Metaglossia: The Translation World

Utah school administrators, teachers and professors all have strict rules and instructions to steer students away from the pitfalls of and punishments for plagiarism.
Still, educators say it’s an epidemic.

Eric Lomax, who has died aged 93, long nursed thoughts of revenge on his wartime Japanese captors then, in his dotage, finally had the chance to act when he came face to face with his principal tormentor; his choice of reconciliation over...

A fellow former-prisoner then gave him a cutting from the Japan Times about a ex-Japanese soldier who had been helping the Allies to find the graves of their dead and claimed that he had earned their forgiveness. The accompanying photograph showed Takashi Nagase, the interpreter during Lomax’s interrogation, and the man with whom he most associated his ordeal.
For two years Lomax did nothing. Then he obtained a translation of Nagase’s memoir, which explained how shame had led the interpreter to create a Buddhist shrine beside the death railway. Patti Lomax then wrote to Nagase, enclosing her husband’s photograph and suggesting that perhaps the two men could correspond. She asked: “How can you feel 'forgiven’, Mr Nagase, if this particular Far Eastern prisoner-of-war has not yet forgiven you?”
The reply she received declared: “The dagger of your letter thrusted me into my heart to the bottom.” Nagase admitted that he still had flashbacks about torturing Lomax and thanked her for looking after her husband until they could meet. When Patti Lomax wrote back she enclosed a formal letter from her husband. Eventually the two elderly enemies arranged a meeting.

Police: Translator gave drivers the answers during their license tests

by Matt Coughlin
An interpreter who gave immigrants driving lessons is charged with also giving them answers to their PennDOT driving test.
Mostafa Wadud Jamal, 45, of Monroe Drive in Towamencin, is charged with 12 counts of tampering with public records, six counts of obstruction of justice, six counts of false swearing and six counts of making an unsworn falsification to authorities by forging or altering documents.
Jamal was an official interpreter for PennDOT through the Lutheran Children and Family Services agency and spoke Hindu, Bengali and Urdu, according to court records. He also owns and operates his own driving school, Deshi Driving School in Harleysville, state police said. As part of his services, Jamal sat with test-takers and translated the English language tests into Hindu, Bengali and Urdu.
State police got a tip that Jamal was providing people with answers during the driving tests and began investigating in June.
Jamal arranged to meet an undercover state trooper posing as a client in the Huntingdon Valley area June 20, police said. The trooper was fluent in a foreign language and pretended not to know English. The agreement with Jamal was that the undercover trooper would bring $644.50 with him to cover cash for Jamal and fees to get the license. Jamal drove them to the New World Association of Emigrants from Eastern Europe on Bustleton Avenue in Philadelphia. There, they met with an employee of LCFS who collected $130 and provided Jamal with a letter stating he was a valid interpreter and was assigned to translate for the client.
State police said Jamal then drove himself and the undercover trooper to the Huntingdon Valley Driver’s Licensing Center. Jamal read the questions in English without translating and then told the undercover trooper which answers to pick, according to court records. Following the exam, Jamal took $480 in payment for his services, police said. In addition to the undercover investigation, state police, working with the FBI, found five more people who said they were given correct answers to the driving test by Jamal in exchange for $500, according to court records.

Une seconde tentative est lancée pour supprimer du dictionnaire officiel de la langue espagnole le mot "Judiada", qui signifie littéralement "la communauté juive ".

Teherán, 2 sep (EFE).- La Radiotelevisión oficial iraní, IRIB, achacó hoy a un "error de traducción" el cambio de Siria por Baréin en el discurso del presidente egipcio, Mohamed Mursi, quien criticó con dureza al régimen de Damasco en la apertura el jueves pasado de la 16ª Cumbre del Movimiento de Países No Alineados (MPNA) en Teherán.

El director de la IRIB, Ezatolah Zarghami, indicó que "el error sólo se produjo en una ocasión, cuando uno de los encargados tradujo el nombre de Siria por el Bahrein en uno de los canales televisivos de la IRIB", señaló hoy la pagina web de la televisión oficial en inglés, PressTV.

