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New translation of New Testament aims at Native Americans Hammond Daily Star onlineThursday, September 9, 2021
Wednesday, September 8, 2021
Online dictionary Marayum helps preserve Philippine indigenous languages - CNN Philippines - Dictionary
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, September 9) — For the team behind online dictionary Marayum, their mission could not be any clearer: help the country’s indigenous communities keep their treasured languages.
The dictionary-making tool, which is financed by the Department of Science and Technology, currently has 186 languages — 34 of which are in trouble, 11 dying, and two extinct.
“When a language is lost, you lose the spirit of the culture. It’s really heartbreaking,” project leader Mario Carreon told CNN Philippines.
“One of the things that is new about Marayum is that it is the community that is the one who uploads and maintains their dictionary. What the website does, it just simply abstracts the community,” explained Carreon, an assistant professor at the Department of Computer Science of University of the Philippines Diliman.
Native speakers of an indigenous language can serve as contributors, he said, adding the team recommends individuals that have linguistic training serve as reviewers or editors.
“You don’t have to learn IT or be an expert linguist to contribute to your language dictionary. All that is needed is that you speak it,” Carreon said.
The Marayum team is comprised of UP graduates from various disciplines.
Finding one's tongue: Why the compilation of the world's first dictionary of Kaaps matters - Daily Maverick - Dictionary
Kaaps, or Afrikaaps, is a language created in settler colonial South Africa, developed by the 1500s. It took shape as a language during encounters between indigenous African (Khoi and San), Southeast Asian, Dutch, Portuguese and English people.
First published in the Daily Maverick 168 weekly newspaper.
Adam Haupt is director of the Centre for Film and Media Studies at the University of Cape Town.
It’s been in existence since the 1500s but the Kaaps language, synonymous with Cape Town in South Africa, has never had a dictionary … until now.
The Trilingual Dictionary of Kaaps has been launched by a collective of academic and community stakeholders – the Centre for Multilingualism and Diversities Research at the University of the Western Cape along with the hip-hop-driven community NGO Heal the Hood Project.
The dictionary – in Kaaps, English and Afrikaans – holds the promise of being a powerful democratic resource.
What is Kaaps and who uses the language?
Kaaps or Afrikaaps is a language created in settler colonial South Africa, developed by the 1500s. It took shape as a language during encounters between indigenous African (Khoi and San), Southeast Asian, Dutch, Portuguese and English people. It could be argued that Kaaps predates the emergence of an early form of Kaaps-Hollands (the South African variety of Dutch that would help shape Afrikaans). Traders and sailors would have passed through this region well before formal colonisation commenced.
Also consider migration and movement on the African continent itself. Every intercultural engagement would have created an opportunity for linguistic exchange and the negotiation of new meaning.
Today, Kaaps is most commonly used by largely working-class speakers on the Cape Flats, an area in Cape Town where many disenfranchised people were forcibly moved by the apartheid government.
It’s used across all online and offline contexts of socialisation, learning, commerce, politics and religion. And, because of language contact and the temporary and seasonal migration of speakers from the Western Cape, it is written and spoken across South Africa and beyond its borders.
It is important to acknowledge the agency of people from the Global South in developing Kaaps – for example, the language was first taught in madrassahs (Islamic schools) and was written in Arabic script. This acknowledgement is imperative especially because Afrikaner nationalists appropriated Kaaps in later years.
How did the dictionary come about?
The dictionary project, which is still in its launch phase, is the result of ongoing collaborative work between a few key people.
You might say it’s one outcome of our interest in hip-hop art, activism and education. We are drawn to hip-hop’s desire to validate black modes of speech. In a sense, this is what a dictionary will do for Kaaps.
Quentin Williams, a sociolinguist, leads the project. Emile Jansen, Tanswell Jansen and Shaquile Southgate serve on the editorial board on behalf of Heal the Hood Project, which is an NGO that employs hip-hop education in youth development initiatives.
Emile also worked with hip-hop and theatre practitioners on a production called Afrikaaps, which affirmed Kaaps and narrated some of its history.
Anthropologist H. Samy Alim is the founding director of the Center for Race, Ethnicity and Language at Stanford University and has assisted in funding the dictionary, with the Western Cape’s Department of Cultural Affairs and Sport. We’re in the process of training the core editorial board in the scientific area of lexicography, translation and transcription.
