795&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534803/original/file-20230629-21-4yk1k7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=998&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534803/original/file-20230629-21-4yk1k7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=998&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534803/original/file-20230629-21-4yk1k7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=998&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A photograph of Qiu Jin from circa 1908.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Qiu_Jin2.jpg">Wiki Commons</a></span>
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</figure>
<p>They describe translation as an act of “<a href="https://wordswithoutborders.org/read/article/2021-06/june-2021-queer-barriers-privileges-and-invisible-labor-yilin-wang/">reclamation and resistance</a>” – and talk of the barriers they and others face finding a career in translation.</p>
<p>Like a translation, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZCkteVR2ktU">a museum is not neutral or objective</a>. The objects and texts on display have been deliberately selected and positioned together. Just like the objects they frame, the words in a museum belong to someone and they have been chosen to tell a particular story. </p>
<p>Museums <a href="https://www.theexhibitionist.org/">increasingly face pressure</a> to reflect on their processes of acquisition and their contested ownership of items. This latest mistake – and handling of the fallout – shows that they also need to be transparent about the origins of the words they use to build the stories they tell.</p>
<h2>From a “hidden century” to hidden texts</h2>
<p>Removing items from display is not standard practice for the museum. The museum made a <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-54325905">public statement in 2020</a> that it would not remove “controversial objects” from display. A section of the website dedicated to “contested objects” explicitly engages with the provenance of some of its most famous pieces, such as the Parthenon marbles. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1673339737099186178"}"></div></p>
<p>But now Wang <a href="https://hyperallergic.com/830282/translator-yiling-wang-calls-out-british-museums-erasure-of-her-work/">has described the museum’s response</a> as “erasure”, and Wang argues, it has troubling implications, both for the museum’s critical engagement with its own curatorship and for the power dynamics of its relationships with non-white contributors.</p>
<p>The British Museum said in a statement: “In response to a request from Yilin Wang, we have taken down their translations in the exhibition. We have also offered financial payment for the period the translations appeared in the exhibition as well as for the continued use of quotations from their translations in the exhibition catalogue. The catalogue includes an acknowledgement of their work.” <a href="https://twitter.com/yilinwriter/status/1673686891928129543">Wang contests this</a>.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, the story has not gone away. It has been reported in the <a href="https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/FUNCqqhE5LgmiCYr8tdlJA">Chinese</a> and <a href="https://actualitte.com/article/112357/auteurs/le-british-museum-vole-le-travail-d-une-traductrice">French</a> media, and <a href="https://twitter.com/yilinwriter/status/1670305203206385665?s=20">Wang’s still developing Twitter thread</a> about the discovery has been shared over 15,000 times. </p>
<p>As momentum grows behind the criticism of the museum, it is a good time for all of us to consider how we value and engage with the work of translators, whose creative labour allows us to access worlds and imaginations far beyond our own.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/208781/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Caroline Summers does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Translators work has historically received little acknowledgement.Caroline Summers, Assistant Professor of Translation & Transcultural Studies, University of WarwickLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2058922023-06-01T12:29:23Z2023-06-01T12:29:23Z‘Across the Spider-Verse’ and the Latino legacy of Spider-Man<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/529439/original/file-20230531-21-rqrm8k.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=8%2C26%2C878%2C570&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Spider-Man Miguel O’Hara, who first appeared in the 1992 comic series 'Spider-Man 2099,' was the first Latino superhero to assume a starring role.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/marveldatabase/images/f/f0/Miguel_O%27Hara_%28Earth-6375%29_from_Exiles_Vol_1_75_001.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20090903231159">Marvel Database</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>As a Latino literature and media scholar, a lifelong gamer and a Guatemalan-American girl whose dad read her comics every night, I quickly became a fan and then scholar of <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/00064246.2022.2007345">Miles Morales</a>, the Afro-Puerto Rican Spider-Man who first appeared in comic book form in 2011’s “<a href="https://www.marvel.com/comics/issue/39962/ultimate_fallout_2011_4">Ultimate Fallout #4</a>.”</p>
<p>Just seven years after his introduction, Morales swung into theaters in
“<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4633694/">Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse</a>,” a visually stunning, 3D-animated film that won an Academy Award for <a href="https://variety.com/2019/film/news/spider-man-into-the-spider-verse-wins-oscar-best-animated-film-1203145826/">best animated feature</a>.</p>
<p>Now, its sequel, “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9362722/">Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse</a>,” features two Latino Spider-Men in starring roles. Irish-Latino Spider-Man Miguel O’Hara of “Spider-Man 2099,” voiced by Oscar Isaac, is jumping into the fray. And although he was a well-received Spider-Man as a Marvel comic book character in the 1990s, there’s a good chance you’ve never heard of him.</p>
<h2>Breaking the mold</h2>
<p>Latino characters, particularly ones who have a starring role, have traditionally been <a href="https://uapress.arizona.edu/book/latinx-superheroes-in-mainstream-comics">underrepresented in mainstream comics</a>. </p>
<p>Marvel’s first Latino hero, Hector Ayala, debuted in 1975, <a href="https://utpress.utexas.edu/9781477318966/">after the success of “Black Panther</a>.” Written by Bill Mantlo and drawn by legendary comic artist <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NIH3dbQftAc">George Pérez</a>, Ayala, known as <a href="https://youtu.be/ODOlsQVdHgM?t=224">White Tiger</a>, was a Puerto Rican college student living in New York. His powers came from a magical amulet that bestowed him with speed and martial arts expertise.</p>
<p>As <a href="https://uapress.arizona.edu/book/latinx-superheroes-in-mainstream-comics">Latino comics scholar Frederick Luis Aldama argues</a>, Mantlo and Pérez avoided many of the stereotypes that plagued Latinos in comics, which often cast Latinos as criminals or drug dealers. <a href="https://www.marvel.com/characters/white-tiger-hector-ayala">Later iterations of White Tiger</a> included his niece Angela del Toro and his sister, Ava Ayala.</p>
<p>The first Marvel Latina superhero, also co-created by Mantlo, was Firebird – real name, Bonita Juárez – who first appeared in 1981. A Catholic social worker from New Mexico, she represented a departure from the Black and Latino comic characters <a href="https://uapress.arizona.edu/book/latinx-superheroes-in-mainstream-comics">who predominately come from big cities like New York</a>.</p>
<h2>Spider-Man’s web extends into Latin America</h2>
<p>In Latin America, Spider-Man has been a popular character since the hero first appeared in his own series, “Amazing Spider-Man,” in 1963. </p>
<p>Marvel licensed Mexican publisher La Prensa to print Spanish translations of Spider-Man issues <a href="https://codigoespagueti.com/noticias/comics-hombre-arana-hechos-mexico/">just a few months</a> after its release in the U.S. </p>
<p>La Prensa also extended Spider-Man’s reach to Argentina, Chile, Uruguay and Perú. In Mexico, Spider-Man quickly became more popular than any other Marvel character, save for his girlfriend, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-CJwX2VRQ8&t=1s">Gwen Stacy</a>. </p>
<p>So in the 1970s, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20080327084155/http:/bajolamascara.universomarvel.com/2008/02/el_spiderman_ilegal_mexicano.html">La Prensa began to create its own Spider-Man stories</a> on weeks when Marvel didn’t release a new Spider-Man issue. These new stories, like an issue where Peter Parker dreams that he married Gwen Stacy, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210424122019/https:/spidermex.com/inicio.php">only appeared in Mexico</a>. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1096924779213275136"}"></div></p>
<p>Perhaps Spider-Man’s popularity in this part of the world is due to the fact that he’s scrappy, hardworking, and trying to help his family. Or maybe Latin Americans love <a href="https://youtu.be/w-CJwX2VRQ8?t=1172">his luchador-esque costume</a> – Peter Parker did, after all, debut his Spider-Man title and threads <a href="https://spiderfan.org/review/comics/amazing_fantasy/015.html">as a professional wrestler</a>.</p>
<h2>An Irish-Latino swings into the Spider-Verse</h2>
<p>Firebird and White Tiger never headlined their own series, though. And the Spider-Man who Latin Americans embraced in the 1960s and 1970s was white.</p>
<p>So it was a big deal when Miguel O'Hara took on the mantle of Spider-Man in his own series, which ran for four years.</p>
<p>While <a href="https://marvel.fandom.com/wiki/Multiverse">the multiverse</a> is a recent development in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, multiple Earths – each with its own versions of Marvel superheroes – have existed for decades in the comics.</p>
<p>This has allowed for different iterations of the same superhero.</p>
<p>Peter Parker is the Spider-Man of Earth-616, the official Marvel universe. Miles Morales began as the Spider-Man of Earth-1610. </p>
<p>Miguel O'Hara is the future Spider-Man of Earth-616 in the year 2099, a post-apocalyptic future run by greedy corporations. </p>
<p>When O’Hara first appeared in 1992 as the main star of the “2099” series, <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/lifestyle/remembering-the-first-and-forgotten-latino-spider-man">fans embraced him</a>, with little controversy. </p>
<p>It’s possible that O'Hara was uncontroversial because questions of race and racism <a href="https://amazingspidertalk.com/2014/12/spidiversity-2099-regarding-miguel-ohara/">didn’t factor explicitly into the plots of each issue</a>. And perhaps O'Hara’s light skin made it easy for readers to forget that he was Latino in the first place.</p>
<p>Yet comics scholar Kathryn M. Frank argues in the collection “<a href="https://utpress.utexas.edu/9781477309155/">Graphic Borders</a>” that the writers of “Spider-Man 2099” were aware of their hero’s ethnic identity and subtly incorporated commentaries on race into the series.</p>
<p>In the comics, O'Hara has an accent due to his elongated, spiderlike teeth, which may reflect the assumed foreignness of Latino citizens in the U.S. and the discrimination they suffer for it. He also embraces his difference in his own style. As fans have pointed out, <a href="https://cdn.superaficionados.com/imagenes/dia-muertos-cke.jpg">his costume</a> mixes a <a href="https://www.rutgers.edu/news/what-meaning-behind-day-dead-symbolism">Day of the Dead skull</a> with the classic spider insignia in an explicit connection to his Mexican heritage.</p>
<h2>Recasting Spider-Man as an Afro-Latino</h2>
<p>Then, in 2011, Marvel announced Miles Morales, the first Spider-Man who was both Black and Latino. </p>
<p>This time, <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/matthewnewton/2011/08/04/how-the-media-reacted-to-news-of-a-non-white-spider-man/?sh=49edfabc4f61">the responses</a> <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/21504857.2014.994647">were more polarizing</a>. </p>
<p>Former Fox News pundit Glenn Beck <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/blogpost/post/peter-parker-replaced-by-mixed-race-spiderman/2011/08/03/gIQAyQQ6rI_blog.html">blamed then-first lady Michelle Obama</a> for the creation of Morales, pointing to <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/story/rewriting-our-history-changing-our-traditions">a clip of her saying,</a> “We’re going to have to change our traditions.”</p>
<p>However, to some fans, recasting Spider-Man as Black made perfect sense. Walter Moseley, a popular crime novelist, has provocatively argued that the original Spider-Man of the 1960s is actually “<a href="https://www.vulture.com/2016/10/walter-mosley-on-why-spider-man-is-black.html">the first Black superhero</a>,” since his backstory – raised by his extended family, growing up in poverty and demonized by the media – was more relatable to Black New Yorkers.</p>
<p>When Morales came on the scene, he wasn’t merely a carbon copy of Peter Parker, though. He was raised by his African American father – an ex-con who had turned his life around – and Puerto Rican mother in Brooklyn.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Smiling man with dreadlocks poses with 'shocker' hand gestures." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/529438/original/file-20230531-21-3hlj3x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/529438/original/file-20230531-21-3hlj3x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=413&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529438/original/file-20230531-21-3hlj3x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=413&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529438/original/file-20230531-21-3hlj3x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=413&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529438/original/file-20230531-21-3hlj3x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=519&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529438/original/file-20230531-21-3hlj3x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=519&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529438/original/file-20230531-21-3hlj3x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=519&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Actor Shameik Moore, who voiced Miles Morales in ‘Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse,’ celebrates after the film won best animated feature at the Academy Awards in 2019.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/in-this-handout-provided-by-a-m-p-a-s-actor-shameik-moore-news-photo/1127271085">Matt Petit/A.M.P.A.S. via Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>How Morales’ race and ethnicity would play into the stories has been a point of contention. As English professor Jorge J. Santos, Jr. argues in the collection “<a href="https://www.rutgersuniversitypress.org/mixed-race-superheroes/9781978814592">Mixed-Race Superheroes</a>,” the first comics series featuring Morales “barely makes any mention of Miles’s ethnicity.” He didn’t seem to speak Spanish, nor did he have any Puerto Rican or Latino friends. He even resisted <a href="https://www.vulture.com/2018/12/miles-morales-of-into-the-spider-verse-the-race-problem.html">being seen as a Black Spider-Man</a>.</p>
<p>That somewhat changed in the following series, which came out in 2018 and was written by Saladin Ahmed and drawn by Javier Garrón. In December 2022, Cody Ziglar, a Black comic writer, took over as the head writer of Morales’ story.</p>
<p>Latino representation in the Spider-Verse is still somewhat lacking. Araña, <a href="https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.7560/309148-012/html?lang=en">a Mexican-Puerto Rican Spider-Girl</a> conceived in 2004, is the only other major Latino Spidey character.</p>
<p>Marvel has tried to highlight <a href="https://www.rutgersuniversitypress.org/panthers-hulks-and-ironhearts/9781978809215">Latino diversity in its other comics</a>. In 2021, the comics publisher released an entire collection showcasing Latino characters titled “<a href="https://www.marvel.com/articles/comics/marvels-voices-comunidades-1-announcement">Marvel’s Voices: Comunidades #1</a>.”</p>
<p>The sequel to “Into the Spider-Verse” is sure to make viewers of color in the U.S. cheer. As Latino media scholar <a href="https://www.rutgersuniversitypress.org/mixed-race-superheroes/9781978814592">Isabel Molina-Guzmán</a> argues, while race complicates Hollywood casting and writing, Black and Latino viewers reacted very positively to Morales. But she insists that the movie also invites longtime fans and audiences of all backgrounds “to stand in Miles Morales’s space” and root for the mixed-race teen trying to save the world.</p>
<p>To me, that’s what makes superhero films starring characters of color so compelling. These characters are, in many senses, outcasts searching for community – in their real lives and in costume.</p>
<p>As Frank, the comics scholar, notes, these differences can lead to feelings of alienation.</p>
<p>But they can also be a source of empowerment.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">‘Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse’ follows its 2018 predecessor, which incorporated a groundbreaking mix of 2D and 3D animation.</span></figcaption>
</figure><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/205892/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Regina Marie Mills does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Latino characters have traditionally been underrepresented in mainstream comics. But Spider-Man’s backstory makes him the perfect superhero to be recast as a minority.Regina Marie Mills, Assistant Professor of Latinx and U.S. Multi-Ethnic Literature, Texas A&M UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2058952023-05-24T17:01:45Z2023-05-24T17:01:45ZTime Shelter: International Booker’s first Bulgarian winner is a rich experiment in style, structure and ideas<p>A philosophical exploration of memory and nostalgia, about forgetting and trying to hold on to our past and make sense of our present and future, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/may/23/international-booker-prize-first-bulgarian-winner-georgi-gospodinov-time-shelter-angela-rodel">Georgi Gospodinov’s Time Shelter</a> is a worthy winner of this year’s <a href="https://thebookerprizes.com/the-booker-library/prize-years/international/2023">International Booker prize</a>.</p>
<p>If ours is an age of privation, this expansive novel symbolises opulence: of ideas, meanings, utopian aspirations and the bizarre brilliance of the human mind. The author convenes memory, nostalgia and history together with the individual and the nation, to chart a narrative arc over the territories of remembrance and oblivion. Above all, it is a book about time, in its fragments and in its perpetuity.</p>
<p>As with so many prize-winning novels, Time Shelter conjures up episodes of human history to make us ponder what we have gone through and what we are living with. It is a book that forces the reader to go slow, given the sheer amount of stimulation for the senses and ideas that it has to offer. </p>
<p>The author’s use of history is masterful and central to the narrative. The novel is a great experiment in terms of narrative style, structure and ideas, and can only come from a <a href="https://blogs.bl.uk/european/2016/06/an-introduction-to-bulgarian-literature.html">literary culture</a> that is not bogged down by canons and rules. </p>
<p>Gospodinov is an acclaimed poet, playwright and writer both in Bulgaria and in Europe, and is the recipient of several national and international literary prizes. The work is beautifully translated by Angela Rodel, who shares in the prize.</p>
<p>Judges’ chair <a href="https://thebookerprizes.com/the-booker-library/judges/leila-slimani">Leila Slimani</a> called Time Shelter – the first Bulgarian work to win the prize – a “brilliant novel” describing it:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>A profound work that deals with a very contemporary question: what happens to us when our memories disappear? … Time Shelter is a great novel about Europe, a continent in need of a future, where the past is reinvented and nostalgia is a poison. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>The land of Time Shelter is inhabited by just two main characters: the unnamed narrator and their friend Gaustine, a geriatric time-travelling psychiatrist who darts in and out of the narrative, at times claiming his space with profound quotes and observations.</p>
<p>In an interview, Gospodinov said that he, the narrator and Gaustine flow into one another, making him feel like he is being invented by his character Gaustine. With such unstable narrative entities, what readers are left with are voices that merge and lapse, but endure.</p>
<p>The structure of the novel itself gives the feeling of slowly losing one’s grip over time and narrative as the story becomes increasingly fragmented. The author clarifies that since it is a novel about Alzheimer’s, the collapsing narrative gives the idea of the characters and the narrator losing their memory, and the fading effect is transmitted to the reader. </p>
<h2>The past is contagious</h2>
<p>The narrator and Gaustine create what they call a “clinic for the past” that offers a hopeful treatment for people with Alzheimer’s. Each floor carefully recreates a period from the patient’s past, transporting them back to a more comforting time when life was good. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/526895/original/file-20230517-22717-7w0x3f.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A cover of a book called Time Shelter showing five different rooms in different colours." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/526895/original/file-20230517-22717-7w0x3f.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/526895/original/file-20230517-22717-7w0x3f.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=914&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526895/original/file-20230517-22717-7w0x3f.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=914&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526895/original/file-20230517-22717-7w0x3f.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=914&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526895/original/file-20230517-22717-7w0x3f.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1148&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526895/original/file-20230517-22717-7w0x3f.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1148&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526895/original/file-20230517-22717-7w0x3f.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1148&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.weidenfeldandnicolson.co.uk/titles/georgi-gospodinov/time-shelter/9781474623070/">Weidenfeld & Nicholson / Orion</a></span>
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<p>The “discreet monster of the past” is brought back with a “therapeutic aim” in these rooms. The nostalgia rooms become more and more important and effective in providing the patients with a slice of familiarity and memory. </p>
<p>Gospodinov explores the different aspects of remembering. While preserved memories can bring solace for some, there are characters like Mrs Sh., whose shower phobia is traced back to her experiences of the Auschwitz concentration camp. </p>
<p>Memories that she has forcefully repressed surface overwhelmingly in the phase of dementia and become a part of her “inescapable reality”. Some memories of inhumanity simply do not fade away but lurk in a corner ready to pounce in a moment of weakness.</p>
<p>In this onslaught of memories, nostalgia is inescapable. And it is in nostalgia that the personal and the historical, the individual and the nation, find refuge. </p>
<p>What starts with Alzheimer’s patients recreating their “happy times”, re-enacting their histories and escaping into the past begins to gain momentum. As the solace provided by these rooms becomes apparent, healthy people without memory loss are increasingly drawn to the clinic as a way of escaping the troubled present.</p>
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<h2>The unsustainability of nostalgia</h2>
<p>In Time Shelter’s world, each European country holds a referendum about recreating history and slipping back into better times, transforming themselves into nostalgia nations with temporal borders. With tongue-in-cheek humour, the UK does not take part due to Brexit. </p>
<p>This is a modern-day utopia and dystopia rolled into one. Anarchy creeps in even amid the contentment of collective nostalgia, and “the world has become a chaotic open-air clinic of the past, as if the walls had fallen away”.</p>
<p>Gospodinov reveals the unsustainability of nostalgia, even though it can be a source of comfort, and the danger of dwelling on our histories. What starts off as therapeutic ultimately brings chaos and fragmentation.</p>
<p>The art of good storytelling demands fresh perspectives, reinvention, and yet a close tie to one’s narrative heritage. Time Shelter is all of that and much more.