Zarghami explicó que el error ocurrió en el momento de cambio de un traductor simultáneo por otro en la transmisión en directo del discurso de Musi, que habló en árabe ante la Cumbre al traspasar la Presidencia del MPNA de Egipto a Irán, el 30 de agosto.

En su discurso, Mursi calificó de "opresivo" al régimen sirio del presidente, Bachar al Asad, del que dijo que ha "perdido la legitimidad", y animó a la oposición a unirse para derrocarlo.

Durante la intervención de Mursi en la Cumbre de Teherán, la delegación de Siria, que encabezaba el primer ministro Wael Nader al Halqi, abandonó la sala de sesiones, a la que regresó terminado su discurso, según imágenes difundidas de televisión.

El Ministerio de Exteriores de Baréin exigió ayer, por medio del encargado de negocios de Teherán en Manama, que Irán se disculpe por la "tergiversación" de las palabras de Mursi en la IRIB y que tome "las medidas necesarias para corregirlo y asegurar que no se vuelve a repetir".

Bloomberg

By Yeganeh Salehi

Iran acknowledged there was a translation error in Egyptian President Mohamed Mursi’s speech at the opening of the 16th summit of the Non-Aligned Movement in Tehran last week, the state-run Mehr news agency said.

“The shortcoming was only in one case of translating the word ‘Syria’ into ‘Bahrain’ by one of the television channels,” Mehr reported, citing Ezzatollah Zarghami, the head of Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting. “A technical mistake occurred during Channel One’s live broadcast and a translator made the mistake by saying ‘Bahrain’ instead of ‘Syria.’”

Several Iranian state-owned channels including the Islamic Republic of Iran News Network and Channel One translated Mursi’s live speech into Farsi.

Fuengirola alerta de fraudes en la traducción de documentos
La oficina de atención al Extranjero Residente detecta casos de documentos realizados por supuestos intérpretes
08.09.12 - 01:33 - M. C. JAIME | FUENGIROLA.
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En Tuenti

La oficina de atención al Extranjero Residente del Ayuntamiento de Fuengirola quiso denunciar públicamente ayer que se han detectado varios casos de fraude en la traducción de documentos por parte de intérpretes no oficiales, «unos presuntos profesionales que aprovechan que los extranjeros desconocen la normativa para hacer un uso fraudulento de estos trámites», denunció la responsable municipal del área, Katja Westerdahl.
El fraude, según alertaron desde la administración local, tienen que ver con la existencia, en toda la Costa del Sol, de supuestos intérpretes que contratan los vecinos a la hora de traducir un documento oficial para formalizar cualquier tipo de gestión y que no poseen la titulación, por tanto la documentación carece de validez. Este servicio es necesario, por ejemplo, cuando se solicita registro como ciudadano de la Unión Europea en la Policía Nacional, ya que se envía desde el país de origen en un idioma pero «debe entregarse traducido por un intérprete oficial», apuntó la representante municipal.
Desde el departamento municipal se quiere hacer un llamamiento a posibles afectados, resaltando que pueden comunicarlo en el propio área de Extranjeros, ubicado en la cuarta planta del Ayuntamiento, de lunes a viernes en horario de 9.00 a 14.00 horas.

Bahreïn dénonce la traduction par l'Iran du discours de Morsi au sommet des non-alignés

Le roi de Bahreïn Hamad bin Issa al-Khalifa.
AFP/Khaled Desouki
Par RFI
Rien ne va plus entre l'Iran et le Bahreïn. Le royaume du Golfe dénonce la façon dont les traducteurs officiels iraniens ont déformé les propos du président égyptien Mohamed Morsi sur la Syrie lors du sommet des pays non-alignés, faisant croire qu'il critiquait le gouvernement du Bahreïn.

L'incident est tout sauf banal et met à mal les rapports entre l'Iran et le Bahreïn, déjà tendus. L'affaire remonte au 30 août, lorsque Téhéran reçoit en grande pompe les délégations de 120 pays pour le sommet des non-alignés. Contre toute attente, le président égyptien, Mohamed Morsi, qualifie d' « oppressif » le régime syrien.