This includes the archiving of the initial, structured corpus for the dictionary. We will write down definitions and determine meanings of old and new Kaaps words. This process will be subjected to a rigorous review and editing and stylistic process of the Kaaps words we will enter in the dictionary. The entries will include their history of origin, use and uptake. There will also be a translation from standard Afrikaans and English.
Who will use the dictionary?
It will be a resource for its speakers and valuable to educators, students and researchers.
It will impact the ways in which institutions, as loci of power, engage speakers of Kaaps. It would also be useful to journalists, publishers and editors keen to learn more about how to engage Kaaps speakers.
A Kaaps dictionary will validate it as a language in its own right. And it will validate the identities of the people who speak it. It will also assist in making visible the diverse cultural, linguistic, geographical and historical tributaries that contributed to the evolution of this language.
Was Kaaps relegated to a slang status of Afrikaans?
Acknowledgement of Kaaps is imperative, especially because Afrikaner nationalists appropriated Kaaps in order to create the dominant version of the language in the form of Afrikaans. A suiwer or “pure” version, claiming a strong Dutch influence, Afrikaans was formally recognised as an official language of South Africa in 1925.
This was part of the efforts to construct white Afrikaner identity, which shaped apartheid based on a belief in white supremacy. DM168
First published in The Conversation.
This story first appeared in our weekly Daily Maverick 168 newspaper which is available for R25 at Pick n Pay, Exclusive Books and airport bookstores. For your nearest stockist, please click here.
Father of Japanese 9/11 victim to publish translation of U.S. report - The Japan Times - Translation
Fukuoka – The father of a Japanese victim of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks is set to release a Japanese translation of the U.S. official report on the incident on Saturday, hoping hindsight will help prevent such a tragedy from ever occurring again.
Fighting his own "war on terror," 84-year-old Kazusada Sumiyama spent around 10 years working on the translation of the 567-page final report by the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States after his eldest son Yoichi Sugiyama, 34, perished in the incident.
On that fateful day 20 years ago, Sumiyama watched on television as the drama unfolded.
He watched as the north tower of the World Trade Center caught fire after a commercial airplane crashed into it before another airplane hit the south tower, where his son worked as an employee of the now-defunct Fuji Bank, which was later merged into Mizuho Financial Group Inc.
Just two months earlier, he had visited the building — the tallest in New York City — with his son.
In the spring of the following year, DNA analysis identified remains found at the scene as those of Sugiyama, who had studied private international law at university and realized his dream of working abroad.
"My son is floating around New York City like air. I want to visit him," said Sumiyama, who has attended the memorial service near ground zero almost every year and says he has felt his son's presence.
On his way home from the ceremony in 2004, Sumiyama came across a copy of the commission report after it had just been released. Despite its length and the fact it was all in English, Sumiyama purchased it thinking that he could at least skim through it.
But it proved too difficult for him, and he gave up reading it after a while.
After the terrorist attacks, the United States invaded Afghanistan, which harbored the al-Qaida organization responsible for the incident, and entered into the war in Iraq. Later, conspiracy theories that the 9/11 attacks were staged by the U.S. government began to surface.
The final factor in Sumiyama's decision to read the report in full came in 2008, when the Diet debated its authenticity. With a dictionary in hand, he began to read three pages a day, writing down a Japanese translation with the help of his wife Mari, 81, who is more proficient in English.
While an abridged version of the report had already been published in Japanese, it omitted certain parts, such as the section on Islamic thinking. Sumiyama felt that a full translation including the background on the attacks was needed.
He was especially struck by the section in the report on the evacuation of the two towers and some of the misleading instructions that were given at the time.
"If (my son) had not been given the wrong instructions, he might have survived," Sumiyama lamented.
After learning of his endeavor, Tokyo-based Korocolor Publishers contacted Sumiyama, saying it wanted to print his Japanese translation, and raised funds to cover the costs through crowdfunding.
The campaign, which was launched on Japanese crowdfunding platform Readyfor Inc. in May, successfully raised ¥1.5 million ($14,000) in just two weeks, eventually amassing ¥4.93 million — more than triple its initial goal. A commentary by Sumiyama is also slated to be released later this year.