Gospodinov’s deft brewing of European history, utopian ideals and the devastating reality of neurological disorders will continue the conversation on human fragility well beyond the pages of this book.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/205895/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sukla Chatterjee does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Judges called it a profound novel that asks the contemporary question: what happens to us when our memories disappear?Sukla Chatterjee, Lecturer in Anglophone Literatures and Cultures, University of AberdeenLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2045782023-05-19T09:27:08Z2023-05-19T09:27:08ZInternational Booker Prize 2023: our experts review the six shortlisted books<p>From a <a href="https://thebookerprizes.com/media-centre/press-releases/the-international-booker-prize-2023-longlist-is-announced">longlist of 12</a>, <a href="https://thebookerprizes.com/the-booker-library/features/six-things-you-need-to-know-about-the-international-booker-prize-2023-shortlist">six novels have been shortlisted</a> for the 2023 International Booker Prize. Our academics review the finalists ahead of the announcement of the winner on May 23. </p>
<h2><a href="https://thebookerprizes.com/the-booker-library/books/the-gospel-according-to-the-new-world">The Gospel According to the New World</a> by Maryse Condé, translated by Richard Philcox</h2>
<p>The Gospel According to the New World starts with the birth of a boy in an “overseas department”, “surrounded by water on all sides”. Pascal, a child of mixed heritage, is born and subsequently abandoned on Easter Sunday. Rumours immediately start spreading that he might be the son of God. </p>
<p>What follows is Pascal’s journey to himself. He travels the earth looking for his biological father and grapples with questions about his own purpose – a journey that closely mirrors that of Jesus in the New Testament.</p>
<p>The novel, translated from French to English by Condé’s husband Richard Philcox, is full of wit, humour and allusion. </p>
<p>It engages with questions of belief, philosophy and politics, and brings together a range of captivating characters from across the New World as Pascal grapples with his reputation as a new Messiah. I was unsure of what to expect, but I found Condé’s novel charming and full of heart.</p>
<p><em>Reviewed by Leighan Renaud</em></p>
<h2><a href="https://thebookerprizes.com/the-booker-library/books/whale">Whale</a> by Cheon Myeong-kwan, translated by Chi-Young Kim</h2>
<p>Set largely in the remote village of Pyeongdae, the dreamlike story of Whale is punctuated by satirical references to historical events that mark the seismic social shifts that transformed South Korea into a modern state in the 20th century. </p>
<p>Rather than focus explicitly on these episodes – the Korean War, US occupation and military dictatorships, for instance – Whale tells its grand national narrative on a smaller human scale.</p>
<p>The rags to riches journey of protagonist Geumbok is reminiscent of a Dickensian epic. Her ambition and gradual acquisition of material luxury are indicative of Korea’s shift towards capitalism. Her daughter meanwhile, the mute Chunhui, has a deep spiritual connection with the natural environment and this is used to fondly recall the traditions of the past. </p>
<p>Whale provides an unflinching look at two contrasting portraits of national identity in the era of Korean modernisation – equally valid, yet highly oppositional. </p>
<p><em>Reviewed by Gemma Ballard</em></p>
<h2><a href="https://thebookerprizes.com/the-booker-library/books/boulder">Boulder</a> by Eva Baltasar, translated by Julia Sanches</h2>
<p>Boulder is a gripping, discomfiting novel of potent language and uncompromising moral certitude. With a poetic intensity that oscillates between the fiercely carnal and a stark abstraction, Eva Baltasar immerses the reader in the consciousness of her protagonist, “Boulder”. She’s nicknamed, by her girlfriend, after “those large, solitary rocks in southern Patagonia, pieces of world left over after creation, isolated and exposed to every element”.</p>
<p>This is a rich and surprising novel about desire, freedom and domesticity, which follows the merchant ship cook Boulder as she struggles to navigate the new terrain of a settled life with a partner intent on having a child.</p>
<p>In densely metaphorical prose, Baltasar handles romance with an unsentimental boldness. This is a love “that grows like brambles, strangles the furniture, and girds the walls”. Boulder picks apart the piety of motherhood and delivers a heroine whose wildness leaves her always giddily yearning for escape. </p>
<p><em>Reviewed by Kaye Mitchell</em></p>
<h2><a href="https://thebookerprizes.com/the-booker-library/books/standing-heavy">Standing Heavy</a> by GauZ’, translated by Frank Wynne</h2>
<p>GauZ’ has penned a razor-like examination of consumerism from the standpoint of a security guard in the Champs-Elysées branch of a famous chain of perfume retailers.</p>
<p>Standing Heavy offers a refreshing and often caustic take on the cultural and economic consequences of an encounter between western consumerism and capitalism and the acute African sense of observation and derision. Using the story and observations of an undocumented Ivorian migrant in Paris, it digs into the rich, complex and often fraught relationship between France and its former African colonies.</p>
<p>With the sharpness of an Ivorian <a href="https://elpais.com/planeta-futuro/africa-no-es-un-pais/2022-08-30/coupe-decale-la-musica-que-nacio-para-aliviar-la-tension-de-la-guerra-civil-en-costa-de-marfil.html">coupé-décalé</a> song, GauZ’ offers evocative glimpses into the life of African migrants in France, from the first generation who could set up their own businesses to the later wave, most of whom have been denied legal immigrant status. </p>
<p>This second generation has to make ends meet through low paid, tedious and racially profiled jobs – such as security guards in shops or emptied factories like the <a href="https://www.grandsmoulinsdeparis.com/">Grand Moulins de Paris</a> in the novel.</p>
<p>Standing Heavy delivers a powerful invitation to reflect upon the multiple meanings of “postcolonial France” and the Franco-African relationship, 60 years after the “end of Empire”.</p>
<p><em>Reviewed by Berny Sèbe</em></p>
<h2>Time Shelter by Georgi Gospodinov, translated by Angela Rodel</h2>
<p>Gospodinov’s <a href="https://www.waterstones.com/book/time-shelter/georgi-gospodinov/angela-rodel/9781474623070">Time Shelter</a> has the power to take our mind to times and places, uncertain that we will find our way back.</p>
<p>It is a philosophical exploration about memory and nostalgia, about forgetting and trying to hold on to our pasts while making sense of our present and future. Above all, it is about time – in its fragments and in its perpetuity. The narrative is so unembellished and laced with scathing humour that it has a jarring effect, further facilitated by uneven segments and breaks – much like our thoughts, some fleeting, some resilient.</p>
<p>The novel has just two characters, the unnamed narrator and their time travelling friend Gustine. This sparsity reflects the aridity of a demented mind. Together, they create rooms for Alzheimer’s patients. Rooms in which a chunk of their familiar time and memory is preserved to provide them with shelter in a rapidly erasing memory world.</p>
<p>Eventually, nostalgia grips Europe and nations hold referendums to return to the comfort of the past. Gospodinov’s deft brewing of European history, utopian ideals and the reality of neurological disorders will continue the conversation on human fragility beyond the pages of the book. </p>
<p><em>Reviewed by Sukla Chatterjee</em></p>
<h2>Still Born by Guadalupe Nettel, translated by Rosalind Harvey</h2>
<p>Part way through <a href="https://fitzcarraldoeditions.com/books/still-born">Still Born</a> there’s a scene in which a character has a panic attack in a medical scanner: “I think I’m going to explode in here.”</p>
<p>This same sensation animates Rosalind Harvey’s delicate but enthrallingly tense translation of Guadalupe Nettel’s fourth novel: an exploration of maternity, loss and refusal. </p>
<p>Alina and Laura are old friends whose relationship is based on eschewing procreation as the be all and end all. It’s a perspective that gets increasingly complicated through pregnancy, birth, loss, a growing intimacy with the troubled son of a neighbour, unexpected resilience, the “birthing” process of writing a thesis and gradual drifting apart with a mother.</p>
<p>The novel asks challenging questions about care for terminally ill children and substitute motherhood. Laura and Alina’s bond is a constant core. At one point the prospect of the death of a child is described as “so unacceptable that we have chosen not to name it”.</p>
<p>Still Born explores those aspects of motherhood that have often gone untold in uncompromising writing that feels throughout as though it’s being narrated in confidence to a close friend.</p>
<p><em>Reviewed by Colin Herd</em></p>
<p><em>The winner of the <a href="https://thebookerprizes.com">International Booker Prize 2023</a> will be announced May 23 2023.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/204578/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Reflecting on themes as diverse as motherhood, war, religion and memory, our experts were impressed by the 2023 shortlist.Leighan M Renaud, Lecturer in Caribbean Literatures and Cultures, Department of English, University of BristolBerny Sèbe, Associate Professor in colonial and post-colonial studies, University of BirminghamColin Herd, Lecturer in Creative Writing, University of GlasgowGemma Ballard, Lecturer in East Asian Studies, School of East Asian Studies, University of SheffieldKaye Mitchell, Senior Lecturer, English and American Studies, & Director of the Centre for New Writing, University of ManchesterSukla Chatterjee, Lecturer in Anglophone Literatures and Cultures, University of AberdeenLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2002592023-03-07T01:23:48Z2023-03-07T01:23:48ZFrom Squid Game and Physical: 100 to K-pop and BTS, translation is central to tectonic shifts in global cultural consumption<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/513838/original/file-20230306-3109-pelyme.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C4%2C1500%2C992&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Netflix</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The Korean reality survival show Physical: 100 has become a global hit, topping Netflix’s non-English lineup in just a week following its premier on January 24 2023. </p>
<p>The name of the show says it all: 100 contestants with superb physiques participate in a variety of challenges to win 300 million Korean won, equivalent to A$335,000. </p>
<p>There are several reasons behind the success of the show. First, the idea of finding the fittest body through a series of gruelling real-life challenges is unprecedented. </p>
<p>Second, the show is reminiscent of another Korean entertainment success, Squid Game. From the studio settings to the ways the challenges operate, Physical: 100 has obviously been inspired by its fictional blockbuster predecessor. Third, the sheer scale of the challenges – such as moving a 1.5-tonne ship – is just mindboggling. </p>
<p>There is one element that is rarely talked about, despite its pivotal contribution to the success of the show: translation. </p>
<p>Without translation, the show would never have been able to reach a global audience. The same goes for all the Korean dramas, movies and shows that have gained huge popularity around the world. Translation is central to tectonic shifts in global cultural consumption, which has been traditionally led by the West.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/513842/original/file-20230306-27-qccd8a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/513842/original/file-20230306-27-qccd8a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/513842/original/file-20230306-27-qccd8a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/513842/original/file-20230306-27-qccd8a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/513842/original/file-20230306-27-qccd8a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/513842/original/file-20230306-27-qccd8a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/513842/original/file-20230306-27-qccd8a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/513842/original/file-20230306-27-qccd8a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In Physical: 100, a group of Korea’s strongest people compete in a series of elaborate and gruelling challenges, to see who has the ‘ideal’ body type.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Netflix</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The rise of Korean culture as a gamechanger</h2>
<p>For decades, people in the East have looked to the West (mostly the United States and Europe) as a source of cultural consumption. Korea was no exception. </p>
<p>Local movies were once looked down upon by Korean people, who considered Western counterparts more advanced. It was not until the late 1990s that the Korean movie industry began to thrive, thanks largely to systematic government support. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/513847/original/file-20230306-2429-gpzhlr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/513847/original/file-20230306-2429-gpzhlr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/513847/original/file-20230306-2429-gpzhlr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/513847/original/file-20230306-2429-gpzhlr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/513847/original/file-20230306-2429-gpzhlr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/513847/original/file-20230306-2429-gpzhlr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/513847/original/file-20230306-2429-gpzhlr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/513847/original/file-20230306-2429-gpzhlr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Netflix’s Squid Game was an unprecedented success around the world.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Netflix</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Another contributor to the global popularity of Korean culture is the ascendance of Korean pop culture, better known as K-pop. This new genre of visually packed musical performance has benefited enormously from YouTube and has produced global household names such as BTS and Black Pink. As of 2021, the number of K-culture fans was <a href="https://www.thehealthyjournal.com/faq/how-many-kpop-fans-in-the-world#:%7E:text=How%20many%20K%2Dpop%20fans,campaigns%20and%20network%20for%20support.">estimated at more than 150 million</a>. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/gdZLi9oWNZg?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<h2>Who translates Korean cultural products?</h2>
<p>The rise of Korean culture has witnessed a rapid growth of a dedicated global fandom and, interestingly, <a href="https://www.ytn.co.kr/_ln/0106_202101232240539699">fan-led translation</a>. Initiated by BTS fans, an enormous community also known as “Army”, fandom translation basically covers everything relating to their favourite artists. From YouTube videos and lyrics to news articles, fans from around the world who are proficient in the Korean language voluntarily translate it all into other languages and share them through social media. </p>
<p>Paid translation work is in demand too. Iyuno SDI, for example, provides translation services in <a href="https://www.chosun.com/economy/tech_it/2022/10/14/QIXYG6BQFNAIRJCXECN5UY2TIU/">more than 100 languages</a> to global media companies such as Netflix, Disney and Amazon. It is, however, not always humans who translate: AI-enabled machine translation (XL8) does much of the work. Draft translation done by machines is then reviewed and edited by <a href="https://www.chosun.com/economy/tech_it/2022/10/14/QIXYG6BQFNAIRJCXECN5UY2TIU/">more than 30,000 freelance translators across the world</a>. </p>
<p>Despite the growth of the translation industry, working conditions for translators are <a href="https://www.donga.com/news/Culture/article/all/20190707/96360188/1">often problematic</a>, as many translators are short of time to complete work and underpaid. Through this mass production process, cultural consideration may sometimes get lost, as happened in Physical: 100.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/lm1kU09lVko?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<h2>Translation challenges in Physical: 100</h2>
<p>If you’ve watched the show, you will remember Choo Sung-Hoon, a celebrity mixed martial arts (MMA) fighter. After Choo won his first one-on-one match against another MMA fighter, Shin Dong-Kook, Shin bowed deeply before Choo, with his head touching the ground. Is this standard practice among MMA fighters? No, the answer lies in the Korean term, <em>sunbae-nim</em>, which Shin used consistently to refer to Choo, but was not translated in the show. </p>
<p><em>Sunbae-nim</em> refers to a person who is older or more experienced in a workplace, school, military unit or social context. Virtually all Koreans would know several people whom they consider as <em>sunbae-nim</em>.</p>
<p>Shin clearly idolises Choo, who is older and has been a big gun in the MMA field for almost two decades. It is therefore only natural for Shin to call Choo <em>sunbae-nim</em>, a term intended to deliver the amount of respect that Shin held for Choo. As there is no exact English equivalent, however, the term was often replaced in the subtitles by Choo’s given name, “Sung-Hoon”. </p>
<p>This might have given the wrong impression when Shin suggested to Choo that they have an MMA match, rather than playing the ball game prescribed in the show. Here is what Shin said (in the English subtitles) when he made the suggestion: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>It would be rude of me to challenge a respected senior just to play with a ball. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>“Respected senior” here refers to <em>dae-sunbaenim</em> (literally “great sunbaenim”) yet it sounds odd and unnatural. My suggestion? “It wouldn’t do justice to your distinguished MMA career if we just played with a ball.” </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/squid-game-and-the-untranslatable-the-debate-around-subtitles-explained-169931">Squid Game and the 'untranslatable': the debate around subtitles explained</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Translation as a mutual process</h2>
<p>Titles and forms of address in Korean are always <a href="https://theconversation.com/squid-game-and-the-untranslatable-the-debate-around-subtitles-explained-169931">challenging to translate</a>. </p>
<p>As someone who specialises in English-Korean translation, I believe it would be best to retain these original expressions. In this digital era, information is at one’s fingertips and is easy to look up. Just as “señor” or “monsieur” need no translation, Korean titles should be respected on their own terms. </p>
<p>When we recognise translation as a mutual process of engaging with an audience, a cultural shift from the West to the East may be achieved in a genuine sense.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/200259/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jinhyun Cho does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>There is one element that is rarely talked about, despite its pivotal contribution to the success of shows like Squid Game: translation.Jinhyun Cho, Senior Lecturer in Translation and Interpreting at Macquarie University, Macquarie UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1985562023-01-26T13:33:08Z2023-01-26T13:33:08ZPrince Harry: early leaks came from a Spanish translation, causing confusion about what was really said<p>Eight days before Prince Harry’s memoir Spare hit shelves elsewhere, copies <a href="https://inews.co.uk/news/prince-harry-book-spare-on-sale-early-spain-five-days-ahead-official-release-date-2066225">went on sale</a> prematurely in Spain.</p>
<p>Over the next few days the <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-64183891/page/4">UK media</a>, scrambled to <a href="https://www.thesun.co.uk/fabulous/20945214/prince-harry-book-spare-released-early-spain/">acquire Spanish copies of the book</a>, having been unable to get English versions for themselves. Their reporting on the story was initially based on these <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11604447/Oh-Spare-Prince-Harrys-new-memoir-unleashes-jaw-dropping-attacks-Royal-Family.html">Spanish versions</a>. </p>
<p>The fact that many of the quotes had been translated from English to Spanish and then back into English was barely acknowledged. Sometimes, this results in change, or different versions, as we see below. The book’s <a href="https://princeharrymemoir.com/">tagline</a> is “His Words. His Story.” and part of the coverage centred around why it was important that these were Prince Harry’s own words. Yet what those words actually were, depended on where you read them. </p>
<h2>His words?</h2>
<p>One much quoted extract from Spare is Prince Harry’s account of how many members of the Taliban he had killed. He writes:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>So, my number: twenty-five. It wasn’t a number that gave me any satisfaction. But neither was it a number that made me feel ashamed.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This was a focal point for early spoilers on the book and was quoted differently in different publications.</p>
<p>On <a href="https://news.sky.com/story/prince-harry-asked-his-father-not-to-marry-camilla-as-moment-he-was-told-about-his-mothers-car-accident-revealed-in-book-12780602">Sky</a>: “So my number: twenty-five. It was not something that filled me with satisfaction, but I was not ashamed either.”</p>
<p>In <a href="https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/prince-harry-taliban-spare-book-memoir-zd883fnhc">The Times</a>: “So my number is 25. It’s not a number that fills me with satisfaction, but nor does it embarrass me.”</p>
<p>Neither of these translations is wrong. They show different ways of rendering the same idea – but the cumulative effect is important. </p>
<p>It was unclear whether early criticisms were responding to the published version or alternative translations. Those attacking the author for his stance may not in fact have been responding to “his words” at all.</p>
<p>A more detailed example comes in Prince Harry’s account – here taken from the book in English – of losing his virginity:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Inglorious episode, with an older woman. She liked horses, quite a lot, and treated me not unlike a young stallion. Quick ride, after which she’d smacked my rump and sent me off to graze. Among the many things about it that were wrong: It happened in a grassy field behind a busy pub.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Unsurprisingly, this was another of the most frequently quoted leaks. But again, the wording is not consistent. The <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-11602849/Prince-Harry-recounts-losing-virginity-older-woman-FIELD-biography-leaked.html">Daily Mail</a> quoted:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“… a humiliating episode with an older woman who liked macho horses and who treated me like a young stallion. I mounted her quickly, after which she spanked my ass and sent me away. One of my many mistakes was letting it happen in a field, just behind a very busy pub.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>There are some significant differences. Firstly, a shift in agency and responsibility: a “quick ride” is recast to position Harry as dominant (“I mounted her”), while “things that were wrong” become “my many mistakes”, suggesting self-accusation.</p>
<p>There is also awkwardness, in the term “macho horse” and in the reference to ass spanking: would the author who talks elsewhere about his “todger” also say “ass”?</p>
<p>The different word choices may be partly about different translators working on the text that appeared in different places. A translator collaborates in rewriting the author’s text, brings out its interest and value, reads carefully for hidden layers of meaning and confronts difficulties and inconsistencies.</p>
<p>Languages don’t map directly onto one another and there is often more than one way to translate a given word or phrase. What’s notable here is that the invisibility of the English to Spanish to English translation process leaves readers not understanding why there are different versions. </p>
<h2>His story?</h2>