Principles for mediation between cultures

Anthony Pym
Universitat Rovira i Virgili
[Benjamins Translation Library, 104] Expected December 2012. xii, 182 pp. + index
Publishing status: In production
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ISBN 978 90 272 2454 5 | EUR 80.00 | USD 120.00

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This is about people, not texts – a translator ethics seeks to embrace the intercultural identity of the translatory subject, in its full array of possible actions.
Based on seminars originally given at the Collège International de Philosophie in Paris, this translation from French has been fully revised by the author and extended to include highly critical commentaries on activist translation theory, non-professional translation, interventionist practices, and the impact of new translation technologies. The result takes the traditional discussion of ethics into the way mediators can actively create cooperation between cultures, while at the same time addressing very practical questions such as when one should translate or not translate, how much translators should charge, or whose side they should be on.

On Translator Ethics offers a point of reference for the key debates in contemporary Translation Studies.

DUBAI — Bahrain has criticized Iranian officials over a mistranslation of a speech by Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi, which replaced the word “Syria” with “Bahrain.”

The reference was diplomatically sensitive.

Morsi gave the speech Thursday during a meeting in Tehran of the Non-Aligned Movement, a group of 120 mostly developing nations.

He did not mention Bahrain, and the Bahraini government lodged a complaint with Iran’s charge d’affaires Saturday over the mistranslation on Iranian state television and radio.

“This is a violation, fabrication and unacceptable media behavior that shows how Iranian media is interfering in Bahrain’s internal affairs,” Bahrain’s news agency BNA said late Saturday, adding that Bahrain had demanded an apology.

The head of Iran’s state media said Sunday the word “Syria” was mistranslated on only one of its channels.

“In a verbal mistake, this translator said ‘Bahrain’ instead of ‘Syria’ and this became a pretext for Western media,” Ezatollah Zarghami was quoted as saying by Mehr news agency.

Morsi perturbed his hosts in his speech by describing the government of Syria as “a regime that has lost its legitimacy” and calling for its ouster. His words prompted Syrian delegates to leave the hall.
Egyptian newspapers said Morsi was also misquoted as hoping for the “continuation of the Syrian regime”.

Jeddah-Sept2(BNA) Foreign Minister Shaikh Khalid bin Ahmed bin Mohammed Al-Khalifa today lauded the GCC ministerial Council for condeming the flagrant tampering committed by the Iranian First TV Channel deliberately replacing Syria by Bahrain in the Persian translation of Egyptian President Mohammed Mursi’ speech in the 16th Non-Aligned Summit, which opened on August 30 in Tehran.

Foreign Minister Shaikh Khalid bin Ahmed bin Mohammed Al-Khalifa gave an account on the flagrant distortion as he attended the 124th session of the GCC ministerial council in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
Saudi Deputy Foreign minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Abdulla Al-Saud chaired the meeting which was attended by GCC foreign ministers and Secretary General Dr. Abdullatif bin Rashid Al-Zayani.
In a statement issued tonight, the council slammed the irresponsible distorted translation as flouting probity and established norms.
The delegations discussed the General Secretariat’s reports featuring member states’ feedback on moving from the stage of GCC cooperation to the phase of federation.
The session also discussed key regional and international political issues, reiterating firm rejection of the Iranian occupation of the Emirati islands Greater and Lesser tunbs and Abu Musa, affirming the UAE inalienable sovereignty over the three occupied islands as well as its territorial waters.
The council urged Tehran authorities to settle the dispute through negotiations or referral of the case to the International Court of Justice.

As autoridades de Bahrein expressaram um protesto oficial ao Irã e exigiram desculpas pela tradução errada do discurso do presidente egípcio Mohammed Mursi transmitido ao vivo, informa a Associated Press.
Em 30 de agosto, Mursi proferiu um discurso na cimeira do Movimento dos Não-Alinhados, no qual criticou o regime de Bashar al-Assad e apoiou os rebeldes sírios. Os tradutores do árabe para a imprensa trocaram, no discurso de Mursi, o nome “Síria” por “Bahrein”, e foi nesta forma que certas edições iranianas divulgaram as palavras do presidente do Egito.

