The largest Bible translation campaign to ever be introduced on social and digital media was launched this week – just in time for Easter.
The goal is to make the Bible available in every language within the next 12 years.
Sunday, March 28, 2021
The Cracker Barrel: 'Still Lost in Translation' - Pine and Lakes Echo Journal - Translation
Such miscues serve to brighten otherwise stressful journeys and serve as a bond between weary travelers. Who can stay dejected after reading the sign in the Zurich hotel announcing, “We have nice bath and are very good in bed.” Or the one in Africa that says, “You may choose between a room with a view of the sea or the backside of the country.”
After Croker’s book appeared, hundreds of travelers sent him examples of similar linguistic perplexities, and he continued to gather dozens on his own, such as the ticket on a ferry to La Gomera in the Canary Islands reading, “Keep this ticket up the end of your trip.”
CHIBA, JAPAN - July 30, 2020: Notices on a street in Chiba City at the top of a slope asking cyclists to dismount before ascending.Photo illustration, Shutterstock, Inc.
Of such delights are sequels born. His was titled “Still Lost in Translation.” Now, as the better-stay-at-home warnings of COVID fade and the prospect of renewed travel beckons, a dip into Croker’s collections seems timely.
Writes Croker, “Who cares that the stewardess won’t smile when the brochure promises: ‘Wide boiled aircraft for your comfort.’ Why worry that the hotel room is tiny - just enjoy the sign that says, ‘All rooms not denounced by twelve o’clock will be paid for twicely.’“
Keeping in mind that the rest of the world is far better at English than we are at Dutch or Thai or Mandarin, it still seems hard not to laugh when your hotel in Greece promises, “Tonight dinner will be served in the swimming pool,” or the sign on the beach in Spain proclaims, “Beach of irregular bottoms.”
From Munich, Germany: “In your room you will find a minibar which is filled with alcoholics.” Sign on a door in Sana’a, Yemen: “Physio the rapist.” From a printed guide to Buenos Aires: “Several of the local beaches are very copular in the summer.”
In Toledo, Spain: “Frozen ice available here.”
Poorly translated humorous Zig Zag Bridge Chinese directional sign.Photo illustration, Shutterstock, Inc.
In a small hotel in Cornwall, England: “Will any guest wishing to take a bath please make arrangements to have one with Mrs. Harvey.”
At a wadi in Oman: “Drowning accidents are now popular.”
In Egypt: “Bring your wife to look like camel.”
As Croker notes, menus are a constant favorite, with many restaurants working hard - perhaps too hard - on their descriptions: “Salad a firm’s own make; limpid red beet soup with cheesy dumplings in the form of a finger; roasted duck let loose; beef rashers beaten up in the country people’s fashion.”
From a restaurant in France: “Fish soup with rust and croutons.” From another: “A confection of plugs and geysers.” From one in Switzerland: “Half a lawyer with prawns.” From Yaroslav, Russia: “Lorry driver soup.” And from one in China: “Dumpling stuffed with the ovary and digestive glands of a crab.”
HONG KING, CHINA - August 2016. Lost in translation sign. Sign written in Chinese.Photo illustration, Shutterstock, Inc.
And then, of course, there are the many varieties of warning.
On a sign next to a swimming pool in Shanghai: “Bottom of pond very hard and not far from top of water.”
In Budapest: “Forbidden to hang out of hotel window. Person which do so will be charge for clean up mess on footpath.”
A sign in a Prague hotel: “Water is officially drinkable (but not for sucklings), but we don’t recommend to drink it.”
And from a hotel brochure in Copenhagen: “In fire, the bells rings three times. There is a fine escape on each floor. For other amusements, see page 3.”
Collections of Craig Nagel’s columns are available at CraigNagelBooks.com.