<p>Translation theorists have talked about translation as a kind of “<a href="https://www.routledge.com/Translation-Rewriting-and-the-Manipulation-of-Literary-Fame/Lefevere/p/book/9781138208742">rewriting</a>”. Recognising the translator as an active writing agent is key to exploring the <a href="https://www.ed.ac.uk/literatures-languages-cultures/translation-studies/events/whose-voice-is-it-anyway#:%7E:text=Whose%20Voice%20is%20it%20Anyway%3F%20is%20a%20series%20of%20annual,collaboration%20with%20the%20European%20Commission.">ethical question</a> of whose voice is heard in translated texts.</p>
<p>However, the participation of others in the telling doesn’t necessarily mean Spare is no longer Prince Harry’s story.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Spare's cover showing Prince Harry's face." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/506464/original/file-20230125-24-iajob2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/506464/original/file-20230125-24-iajob2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506464/original/file-20230125-24-iajob2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506464/original/file-20230125-24-iajob2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506464/original/file-20230125-24-iajob2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506464/original/file-20230125-24-iajob2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506464/original/file-20230125-24-iajob2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Spare on sale at the Barnes & Noble bookshop in New York.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/book-by-prince-harry-duke-sussex-2247875479">lev radin / Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Storytelling is central to how we establish our identity, and it is social. We rely on communities to retell our stories and so, as the philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre explains: “We are never more (and sometimes less) than <a href="https://undpress.nd.edu/9780268035044/after-virtue/">co-authors of our own narrative</a>.”</p>
<p>But how far can the ownership of Prince Harry’s narrative stretch when the words are no longer “his”? As we have seen, when fragments and differently translated snippets are all presented as “the text”, the resulting inconsistency undermines the authenticity of the story, and with it the agenda of the book.</p>
<p>The marketing for Spare and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E6l0ObY2XVM">media appearances</a> surrounding its publication have leaned heavily on a bid to “tell my own story” and <a href="https://www.thecut.com/2023/01/prince-harry-frozen-penis.html">resist</a> “words being taken out of context”. The realities of translation show how difficult this is.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/198556/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Caroline Summers does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>When the global press first reported on Prince Harry’s Spare, they were doing so from the Spanish translation – an expert explains the surprisingly significant impact this had on its interpretation.Caroline Summers, Assistant Professor of Translation & Transcultural Studies, University of WarwickLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1902002022-09-15T17:10:55Z2022-09-15T17:10:55ZHow Jane Austen’s early Chinese translators were stumped by the oddities of 19th-century British cuisine<p>Jane Austen’s works are globally renowned, but they were unknown in China until 1935 when <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/10357823.2019.1699499">two different translations of Pride and Prejudice were published</a>. Today, her novels are increasingly popular and have been translated into Chinese many times – notably there have been 60 different retranslations of Pride and Prejudice. </p>
<p>Translators face the creative balancing act of remaining faithful to the source text while also ensuring that the translation is a smooth, informative read. One intriguing task for translators of Austen has been how to describe the 19th-century British food featured in the many convivial sequences that shed light on characters through their social interaction. </p>
<p>How do you get an early Chinese reader of Austen’s work in the 1930s to understand what rout-cakes are and why Mrs Elton in Austen’s Emma considers poor versions of these a sign of a bad host? The world was not as globalised as it is now and information not so accessible. </p>
<p>We found this fascinating and so <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/23306343.2022.2106068">analysed a body of Chinese translations</a> of Austen’s work from 1935 onwards to assess the effectiveness of the translations of food culture during Austen’s era. The results were decidedly mixed.</p>
<h2>Elusive equivalents</h2>
<p>In Pride and Prejudice, Mrs Bennett contrasts her girls’ upbringing with that of their neighbour, Charlotte Lucas, who assists in cooking “the mince pies”. The notion of a pastry dish containing fruit, meat or vegetables is difficult to convey in Chinese as there are only limited similarities with Chinese “bĭng” which are wheat flour-based items resembling flatbreads, biscuits, or pancakes. </p>
<p>Although early mince pies contained meat, they became sweeter and more fruit-based in the 18th century as sugar imports increased. However, Chinese translators conveyed “mince pies” in different ways, including “steak”, “steamed bun”, and “meat pie”, revealing translation errors or strategies such as the use of Chinese equivalents. </p>
<p>The two wartime translations, made during Japan’s invasion of China from 1937 to 1945 of “mince pie” were “steak” and “steamed bun” but in mitigated circumstance the translators probably had limited access to dictionaries during this period.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A woman talking while having tea." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/484028/original/file-20220912-12-p6fa4g.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/484028/original/file-20220912-12-p6fa4g.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/484028/original/file-20220912-12-p6fa4g.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/484028/original/file-20220912-12-p6fa4g.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/484028/original/file-20220912-12-p6fa4g.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=533&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/484028/original/file-20220912-12-p6fa4g.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=533&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/484028/original/file-20220912-12-p6fa4g.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=533&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Mrs Bennet having her morning tea in Pride and Prejudice.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://access.bl.uk/item/viewer/ark:/81055/vdc_00000003A39E#?c=0&m=0&s=0&cv=358&xywh=9%2C421%2C1497%2C685">British Library</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Christmas is frequently mentioned in Persuasion. Austen described early 19th-century Christmas meals as occasions when there were “brawn and cold pies, where riotous boys were holding high revel”. Brawn is a cold cut terrine or meat jelly made from a pig’s head and bones, spiced, boiled, then cooled. </p>
<p>Again, through the decades, Chinese translators struggled to convey this notion. One took the catch-all option of “a variety of Christmas cakes and other food”, others fell short with “pork”/“salted pork”, while one unfortunate translated it as “the colour brown”.</p>
<p>China’s increasing familiarity with western food over the years has encouraged more globalised approaches to food translation. </p>
<p>Cakes exemplify this point, being referenced in Emma with regard to Mr Woodhouse whose “own stomach could bear nothing rich”. However, China’s distinctive varieties of cake are markedly different, ranging from “yuè bĭng” (“<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/sep/08/mooncake-madness-china-cracks-down-on-extravagant-versions-of-festival-staple">mooncakes</a>” - pastry cakes with fillings such as lotus seed paste) to “xĭ bĭng” (“happiness pancakes”). The latter was used as a domesticated translation to render Austen’s references to wedding cakes into Chinese. </p>
<p>“Happiness pancakes” are small, round, and made of flour, sesame seed and white sugar. They display a motif signifying happiness and are decorated with red silk. They have been a wedding delicacy for 2,000 years, whereas western-style wedding cakes are relatively new to China. Nevertheless, the newly coined, cosmopolitan concept of “<em>jiéhūn dàngāo</em>” (“wedding cake”) has materialised in recent translations.</p>
<h2>Different diets</h2>
<p>The diets of British and Chinese people are differentiated by foods such as cheese. Austen periodically mentions cheese, for example in Emma when Mr Elton describes a party with “the Stilton cheese, the north Wiltshire, the butter, the celery, the beet-root and all the dessert”. Such references are problematic for Chinese translators because of cultural differences. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="A woman eats soup while a maid scowls at her." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/484019/original/file-20220912-22-57h0mn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/484019/original/file-20220912-22-57h0mn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=824&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/484019/original/file-20220912-22-57h0mn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=824&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/484019/original/file-20220912-22-57h0mn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=824&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/484019/original/file-20220912-22-57h0mn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1036&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/484019/original/file-20220912-22-57h0mn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1036&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/484019/original/file-20220912-22-57h0mn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1036&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A scene from Emma where she eats soup.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/britishlibrary/11235062574/in/gallery-155005713@N06-72157690645569331/">British Library</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Whereas Britain produces <a href="https://www.petersyard.com/journal/a-guide-to-british-cheese-varieties">700 varieties of cheese</a>, the product is less widespread in China due to <a href="https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/lactose-intolerance-by-country">lactose intolerance</a>. Here, loss of meaning and misinterpretation undermined the translators’ work. Stilton was referred to as a “county” in some translations. </p>
<p>Although several translators attempted to evoke Stilton’s characteristics (such as its “dry” texture) and used transliteration to convey something of original place names (“North Wiltshire” becoming “North Wēněrtè”, for example), most Chinese readers would have been none the wiser compared with a British reader’s understanding of the original text.</p>
<p>While translators deserve credit for giving Chinese readerships a glimpse into Britain’s former socio-cultural mores, their strategies sometimes failed to connect food culture in Austen’s era to contemporary Chinese culture. Although Chinese translators worked during challenging socio-political times, the future of translation – and of mutual understanding in all fields – lies in cross-cultural partnerships between individuals. </p>
<p>In an epoch that is again tending towards global geopolitical isolationism, it is to be hoped that cultural collaboration will remain an important channel of transnational cooperation.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/190200/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span><a href="mailto:saihong.li@stir.ac.uk">saihong.li@stir.ac.uk</a> is a council member of CIOL (Chartered Institute of Linguists).</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>William Hope does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>How do you get a reader in 1930s China to understand what a mince pie is?Saihong Li, Senior lecturer, University of StirlingWilliam Hope, University of SalfordLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1883832022-08-29T13:12:18Z2022-08-29T13:12:18ZCOVID was a setback for indigenous languages: South African lecturers on what went wrong<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/479902/original/file-20220818-23-q0r83i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">By some estimates only 5% of the world’s languages are likely to survive online. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">PeopleImages / Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>South African indigenous languages are among those at risk of a <a href="https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0077056">serious decline</a> due to the increasing use of digital technologies. By some estimates only <a href="https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0077056">5%</a> of the world’s languages are likely to survive online. </p>
<p>As hubs of knowledge generation, South African universities have an essential role in ensuring this does not happen. When democracy came to South Africa in 1994, multilingualism was seen as imperative to ensure that all of the country’s 11 official languages were esteemed and promoted. Universities could play their part by using indigenous languages in high status functions: teaching, learning and research. </p>
<p>Despite the numerous legislative policy documents and <a href="http://www.dac.gov.za/sites/default/files/LPD_Language%20Policy%20Framework_English_0.pdf">frameworks</a>, in <a href="https://www.usaf.ac.za/the-state-of-language-policies-at-public-institutions/">practice</a> the use of indigenous African languages in South African universities falls far short of where it should be. The adoption of remote (online) education during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and 2021 may have widened the chasm further. That’s because English dominates in online engagements in this <a href="https://www.talkwalker.com/blog/social-media-stats-south-africa">context</a>.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://theconversation.com/five-ways-academics-can-manage-covid-19-shutdowns-133947">online teaching</a> employed by universities during the pandemic was conducted almost exclusively in English. If this continues, it could derail the <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-south-africas-universities-are-making-more-students-multilingual-116638">work done so far</a> in “intellectualising” indigenous languages – that is, developing them for use in high status contexts like education. </p>
<p>In a <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14790718.2022.2074012">recent paper</a> I drew on the reflections of seven lecturers from seven South African universities on the challenges of trying to teach online in more than one language. I looked at the implications for developing historically marginalised languages, as called for by the <a href="https://www.gov.za/sites/default/files/gcis_document/202011/43860gon1160.pdf">Language Policy Framework for Public Higher Education Institutions</a>. </p>
<p>What the lecturers told me suggests that if multiple indigenous languages aren’t used in higher education, their speakers could face even greater <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-the-pandemic-is-hurting-university-students-mental-health-159643">exclusion</a> in universities. It will also set back the advances made in raising the status of these languages.</p>
<h2>Reflections from lecturers</h2>
<p>The lecturers were teaching in fields like politics, history and education. Some were at traditional universities and others at universities of technology.</p>
<p>Their experience was that it was challenging to teach multilingually during emergency remote teaching. The challenges were in three categories: </p>
<ul>
<li><p>shifts from in-person to on-screen interactions </p></li>
<li><p>shifts in the types of resources used to teach multilingually </p></li>
<li><p>shifts from approaches that intellectualise indigenous languages to approaches that are focused on delivery.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>Their view was that their experiences during COVID did not bode well for the intellectualisation of indigenous South African languages.</p>
<p>One participant was worried that multilingualism would become no more than a mechanical translation from one language into another. While the <a href="https://theconversation.com/simple-vernacular-translations-make-the-most-sense-for-university-students-48599">translation of resources</a> is an important part of <a href="https://theconversation.com/bilingual-education-can-work-in-south-african-schools-heres-how-186780">multilingual education</a>, it is just the start. What must then follow is teaching students how to use indigenous language to come up with new ways of thinking about their disciplines, drawing on the indigenous knowledge systems that the languages are rooted in. </p>
<p>The participant went on to say:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Our students need vibrant, living multilingualism that demonstrates that intellectual work is not singularly about English. And that your professors are not English speakers. They are also Xhosa, and they have Afrikaans, and they have slang, and they have Zulu, and they have high language, and they have street language … there is a cross-set of all our multilingual capability to convey the intellectual project.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Under the conditions of emergency remote learning, lecturers were under pressure simply to deliver the content of courses. This was true even for lecturers who wanted to use multilingual pedagogies. They were mindful of the need for multilingualism in higher education in South Africa. But the <a href="https://theconversation.com/delivering-education-online-coronavirus-underscores-whats-missing-in-africa-134914">conditions</a> under which they were teaching were such a hindrance that they defaulted to translation of resources like notes and slides.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>…this has not been a huge success in that our sense is that students are just not reading. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>The academics Rosalie Finlayson and Mbulungeni Madiba have <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14664200208668036">argued</a> that effective intellectualisation is what will see indigenous languages </p>
<blockquote>
<p>developed, within the shortest possible time, to a point where they can express concepts that already exist in languages such as English and Afrikaans. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>For this to happen, the focus must be on capturing African languages in written form to develop lexicon and grammar. This was a challenge during COVID because some web-based learner management systems don’t support texts written in African languages. They don’t have the special characters that a student should use in an exam to show what they know. So it’s difficult to assess the candidate. </p>
<p>Indigenous language teaching resources, such as journal articles and textbooks, are scarce too. So lecturers had few resources to draw on when attempting to move their courses online. And the technology did not allow lecturers to write easily online as they would on a board:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>As a language teacher, you are bound to write because when students don’t understand what you are trying to teach, you have to put what you are uttering orally into writing for their full grasp. </p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Adapting systems for local use</h2>
<p>In 2014, South African <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14790718.2020.1717496">scholars called for</a> the localisation of learner management systems to promote teaching. </p>
<p>Localising a learner management system entails adopting and modifying digital information and computer user interfaces into local languages, cultures, values and beliefs. </p>
<p>It is costly and requires institutions to collaborate. But researchers have been highlighting how important it is for raising the status of indigenous languages. The fact that it hasn’t happened yet suggests it may not be a priority for universities, which are best placed to do it, or for government, which is empowered to hold them accountable if they won’t.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/188383/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sisanda Nkoala receives funding from the National Research Foundation and the Cape Peninsula University of Technology</span></em></p>Multilingual teaching was a challenge under emergency remote learning conditions: computer systems weren’t adapted to indigenous languages.Sisanda Nkoala, Senior Lecturer, Cape Peninsula University of TechnologyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1860252022-07-25T14:05:22Z2022-07-25T14:05:22ZA brief history of Esperanto, the 135-year-old language of peace hated by Hitler and Stalin alike<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/471701/original/file-20220629-18-3oqon1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=15%2C61%2C5136%2C3167&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">An Esperanto teacher instructs a class in a room with a painting of the language's creator on the wall.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/esperanto-teacher-iwona-zalewska-instructs-a-class-of-news-photo/667892248">Janek Skarzynski/AFP via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In the late 1800s, the city of Białystok – <a href="https://yivoencyclopedia.org/article.aspx/Bia%C5%82ystok">which was once Polish, then Prussian, then Russian, and is today again part of Poland</a> – was a hub of diversity, with <a href="https://culture.pl/en/article/bialystok-the-original-babel-of-the-eastern-european-borderlands">large numbers of Poles, Germans, Russians</a> and <a href="https://www.yivo.org/cimages/basic_facts_about_yiddish_2014.pdf">Yiddish</a>-speaking <a href="https://theconversation.com/uncovering-ancient-ashkenaz-the-birthplace-of-yiddish-speakers-58355">Ashkanazi Jews</a>. Each group spoke a <a href="https://culture.pl/en/article/poland-didnt-always-speak-polish-the-lost-linguistic-diversity-of-europe">different language</a> and viewed members of the other communities with suspicion. </p>
<p>For years, <a href="https://culture.pl/en/article/9-things-you-need-to-know-about-esperanto-its-creator">L.L. Zamenhof</a> – a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/13/books/review/bridge-of-words-esperanto-esther-schor.html">Jewish man</a> from Białystok who had trained as a doctor in Moscow – had <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/15/us/dream-of-a-common-language.html">dreamed</a> of a way for diverse groups of people to communicate easily and peacefully.</p>
<p>On <a href="https://time.com/4417809/esperanto-history-invention/">July 26, 1887</a>, he published what is now referred to as “<a href="https://www.genekeyes.com/Dr_Esperanto.html">Unua Libro</a>,” or “First Book,” which introduced and described <a href="https://culture.pl/en/podcast/SFTEW-06-ESPERO">Esperanto</a>, a language he had spent years <a href="https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/episode-16-a-designed-language-download-embed/">designing</a> in hopes of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2003/jul/12/weekend.davidnewnham">promoting peace among the people of the world</a>. </p>
<p>Esperanto’s <a href="https://libro.ee/file.php?id=1269">vocabulary</a> is mostly drawn from English, French, German, Greek, Italian, Latin, Polish, Russian and Yiddish, as <a href="https://www.babbel.com/en/magazine/the-most-multilingual-people-throughout-history">these were the languages that Zamenhof was most familiar with</a>. Grammatically, Esperanto was primarily <a href="https://bulteno.esperanto-usa.org/a/2022/01/informado/">influenced</a> by <a href="https://culture.pl/en/article/how-much-polish-is-there-in-esperanto">European</a> languages, but <a href="https://www.jbe-platform.com/content/journals/10.1075/lplp.34.1.04par">interestingly</a>, some of Esperanto’s innovations bear a striking resemblance to features found in some <a href="https://blogs.bl.uk/european/2017/07/esperanto-as-an-asian-language.html">Asian languages</a>, such as <a href="http://claudepiron.free.fr/articlesenanglais/europeanorasiatic.htm#isolating">Chinese</a>.</p>