Head of the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB), Ezzatollah Zarghami has accepted a mistake in the translation of the Egyptian president’s address to the 16th Summit of the Non Aligned Movement (NAM) in Tehran.

“The shortcoming was only in the one case of translating the name for Syria into Bahrain in one of the [IRIB] television channels,” Zarghami said on Sunday.

He added that, while Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi was addressing the summit, a technical mistake occurred during the IRIB Channel 1’s live broadcast of the speech and therefore another translator was replaced, who made the mistake, Mehr news agency reported.

However, Western media were soon to seize upon the error, the IRIB chief complained.

He noted, “The Islamic Republic of Iran News Network (IRINN) bore the main responsibility for the broadcast of the summit’s proceedings,” adding that the channel’s coverage of the summit was broadcast “both at home and abroad free of any [such] mistranslations.”

Zarghami stressed that “Iran’s media coverage [of the event] was so broad and perfect” that the Western media’s attempts to abuse the shortcoming was to no avail.

Lors de sa visite très attendue en Iran - la première d'un président égyptien en plus de 30 ans - , Mohamed Morsi était sans doute loin d'imaginer que son discours subirait les coups de ciseaux…...

Bahrain wants Iran apology over speech translation

AFP
September 02, 2012

Pic: Reuters

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Bahrain: Bahrain has demanded an apology from Iran after an official interpreter reportedly replaced the word "Syria" with "Bahrain" in a speech by Egypt's president at the opening of the Non-Aligned Movement in Tehran.

The foreign ministry in Manama on Saturday filed an "official protest memorandum" with Tehran's charge d'affaires over the "misrepresentation made by Iranian State Television" during President Mohamed Morsi's speech on Thursday.

Bahrain "requested the Iranian government apologise for this act, and take the necessary action to correct the breach and ensure that actions like this one don't happen again," the ministry's demarche said, according to a statement.

Morsi, in the first visit to the Islamic republic by an Egyptian head of state since the 1979 Islamic revolution, in his speech criticised the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, a key regional ally of Tehran.

A physician from the Netherlands is producing the world's first Dutch translation of the Talmud in a place that once was home to a unique Jewish community.

President Mohammed Morsy’s speech at the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) Summit in Tehran was mistranslated to sound less critical of Syria. Al Jazeera showed video of Morsy speaking and ran a translation of the Farsi audio that accompanied it. Morsy clearly stated that those who are struggling for freedom are the “Palestinians and Syrians.” However, the translation clearly said “Palestinians and Bahrainis.”

The tampered translations continue in a later part of Morsy’s speech when he said, “The Egyptian Revolution represents the cornerstone of the Arab Spring.” The Iranian translator replaces this with the words “Islamic Awakening,” a term that would bring Iran into the revolutionary fold and also add an exclusively religious label to a movement embraced by seculars and Islamists alike.

The switch from Syrians to Bahrainis is likely born out of Iran’s steadfast defense of the Bashar Al-Assad regime’s violent repression of the largely Sunni rebels, while Iran voices support for protestors in Bahrain who are largely Shi’a. Still, the willingness to tamper with Morsy’s words will not help the growing camaraderie between Egypt and Iran.

Lately, Iran has seemed almost desperate to ally with Egypt, with its foreign ministry giving a sycophantic interview to the Egyptian press. However, the translation debacle shows that Iran is having difficulty engaging honestly with their fellow Muslim power. It is reminiscent of a fake interview published by the Fars state news agency soon after Morsy’s election that claimed the newly elected leader was seeking closer ties with Iran and that he was interested in revising the Camp David accord. Not only did Morsy have to ensure the international community that the interview was false, but he had to deal with the backlash that was elicited entirely outside of his control.

DIPLOMATIE - Au sommet des non-alignés à Téhéran, les interprètes iraniens ont eu tôt fait d'évacuer les critiques du président égyptien Mohammed Morsi contre le régime de son homologue syrien Bachar Al-Assad en remplaçant la "Syrie" par le...