Washington University fellow named finalist for PEN award for translation of 'Katabasis' - St. Louis Magazine - Translation
To translate a poem from Spanish to English, the translator has to not only know the language but also consider the feeling the poem evokes, the rhythm, and the style. “It’s really a puzzle because there are all these different elements of the original poem that you are not reproducing but re-creating,” says Olivia Lott. Lott is a translator and a doctoral candidate and Olin Fellow at Washington University. She was recently named a PEN award finalist for her translation of Lucía Estrada’s Katabasis. The poetry collection, which Eulalia Books released in October 2020, is the first by a Colombian woman to be translated into English.
Lott fell in love with Spanish in high school. She was fascinated by the language, and it came pretty easy to her. When there was an opportunity for students to visit Peru, she jumped at the chance. “I got to really experience what learning a second language opens up for you in the sense of all the people you get to meet that you wouldn’t have met otherwise, the books you get to read that you wouldn’t have been able to read otherwise—just this whole other world,” she says.
Being in Peru motivated Lott to become a Spanish major at Kenyon College, a school known for its rich literary tradition. Lott took many classes on Latin American literature. Then she signed up for a literary translation course, and much in the same way that Peru had been an eye-opening experience, this class was “a total life-changing class.”
Every week the class translated a new poem. “It was sort of the greatest hits poems from Latin American literature,” Lott says. “It’s really what set me on this path to keep translating.
“Gabriel García Márquez called translation the closest form of reading, and I think ultimately that’s what it was for me. It was this opportunity to see something so deep and engage with it on a different level, on a level that I hadn’t really engaged with literature before,” Lott explains.
For her final undergraduate project, Lott translated a Colombian poet. Colombia, which is the third-largest Spanish speaking country, resonated with Lott when she learned how under-translated the poetry was. She says it has a "more conservative poetic tradition."
"I saw this as an opportunity for me as an aspiring translator to have an impact in the conversation of what kind of poetry from Latin America gets translated into English," she says.
After she graduated, in 2015, Lott received a Fulbright scholarship to Colombia, where she worked as an English teaching assistant. On her weekends and holidays, she traveled across the country to meet poets. “I wanted to try to soak in as much as I could about today’s poetry from Colombia.”
It was during her trip to Medellín that Lott met Estrada. During this first (and only) meeting, Estrada gave Lott several books of her poetry. “I began translating poems immediately on the plane,” she says. Lott continued to translate Estrada’s poems for a couple of years, even publishing a few in different journals.
When Lott saw that Estrada had published Katabasis, which is the 2017 winner of the Bogotá Poetry Prize, she read it and loved it. The title is the Greek word for "descent," and the poems focus on the descent into the unknown, whether by epic heroes or through the pursuit of classical knowledge. She wrote to Estrada to see if she could translate it. “She was very excited. By this time, I’ve been translating poems for her for about three years, so we had built a relationship.”
Estrada doesn’t speak English, so she has to have complete trust in Lott and her work. “This has been one of the amazing things about working with her—she really seems to understand the translation process as creative writing. She’s always encouraged me to take risks with a translation to really prioritize the writing of a new poem in English. She’s really empowered me in this way.”
One example of that creative process is shown in the intertextuality of the work. In Katabasis, Estrada mentions Paul Celan, Marosa di Giorgio, Sylvia Plath, Lasse Söderberg, but the poetry collection's most "sustained correspondence," Lott says, is with Plath. An epigraph from Plath's "A Life" begins Katabasis, and Estrada's first poem, "Medusas," is written alongside Plath's "Medusa."
"When translating this poem, I pieced together lines where Estrada's version called out to Plath's," Lott says. "And this guided my approach to the rest of the collection. I searched for moments in the Spanish where Plath's poetics might come through in the English. This meant, for example, creating clipped nouns in [the English version,] which Plath often uses but which aren't as syntactically possible in Spanish. Sílaba de aire, dolor de sal, and vueltas de llave became air syllable, salt ache, and key turns in my rendering."
When Lott received the news that the translation of Katabasis had been selected as a PEN finalist, she immediately called Estrada. They both hope the recognition will open more doors for more Colombian poets to be translated into English.