<p>Now, 135 years later, Europe is again riven by violence and tension, most notably by the war between Russia and Ukraine, which is <a href="https://theconversation.com/long-before-shots-were-fired-a-linguistic-power-struggle-was-playing-out-in-ukraine-178247">at least partially driven</a> by <a href="https://theconversation.com/is-ukrainian-a-language-or-a-dialect-that-depends-on-whom-you-ask-and-how-the-war-ends-180849">a political debate about language differences</a>. Unfortunately, <a href="https://theconversation.com/conflicts-over-language-stretch-far-beyond-russia-and-ukraine-183280">conflicts over language are common</a> around the world.</p>
<p>The promise of peace through a shared language has not yet caught on widely, but there are perhaps as many as <a href="https://www.babbel.com/en/magazine/how-many-people-speak-esperanto-and-where-is-it-spoken#:%7E:text=It's%20hard%20to%20know%20exactly,speakers%20in%20the%20world%20today.">2 million Esperanto speakers worldwide</a>. And it’s still spreading, if slowly.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/vIQyGettpTc?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Families gather from around the world to speak Esperanto.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>A language for all</h2>
<p>Having grown up in the multicultural but distrusting environment of <a href="https://centrumzamenhofa.pl/en/p,111,clz">Białystok</a>, Zamenhof dedicated his life to <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2015/5/29/8672371/learn-esperanto-language-duolingo-app-origin-history">constructing</a> a language that <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/57184/57184-h/57184-h.htm">he hoped could help foster harmony between groups</a>. The goal <a href="https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/627963/esperanto-universal-language-experiment">wasn’t to replace anyone’s first language</a>. Rather, Esperanto would serve as <a href="https://freakonomics.com/podcast/why-learn-esperanto-special-feature/">a universal second language</a> that would help promote international understanding – and hopefully peace.</p>
<p>Esperanto is <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130310081949/http://esperanto-usa.org/?q=node%2F77">easy to learn</a>. Nouns do not have <a href="https://blog.duolingo.com/what-is-grammatical-gender/">grammatical gender</a>, so you never have to wonder whether a table is masculine or feminine. There are no <a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/highly-irregular-why-tough-through-and-dough-dont-rhyme-and-other-oddities-of-the-english-language/oclc/1286858982">irregular</a> verbs, so you don’t have to memorize <a href="https://www.bescherelle.com/livre/bescherelle-la-conjugaison-pour-tous-9782401052352/">complex conjugation tables</a>. Also, the spelling is entirely <a href="https://www.dictionary.com/e/phonetic-spelling/">phonetic</a>, so you’ll never be confused by silent letters or letters that make different sounds in different contexts.</p>
<p>In “Unua Libro,” Zamenhof outlined Esperanto’s <a href="https://babel.ucsc.edu/%7Ehank/105/Esperanto16.pdf">16 basic rules</a> and provided a dictionary. This book was translated into more than a dozen languages, and at the beginning of each edition, <a href="http://www.esperantic.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/LLZ-Bio-En.pdf">Zamenhof permanently renounced all personal rights to his creation</a> and declared Esperanto to be “the property of society.”</p>
<p>Soon, Esperanto <a href="https://uea.org/landoj/tutmonde">spread</a> to <a href="https://www.jei.or.jp">Asia</a>, <a href="https://ttt.esperanto-usa.org/eusa/en">North</a> and <a href="https://esperanto.org.br/info/">South</a> America, the <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8159082.stm">Middle East</a> and <a href="https://www.esperanto-afriko.org">Africa</a>. Starting in 1905, Esperanto speakers from around the world began gathering once a year to participate in the <a href="https://esperanto2022.ca/en/world-esperanto-congress/">World Esperanto Congress</a> to celebrate – and use – the language.</p>
<p>Between 1907 and his death in 1917, Zamenhof received <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/nomination/archive/show_people.php?id=10372">14 nominations</a> for the Nobel Peace Prize, though he never won the award. </p>
<p>Continuing Zamenhof’s work, the <a href="https://uea.org/info/en/kio_estas_uea">Universal Esperanto Association</a>, an organization that seeks to encourage relations among people through the use of Esperanto, has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/nomination/archive/show_people.php?id=11715">more than 100 times</a> in recognition of its “<a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/nomination/archive/show.php?id=17262">contribution to world peace by permitting people in different countries to enter direct relations without linguistic barriers</a>.” So far, it has never won the award.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/wjHV1dNDGG4?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">What is Esperanto, anyway, and what is it useful for?</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Struggles and successes</h2>
<p>After World War I, the <a href="https://www.ungeneva.org/en/league-of-nations">League of Nations</a> – the predecessor to the United Nations – was founded <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tul0iUZ5F50">in hopes of preventing future conflict</a>. Shortly thereafter, the <a href="http://en.umz.ac.ir/index.aspx?siteid=122&&siteid=122&pageid=13816&newsview=30091">Iranian delegate</a> to the League of Nations proposed that Esperanto be adopted as the language of international relations. </p>
<p>However, this proposal was <a href="https://www.loc.gov/resource/gdcwdl.wdl_11591/?r=0.317,0.346,0.547,0.274,0">vetoed</a> by the French delegate, who feared that the French language would lose its <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2001/03/25/world/diplomatically-french-is-a-faded-rose-in-an-english-garden.html">position of prestige</a> in diplomacy. In 1922, the French government went a step further and banned the teaching of Esperanto at all French universities for supposedly being a <a href="https://www.gastearsivi.com/en/gazete/evening_star/1922-07-16/25">tool to spread communistic propaganda</a>.</p>
<p>Ironically, life behind the <a href="https://www.nationalchurchillmuseum.org/sinews-of-peace-iron-curtain-speech.html">Iron Curtain</a> wasn’t much easier for Esperanto speakers. In the Soviet Union, Esperantists were alleged to be part of an “<a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/dangerous-language-esperanto-and-the-decline-of-stalinism/oclc/980600750">international espionage organization</a>.” Many <a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/danera-lingvo-studo-pri-la-persekutoj-kontra-esperanto/oclc/1050004987?referer=di&ht=edition">were persecuted and later perished</a> during Stalin’s <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Great-Purge">Great Purge</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/modern-hebrew-the-past-and-future-of-a-revitalized-language/oclc/869265531">According to Hitler</a>, Esperanto was evidence of a <a href="https://www.yiddishbookcenter.org/language-literature-culture/pakn-treger/esperanto-jewish-story">Jewish</a> plot to take over the world. During the Third Reich, <a href="https://blogs.bl.uk/european/2016/12/the-dangerous-language.html">the Gestapo received specific orders to search for the descendants of Zamenhof</a>. All three of his <a href="https://blogs.bl.uk/european/2017/01/lidia-zamenhof-a-cosmopolitan-woman-and-victim-of-the-holocaust.html">children</a> died in the <a href="https://theconversation.com/quantifying-the-holocaust-measuring-murder-rates-during-the-nazi-genocide-108984">Holocaust</a> – <a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/dangerous-language-esperanto-under-hitler-and-stalin/oclc/1159041131&referer=brief_results">as did many Esperanto speakers</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2015/06/13/413968033/esperanto-is-not-dead-can-the-universal-language-make-a-comeback">Despite</a> such events, in 1954 the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, better known as <a href="https://www.unesco.org/en/vision">UNESCO</a>, passed a <a href="https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000114586">resolution</a> recognizing – and entering into a relationship with – the Universal Esperanto Association, <a href="https://esperantoporun.org/en/us-and-the-un/">which opened the door for the Esperanto movement to be represented at UNESCO events pertaining to language</a>.</p>
<p>In 1985, UNESCO passed a resolution encouraging countries to add Esperanto to their school curricula. For <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/2158870">years</a>, <a href="https://bulteno.esperanto-usa.org/a/2021/06/pinjino/">China</a> has offered Esperanto as a foreign language option at several of its universities, one of which houses an <a href="http://e-muzeo.uzz.edu.cn/en/">Esperanto museum</a>. There is now a program in <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/interlinguistics">interlinguistics</a> offered at <a href="http://international.amu.edu.pl/about_amu/">Adam Mickiewicz University</a> in Poland <a href="http://interl.home.amu.edu.pl/interlingvistiko/studoj.html">that’s taught in Esperanto</a>.</p>
<p>More recently, UNESCO declared 2017 as <a href="https://diplomatmagazine.eu/2018/01/22/unesco-declared-2017-year-ludovic-zamenhof/">the year of Zamenhof</a>, and since that time, its flagship journal – <a href="https://unesdoc.unesco.org/notice?id=8d23f742-d3df-4b38-a253-245920cdbad9">The UNESCO Courier</a> – has had an <a href="https://uea.org/revuoj/unesko_kuriero">Esperanto-language edition</a> published quarterly.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="InstagramEmbed" data-react-props="{"url":"https://www.instagram.com/p/CdfZmkQuTjS","accessToken":"127105130696839|b4b75090c9688d81dfd245afe6052f20"}"></div></p>
<figure><figcaption><span class="caption">In May 2022, there was an Esperanto group at the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station in Antarctica.</span></figcaption></figure>
<h2>Give peace a chance</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/dec/06/saluton-the-surprise-return-of-esperanto">Today</a>, Esperanto is spoken by <a href="https://www.meetup.com/topics/esperanto/">pockets of enthusiasts</a> all around the world – including on <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/CdfZmkQuTjS/">Antarctica</a>. There is now a wide array of free Esperanto resources <a href="https://www.ctpublic.org/arts-and-culture/2015-06-10/esperanto-in-the-internet-age">online</a>, including <a href="https://www.duolingo.com/course/eo/en/Learn-Esperanto">Duolingo</a>, <a href="https://lernu.net">lernu!</a>, the <a href="https://vortaro.net">Complete Illustrated Dictionary of Esperanto</a>, the <a href="https://bertilow.com/pmeg/index.html">Complete Manual of Esperanto Grammar</a> and <a href="https://translate.google.com">Google Translate</a>.</p>
<p>Esperanto also has its own edition of <a href="https://eo.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vikipedio:%C4%88efpa%C4%9Do">Wikipedia</a>, and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Wikipedias">at present</a>, there are more Wikipedia entries written in Esperanto than articles in Danish, Greek or Welsh.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ZsHQCk46IvI?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Its founder, and many speakers, see Esperanto as a means toward achieving a more peaceful world.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In Esperanto, the word “Esperanto” means “one who hopes.” Some may <a href="https://www.economist.com/prospero/2013/09/26/johnson-simple-logical-and-doomed">argue</a> that it is <a href="https://paw.princeton.edu/article/language-idealists">idealistic</a> to believe that Esperanto could <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/10/31/a-language-to-unite-humankind">unite humanity</a>, especially in the midst of <a href="https://theconversation.com/ukraines-foreign-legion-may-be-new-but-the-idea-isnt-185082">another major war</a>. </p>
<p>But even the most violent wars don’t end without <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/may/21/only-diplomacy-can-end-ukraine-war-volodymyr-zelenskiy">peace talks</a> – which <a href="https://doi.org/10.52034/lanstts.v15i.428">often require translators</a> to interpret the languages of the opposing parties. Zamenhof wondered – and I do too – whether violence itself might be less common if a <a href="https://sites.law.wustl.edu/WashULaw/harris-lexlata/esperanto-the-neutral-global-language/">neutral language</a> could help people <a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/bridge-of-words-esperanto-and-the-dream-of-a-universal-language/oclc/898529359">bridge their divides</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/186025/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Joshua Holzer does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Created in Europe during a time of intercultural struggle and strife, Esperanto was meant as a communication tool to spread peace among the people of the world. Its speakers are still at it.Joshua Holzer, Assistant Professor of Political Science, Westminster CollegeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1860222022-07-20T15:00:13Z2022-07-20T15:00:13Z‘Summer with the Enemy’ by Syrian novelist Shahla Ujayli is a searing summer read<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/473698/original/file-20220712-30704-mom4xw.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C67%2C869%2C527&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The protagonist at the centre of 'Summer with the Enemy' rides horses along the Euphrates and dreams of an equestrian future, but faces uncertainty in a society under seige. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Arabian_Horse_%2838083704%29.jpeg">(Ahmed Matrix/Wikimedia)</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Wherever you spend your summer, allow yourself to be transported to Syria and immerse yourself in the world of Shahla Ujayli’s sweeping historical novel <a href="https://www.interlinkbooks.com/product/summer-with-the-enemy/"><em>Summer with the Enemy</em></a>. </p>
<p>The ongoing devastation of the war that <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-35806229">began in 2011</a> has brought Syria to the world’s attention. Reading a Syrian novel is a way to experience its deep and rich culture, history and literature beyond the headlines. </p>
<p><em>Summer with the Enemy</em> was a finalist for the prestigious the <a href="https://www.arabicfiction.org/en/node/1400">International Prize for Arab Fiction</a>, sometimes known <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-arabs-gulf/arab-booker-winner-defends-arab-gulf-arts-drive-idINTRE52M2GT20090323">as the “Arab Booker Prize.”</a> It was written in Arabic by Ujayli, one of the country’s most prominent women writers; I translated it into English one year later.</p>
<h2>City of Raqqa</h2>
<p>Ujayli’s evocative storytelling conjures up the city of Raqqa, from its past as a dusty provincial town beginning in the 1920s, through the 20th century, and its subsequent <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/mar/23/the-rise-and-fall-of-the-isis-caliphate">occupation and 2017</a> siege <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/raqqa-reuild-isis-syrian-civil-war-1.5966299">by Islamic State militants (ISIS)</a>. In <em>Summer with the Enemy</em>, the main characters eventually must leave Raqqa behind for a new life in Germany.</p>
<p>A detailed and intricate portrait of three generations of one family in this northern Syrian town, <em>Summer with the Enemy</em> combines historical fiction with a romance and a coming-of-age story complete with an tale of first love. The characters challenge western stereotypes about Arab Muslim women — <a href="https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674088269">that they need to be “saved” from oppressive realities</a> — through depictions of their active, diverse and complex lives. </p>
<p>The town of Raqqa is so important to the story that <a href="https://syriauntold.com/2020/08/16/raqqa-at-the-center-of-the-universe/">one critic</a> claims it is actually a character in the novel. </p>
<h2>Family drama, first love</h2>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/473462/original/file-20220711-18-papg1r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A sunset is seen against a building in a village" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/473462/original/file-20220711-18-papg1r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/473462/original/file-20220711-18-papg1r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/473462/original/file-20220711-18-papg1r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/473462/original/file-20220711-18-papg1r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/473462/original/file-20220711-18-papg1r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/473462/original/file-20220711-18-papg1r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/473462/original/file-20220711-18-papg1r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">‘Summer with the Enemy,’ by Shahla Ujayli, translated by Michelle Hartman.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Interlink Publishing)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It’s hard not to feel compelled by the Raqqa of the past, with its tightly knit, multi-ethnic community, full of local conflicts and family drama. </p>
<p>Each story the grandmother tells has the younger generations on the edge of their seats, waiting to hear about a scandal, an illicit affair, a failed love match or an exotic trip abroad. She always leaves her audience wanting more when she rises mid-sentence to stir the coffee on the stove, tension building.</p>
<p>During the summer of the title, some time in the ‘80s, the protagonist, Lamees, rides horses <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/what-does-future-euphrates-spell-middle-east-180967224/">along the Euphrates</a>, an expansive desert surrounding her, and dreams of an equestrian future. </p>
<p>Horses means she can avoid her mother. Their relationship had become tense, after Lamees’s father left Syria, never to return. Lamees resents her mother’s incipient love affair with a visiting German professor, Nicolas, the enemy of the book’s title. The daughter acts as a local guide to Nicolas, who leaves when his research is done. The women call upon Nicolas later to find passage to Germany after the fall of their beloved city.</p>
<h2>Revisiting memories of Raqqa</h2>
<p>About 10 years after the fictional Lamees was living in Raqqa, experiencing the Assad government’s belt-tightening policies, I embarked upon the long trip there from Damascus with a university friend. In summer 1995, my visit revealed a Raqqa much like the one Lamees showed to her German enemy. </p>
<p>But when I was in Raqqa in the '90s, I had no idea that more than 20 years later I would be video-chatting with a famous Syrian author from the town. Ujayli was giving me a sort of interview before I translated her novel. Among other questions, she asked me: “Have you ever been to Raqqa?”</p>
<p>I was pleased to be able to answer yes — I had visited long before most people outside of Syria had ever heard of Raqqa. I prepared to translate this novel by revisiting that journey through talking to Ujayli and by looking back over old photographs, revisiting memories of the place. </p>
<h2>Translating Arabic into English</h2>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/473476/original/file-20220711-18-qiraph.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Book cover showing women sitting at a table." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/473476/original/file-20220711-18-qiraph.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/473476/original/file-20220711-18-qiraph.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/473476/original/file-20220711-18-qiraph.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/473476/original/file-20220711-18-qiraph.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/473476/original/file-20220711-18-qiraph.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/473476/original/file-20220711-18-qiraph.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/473476/original/file-20220711-18-qiraph.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">‘Summer with the Enemy,’ by Shahla Ujayli.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Difaf Publishing and Al-Ikhtilef/International Prize for Arab Fiction)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In an interview about my translation process, an interviewer <a href="https://arablit.org/2021/06/17/from-the-archives-shahla-ujayli-on-getting-raqqa-back-through-writing/">asked me the same question</a>. </p>
<p><a href="https://oxfordre.com/literature/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780190201098.001.0001/acrefore-9780190201098-e-1209">Translating Arab women</a> writers from Arabic into English has a difficult history: Many translations have been so changed as to be unrecognizable. </p>
<p>As scholars have shown, the entire thrust of a book can change with translations creating <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Going-Global-The-Transnational-Reception-of-Third-World-Women-Writers/Amireh-Majaj/p/book/9780815336068">new titles</a>, sections edited and <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/3175385">censored</a>, narrative voices <a href="https://doi.org/10.1163/1570064x-12341305">voices altered</a> and entire <a href="https://doi.org/10.1163/1570064x-12341401">characterizations changed</a>. </p>
<p>I worked with Ujayli to convey the details of the text accurately, while also finding words to give the <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Translation-Changes-Everything-Theory-and-Practice/Venuti/p/book/9780415696296">new English text</a> <a href="https://www.wiley.com/en-us/A+Companion+to+Creative+Writing-p-9780470656938">as much life</a> as the Arabic original. </p>
<p>In the summer of 2019, I translated the novel in a Lebanese mountain village. Just across the border, Syria was visible on a clear day. That summer we could hear the echoes of bombs being dropped across the valley. </p>
<p>Focused on conveying the details and complexities of of the book, I felt the tension between the book’s beautiful depiction of the past and Ujayli’s searing depiction <a href="https://www.democracynow.org/2018/5/10/coming_of_age_in_the_syrian">of life</a> under ISIS occupation, <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/articles/burning-raqqa-inside-the-u-s-war-against-civilians-in-syria/">fierce battles</a> in Raqqa and Lamees’s subsequent escape to <a href="https://hir.harvard.edu/integrating-refugee-women-into-germany/">Germany</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/473478/original/file-20220711-12-papg1r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Blocks of bombed out and damaged buildings." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/473478/original/file-20220711-12-papg1r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/473478/original/file-20220711-12-papg1r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=332&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/473478/original/file-20220711-12-papg1r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=332&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/473478/original/file-20220711-12-papg1r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=332&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/473478/original/file-20220711-12-papg1r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=417&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/473478/original/file-20220711-12-papg1r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=417&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/473478/original/file-20220711-12-papg1r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=417&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An image made from drone video shows damaged buildings in Raqqa, Syria, in October 2019.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Gabriel Chaim)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Lessons in empathy</h2>
<p>The utter destruction of Raqqa between 2013 and 2017 and any semblance of the previous lives lived there felt so real. </p>
<p>Lebanon is a country still bearing the scars of <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2014/4/13/lebanon-marks-civil-war-anniversary-2">its own long civil war (1975-90)</a>. The reverberations of the bombs we heard that summer in Lebanon had an unmistakable impact on the translation. The words a translator chooses to translate are always impacted by their surroundings. </p>
<p>Ujayli’s novels offer “<a href="https://en.qantara.de/content/portrait-of-the-syrian-writer-shahla-ujayli-lessons-in-empathy">lessons in empathy</a>,” as noted by Marcia Lynx Qualey, <a href="https://hoopoefiction.com/2020/03/25/a-quarantine-interview-with-marcia-lynx-qualey-about-arabic-fiction/">founding editor of the website ArabLit</a>.</p>