MANAMA, BAHRAIN — Bahrain says it has filed a formal protest with Iran over a broadcast translation that wrongly substituted Bahrain for Syria in a speech by Egypt's president.

A statement by Bahrain's government says Egypt's President Mohammed Morsi referred to the Syrian rebels fighting an "oppressive" regime during a speech at a Tehran conference Thursday.

Instead, Bahrain claims Iranian state TV replaced the word "Syria" with "Bahrain" in its Farsi translation.

Morsi's speech was an embarrassment for Iran, which is a close ally of the Syrian regime. But Shiite power Iran has frequently criticized Bahrain's authorities for crackdowns against mostly Shiite protesters seeking greater political rights.

Bahrain says the formal complaint was filed Saturday with an Iranian diplomat.

Charges Iranian media tampered with translation of Mursi speech to include its name
By Habib Toumi, Bureau ChiefPublished: 20:42 September 1, 2012
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Manama: Bahrain on Saturday demanded an apology from Iran after it charged that the Iranian media tampered with the translation of the speech delivered by the Egyptian president in Tehran to include its name.
“Hamad Al Amer, the foreign affairs undersecretary for regional and Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) affairs, has summoned the Iranian charge d’affaires and handed him a formal protest note following the tampering by the Iranian media and replacing Syria with Bahrain in the speech delivered by president Mohammad Mursi at the opening of the Non-Aligned Movement Summit in Tehran,” the foreign ministry said in a statement. “Such an abuse and distortion of the facts is rejected and is regarded as interference in Bahrain’s domestic affairs and a violation of the norms.”
The foreign ministry demanded an apology from the Iranian government and the taking of the necessary measures to ensure that such negative attitudes harmed relations fraternal relations between Bahrain and Tehran, the foreign ministry said.
The interpreter replaced Syria with Bahrain when President Mursi talked about the so-called Arab Spring and enumerated the countries where people launched revolutions to change their regimes.

LONDON — Decades of campaigning by victims of thalidomide, a morning sickness drug, have taken a new turn, with the first apology in 50 years to the victims and their families by the drug’s German manufacturer — and an incensed rejection of the apology as too little and too late from many of those it was intended to placate.

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The apology was issued Friday by Harald Stock, chief executive of the Grünenthal Group, a family-owned pharmaceutical company that marketed the drug in the 1950s and early 1960s. It was withdrawn in 1961 after it was linked to birth defects, including shortened arms and legs, and in some cases no limbs at all, that campaigners say affected 10,000 babies around the world, mostly in Australia, Canada, Europe and Japan.

The apology came in a speech Mr. Stock delivered in the Rhineland town of Stolberg, the company’s base, at the unveiling of a thalidomide memorial, a bronze statue of a limbless child.

Addressing the victims and their families, he said the company wished to “apologize for the fact that we have not found the way to you from person to person for almost 50 years.

“Instead, we have been silent, and we are very sorry for that.”

REDWOOD CITY, Calif. - A domestic violence case involving an official at Japan's consulate in San Francisco is back on track after problems with an interpreter caused a delay in the case, officials said Monday.

¿Traducción?, ¿por qué lo dices? El traductor invisible (1)

Por Enrique Bernárdez

Pierre Bourdieu: Homo Academicus. © Les Editions du Minuit (…) English translation © 1988 by Polity Press, Cambridge (…) First Published in the USA by Stanford University Press, 1988. (…). ¿Y el traductor? Tenemos que llegar a la página X, donde aparece una breve nota de este, Peter Collier.

Lo mismo sucede en otro libro del mismo autor: Outline of a Theory of Practice. La ficha incluida en el libro, bastante completa, omite el nombre del traductor. Tenemos que ir a una edición más antigua, o a la página web de la editorial, para saber que la versión es de Richard Nice.

Y otra vez con otro libro del mismo autor, Practical Reason. Se nos dice que está traducido, se hace referencia a la editorial francesa de 1994 y a la inglesa (1998) de la que Stanford toma el texto en inglés. Pero ¿y el traductor? Si vamos a la página web de Stanford UP, ahí está. Pero ¿y en el libro?