The winners of the PEN awards will be announced in a virtual ceremony on April 8.
Saturday, March 27, 2021
From environmental impacts to parking notices, group says lack of translation excludes Spanish speakers - Long Beach Post - Translation
Kirk Davis, co-founder of the Puente Latino Association neighborhood group, was taking an evening stroll Wednesday when he noticed signs posted on a chain link fence running along a stretch of the 91 Freeway.
At the overpass on 67th Street from Atlantic Avenue to Cherry Avenue, were signs from Long Beach Public Works telling residents that crews would be drilling in the soil next week in preparation of an upcoming freeway widening project. Any car in the way would be towed.
But Davis found what he thought was one glaring problem: The signs were only in English, which he felt excluded the large number of Spanish-speaking residents living in his North Long Beach neighborhood.
About 18% of the population in Long Beach reported that they speak English “less than very well,” according to a 2019 community health assessment from the city’s Health and Human Services Department. In the 90805 ZIP code in North Long Beach, about 25% of the population have trouble speaking English.
Davis argues the lack of signs posted in the languages residents best understand is a violation of the city’s language-access policy, a set of guidelines the city adopted in 2013 to improve communication with the city’s diverse population.
“There’s too many instances where the city doesn’t follow their own policies,” he said.
A sign from Public Works warning residents about an upcoming construction project near the 91 Freeway in North Long Beach. Photo courtesy Kirk Davis.
Jennifer Carey, spokeswoman for the Public Works Department, said the department was working to translate the signs and documents it puts out into the community, but due to the overwhelming amount of materials that need to be translated as part of the policy, the process is still ongoing.
“We have prioritized project/construction door hangers and COVID-19 program messaging to start, and I am now working bureau by bureau to update all their materials and eliminate the old versions,” Carey wrote in an email.
This isn’t the first time Davis has questioned the lack of translated public notices.
In early March, Davis, along with Long Beach environmental activists groups, sent a letter to CalTrans saying they were concerned that outreach efforts to inform the community of a proposed freeway expansion was not adequately collecting input from Spanish speakers because CalTrans was not providing them with information about the project’s environmental impacts in Spanish.
“Federal guidance on [National Environmental Protection Act] stresses the importance of translating environmental review documents if the community affected by the project speaks a language other than English,” the letter read.
Since then, CalTrans extended the public hearing date to collect comments from residents in English and Spanish.
Davis said there are multiple neighbors in the area that would like to know more about the project but are not seeing information abut it in their native language.
In the letter, the activists say the construction around the 91 Freeway expansion project will create environmental hazards that community members deserve to be aware of.
How soon that will happen—or how soon Long Beach will have all of its notices translated is unclear.
Long Beach adopted its language-access policy in 2013 to include more languages such as Khmer and Tagalog. Translating city documents and memos is not only time consuming but also expensive. It costs about $109,125 to translate public meetings and hearings.
“Public Works has a lot of public facing signage so [it is] difficult to say which is more important than the other,” Carey wrote. “We just want to ensure that this translation effort proceeds as quickly and accurately as possible.”
Radical Translation and 'Arrival': Talking to Aliens - The Great Courses Daily News - Translation
By David K. Johnson, Ph.D., King’s College
A philosophical question raised by the possibility of an alien visitation is whether people could communicate with them. This problem is explored in the movie Arrival. Dr. Louise Banks is assigned the task of learning the language of a species of advanced aliens that have landed on the Earth. But this is more complex than learning human language, and the act of radical translation is fraught with uncertainty.
Quine’s Radical Translation Experiment
When Dr. Banks attempts to start learning the language of the aliens, she finds that it is completely—well—alien. Instead of letters arranged in sentences, they communicate with what can only be described as ink-blot-circles, a system of logograms. The stakes for understanding the language couldn’t be higher. Dr. Banks has got to get this right. But translating a totally alien language from scratch would be a monumental task.