<p>Packed with humour, drama, romance and 100 years of history, <em>Summer with the Enemy</em> puts women centre stage, will take readers to the heart of one woman’s coming of age in Syria — and offer insights into its past and present.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/186022/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michelle Hartman does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Three generations in a Syrian town: The English-to-Arabic translator of the novel that was a finalist for the prestigious International Prize for Arab Fiction discusses the sweeping historical novel.Michelle Hartman, Professor and Director, Institute of Islamic Studies, McGill UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1838162022-06-08T01:38:42Z2022-06-08T01:38:42ZWhat’s Japanese for ‘ruck’? Turning rugby’s technical terms into an international language<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/467613/original/file-20220608-18-ci80ry.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=8%2C8%2C5416%2C3603&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The winter rugby season is well under way, with fields and sidelines ringing to the unique language of the game. Learning this vocabulary comes through playing and talking about the game, no matter if the players are in Taranaki, Twickenham, Tonga or Tokyo. </p>
<p>If you know the terms – back, penalty, intercept, front row, scrum, clean out, advantage line, ruck, offload, prop, loosies and so on – chances are you’re a rugby fan, a player, or both.</p>
<p>Now spare a thought for those players, coaches and administrators plying their trade in a foreign language country. They must be able to communicate at a technical level with other coaches, captains, referees, teammates and perhaps even media. </p>
<p>Rugby language is predominantly spoken. It’s mostly used at training sessions, during warm-ups and games, in dressing rooms, in television or radio commentary, in homes, workplaces and even at a pub after the game. </p>
<p>But learning a language through speaking it, especially in pressure-cooker situations such as training or a game, can be highly stressful. Knowing the difference between a “loosie” (loose forward) and a reference to the ball being “loose” may seem like Rugby 101 to aficionados, but games are played at speed and spoken language moves fast too.</p>
<p>One way to reduce that stress is to have a shared vocabulary of key words and phrases that everyone can learn and know in advance – and that was the aim of <a href="https://cdn.theconversation.com/static_files/files/2128/Benson_and_Coxhead_2022.pdf?1654570407">our research</a>.</p>
<p>We set out to establish the words and phrases commonly used in rugby in English. The goal is to create technical word lists to help native and non-native English speakers alike prepare for playing, coaching and talking about rugby in foreign environments. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/467614/original/file-20220608-28-9xkpay.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/467614/original/file-20220608-28-9xkpay.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467614/original/file-20220608-28-9xkpay.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467614/original/file-20220608-28-9xkpay.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467614/original/file-20220608-28-9xkpay.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467614/original/file-20220608-28-9xkpay.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467614/original/file-20220608-28-9xkpay.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An international game: former All Black Aaron Cruden playing for the Kobelco Kobe Steelers in Japan.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Getty Images</span></span>
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</figure>
<h2>The rugby vocabulary</h2>
<p>The game of rugby originated in England, so it stands to reason the first language of rugby is English. But since the game became professional in 1995, there has been a huge increase in the number of players and coaches moving between English-speaking countries and places like Japan and France, with their highly lucrative top competitions. </p>
<p>With a world cup every four years, and millions of people playing at various levels, rugby is a truly international sport – and it’s growing. A common rugby language should make mobility within the international game that much easier.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/art-or-science-decision-making-in-rugby-3119">Art or science? Decision-making in rugby</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>To create our rugby word list, we used recordings from actual rugby team interactions and television commentaries. From these we identified words that occurred more often in rugby than in general English. </p>
<p>Three experts with more than 50 years of combined rugby experience then checked the meanings of the words and confirmed the ones that are technical to rugby, such as “loosie”, “ruck”, “maul” and “prop”. </p>
<p>The same procedure was followed for phrases with technical meanings, such as “swing it away”, “clean out” and “advantage line”.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"829315287203852289"}"></div></p>
<h2>Language rules</h2>
<p>The resulting “Rugby Word List” contains 252 technical words and 267 technical phrases. This vocabulary accounts for around 12% of all the words in our original rugby recordings, which means roughly one word in every ten is technical.</p>
<p>We found six words unique to rugby: scrum, lineout, ruck, loosehead, loosies and tighties (the five core forwards in a scrum). </p>
<p>A further 84 words are used in rugby but also have a general meaning in English – for example, “advantage”, “conversion”, “drill” and “try”. Because people can assume they know the word already, these can pose a challenge to learning. The rugby context requires an understanding of aspects of the game and the use of a technical English vocabulary. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/six-nations-why-more-rugby-referees-should-be-bilingual-73645">Six Nations: why more rugby referees should be bilingual</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>The list also contains a large number of words used in rugby and in general English with the same meaning, like “referee”, “kick”, “field” and “replacement”.</p>
<p>The phrases were identified firstly through finding the core or root structure – that is, the word strings that occurred most often, such as “advantage line”, “knock on” and “the ball”. </p>
<p>The next step was to identify the words that occurred regularly before or after the core structures. For example, words that can appear before “the ball” include “over”, “off”, “onto” and “with”. For “advantage line”, the preceding word is often “over”, and “knocked on” often appears as “knocked on by”.</p>
<h2>The translation game</h2>
<p>The resulting list can be used by rugby players and coaches, but also by people new to the game. </p>
<p>Those planning to play or coach rugby in English or non-English-speaking countries can use the list as a way to structure their learning of these technical terms in the new language – be that French, Japanese or Spanish or English itself.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/brains-not-brawn-is-the-key-to-success-in-international-rugby-47930">Brains not brawn is the key to success in international rugby</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Specialised language courses for rugby players and coaches can be developed using the list to ensure they learn the vocabulary they’re most likely to encounter in rugby settings.</p>
<p>The list is being used as the basis for the development of an app, and is being translated into Japanese. This is a large undertaking requiring bilingual speakers with expert knowledge of the game, but we hope other languages will follow. </p>
<p>The resource will be useful for the ever increasing number of players wanting to play abroad, and should help establish a common language in an already international game.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>Stuart Benson is a co-author and keen rugby player whose research formed the basis of the Rugby Word List.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/183816/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Averil Coxhead does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A project to identify rugby’s technical terms aims to make the international game easier to play, ref and watch for everyone, regardless of their native tongue.Averil Coxhead, Professor in Applied Linguistics and TESOL, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of WellingtonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1814942022-05-05T16:42:00Z2022-05-05T16:42:00ZAntjie Krog and the role of the poet in South Africa’s public life<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/461543/original/file-20220505-16-qp84fz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Antjie Krog from a detail of the cover for the book 'n Vry vrou (a free woman).</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Human & Rousseau</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>When South African writer <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/antjie-krog">Antjie Krog</a> was just 17, she wrote a poem for her school magazine which was shocking enough to upset Kroonstad High’s parents. The furore caught the attention of the Sunday newspapers, who descended on the town in the Free State province. </p>
<p>The 17-year-old had expressed the desire to:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>build myself a land/where skin colour doesn’t count/only the inner brand/of self; where no goat face in parliament/can keep things permanently verkrampt/where I can love you,/can lie beside you in the grass/without saying ‘I do’/where black and white hand in hand/can bring peace and love/to my beautiful land.“ (Translated from Afrikaans <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.co.za/book/change-tongue/9781770220751">by Krog</a>.) </p>
</blockquote>
<p>In South Africa in 1970, the minority white government’s apartheid policy spurned "racial” mixing and prohibited sexual relations between black and white. The poem attacked Afrikaner conservatives (verkrampt means cramped, but also a political designation). </p>
<p>Die Beeld newspaper repeated the entire poem and consulted <a href="http://www.stellenboschwriters.com/vheerdene.html">Dr Ernst van der Heerden</a>, poet and head of Afrikaans and Nederlands at Wits University, about whether it had value. His opinion was that Krog’s work was like that of famed poets <a href="http://www.stellenboschwriters.com/breyten.html">Breyten Breytenbach</a> and <a href="https://www.encyclopedia.com/arts/educational-magazines/opperman-diederik-johannes-1914-1985">DJ Opperman</a>. More press descended, the poem was published again (in English in the Rand Daily Mail). Her mother got involved in defending her writing. The poem appeared in the African National Congress (ANC) publication Sechaba (the ANC, now the country’s governing party, was then a liberation movement in exile). Her father was summonsed by the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Afrikaner-Broederbond">Broederbond</a> (a powerful and secretive patriarchal Afrikaans nationalist society), to explain how this could have happened. </p>
<p>This rapid set of events led to the publication of her first volume of poetry – <a href="https://books.google.co.za/books/about/Dogter_van_Jefta.html?id=We81kgEACAAJ&redir_esc=y">Dogter van Jefta</a> (Daughter of Jephthah) – but without the offending poem appearing in it.</p>
<p>That tale holds all the ingredients of Krog’s unfolding trajectory as a South African voice: an uncompromising stance about her own experiences and thoughts and a courage to say them out loud, the instant attention of the press and literary fraternity, and a curious and appreciative audience.</p>
<p>This year Antjie Krog turns 70 and her passions and commitments, forged in the 1970s, show no waning. For decades she has represented the important role that a poet can play in public life in a fractured country.</p>
<h2>Two audiences</h2>
<p>With Dogter van Jefta, Krog was immediately set on a path to become a serious poet, a writer mentored by Opperman and able to produce volume after volume with the assurance that thousands would buy them. But the appearance of the poem in Sechaba and the London Observer gave Krog another audience, invisible and silent for many years until the liberation movements were unbanned and the ANC returned to South Africa. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/461557/original/file-20220505-11-tssf15.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="An earnest woman looks over her shoulder, round glasses on." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/461557/original/file-20220505-11-tssf15.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/461557/original/file-20220505-11-tssf15.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/461557/original/file-20220505-11-tssf15.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/461557/original/file-20220505-11-tssf15.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/461557/original/file-20220505-11-tssf15.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/461557/original/file-20220505-11-tssf15.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/461557/original/file-20220505-11-tssf15.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Krog in 2006.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">MARK WESSELS/AFP via Getty Images</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>At a rally in Soweto in 1989 ANC cadre <a href="https://theconversation.com/ahmed-kathrada-a-simple-life-full-of-love-after-26-years-of-incarceration-75361">Ahmed Kathrada</a>, newly released from jail, quoted Krog’s poem written when she was 17. How had he got his hands on it in prison on Robben Island? He thought it might have been in a magazine. It had so touched him he’d written it out by hand and kept it.</p>
<p>So Krog had become a recognised poet within South Africa, but also a voice of dissent and hope for those in prison and in exile. The two hallmarks of the poem, aesthetic-poetic and personal-political, and their entanglement, have since marked all Krog’s work as she has moved beyond poetry into journalism, into nonfiction book writing in English, and as she has taken up an academic post at the University of the Western Cape.</p>
<h2>The truth commission</h2>
<p>Krog had written book reviews for the press for some years before she became editor of the left-leaning Afrikaans magazine Die Suid-Afrikaan in 1993. But it was in 1995 when the public broadcaster’s radio team was gearing up to cover the <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/truth-and-reconciliation-commission-trc-0">Truth and Reconciliation Commission</a> (TRC) that Krog stepped properly into news journalism. She became leader of the Afrikaans reporting team at the SABC. The TRC was a court-like restorative justice body that sought to reveal human rights abuses under apartheid, which had formally ended in 1994.</p>
<p>Bringing a poet sensibility to journalism, Krog pushed the boundaries of radio reporting. She insisted that the voices and sounds of those affected be foregrounded in the listener’s ear. Journalist Hanlie Retief called her </p>
<blockquote>
<p>a disturbing conscience, an umbilical cord between the TRC and Afrikaans-speakers. She … let the often macabre testimonies sometimes wail, sometimes sing.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The constraints of news journalism irked Krog. In a great outpouring of energy she produced a nonfiction book in English which described the experiences of reporting the TRC, <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/95875/country-of-my-skull-by-antjie-krog-introduction-by-charlayne-hunter-gault/">Country of My Skull</a>. The book also told the powerful stories of victims and their families. </p>
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<p>It was this book with its blend of reportage, memoir, poetry and fiction that propelled Krog onto an international stage. Hundreds of invitations were made to talk at conferences and the book became incorporated into university courses all over the world. The book’s power lies in the rawness of her experiences and unflinching descriptions, coupled with a worldwide attention to commissions of inquiry into past atrocities. </p>
<h2>How South Africans speak to each other</h2>
<p>Two more books followed as Krog took on creative nonfiction, <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.co.za/book/change-tongue/9781770220751">A Change of Tongue</a> and <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.co.za/book/begging-be-black/9781770220706">Begging to be Black</a>. Working in both English and Afrikaans, she did her own translations and brought out more poetry, like <a href="http://penguin.bookslive.co.za/blog/2011/02/01/podcast-antjie-krogs-reads-body-bereft-verweefskrif/">Body Bereft/Verweeskrif</a> in 2006.</p>
<p>Using this facility in both languages, she also leaned on her experience during the 1980s, at anti-apartheid rallies with poets reading in other African languages. She ventured into writing that worked in the spaces between translation, into the somewhat untranslatable. The notable book, <a href="https://www.ukznpress.co.za/?class=bb_ukzn_books&method=view_books&global%5Bfields%5D%5B_id%5D=333">There was this Goat</a>, co-written with Nosisi Mpolweni and Kopano Ratele, took on a TRC testimony that had elements of the fantastic and bizarre. </p>
<p>Krog was present during the testimony and had read the official translation but was dissatisfied with it. She, Mpolweni and Ratele worked on a retranslation. She had developed a preoccupation with how South Africans speak to each other, with how they listen and what they hear. As the authors write: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>We became aware of the barriers we have to overcome, as well as the lengths we have to go to, in order to arrive at some understanding of our fellow human beings.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This project has become Krog’s university work. Although earlier she had embarked on translation and transcription projects, they were of her own writing or forays into older work in indigenous languages. Some were commissions, like the translation of former president <a href="https://www.nelsonmandela.org/content/page/biography">Nelson Mandela</a>’s autobiography <a href="https://www.littlebrown.com/titles/nelson-mandela/long-walk-to-freedom/9780759521049/">Long Walk to Freedom</a> into Afrikaans. Now she works with a team selecting key historical texts, usually in a single African language, which are then translated into many South African tongues.</p>
<p>Krog has been busy with the same work since she was 17: using all her literary devices to get South Africans to see and listen to each other. In my <a href="https://wiredspace.wits.ac.za/bitstream/handle/10539/7957/Anthea%2520Garman%2520PhD%2520Thesis%25202009.pdf?sequence=1">doctoral thesis</a> and my <a href="https://www.ukznpress.co.za/?class=bb_ukzn_books&method=view_books&global%5Bfields%5D%5B_id%5D=464">book</a> on Krog, I summed up the role I see her playing in South African public life. It’s to affirm the literary as a resource for social and political life, bringing the personal into the political by asserting its messy, emotional and passionate dimensions, and by insisting on the very great value of open-hearted encounters with others.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/181494/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Anthea Garman receives funding from the National Research Foundation. She is affiliated with the South African National Editors' Forum.</span></em></p>The famous writer turns 70 this year. She is driven by how South Africans see and hear one another.Anthea Garman, Professor of Journalism and Media Studies, Rhodes UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1719132021-12-22T20:27:15Z2021-12-22T20:27:15ZThe problem with machine translation: beware the wisdom of the crowd<p>According to collective intelligence evangelist and journalist James Surowiecki, groups are much better at making predictions than the individuals who belong to those groups, be they novices or leading experts.</p>
<p>To illustrate this theory, Surowiecki shares a story in his 2004 book, <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/175380/the-wisdom-of-crowds-by-james-surowiecki/">The Wisdom of Crowds</a>, about Sir Francis Galton, a British statistician who made an astonishing discovery while attending a country fair at the turn of the 20th century.</p>
<p>During the fair, there was a contest in which participants were asked to guess the weight of an ox. There were 787 entries, which Galton analysed upon returning home.</p>
<p>He was surprised to find that the median of all the entries was not only more accurate than the individual estimates of the butchers and farmers, who were supposed to have a keen eye for this kind of estimating, but also that this median was just a single pound off the animal’s exact weight.</p>
<p>Galton would go on to <a href="https://www.all-about-psychology.com/support-files/the-wisdom-of-crowds.pdf">publish his findings in the journal Nature</a>, explaining the idea of vox populi: the best decisions are often those made by large groups.</p>
<h2>Strength in numbers</h2>
<p>Let’s compare Francis Galton’s anecdote to university courses for professional translators, in which participants have the opportunity to share their insights and clever finds, which they dissect, discuss, and critique as a group.</p>
<p>They arrange the best solutions into a final version, an ensemble of each individual contributor’s most inspired ideas. This translation, a team effort, will invariably be higher quality than participants’ individual work, no matter how talented they might be.</p>
<p>By extension, we might ask ourselves: might machine translation, whose statistical model more or less mimics the collective intelligence formula, replace real-life human translators? In the era of artificial intelligence, might we leverage our strength in numbers to translate, as if the Internet were a massive classroom, an enormous group project, our very own dream team with millions of members, a place where every translated text could serve as inspiration?</p>
<p>While seemingly brilliant on paper, I must start by disappointing automation evangelists.</p>
<p>The Internet is full of specialists, but they are but a drop in an ocean of generalists who also have something to say about how a given text should be translated. AI tries its best to put the sources it identifies as reliable (say, major organisations or reputable companies) at the top. But instead of asking for the truth, it asks for the opinion of the entire planet, indeed anyone who has written and published anything online.</p>
<p>If we continue to use the country fair analogy, this would be like not only asking everyone on earth for their opinion, for better and for worse, it would almost be like if everyone were also guessing without even identifying the creature they’re looking at, since computers can’t assign meaning to the solutions they find. They would certainly have a statistical idea of what animal it is, based on the features the machine detects, but not an exact match.</p>
<p>So, in addition to guesses about cattle breeds, you could potentially also get guesses about every animal on Earth, from fleas to blue whales, with all of the inconsistencies that would cause.</p>
<p>Finally, and most importantly, collaborative human translations are always subject to a certain amount of shepherding, whether by the professor or presenter, who guides the group and makes the final call. In other words, a higher power sorts through the solutions from the critical mass of translators and provides the guardrails that keep the process on track. When using machine translation without human intervention, these guardrails aren’t there.</p>
<h2>Mr Shithole goes to jumpsuit</h2>
<p>There are, of course, a few safeguards that keep machine translation in check. The words themselves are usually a good indicator of the likely meaning of a sentence. Next, there’s the context, which neural technologies now account for, narrowing the range of possible words to certain large families.</p>
<p>In our cattle example, the search would be corralled by the most basic engines to include large barnyard animals and by the most sophisticated ones to just bovine breeds. Nevertheless, given the difference between a small Angus calf and a big Charolais bull, the margin of error could still be high.</p>