"The book can also serve as a reference for crisis management, including what happens when commands and orders are in chaos during an emergency," said Sumiyama. "Twenty years have passed and I hope that the younger generation who have little memory of the incident will read this book."
Nearly 3,000 people, including 24 Japanese nationals, were killed in the three acts of terror that day at the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and Shanksville, Pennsylvania.
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Tuesday, September 7, 2021
Father of Japanese 9/11 victim to publish translation of US report - Kyodo News Plus - Translation
The father of a Japanese victim in the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks is set to release Saturday a Japanese translation of the U.S. official report on the incident, hoping hindsight will help prevent such a tragedy from ever occurring again.
Fighting his own "war on terror," 84-year-old Kazusada Sumiyama spent around 10 years working on a Japanese translation of the 567-page final report by the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States after his eldest son Yoichi Sugiyama, 34, perished in the incident.
Kazusada Sumiyama holds a copy of the 9/11 Commission Report in this photo taken in Tokyo's Meguro Ward on June 28, 2021. (Kyodo)
On that fateful day 20 years ago, Sumiyama watched on television as the drama unfolded.
He watched as the north tower of the World Trade Center caught fire after a commercial airplane crashed into it before another airplane hit the south tower where his son worked as an employee of the now-defunct Fuji Bank, which was later merged into Mizuho Financial Group Inc.
Just two months earlier he had visited the building -- the tallest in New York City -- with his son.
In the spring of the following year, DNA analysis identified remains found at the scene as those of Sugiyama, who had studied private international law at university and realized his dream of working abroad.
"My son is floating around New York City like air. I want to visit him," said Sumiyama, who has attended the memorial service near ground zero almost every year and felt his son's presence.
On his way home from the ceremony in 2004, Sumiyama came across a copy of the commission report after it had just been released. Despite its length and the fact it was all in English, Sumiyama purchased it thinking that he could at least skim through it.
But it proved too difficult for him, and he gave up reading it after a while.
After the terrorist attacks, the United States launched air strikes against Afghanistan, which harbored the al-Qaida organization responsible for the incident, and entered into the war in Iraq. Later, conspiracy theories that the attacks were staged by the United States began to surface.
The final push for Sumiyama to decide to read the report in full came in 2008, when the Japanese parliament debated its authenticity. With a dictionary in hand, he began to read three pages a day, writing down a Japanese translation with the help of his wife Mari, 81, who is more proficient in English.
While an abridged version of the book had already been published in Japanese, it omitted certain parts, such as the section on Islamic thinking. Sumiyama felt that a full translation including the background of the attacks was needed.
Yoichi Sugiyama (far L), a Japanese banker who was killed in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, visits the World Trade Center with his family in July 2001. His father, Kazusada Sumiyama, is seen on the far right. (Photo courtesy of Kazusada Sumiyama)(Kyodo)
He was especially struck by the section in the report on the evacuation of the two towers, and some of the misleading instructions that were given at the time.
"If (my son) had not been given the wrong instructions, he might have survived," Sumiyama lamented.
After learning of his endeavor, Tokyo-based Korocolor Publishers contacted Sumiyama saying it wanted to print his Japanese translation, and raised funds to cover the costs through crowdfunding.
The campaign, which was launched on Japanese crowdfunding platform Readyfor Inc. in May, successfully raised 1.5 million yen ($14,000) in just two weeks, eventually amassing 4.93 million yen, more than triple its initial goal. A commentary by Sumiyama is also slated to be released later this year.
"The book can also serve as a reference for crisis management, including what happens when commands and orders are in chaos during emergencies," said Sumiyama. "Twenty years have passed, and I hope that the younger generation who have little memory of the incident will read this book."
Nearly 3,000 people, including 24 Japanese nationals, were killed in the three acts of terror that day at the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and Shanksville, Pennsylvania.
UofSC Aiken Offers New Degree in Spanish-English Translation and Interpretation - WFXG - Translation
AIKEN (WFXG) - The University of South Carolina in Aiken is now offering a new bachelor's degree in Spanish with a concentration in translation and interpretation. The program was established by Dr. Timothy Ashton, chair of the Department of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures.
Literary translation from South Asia lags in international markets - Global Voices - Translation
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Literary translation from South Asia lags in international markets Global Voices
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