Indeed, some philosophers have argued that it would be impossible. And to do so, they use Willard Van Orman Quine’s radical translation thought experiment. Quine imagined, in this thought experiment, a linguist coming across members of a ‘native’ community with a language completely unrelated to any known language. Quine suggested that it would be impossible for such a linguist to ever know that he understands them.
This is the problem of radical translation. Quine thought that someone could never discover the meanings of the words of a language completely unrelated to their own because even discovering the use rules of a language game might not necessarily reveal the meanings of its words and sentences. Let us slightly modify one of Quine’s examples.
Learn more about science versus religion in Contact.
The Question of Translation
Suppose the native says ‘Gavagai’ as a rabbit hops by. It could be assumed he means ‘rabbit’. But he could have just been referring to a part of the rabbit, like its leg. So to make sure the use rule for ‘gavagai’ has been learned correctly, a dead rabbit is found, then its leg is cut off and shown to the native who is asked, “Gavagai?”
A negative response would indicate that ‘rabbit leg’ is not the meaning of ‘gavagai’. But even if this is tried with every rabbit part, it would not be known for sure that ‘gavagai’ means rabbit; perhaps it means ‘undetached rabbit part’. If so, when the dead rabbit’s leg is cut off, it was no longer a ‘gavagai’.
A similar point is made by Dr. Louise Banks in Arrival when she tells the apocryphal story of James Cook and the origin of the word ‘kangaroo’:
[Cook] led a party into [Australia] and they met the aboriginal people. One of the sailors pointed at the animals that hop around and put their babies in their pouch, and he asked what they were, and the aborigine said, ‘kangaroo’. … It wasn’t until later that they learned that ‘kangaroo’ means ‘I don’t understand’.
People are all in this situation as children. Children try to learn a language that is completely foreign to any they know because they know none.
Their native language is learned just like the linguist learns the foreign one. So could it be that people are all walking around, thinking they understand one another, when in fact, they don’t?
This is a transcript from the video series Sci-Phi: Science Fiction as Philosophy. Watch it now, on The Great Courses Plus.
Chomsky’s ‘Universal Grammar’
It’s possible, but it seems unlikely. Indeed, philosopher and linguist Noam Chomsky has argued, persuasively, for something called ‘universal grammar’—a set of innate structural rules, constraints, and principles by which all humans organize concepts and use language.
Chomsky argues that since there are rules that children must know to use a language, but those rules are not ever stated in any utterances children hear, the fact that children do learn language and learn to use it appropriately, seems to entail that children must know those rules innately.
And this is where the answer to Quine’s worry about radical translation is found. It’s possible that ‘gavagai’ means ‘undetached rabbit part’, but that’s not the most likely translation. So it’s possible all words are defined differently, even though they are used in the same way, but that everyone has similar meanings in mind seems to be beyond a reasonable doubt.
Now, it might be argued that the seemingly successful translation of so many languages over history is a refutation of Quine’s radical translation problem. But it also might be argued that these successful translations just indicate that no human language is completely foreign.
Humans all evolved from the same branch of the evolutionary tree and human brains are all remarkably similar. As such, it is likely that everyone conceptualizes the world and utilizes language in much the same way.
That’s why ‘rabbit’ rather than ‘undetached rabbit part’ is the best translation of ‘gavagai’. Humans don’t invent words for such inoperable concepts. If Chomsky is right, no human language is completely foreign, and thus the linguist in Quine’s thought experiment is not truly faced with a problem of radical translation.
Learn more about radical translation and alien languages.
The Possibility of Misunderstanding in Arrival
But the same rule may not apply to aliens, who are in a sense truly ‘foreign’. However, this seems to be the method Dr. Banks uses in Arrival. She writes ‘human’ on a whiteboard, points to herself, and then assumes the response by the heptapods denotes the name of their species. But they could think the marks on that board mean anything—‘female’, or ‘orange’ (the color of her suit), or ‘black’ (the color of the ink). It could mean ‘whiteboard’. The list is seemingly endless.