<p>It’s no wonder, then, that otherwise fluent-sounding sentences might omit meaningful information or be peppered with <a href="https://www.textform.com/en/blog-en/machine-translation-faux-pas/">offensive errors</a>, words that crop up out of nowhere, or <a href="https://futurium.ec.europa.eu/en/european-ai-alliance/open-discussion/problem-gender-bias-machine-translation?language=hu">gender bias</a>.</p>
<p>Sometimes, the meaning might be completely flipped: since translation engines are unable to “understand” what sentences mean, they opt for the statistically likeliest solution, which could be the opposite of what the original says.</p>
<p>In <a href="https://acl-bg.org/proceedings/2019/EUROPHRAS%202019/pdf/EUROPHRAS020.pdf">this study</a>, the headline, “UK car industry in brace position ahead of Brexit deadline,” was translated as “L’industrie automobile britannique en position de force avant l’échéance du Brexit.” The original English sentence means the UK car industry is fearing the worst (and placing itself in a defensive position, like passengers on a plane before a crash). Conversely, the French translation says the opposite: that the UK car is in a position of power (en position de force).</p>
<p>In other words, proceed with caution, because no matter how fluent the suggested translation appears, these types of errors (incorrect terminology, omissions, mistranslations) <a href="http://www.ata-divisions.org/FLD/index.php/2019/04/23/post-edition/">abound in machine translation output</a>.</p>
<p>My colleague Ben Karl has shared a few examples <a href="https://www.bktranslation.com/post/hire-a-professional-translator">on his website</a>, including one where <a href="https://www.insider.com/mexico-official-tourism-website-ridiculed-for-auto-translate-errors-2020-8">Mexico’s official tourism website</a> (automatically) translated the name of the upscale beachside resort town of Tulum as “jumpsuit.”</p>
<p>Another incredible gem: the name of the president of the People’s Republic of China being elegantly <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/facebook-apologizes-for-translation-of-chinese-leader-xi-jinpings-name-to-mr-shthole">translated from Burmese to English</a> as Mr. Shithole.</p>
<h2>Normalisation and levelling out</h2>
<p>Another issue with machine translation which people may be less aware of is a process known as normalisation. If new translations are only ever made using existing ones, over time, the process can stifle inventiveness, creativity, and originality, as <a href="http://journals.openedition.org/traduire/1848">several scientific studies have demonstrated</a>.</p>
<p>Scholars also talk about “algorithmic bias”: where machines are more likely to suggest a given term the more it is used to translate a certain word. The result is that less frequent (and therefore more creative) translations are blotted out.</p>
<p>Machines don’t try to make texts sound pretty or play with the poetry of the words – simply conveying the meaning will suffice. This levelling out, a sort of homogenisation, be it cultural, stylistic or ideological, can be a particular problem for literary texts, which by their very nature deviate from the norm and develop a distinct linguistic flavour.</p>
<p>An <a href="https://doi.org/10.7202/016726ar">excellent article</a> on levelling out by translator Françoise Wuilmart, written more than a decade before the emergence of neural machine translation, sounds particularly prescient today:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Levelling out hits at the very core of what makes literary translation so hard. To level out or ‘normalize’ a text is to dull or dampen it, flatten its natural relief, lob off its pointy bits, fill in its grooves, and iron out all the wrinkles that make it a literary text in the first place.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This is precisely what machine translation does, whether intentionally or not. The tecnhology creates a vicious circle that, over time, leads to language impoverishment: the machine produces increasingly standardised texts, which are then used as the input to train other engines, which further level out the texts, and so on.</p>
<p>Studies <a href="https://aclanthology.org/W19-6622/">have shown</a> that machine-translated texts are less lexically rich. Exposing ourselves to increasingly homogenous language means hobbling our ability to express ourselves, and therefore our thoughts.</p>
<h2>Human expertise is indispensable</h2>
<p>Everyone in the translation industry today recognizes that it is undergoing a technological shift. Machine translation is clearly being used more and more, and its raw output is becoming increasingly usable.</p>
<p>However, too many users forget that automatically translated content has the potential to be rife with all kinds of errors, and that mistakes can be lurking everywhere among seemingly fluent and coherent sentences.</p>
<p>Expert translation professionals are uniquely equipped to assess the quality of this raw output. Only real-life humans can decide whether to use machine translation or not, like photographers picking the best camera for the conditions or accountants choosing the data entry method best suited to how they work.</p>
<p>Translation, like all professions, can’t escape a certain amount of automation. We could in fact be excited about this change, which can help professionals let their expertise shine, avoid repetitive tasks, and focus on where they can add the most value.</p>
<p>But caution is more important than ever, and indiscriminate use of machine translation should be avoided.</p>
<p>Real professionals will choose the best way to work with you depending on your priorities and the famous time – budget – quality trio. As your savvy linguistic and cultural consultants, they will be the key to ensuring flawless multilingual communication.</p>
<p>Like the butcher who actually won the contest at the country fair in Plymouth in 1906 would undoubtedly have said, human expertise is the only way you can be sure to hit the bullseye every single time.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/171913/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Guillaume Deneufbourg is a member of the French Society of Translators, the Belgian Chamber of Translators and Interpreters and of the French Society of Translation Studies.</span></em></p>Can translation software that uses artificial intelligence to automatically translate texts ever replace human beings?Guillaume Deneufbourg, Chercheur en Sciences du langage et Traductologie, Traducteur en exercice, Enseignant en traduction, Université de LilleLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1720092021-11-25T14:40:23Z2021-11-25T14:40:23ZThe Eternals – Marvel consulted me to help superheroes chit chat in Babylonian<p>In the Marvel film <a href="https://www.marvel.com/movies/eternals">Eternals</a> you’ll hear lines of Babylonian being spoken. It is the first major film to feature this ancient Iraqi language, which was spoken from at least 2000 BC to at least 500 BC. </p>
<p>Our knowledge of Babylonian comes from written sources, usually clay tablets in cuneiform script. The surviving body of these inscriptions, together with those in Babylonian’s close relative Assyrian, comprises some ten million words. Thanks to this huge documentation, the language is well understood, and we have a good idea how it was <a href="https://www.soas.ac.uk/baplar/recordings/">pronounced</a> – it was written with vowels, and there are ancient transcriptions into the Hebrew and <a href="https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/W_Sp-III-245">Greek</a> alphabets.</p>
<p>As I am one of the few researchers in the world who specialise in the Babylonian language, Marvel brought me on board as consultant to do the translations for the film and make sure that the words were pronounced authentically. This involved me providing written text and audio recordings, which the actors processed with the help of the film’s expert dialect coach, Sarah Shepherd.</p>
<p>I was not new to working with Babylonian in a film context, but Eternals presented a new set of challenges. For this language in particular, it’s exceptionally difficult to come up with words for more informal and chatty conversations.</p>
<h2>Translating into a long-dead language</h2>
<p>My first foray into Babylonian in film was with a short I directed in the language (<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pxYoFlnJLoE">The Poor Man of Nippur</a>) with my students at the University of Cambridge. This was a dramatisation of a Babylonian folk tale, and, though we smuggled in the odd line from elsewhere, it only used sentences from Babylonian sources. So the <a href="https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/295335">script</a> didn’t require us to compose anything new. </p>
<p>In 2019, I also worked for the film <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QFxN2oDKk0E&ab_channel=WarnerBros.Pictures">Godzilla: King of the Monsters</a> translating a song into Babylonian for the soundtrack. The elegy-like song had a “heroic” feel to it, and was quite similar to the sorts of things found in Babylonian poems. This meant that I had clear models to follow, which helped a lot with my work. I think I did it in an afternoon.</p>
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<p>Eternals was different. It did include a “heroic” speech, for which I had plenty of models. But there were also shorter, snappier, colloquial-sounding expressions, such as “Can I help you?” and “Thank you”. These were much harder to translate, and really tested my grasp of the language to the limit. It was a paradox of the whole experience that things which sounded easy and natural to an English ear gave me kittens, while more highfalutin and complicated expressions proved much easier.</p>
<p>The difficulty in translating colloquial speech is that Ancient Mesopotamia was a world in which writing was a specific tool, used for specific things. Though we are lucky to have a huge mass of (wonderfully informative) documentation, most things went unwritten, and the tone of what did get written was rarely colloquial. This comes across very clearly in Babylonian private letters: they have a business-like, “transactional” character, with little or no chatty or gossipy messages to family and friends, such as we enjoy reading and writing today. For Babylonians, informal and chatty conversation happened only in speech, not in writing.</p>
<p>So, to come up with “chatty” Babylonian, I had to reassemble what we find in written documents, and generate expressions for which I had no exact models or parallels.</p>
<p>To take a simple example, early in the film the character Gilgamesh shouts “Through the gate!”. Babylonian documents normally use full sentences, with a verb, and it’s hard to prove how they might have clipped them. Also, Babylonian has a separate word for “city-gate” (<em>abullu</em> rather than <em>bābu</em>), but it seemed to me that with the urgency of the moment Gilgamesh would have used the shorter, more basic word – a bit as if an English speaker said “gate” rather than “gateway”. So I trusted in linguistic common sense, left out the verb, and made it <em>ana libbi bābi</em> “into the gate”, pretty much like the English.</p>
<h2>When two words become one</h2>
<p>Despite what I’ve said about the difficulty of accessing “chatty” Babylonian, we do have occasional hints. For example, we know that the prepositions <em>ina</em> “in”, “from” and <em>ana</em> “to, for” were sometimes run together with the word that followed. So “in the house” would become one word <em>ibbīti</em>, rather than the two-word <em>ina bīti</em>.</p>
<p>This raised the question: what to use in such cases, the one-word or two-word version? Hoping that this captured something of ancient usage, I decided to give more formal sounding speech the two-word versions, and more urgent or colloquial speech the one-word version.</p>
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<p>Another exciting challenge was that the film script included many English words that just don’t exist in Babylonian – like “to thank”, “to help”, “to feel”, “to vibrate”, “legend” and “myth”. This is, of course, a problem faced by all translators. There was no general rule for the conversions – each one had to be decided on a case-by-case basis. There was a lot of looking things up to check what phrases were available to me in existing Babylonian sources, to try and make sure everything sounded as “natural” as possible. Thus “myth” became “a lie of the singers”, and for a character who needed to say that they could feel everything around them vibrating I literally had them say “everything around me is constantly touching me”, combining the ideas of “feel” and “vibrate” into an “iterative” form of the verb <em>lapātu</em> “to touch”. I should say that it sounds better in Babylonian than it does in English.</p>
<p>Plus, trying to find the right paraphrase was a stimulus to thinking about what the English words actually mean – how does “to help” differ from “to enable”? And what exactly are we doing when we “thank” someone? These, and others, are things I am still thinking about.</p>
<p>The whole Eternals experience was great training in processing Babylonian as a spoken language – something I have always tried to build into my teaching.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/172009/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Martin Worthington consulted for Marvel.</span></em></p>Babylonians were quite formal in their written records, so working out how to be chatty in their long-dead language was an exciting challenge.Martin Worthington, Trinity College DublinLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1700152021-10-18T19:12:38Z2021-10-18T19:12:38ZNew research finds a growing appetite for Australian books overseas, with increased demand in China<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/426823/original/file-20211018-17-1frl77j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=4%2C107%2C3254%2C2335&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Actor Nicole Kidman and Big Little Lies' Australian author Liane Moriarty at the Emmys in 2017.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Peter Mitchell/AAP</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Many authors dream of overseas success for their work, but how Australian books find publication in other territories and languages is not well understood even in the publishing industry.</p>
<p>Our <a href="https://australiacouncil.gov.au/advocacy-and-research/success-story/">new research</a> has found that between 2008 and 2018, the number of international book rights deals made for Australian titles grew by almost 25%. This was driven, in part, by the international success of adult fiction titles from 2012 onwards and increased demand for Australian books in China. </p>
<p>Interestingly, during this time, over half of all deals were for children’s books. Still, there was a significant increase in the number of deals struck for adult fiction, which now accounts for around 30% of deals each year. More than 9,000 deals were made over the decade.</p>
<p>While almost one in five deals specified the title would remain in English, 13.7% were made for Chinese translations, followed by Korean (7% of deals). The data also reveals the increasing importance of Eastern European markets such as the Czech Republic and Slovenia, along with decreased demand for German, Dutch and Spanish translations. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/426832/original/file-20211018-27-qlziqs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/426832/original/file-20211018-27-qlziqs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/426832/original/file-20211018-27-qlziqs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/426832/original/file-20211018-27-qlziqs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/426832/original/file-20211018-27-qlziqs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/426832/original/file-20211018-27-qlziqs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/426832/original/file-20211018-27-qlziqs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/426832/original/file-20211018-27-qlziqs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">13.7% of deals were for Chinese translations.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">shutterstock</span></span>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-is-this-the-end-of-translation-156375">Friday essay: is this the end of translation?</a>
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<p>This is the first major attempt to measure the scale of Australia’s international book rights sales. Advances from them deliver a total of around $10 million each year to Australian writers, providing <a href="https://www.booksandpublishing.com.au/articles/2015/10/07/34134/macquarie-university-author-survey-finds-authors-earn-on-average-12900/">a valuable additional income stream</a>. </p>
<p>Large, <a href="https://www.therosieresult.com.au/">medium</a> and even <a href="https://www.booksandpublishing.com.au/articles/2018/03/21/103913/brow-books-sells-uk-rights-to-apple-and-knife/">small Australian publishers</a> are negotiating rights deals for their authors, and <a href="https://www.austlitagentsassoc.com/">Australian literary agents</a> are an <a href="https://www.booksandpublishing.com.au/think-australian/">established part</a> of the international scene.</p>
<p>The success is across a broad range of genres including <a href="https://theconversation.com/true-blue-crime-fiction-and-australia-48407">crime</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/i-believe-in-romance-remembering-valerie-parv-the-australian-author-who-sold-34-million-books-160084">romance</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/improving-ones-plot-in-life-why-matthew-reillys-books-sell-22644">action thriller</a>, contemporary women’s fiction, self-help and <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-yield-wins-the-miles-franklin-a-powerful-story-of-violence-and-forms-of-resistance-142284">literary fiction</a>. </p>
<p>Rights management involves a seller (who could be a publisher, literary agent or author) licensing the right to make and sell copies of a print, ebook or audiobook, and adaptation rights such as television, film and theatre. </p>
<p>63% of senior agents and publishers told us they felt there had been an increase in international interest in Australian authored books over the ten-year sample period. </p>
<p>Our findings include a <a href="https://goto.mq/rightssalesproject">report and case studies</a> that aim to shed light on this important commercial and cultural aspect of the book industry. </p>
<h2>The kids are alright</h2>
<p>Titles aimed at younger readers (picture books up to young adult) were very popular with overseas buyers. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/426824/original/file-20211018-18-17jdnn8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/426824/original/file-20211018-18-17jdnn8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/426824/original/file-20211018-18-17jdnn8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=470&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/426824/original/file-20211018-18-17jdnn8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=470&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/426824/original/file-20211018-18-17jdnn8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=470&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/426824/original/file-20211018-18-17jdnn8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=590&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/426824/original/file-20211018-18-17jdnn8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=590&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/426824/original/file-20211018-18-17jdnn8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=590&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<p>The reasons are not entirely clear: ultimately, the books themselves must work on their own terms in overseas markets. In addition to well-known series such as the <a href="http://www.andygriffiths.com.au/books/">Treehouse books</a> by Andy Griffiths and Terry Denton, Judith Rossell’s books featuring <a href="https://judithrossell.com/withering-by-sea/">Stella Montgomery</a>, and John Flanagan’s <a href="http://www.worldofjohnflanagan.com/rangers-apprentice/">Ranger’s Apprentice</a> and <a href="http://www.worldofjohnflanagan.com/the-brotherband-chronicles/">Brotherband</a> adventure series, there are hundreds of lower-profile titles which have “travelled”.</p>
<p>The decades-long expertise of Australian <a href="https://australiaeastnz.scbwi.org/">authors</a>, <a href="https://www.booksandpublishing.com.au/articles/2021/05/26/186809/meet-prh-australia-rights-executive-for-childrens-books-jordan-meek/">publishers</a> and agents in specialist <a href="https://maygibbs.org/news/childrens-literature/">children’s genres</a> (often overlooked in the industry before the success of the Harry Potter series) is also likely to be a factor. </p>
<h2>Deal-making</h2>
<p>Since the 1980s, Australian publishers and literary agents have quietly been building international networks based on years of attendance at key <a href="https://www.publishers.asn.au/resources/export-opportunities">book fairs</a> in Frankfurt, Bologna, New York, London and more recently, Shanghai. These fairs, along with welcoming delegations of publishing executives and <a href="https://www.booksandpublishing.com.au/articles/2017/07/05/92691/publishing-delegation-travels-to-seoul-and-beijing/">other strategies</a>, help them find exactly who might be receptive to a pitch about their latest Australian books.</p>
<p>As Libby O’Donnell, Head of International Rights and International Business Development at HarperCollins Australia, puts it, “Every book can potentially have some readers overseas but not every book can have a market overseas that makes it viable to publish.”</p>
<p>While attendance at book fairs and personal relationships are key to successful deals, we observed different models of deal-making. O’Donnell was involved in international auctions for Trent Dalton’s <a href="https://www.harpercollins.com.au/9781460757765/boy-swallows-universe/">Boy Swallows Universe</a> and Meg Mason’s <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/oct/09/sorrow-and-bliss-by-meg-mason-review-an-incredibly-funny-and-devastating-debut">Sorrow and Bliss</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/426825/original/file-20211018-18-1ylghyc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/426825/original/file-20211018-18-1ylghyc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/426825/original/file-20211018-18-1ylghyc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/426825/original/file-20211018-18-1ylghyc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/426825/original/file-20211018-18-1ylghyc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/426825/original/file-20211018-18-1ylghyc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/426825/original/file-20211018-18-1ylghyc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/426825/original/file-20211018-18-1ylghyc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">A theatrical production of Boy Swallows Universe at QPAC.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">David Kelly</span></span>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/boy-swallows-universe-theatrical-adaptation-of-hit-novel-blends-pain-with-nostalgia-to-astonishing-effect-166748">Boy Swallows Universe: theatrical adaptation of hit novel blends pain with nostalgia to astonishing effect</a>
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<p>She describes developing a carefully timed international campaign to draw out the biggest bids for these books. Six groups competed for the television rights to Boy Swallows Universe. </p>
<p>But rights sellers who work for some of the largest Australian publishers also described their passion for finding overseas publishers for books with less commercial potential. For Ivor Indyk at the highly respected literary press, <a href="https://giramondopublishing.com/">Giramondo Publishing</a>, it’s about forming alliances with like-minded literary publishers enabling overseas publication of Australian books that may become part of a literary canon.</p>
<p>Although publishers and agents benefit financially and in terms of prestige, ultimately, the biggest beneficiaries are authors. For most authors, the majority of their income will be from the Australia and New Zealand market. Rights income is “icing on the cake”.</p>
<p>A small proportion of Australian authors can live off their rights income, or sell substantially more books overseas than here. But most authors are excited by the opportunity to have their work read and appreciated overseas; offering another income stream and enhancing their international reputations. </p>