Cambiemos de temática y de lengua de origen. Título: Aspects of Cognitive Ethnolinguistics. Autor: Jerzy Bartmiński. Editor: Jörg Zinken. Editorial: Equinox (Londres). Traductor: ¿? No encontramos referencia alguna, pero tampoco al hecho de que el libro sea una traducción. ¿Lo es? ¿No será que está escrito originalmente en inglés, algo frecuente en lingüística? En la página VII encontramos los agradecimientos del autor, donde se indican los títulos de los artículos originales… en polaco. Bueno, los habrá traducido el autor. ¡No! en sus agradecimientos incluye al «traductor, Adam Glaz». Vaya, resulta que es una traducción y que el traductor no es el autor. Como casi nadie lee los agradecimientos, la mayoría de los lectores no caerá en que ha habido alguien que se encargó de poner en inglés lo que están leyendo.

Google is firing back at German lawmakers, who are bowing to the demands of major publishers with draft legislation that would make search engines pay a license to display news headlines. Do they even realize what they’re asking for?It’s a proposed piece of legislation that seems absurd on its face and only becomes more self-defeating and strange as you look further into it. German publishers have been lobbying government for at least a few years to bring into law a licensing system for search engines that link to news content.

In essence, what they’re demanding is that Google and other search engines actually pay for the right to use news headlines and a summary in results listings. The engines can still link to their content, say the German publishers. They just can’t reproduce their headlines or summaries without paying.

Never mind that Google drives traffic to their websites. Never mind that it would be a pretty poor user experience if they had no idea what the search listing was because the title and summary were unavailable.

No, this is what German publishers want and the proposed law is now in its second draft.

“Nobody sees a real reason why this should be implemented,” Google’s North Europe Communications Chief Kay Oberbeck (pictured at right) told GigaOm. “It’s really harmful, not just for users who wouldn’t find as much information as they find now, but such a law is also not justified for economic reasons or judicial reasons.”

Oberbeck also pointed out that publishers can simply block Googlebot with their robots.txt file if they don’t wish to appear in search results. It seems, though, that they want to be there... they just want Google to pay for the privilege of driving traffic to them.

“Publishers should be innovate in order to be successful,” Oberbeck said. “A compulsory levy for commercial internet users means cross-subsidizing publishers through other industries. This is not a sustainable solution.” No kidding.

The Supreme Court has dismissed a court interpreter based in Cebu City for dishonesty and falsification of an official document when she failed to declare in her personal data sheet (PDS) that she had three children.

In a 10-page decision dated August 10, the high court ordered the dismissal of Marilyn Avila, court interpreter in a Cebu city municipal trial court, as well as the cancellation of her government eligibility and the forfeiture of her benefits, except for accrued leave credits. She was also barred from ever working for the government again.

High employee standards

“Employment in the judiciary demands the highest level of responsibility, integrity, loyalty and efficiency from its personnel… By her acts of dishonesty and falsification of an official document, (Avila) has failed to measure up to the high and exacting standards set for judicial employees, and must, therefore, be dismissed from the service,” said the high court.

Avila’s dismissal stemmed from a complaint filed by her former live-in partner, Manolito Villordon, before the Office of the Court Administrator in October 2008, where he claimed she had falsified information in her PDS, including her nondeclaration of her three children out of wedlock from another relationship.

An investigation by Cebu City MTC Executive Judge Oscar Andrino showed that aside from Avila’s omission of the names of her three daughters in her PDS, she also failed to declare that a complaint of physical injuries had been filed against her by Villordon’s present partner, Marilyn Caballero, after an altercation in January 2009. Avila had also filed a case against Villordon after that incident.

Not under custody

In her defense, Avila said Villordon’s charges came after she ended their relationship when she became a court interpreter. She also claimed she did not declare her children in her PDS because they were not under her custody but were living with her parents. She added that she withheld that information upon the advice of a friend who had pointed out that the birth certificates of her children were not available.

Avila said she did not cause any injury to the government by her action.