It seems that something like this could be done for every word in their language. Someone could learn the use rules of their language game while simultaneously misunderstanding what every word means. They could even carry on entire conversations, seemingly conveying information to one another, all the while completely misunderstanding each other. So how can Dr. Banks ultimately know that her translations are right?
Common Questions about Radical Translation
Q. What is the problem of radical translation?
The problem of radical translation, according to Willard Van Orman Quine, is that someone could never discover the meanings of the words of a language completely unrelated to their own because even discovering the use rules of a language game might not necessarily reveal the meanings of its words and sentences.
Q. What is the task of Dr. Banks in the movie Arrival?
Dr. Banks is assigned the task of learning the language of aliens who have landed on Earth.
Q. What is Noam Chomsky’s argument about language learning?
Noam Chomsky has argued, persuasively, for something called ‘universal grammar‘: a set of innate structural rules, constraints, and principles by which all humans organize concepts and use language.
Keep Reading
Word Borrowing: The Inevitable Universal Phenomena
The Arguments For Chomsky’s Hypothesis
Chomsky’s Innateness Hypothesis
Tale of flawed fictional dictionary a delight - Winnipeg Free Press - Dictionary
Orbisculate: to accidentally squirt citrus fruit juice and/or pulp into one’s eye.
This immensely useful word is not really a word. At least not yet. The word was coined by Neil Kreiger, who died of COVID-19 complications in 2020.
In an act of memorialization, Kreiger’s family are promoting the word (via orbisculate.com), trying to attract both new users and, importantly, the attention of lexicographers. The more widely "orbisculate" is used, the more likely it is to earn a place on dictionary pages.
But what if a lexicographer, instead of monitoring and documenting language use, was inspired to invent words? And what if that lexicographer began to slip his own words into a dictionary, securing them validation that they may deserve but have not earned?
In a wonderful new novel, British author Eley Williams tells the stories of two people whose lives are shaped by Swansby’s New Encyclopaedic Dictionary, a fictional and flawed rival of the Oxford English Dictionary. Winceworth, a lexicographer for Swansby’s, works in a great hive of an office in late-Victorian London.
A first-generation employee, he contributes to the dictionary at an early stage in its history. Before it can be completed, the dictionary project will stall, halted by the First World War. When it is published in 1930, in nine volumes, the Z-words remain undefined.
Winceworth is far from happy in his job. Writing with a company-supplied, regulation dip pen on regulation paper slips, he endures the grind of office culture, resenting both the empty chatter of his coworkers and the predictability of their behaviour. He also suffers through company-prescribed speech-therapy sessions for a lisp that, revealingly, he fakes.
Mallory, a century later, works in the same office building. The only employee of the company in its dying days, she is a skeptical witness to a slow-moving effort to digitize the still incomplete Swansby’s dictionary.
Her storyline explores the small indignities of her own era’s version of low-paid, precarious office work: from inherited keyboards discolored with past users’ finger grime to reheated lunches eaten while standing in a supply closet.
And the closet is a fitting place for readers to encounter Mallory. Though partnered with Pip, a proudly out gay woman, Mallory hides her sexual identity, passing Pip off as a roommate.
Their relationship grows in importance to Mallory, and to the narrative, as the novel progresses.
Both Winceworth and Mallory are fascinated by language, and The Liar’s Dictionary will delight readers who share this interest. The novel’s preface — which is, fittingly and intriguingly, a preface about dictionary prefaces — is so beautifully written and engaging that the extraordinary novel that follows feels almost like a bonus feature.
Though enamored with language, there is nothing pretentious or pompous about this book. The importance of animals to Williams’ book hints at its energy and humour. An imaginary tiger named Mr. Grumps, generations of standoffish office cats, a speech pathologist’s boisterous caged bird: Williams’ non-human characters don’t need words to express themselves. The novel features what is surely English literature’s most memorable depiction of a pelican: a very big bird experiencing a ludicrous crisis in an absurdly serene St. James Park.