<p>However, the pandemic has hit the international book industry hard – with international travel on hold for so long.</p>
<p>Our report recommends initiatives such as mentoring arrangements and continued investment by industry and government in outgoing and incoming trade delegations (including to key book fairs). This will be more important than ever as publishers and agents re-establish connections after a hiatus of nearly two years.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/170015/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Paul Crosby receives funding from Australia Council for the Arts and the Copyright Agency Cultural Fund. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jan Zwar receives funding from the Australia Council for the Arts and the Copyright Agency Cultural Fund.</span></em></p>A new survey of Australia’s international book rights sales finds children’s books are most popular with overseas buyers but adult fiction is catching up.Paul Crosby, Lecturer, Department of Economics, Macquarie UniversityJan Zwar, Faculty Research Manager, Macquarie UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1698552021-10-18T13:11:13Z2021-10-18T13:11:13ZI translated the Marquis de Sade’s only gothic novel into English<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/426685/original/file-20211015-26-1gdbbjc.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=8%2C21%2C1457%2C969&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diane_de_Joannis_de_Chateaublanc#/media/Fichier:TR02_Image_03.png">Wikimedia</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In 1813, a year before he died, the Marquis de Sade wrote his last published book, The Marquise de Ganges. The novel is based on a 17th-century true crime that Sade – notorious aristocrat, libertine and pornographer – probably first heard of as a young boy, and later read about while locked up in the Bastille. According to the accounts of the time, this is what happened. </p>
<p>On the afternoon of May 17 1667, Diane de Joannis, Marquise de Ganges, better known in her time in Louis XIV’s court as <em>la Belle Provençale</em>, is faced with a terrible choice. Standing before her are her two brothers-in-law – the Abbé (the abbott) and Chevalier de Ganges. The Abbé is holding a pistol in one hand and a glass filled with poison in the other. The Chevalier’s sword is drawn. “Madame,” the Abbé tells her, “you must die: you may choose fire, steel, or poison”.</p>
<p>The next few hours pass in a blur. Poison swallowed, then furtively disgorged; escape through a first-floor window; brief sanctuary amongst the women of the village; frenzied blows from the Chevalier’s sword, its blade snapping in her shoulder; and finally, the Abbé’s pistol, pressed against her chest … misfiring.</p>
<p>This is not the end of the Marquise’s ordeal, but there is some respite at least. The women of the village come to her aid once more, driving back the Abbé and the Chevalier, who take flight, never to return – and never to face justice. </p>
<p>Her wounds are dressed, and she is taken back to the Château de Ganges. Despite her extraordinary courage and resilience, however, the damage has already been done. She dies 19 days later – the autopsy confirming poisoning as the cause of death.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="Book cover for The Marquise de Gange featuring woman in period dress and powdered white wig." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/426686/original/file-20211015-25-1lrk8hc.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/426686/original/file-20211015-25-1lrk8hc.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=912&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/426686/original/file-20211015-25-1lrk8hc.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=912&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/426686/original/file-20211015-25-1lrk8hc.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=912&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/426686/original/file-20211015-25-1lrk8hc.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1146&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/426686/original/file-20211015-25-1lrk8hc.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1146&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/426686/original/file-20211015-25-1lrk8hc.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1146&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Oxford University Press</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It was one of the crimes of the century, and immediately became a <em>récit sanglant</em> or bloody tale, one to be told and retold by one generation to the next.</p>
<p>Now Sade’s version of this tragic episode is now available in English for the first time, in <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-marquise-de-gange-9780198848288?cc=us&lang=en&">my new translation</a> for Oxford World’s Classics. Sade scholars have always labelled it a “historical novel” but when I was translating it, I realised that’s not the right genre. It is, instead, Sade’s first and only truly gothic novel – inspired by English novelists like Ann Radcliffe, who wrote <a href="https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/the-mysteries-of-udolpho">The Mysteries of Udolpho</a>, and Mathew Lewis, who wrote <a href="https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/the-monk-by-matthew-lewis">The Monk</a>. </p>
<h2>Sade and the gothic</h2>
<p>Sade today is probably best known as the man who inspired the term “sadism”, and for his works of violent pornography – novels like Justine and The 120 Days of Sodom, which <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/oct/07/marquis-de-sade-120-days-of-sodom-published-classic">he described</a> as “the most impure tale ever written since the world began”. Until now, he’s not really been considered a gothic novelist – although he is often quoted as an early commentator of this new genre, which he called “the necessary offspring of the revolutionary upheaval which affected the whole of Europe” in an <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/ncl.2011.65.4.513">essay in 1800</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.bl.uk/romantics-and-victorians/articles/gothic-motifs">Gothic novels</a> thrived in Britain from the 1790s to the 1820s and were highly popular across Europe. The writer <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=luFDEAAAQBAJ&pg=PR26&lpg=PR26&dq=madame+de+sta%C3%ABl+%22aim+was+to+inspire+terror+with+night-time,+old+castles,+long+corridors+and+gusts+of+wind&source=bl&ots=f9W5ca9v5U&sig=ACfU3U2M6avzEUfaNFjtgabyjrYSXveCvg&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwi2163hy9PzAhXThP0HHUwyAbcQ6AF6BAgCEAM#v=onepage&q=madame%20de%20sta%C3%ABl%20%22aim%20was%20to%20inspire%20terror%20with%20night-time%2C%20old%20castles%2C%20long%20corridors%20and%20gusts%20of%20wind&f=false">Madame de Staël</a> described these as stories whose “aim was to inspire terror with night-time, old castles, long corridors and gusts of wind.” They were stories of horror and suspense, of lust and love, with darkly violent and erotic undertones. </p>
<p>In the early 1790s, Radcliffe was the most influential and successful writer of this popular genre. Lewis’s The Monk, a supernatural tale of murder, incest and religion, saw the gothic take a turn from polite terror to the more shocking – think bleeding nuns and lecherous monks making pacts with demons.</p>
<p>Sade’s pornographic novels do share some features with the English gothic in terms of characters (virtuous heroines, debauched aristocrats and monks) and locations (isolated castles, dark forests, and even darker dungeons). Until now this has seemed a matter of coincidence rather than influence. When he wrote them, Sade hadn’t read Radcliffe or Lewis, and there’s no evidence that they ever read Sade either. And although The Monk was considered scandalous at the time, English gothic novels never come close to the graphic and often crude depictions of sex we find in Sade.</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="Portrait of the Maquise de Ganges" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/426434/original/file-20211014-16-76vopr.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/426434/original/file-20211014-16-76vopr.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=738&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/426434/original/file-20211014-16-76vopr.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=738&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/426434/original/file-20211014-16-76vopr.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=738&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/426434/original/file-20211014-16-76vopr.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=928&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/426434/original/file-20211014-16-76vopr.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=928&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/426434/original/file-20211014-16-76vopr.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=928&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Diane de Joannis de Chateaublanc, the Marquise de Ganges.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia</span></span>
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<p>But <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-marquise-de-gange-9780198848288?cc=gb&lang=en&">The Marquise de Gange</a> is a very different work to Sade’s famous – or infamous – pornographic fiction. Written years later, Sade’s retelling is clearly inspired by novelists like Radcliffe and Lewis. It is his first attempt at a gothic novel – complete with its forbidding castle in keeping with “that Gothic style of architecture”.</p>
<p>Like so many other gothic novels, The Marquise de Gange is at its heart a story about predatory men and innocent women. In Sade’s part-fictionalised account of this historical murder, that violence is sexually driven, as the Marquise’s brothers-in-law take revenge for her rejection of their advances. Throughout the novel, male desire is a constant danger, a constant threat.</p>
<p>So far so gothic. But reading this novel is not quite like reading any other gothic novel, because it is impossible to forget who wrote it. Sade’s life, like his fiction, is a tale of <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=zyiEW5XZ_poC&pg=PA89&lpg=PA89&dq=Jeanne+Testard+and+Rose+Keller+sade&source=bl&ots=zqmTf2XjzK&sig=ACfU3U3DGOx3sMz3Z7AkfPAU1QwvO7Wixw&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiZwvXO18nzAhUFsaQKHVEvBgMQ6AF6BAgSEAM#v=onepage&q=Jeanne%20Testard%20and%20Rose%20Keller%20sade&f=false">repeated acts of sexual violence</a> against women, from Jeanne Testard and Rose Keller, to the teenage girls he hired as servants in his castle in Lacoste one winter. As American radical feminist writer <a href="https://www.feministes-radicales.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/Andrea-DWORKIN-Pornography-Men-Possessing-Women-1981.pdf">Andrea Dworkin</a> put it, Sade’s “life and writing were of a piece, a whole cloth soaked in the blood of women imagined and real”.</p>
<p>Beneath the novel’s respectable surface, and behind its moralising narrator, the reader can’t help but look for glimpses of an amoral author. One wants to look for the mask to slip, as it seems to when the narrator lingers over the heroine’s “bosom of alabaster, covered only with her beautiful, dishevelled locks” in the climactic scene, or when the narrator forgets whether he should be impressed or outraged by the evil Abbé’s plotting: “Everything had been judiciously, or rather, maliciously calculated in the Abbé’s plans,” he corrects himself. Sade teases the reader, playing cat and mouse throughout this highly self-conscious and subversive version of a gothic novel.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/169855/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Will McMorran does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A story about male violence and a damsel in distress, it is based on a true crimeWill McMorran, Reader in French & Comparative Literature, Queen Mary University of LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1699682021-10-15T14:46:45Z2021-10-15T14:46:45ZSquid Game: why you shouldn’t be too hard on translators<p>Squid Game has recently become Netflix’s <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2021/oct/13/squid-game-is-netflixs-biggest-debut-hit-reaching-111m-viewers-worldwide">biggest debut ever</a>, but the show has sparked controversy due to its <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-58787264">English subtitles</a>. This occurred after a Korean-speaking viewer <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-10-06/squid-game-translation-controversy-netflix-korean-english/100514482">took to Twitter and TikTok</a> to criticise the subtitles for providing a “botched” translation, claiming: “If you don’t understand Korean you didn’t really watch the same show.”</p>
<p>Only this year, Squid Game, <a href="https://theconversation.com/lupin-introducing-anglophone-audiences-to-a-more-socially-conscious-gentleman-thief-154316">Lupin</a>, and <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/netflixs-money-heist-is-top-tv-show-in-the-world-2021-9?r=US&IR=T">Money Heist</a> – all non-English originals – have consistently been at the top of Netflix’s most-watched shows globally. This growing popularity of productions in languages other than English and <a href="https://www.ibc.org/trends/local-content-hits-home-for-svods/7560.article">streaming platforms investing more in them</a> has led to an increase in the visibility of the work of translators.</p>
<p>When it comes to translating films and series, subtitling and dubbing are the most common forms of translation. Subtitles show the dialogue translated into text displayed at the bottom of the screen; while in dubbing, the original voices of the characters are replaced with voices in a new language.</p>
<p>Translation is not new to viewers, but the instant, almost frictionless access to different language versions of the same film or show definitely is. Streaming platforms allow viewers to swiftly change from watching a film with subtitles to listening to the dubbed version or the original. This creates an opportunity for viewers to compare the different versions.</p>
<h2>Why do originals and translations differ?</h2>
<p>Just because the translation doesn’t say exactly the same as the original, it doesn’t mean it’s wrong. Films and TV series are packed with cultural references, wordplay and jokes that require changes and adaptation to make sure what’s said and seen on screen makes sense across languages. </p>
<p>Making allowances and adapting what’s said are common practices in translation because, otherwise, the translators would need to include detailed notes to explain cultural differences. </p>
<p>Consider the representations of <em>washoku</em> (<a href="https://www.thrillist.com/entertainment/nation/hayao-miyazaki-movies-animated-food-porn">traditional Japanese cuisine</a>) which are so beautifully embedded in <a href="https://www.dazeddigital.com/artsandculture/article/36294/1/all-the-studio-ghibli-food-wed-love-to-eat-what-it-means">Studio Ghibli films</a>. While additional explanations about the significance of harmony, kinship and care represented in the bowls of ramen in Ponyo or the soft steaming red bean buns in Spirited Away could be interesting, they might get in the way of a viewer who just wants to enjoy the production.</p>
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<p>Professional translators analyse the source content, understand the context, and consider the needs of the variety of viewers who will be watching. They then look for translation solutions that create an immersive experience for viewers who cannot fully access the original. Translators, similarly to screenwriters and filmmakers, need to make sure they provide good, engaging storytelling; sometimes that implies compromises.</p>
<p>For instance, some original dialogue from season two of Money Heist uses the expression “<em>somanta de hostias</em>”. Literally, <em>“hostia”</em> means host – as in the sacramental bread which is taken during communion at a church service. But it is also Spanish religious slang used as an expletive.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Original: <em>Alberto, como baje del coche, te voy a dar una somanta de hostias que no te vas ni a mantener en pie</em>.</p>
<p>Literal translation: Alberto, if I get out the car, I’m going to give you such a hell (<em>hostia</em>) of a beating that you won’t be able to stay on your feet.</p>
<p>Dubbed version: If I have to get out of the car, I’m gonna beat you so hard you don’t know what day it is.</p>
<p>Subtitles: Alberto, if I get out of the car, I’ll beat you senseless.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The dubbed version of the dialogue adopts the English expression “to beat someone”. The subtitled version uses the same expression but offers a shorter sentence. The difference between the two renderings reflects the constraints of each form of translation.</p>
<p>In dubbing, if the lip movements don’t match the sound, viewers often feel disconnected from the content. Equally, if subtitles are too wordy or poorly timed, viewers could become frustrated when reading them.</p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/squid-game-the-real-debt-crisis-shaking-south-korea-that-inspired-the-hit-tv-show-169401">Squid Game: the real debt crisis shaking South Korea that inspired the hit TV show</a>
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<p>Dubbing needs to match the duration of the original dialogue, follow the same delivery to fit the gesticulations of the characters, and adjust to the lip movements of the actors on the screen. Subtitles, on the other hand, need to be read quickly to keep up with the pace of the film. We talk faster than we can read, so subtitles rarely include all the spoken words. The longer the subtitle, the longer the viewer will take to read it and the less time they will have to watch. According to <a href="https://partnerhelp.netflixstudios.com/hc/en-us/articles/219375728-Timed-Text-Style-Guide-Subtitle-Templates">Netflix</a> policies, for example, subtitles can’t have more than two lines and 42 characters, and shouldn’t stay on the screen for longer than seven seconds.</p>
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<p>Additionally, in the above example, the translations do not reflect the reference to religious slang, typical of Spanish culture. Rather than fixating on this reference and assuming it is an essential part of the dialogue, a good translator would consider what an English-speaking character would say in this context and find a suitable alternative that will sound natural and make sense to the viewer.</p>
<h2>New rules of engagement</h2>
<p>It is encouraging to see that some viewers are so devoted to the content they watch: foreign films and TV shows help promote <a href="https://oxford.universitypressscholarship.com/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195371314.001.0001/acprof-9780195371314">cultural understanding and empathy</a>. But not all viewers act in the same way and the solutions provided by the translators need to cater to everyone who decides to watch the show.</p>
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<p>This leads to different viewing experiences, but it only reflects the reality of watching any culturally charged product, even in our own languages. In English, for instance, consider all the references and nuances that a British viewer could miss when watching an English-language film produced in South Africa, Jamaica or Pakistan.</p>
<p>Translators do not blindly look for literal translations. On the contrary, in the translation profession, hints of literal translation often signal low-quality work. Translators focus on meaning and, in the case of films and series, will endeavour to provide viewers with a product that will create a similar experience to the original.</p>
<p>The case of Squid Game has been instrumental in bringing discussions about translation to the fore. Of course there are good and bad translations, but the main gain here is the opportunity to debate what determines this. Through such discussions, viewers are becoming more aware of the role and complexities of translation.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/169968/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Orrego-Carmona receives funding from The British Academy and the South African National Research Foundation.</span></em></p>Subtitles need to be read quickly and dubbing needs to match lips. It’s not an easy feat.David Orrego-Carmona, Lecturer in Translation Studies, Aston UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1699312021-10-14T03:54:28Z2021-10-14T03:54:28ZSquid Game and the ‘untranslatable’: the debate around subtitles explained<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/426328/original/file-20211014-15-i8bwxx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C1017%2C683&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Netflix</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>There is no question that Squid Game has become a <a href="https://theconversation.com/social-inequality-and-hyper-violence-why-the-bleak-world-of-netflixs-squid-game-is-a-streaming-phenomenon-168934">global sensation</a>. Since its release, the nine-episode survival drama has topped Netflix’s charts in 90 countries and is poised to become the most-watched show in Netflix history. </p>
<p>As the global popularity of the Korean thriller continues to grow, there have been <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-10-06/squid-game-translation-controversy-netflix-korean-english/100514482">debates over the quality of the English subtitle translation</a>, particularly on social media. Many people who claim to be English-Korean bilinguals argue the translation <a href="https://www.news.com.au/entertainment/tv/streaming/fans-say-squid-games-subtitle-translation-has-botched-one-characters-story/news-story/761a4d67b8564c810d17d21b2a323836">does not do justice to the brilliantly written stories</a>, clever dialogue and script. Some even argue that if you have watched the show in English, you haven’t really watched it at all. </p>
<p><em>Spoilers for Squid Game season 1 follow.</em></p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/social-inequality-and-hyper-violence-why-the-bleak-world-of-netflixs-squid-game-is-a-streaming-phenomenon-168934">Social inequality and hyper violence: why the bleak world of Netflix's Squid Game is a streaming phenomenon</a>
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<hr>
<h2>Subtitling is not easy</h2>
<p>As someone who specialises in English-Korean translation and interpreting, I believe the ongoing debates on the English subtitles of Squid Game are <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/squid-game-closed-captions-subtitles-mistranslation-1237308/">missing some important elements</a>. </p>
<p>Not many people know the difference between translation and interpreting. To put it simply, translation refers to rendering of written texts from one language into another, whereas interpreting refers to spoken language. </p>
<p>Subtitling falls between translation and interpreting, because a subtitler listens to spoken language just as an interpreter does, and translates the oral language into written form for viewers. </p>
<p>Subtitling requires not only bilingual competence but specific skills essential to deliver messages within a limited space on screens. Think about the famous quote by the <a href="https://theconversation.com/an-oscar-for-parasite-the-global-rise-of-south-korean-film-128595">Oscar-winning director of Parasite</a>, Bong Joon-Ho: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Once you overcome the one-inch-tall barrier of subtitles, you will be introduced to so many more amazing films. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>It is a subtitler’s job to find ways to condense messages into the one-inch-tall slots, no matter how long or complicated the original dialogues are. As you can imagine, subtitling is not easy.</p>
<p>Subtitling becomes even more complicated when cultural factors come into play, because many culture-specific words and concepts are difficult to translate. </p>
<p>“The untranslatable” exists in all cultures, and in the case of the Korean language, words such as <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/325614149_Korean_Cuties_Understanding_Performed_Winsomeness_Aegyo_in_South_Korea"><em>aegyo</em></a> sometimes described as “performed extreme femininity”, <a href="https://explorepartsunknown.com/korea/han-jeong/"><em>han</em></a> likened by some to “a mix of sorrow and sadness accumulated from a series of life experiences” and <a href="https://www.marieclaire.com/culture/a36800750/what-is-jeong/"><em>jeong</em></a> described sometimes as “deep connection and emotional bond that builds over time”, are some of the most well-known concepts that have no direct equivalent in another language. In literature translation, there are ways to deal with the untranslatable through footnotes or annotations, for example. </p>
<p>These strategies, however, do not work for subtitling due to the space constraints, so managing culture-specific elements is perhaps the most challenging aspect of subtitling.</p>
<h2>The Untranslatable in Squid Game</h2>
<p>Comparing the Korean language with the English subtitle translation of Squid Game, occasional minor omissions and distortions are apparent — but the overall quality of the translation is, in my opinion, fine. </p>
<p>Most of the controversies seem to centre around the English closed captions, which are very different from the English subtitles on Netflix. The English captions which appear as “English [CC]” are for people who cannot hear audio, so they include non-verbal descriptions such as the background music and sound effects. Translations in closed captions are, therefore, more concise than subtitles and are limited in terms of meaning delivery.</p>
<p>Despite the good quality of the English translation, a meaning gap inevitably exists between the original Korean and the English subtitles due to the untranslatable. </p>
<p>Perhaps the most significant aspect of the untranslatable in Squid Game relates to “호칭” or “honorifics” which Korean people use to refer to each other in conversation. </p>
<p>An age-based hierarchy is a key characteristic of Korean society, and people do not call each other by name unless they are friends of the same age. One of the most common honorifics is “형 (<em>hyung</em>)” or “older brother”, a title a younger brother uses to talk or refer to his older brother. This expression is often also used by non-family members who are close to each other to indicate the degree of mutual friendship. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/426338/original/file-20211014-23-1g2c722.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Behind the scenes footage of actors from Squid Game" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/426338/original/file-20211014-23-1g2c722.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/426338/original/file-20211014-23-1g2c722.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/426338/original/file-20211014-23-1g2c722.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/426338/original/file-20211014-23-1g2c722.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/426338/original/file-20211014-23-1g2c722.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/426338/original/file-20211014-23-1g2c722.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/426338/original/file-20211014-23-1g2c722.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An age-based hierarchy is a key characteristic of Korean society, and people do not call each other by name unless they are friends of the same age.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Netflix</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>If you have watched the drama, you might recall Ali, the Pakistani labourer, who came to South Korea to earn money. Ali got to know another participant, Sang Woo, a graduate of Korea’s top university, who embezzled a huge amount of money at work and was determined to win the game to get rid of the debt.</p>
<p>As they became close to each other, Sang Woo suggested that Ali call him <em>hyung</em>, instead of “사장님 (<em>sajang-nim</em>)” or “Mr Company President”, one of the first terms that foreign labourers in South Korea pick as a result of spending most of their time at work under often exploitative bosses. </p>
<p>The moment that Sang Woo became Ali’s <em>hyung</em> is one of the most humanistic moments in the gory drama. The poignancy of the moment, however, could not be fully delivered due to the absence of an equivalent English form. In the English subtitle, the line “Call me <em>hyung</em>” was translated as “Call me Sang Woo”. </p>
<p>When Sang Woo later betrays Ali in the game of marbles, the kinds of emotions experienced by viewers who are able to understand the degree of intimacy attached to <em>hyung</em> compared with those unable to do so may, therefore, be very different. </p>
<p>Scenes like this show, in a powerfully raw form, the cruelty and selfishness of human beings in real life, albeit in a different kind of “game”. </p>
<p>There are other untranslatable honorifics, such as “오빠 (<em>oppa</em>)”, which was translated as “baby”, and “영감님 (<em>yeonggam-nim</em>)”, which was translated as “sir”. Close, but not quite the same.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/426345/original/file-20211014-17-mbweki.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/426345/original/file-20211014-17-mbweki.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/426345/original/file-20211014-17-mbweki.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/426345/original/file-20211014-17-mbweki.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/426345/original/file-20211014-17-mbweki.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/426345/original/file-20211014-17-mbweki.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/426345/original/file-20211014-17-mbweki.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/426345/original/file-20211014-17-mbweki.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The deeper context of Ali’s betrayal by Sang Woo is lost in translation.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Netflix</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/an-oscar-for-parasite-the-global-rise-of-south-korean-film-128595">An Oscar for Parasite? The global rise of South Korean film</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Beyond language barriers</h2>
<p>Understanding the honorifics in Squid Game is important to fully capture the bitter aspects of human relationships. </p>
<p>Considering the untranslatable, the <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/newsbeat-58749976">recent addition</a> of 26 Korean words to the Oxford English Dictionary is a welcome move. Interestingly, some of these newly added words include common honorifics such as <em>noona</em>, <em>oppa</em> and <em>unni</em>, and I hope that this paves way for the inclusion of more Korean words in the future. </p>
<p>While translation and interpreting serve as an important cultural and linguistic bridge, the gap left by the untranslatable can only be filled by genuine understanding of the other culture and language. </p>
<p>Building on Director Bong’s message, once you overcome the gap left by the untranslatable, you will be introduced to so many more amazing films.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/169931/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jinhyun Cho does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>As the popularity of Squid Game continues to grow globally, there have been debates over the quality of the English subtitle translation - but critics are missing important context.Jinhyun Cho, Senior Lecturer in Translation and Interpreting at Macquarie University, Macquarie UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1662582021-09-08T15:27:55Z2021-09-08T15:27:55ZGoogle and Microsoft are creating a monopoly on coding in plain language<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/419875/original/file-20210907-22-krsb6e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=19%2C28%2C6366%2C4221&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Coding is a specialized skill that requires learning one or more computer languages.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Sometimes major shifts happen virtually unnoticed. On May 5, <a href="https://developer.ibm.com/technologies/artificial-intelligence/data/project-codenet/">IBM announced Project CodeNet</a> to very little media or academic attention. </p>
<p>CodeNet is a follow-up to <a href="https://www.image-net.org/">ImageNet</a>, a large-scale dataset of images and their descriptions; the images are free for non-commercial uses. ImageNet is now central to the <a href="https://deepai.org/machine-learning-glossary-and-terms/imagenet">progress of deep learning computer vision</a>.</p>
<p>CodeNet is an attempt to do for Artifical Intelligence (AI) coding what ImageNet did for computer vision: it is a dataset of over 14 million code samples, covering 50 programming languages, intended to solve 4,000 coding problems. The dataset also contains numerous additional data, such as the amount of memory required for software to run and log outputs of running code. </p>
<h2>Accelerating machine learning</h2>
<p>IBM’s own stated rationale for CodeNet is that it is designed to <a href="https://research.ibm.com/blog/codenet-ai-for-code">swiftly update legacy systems programmed in outdated code</a>, a development long-awaited since <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.org/encyclopedia/Y2K-bug/">the Y2K panic over 20 years ago</a>, when many believed that undocumented legacy systems could fail with disastrous consequences. </p>
<p>However, as security researchers, we believe the most important implication of CodeNet — and similar projects — is the potential for lowering barriers, and the possibility of Natural Language Coding (NLC). </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/1mfcxGZ2I68?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">An IBM-produced video looks at the quest to produce an AI that can understand human language.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In recent years, companies such as <a href="https://openai.com/blog/gpt-3-apps/">OpenAI</a> and <a href="https://cloud.google.com/natural-language">Google</a> have been rapidly improving Natural Language Processing (NLP) technologies. These are machine learning-driven programs designed to better understand and mimic natural human language and translate between different languages. Training machine learning systems requires access to a large dataset with texts written in the desired human languages. NLC applies all this to coding too.</p>
<p>Coding is a difficult skill to learn let alone master and an experienced coder would be expected to be proficient in multiple programming languages. NLC, in contrast, leverages NLP technologies and a vast database such as CodeNet to enable anyone to use English, or ultimately French or Chinese or any other natural language, to code. It could make tasks like designing a website as simple as typing “make a red background with an image of an airplane on it, my company logo in the middle and a contact me button underneath,” and that exact website would spring into existence, the result of automatic translation of natural language to code. </p>
<p>It is clear that IBM was not alone in its thinking. GPT-3, OpenAI’s industry-leading NLP model, has been used to allow <a href="https://debuild.co/">coding a website or app by writing a description of what you want</a>. Soon after IBM’s news, Microsoft announced it had <a href="https://blogs.microsoft.com/blog/2020/09/22/microsoft-teams-up-with-openai-to-exclusively-license-gpt-3-language-model/">secured exclusive rights to GPT-3</a>. </p>
<p>Microsoft also owns GitHub, — the largest collection of open source code on the internet — acquired in 2018. The company has added to GitHub’s potential with <a href="https://copilot.github.com/">GitHub Copilot</a>, an AI assistant. When the programmer inputs the action they want to code, Copilot generates a coding sample that could achieve what they specified. The programmer can then accept the AI-generated sample, edit it or reject it, drastically simplifying the coding process. Copilot is a huge step towards NLC, but it is not there yet.</p>
<h2>Consequences of natural language coding</h2>
<p>Although NLC is not yet fully feasible, we are moving quickly towards a future where coding is much more accessible to the average person. The implications are huge.</p>
<p>First, there are consequences for research and development. It is argued that <a href="https://itif.org/publications/2016/02/24/demographics-innovation-united-states">the greater the number of potential innovators, the higher the rate of innovation</a>. By removing barriers to coding, the potential for innovation through programming expands. </p>
<p>Further, academic disciplines as varied as <a href="https://www.wired.com/2015/11/what-computational-physics-is-really-about/">computational physics</a> and <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0022250X.1995.9990155">statistical sociology</a> increasingly rely on custom computer programs to process data. Decreasing the skill required to create these programs would increase the ability of researchers in specialized fields outside computer sciences to deploy such methods and make new discoveries.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/419876/original/file-20210907-26-19sf7le.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Children sit in front of screens in a classroom." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/419876/original/file-20210907-26-19sf7le.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/419876/original/file-20210907-26-19sf7le.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/419876/original/file-20210907-26-19sf7le.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/419876/original/file-20210907-26-19sf7le.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/419876/original/file-20210907-26-19sf7le.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/419876/original/file-20210907-26-19sf7le.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/419876/original/file-20210907-26-19sf7le.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Plain-language coding will make programming and design more accessible and remove the need for specialized training.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>However, there are also dangers. Ironically, one is the de-democratization of coding. Currently, numerous coding platforms exist. Some of these platforms offer varied features that different programmers favour, however none offer a competitive advantage. A new programmer could easily use a free, “bare bones” coding terminal and be at little disadvantage. </p>
<p>However, AI at the level required for NLC is not cheap to develop or deploy, and is likely to be monopolized by major platform corporations such as Microsoft, Google or IBM. The service may be offered for a fee or, like most social media services, for free but with unfavourable or exploitative conditions for its use.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/if-its-free-online-you-are-the-product-95182">If it’s free online, you are the product</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>There is also reason to believe that such technologies will be dominated by platform corporations due to the way machine learning works. Theoretically, programs such as Copilot improve when introduced to new data: the more they are used, the better they become. This makes it harder for new competitors, even if they have a stronger or more ethical product.</p>
<p>Unless there is a serious counter effort, it seems likely that large capitalist conglomerates will be the gatekeepers of the next coding revolution.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/166258/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Natural language coding means that people won’t need to learn specialized coding languages to write programs or design websites. But large corporations will control the means of translation.David Murakami Wood, Associate Professor in Sociology, Queen's University, OntarioDavid Eliot, Masters Student, Surveillance Studies, Queen's University, OntarioLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1638762021-07-07T15:04:17Z2021-07-07T15:04:17ZNew Kiswahili science fiction award charts a path for African languages<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/409866/original/file-20210706-21-17nf4h6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>The 6th edition of <a href="https://kiswahiliprize.cornell.edu/">The Mabati Cornell Kiswahili Prize for African Literature</a>, suspended last year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, is back. Founded in 2014, the prize recognises writing in African languages and encourages translation from, between and into African languages. Kiswahili is widely spoken across the east coast of Africa. This year’s prize also offers a special award designed to promote and popularise a Kiswahili vocabulary for technology and digital rights. We spoke to the prize founders – literary academic Lizzy Attree, also of <a href="http://shortstorydayafrica.org">Short Story Day Africa</a>, and literature professor and celebrated <a href="http://www.mukomawangugi.com/books.html">author</a> Mukoma Wa Ngugi – on the challenges of growing literature in African languages.</em></p>
<h2>What’s the idea behind the special Nyabola prize?</h2>
<p><strong>Lizzy Attree:</strong> The <a href="https://kiswahiliprize.cornell.edu/special-prize-for-2021/">Nyabola prize</a> gives us the opportunity to work in a new area that is really exciting for us. <a href="https://www.nanjalawrites.com">Nanjala Nyabola</a>, the Kenyan writer and activist, approached us with the idea and the funding to target vocabulary for technology and digital rights. This was particularly interesting to us for two reasons. Firstly, we have long wanted to offer a short story prize, but have stuck with longer works because of the opportunity it gives us to focus on <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Swahili-language">Kiswahili</a> literature as a fully mastered form. But we are aware that a short story prize is a good place to start for those who are only beginning to write. Secondly, Kiswahili is often considered to be steeped in archaic, or historically poetic technical words and forms. These must be updated to accommodate the modern language of science and technology. It has been an interesting adventure to find out which words can be adapted or amended to fit with modern digital and technological advancement.</p>
<p><strong>Mukoma Wa Ngugi:</strong> There is also the idea that African languages are social languages, emotive and cannot carry science. Most definitely not true. All languages can convey the most complex ideas but we have to let them. There is something beautiful about African languages carrying science, fictionalised of course, into imagined futures.</p>
<h2>Mukoma, you also write speculative fiction; what is its power?</h2>
<p><strong>Mukoma Wa Ngugi:</strong> At the height of dictatorship in Kenya under president <a href="https://theconversation.com/daniel-arap-moi-the-making-of-a-kenyan-big-man-127177">Daniel arap Moi</a>, when writers and intellectuals were being <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/4186808">detained and exiled</a>, and their books <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1991/02/13/in-kenya-animal-farm-corralled/136feeb9-6d5b-421a-a6a2-72072e15e8ff/">banned</a>, it was the genre writers who kept the politics alive. In fact I dedicated my detective novel <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/212059/nairobi-heat-by-mukoma-wa-ngugi/"><em>Nairobi Heat</em></a> to two such Kenyan writers, <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/441171.David_G_Maillu">David Mailu</a> and <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Meja-Mwangi">Meja Mwangi</a>. We inherited a hierarchy of what counts as serious literature from colonialism, the division between minor and major literatures. It is important for us to blur the lines between literary and genre fiction – they are both doing serious work but in different styles. And the same goes between written literature and orature (spoken literature). Orature is seen lesser-than but, as writers and scholars have <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/3820568">argued</a>, orature has its own discipline and aesthetics.</p>
<h2>How has African language publishing changed since the prize began?</h2>
<p><strong>Lizzy Attree:</strong> Sadly I don’t think African language publishing has advanced very much in the last seven years or that there are enough academic studies focusing on this area. The demise of the <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/award/show/5194-noma-award-for-publishing-in-africa">Noma Award</a> for Publishing in Africa was part of the decline, or indicative of it. However, book festivals are <a href="https://qz.com/africa/1684458/the-rise-of-literary-festivals-in-african-cities-lagos-hargeysa/">growing</a>, and we hope that in time this will lead to more awards and more publishing in African languages. Mukoma’s father, <a href="https://theconversation.com/tipped-to-win-nobel-literature-prize-kenyas-ngugi-misses-out-again-67009">Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o</a>, is a pioneer in this area, and it’s been wonderful to see his novel shortlisted for the International Booker Prize recently. Although there are many other good examples of where changes are happening, considering the size of the continent and the number of languages, there is still a huge gap.</p>
<p><strong>Mukoma Wa Ngugi:</strong> <a href="https://jaladaafrica.org/">Jalada Journal</a> is a good example of how attitudes to writing in African languages have changed for the better. In 2015 Jalada took a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/mar/29/jalada-africa-short-story-ngugi-wa-thiongo-translated-over-30-languages-publication">short story</a> written by Ngugi in Gikuyu and self-translated into English and had it translated to close to 100 languages. This made it the most translated African short story. But the genius of their initiative was that most of the translations were between African languages. The Jalada example is important for two reasons – it shows that innovation can happen when African languages talk to each other. And that for the younger writers, African languages do not carry the same sense of inferiority – English is just another language. All in all I don’t think the Nyabola prize, for example, would have been possible 10 years ago. A lot has changed where it matters the most; the ideology around African languages is shifting.</p>
<h2>Do awards work and why are there so few major literary prizes in Africa?</h2>
<p><strong>Lizzy Attree:</strong> I think awards certainly work in raising the profile of writers and their work, but it is difficult to find funding for these kinds of projects.</p>
<p><strong>Mukoma Wa Ngugi:</strong> It is all about setting up a viable and thriving literary ecosystem for writing in African languages. Literary agents, publishers, readership, critics, literary prizes and so on. Prizes are just one aspect. We realised that from the onset so our winners, in addition to the monetary awards, have also been published by <a href="https://mkukinanyota.com">Mkuki na Nyota Press</a> in Tanzania. We have been trying to get them translated into English but as Lizzy points out, funding is a huge problem. We were lucky to partner with Mabati Rolling Mills and the Safal Group. We have a de facto slogan: African philanthropy for African cultural development. But all the living parts of the African literary ecosystem have to be thriving. In this, we all have work to do.</p>
<h2>Why is African language literature so important?</h2>
<p><strong>Lizzy Attree:</strong> It’s been clearly demonstrated that learning in one’s mother tongue brings huge advantages to students. And where else must we find ourselves reflected if not in our own literature, in our own languages?</p>
<p><strong>Mukoma Wa Ngugi:</strong> You can think of language as the sum total of a people’s history and knowledge. We store history and knowledge in language. To speak only English is to be alienated from your past, present and future. It is a pain we should all feel deeply. In my <a href="https://www.press.umich.edu/9724578/rise_of_the_african_novel">book</a>, <em>The Rise of the African Novel: Language, Identity and Ownership</em>, I give the example of how early writing in South African languages remains outside our literary tradition. I talk about how that leads to truncated imaginations. We write within literary traditions, but what happens to your imagination when you cannot access your literary tradition?</p>
<p><em>The shortlist will be announced in October/November 2021, with the winners announced in Dar es Salaam in December 2021.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/163876/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>There is something beautiful about African languages carrying science, fictionalised of course, into imagined futures.Mukoma Wa Ngugi, Associate Professor of literatures in English, Cornell UniversityLizzy Attree, Adjunct Professor, Richmond American International UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.