Cassiculation: "sensation of walking into spider silk, diaphanous unseen webs, etc." Featuring this and other wonderful words, both those of Winceworth and those of his creator, The Liar’s Dictionary is a delight. It deserves a readership as numerous and diverse as the entries in the imaginary dictionary it portrays.
Vanessa Warne teaches Victorian literature at the University of Manitoba.
Tyson Fury paid Urban Dictionary to change definition of ‘Dosser’ to describe Deontay Wilder - GIVEMESPORT - Dictionary
The Tyson Fury vs. Deontay Wilder saga has been incredible to watch.
The pair have engaged in a spectacular war both inside and outside the ring and fans simply cannot get enough.
This entire saga began in the summer of 2018 when the pair met for their first bout.
While their spectacular trash-talk saw the creation of a new boxing rivalry, things really heated up when the fight ended in a controversial split decision.
Out of 27 boxing journalists, 15 scored Fury as the winner of the first bout, 3 scored it for Wilder, and 9 scored it as a draw. There were immediate calls for a re-match, but the WBC refused to announce anything.
Wilder and Fury went on to continue their respective unbeaten runs against other opponents but never missed an opportunity to trash talk each other.
Fury took things to a whole new level in November 2019 when he asked Urban Dictionary to change the word ‘Dosser’ to describe his arch-rival Wilder.
Fury did not hold back, suggesting that the word ‘Dosser’ now meant the following:
"An American professional boxer. Who has held the WBC heavyweight title since 2015, and in doing so became the first American world heavyweight champion in nine years, he was gifted a draw against Tyson fury in a match where he was named "Dosser"."
"A useless mismanaged WBC heavyweight champion who talks s*** and hasn’t beaten anybody noteworthy in his entire career.
"You're getting knocked the f*** out you useless dosser."
All of this trolling sent fans into overdrive with the WBC officially confirming the rematch for 22nd February 2020.
The stage was set for an incredible fight.
The build-up to the fight already had people talking, with fans criticising Wilder for his elaborate choice of costume for the walk-out.
Everyone was poised for a close call, but it would be Fury who backed up his fighting talk with a dominant display in the ring.
In the third round, Fury floored Wilder with a strong right hand to the temple. Wilder beat the count but was visibly disoriented, with blood streaming from his left ear.
Wilder was down again in the fifth round after a quick combination from Fury, he managed to regain his footing but now had blood coming from his mouth and seemed barely able to counter.
The fight was stopped midway through the seventh round after Fury barraged Wilder with countless hard-hitting shots.
Wilder then conceded with his corner throwing in the towel to end the fight with a technical knockout and a Fury victory.
Fury received massive praise for his victory, with many claiming that Fury has ascended to become one of the greatest heavyweight boxers in history.
Despite a convincing loss, Wilder was not ready to give in.
The American was highly critical of his coach for throwing in the towel telling media:
"I told all my trainers, no matter how it may look on the outside, no matter how you may love me or have that emotional feeling, don't make an emotional decision and do not ever throw that towel in because my pride is everything.
"I understand what it looks like but when you have power like me I am never out of a fight, no matter what the circumstances. I'm never out of a fight."
In the aftermath of the fight, Wilder has put forward some massive allegations of foul play. This includes stating that his own trainer Mark Breland spiked his water.
The American even accused Fury of using illegal gloves and casting a ‘gypsy spell’ on him.
One thing is for sure, the fight brought in lots of money.
The bout generated between 800,000 and 850,000 pay-per-view buys in the United States via traditional television providers, up from approximately 325,000 buys for the first fight.
Whether the fighting talk and dictionary definitions played any part in this massive increase we will never truly know.
Whatever the future holds for this rivalry, we can be sure that fans want two things… A trilogy match and more trash talk!
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