Metaglossia: The Translation World

El otro día recibí una llamada telefónica de un posible cliente, quien tenía unos documentos que necesitaba traducir del maya al inglés. Cuando me preguntó si podíamos realizar esta tarea, mi respuesta inmediata fue “Claro que sí, podemos traducir a cualquier idioma”. No tenía ni idea que esta simple respuesta me llevaría a pasar una larga semana investigando sobre las antiguas lenguas mayas.

La lengua maya original se hablaba hace más de 5,000 años en las tribus ubicadas en las tierras altas de los Cuchumatanes en Guatemala. Utilizaban jeroglíficos para escribir su lengua, no había diferencia entre géneros (él y ella), y los verbos los empleaban de una forma completamente distinta a lo que conocemos en el idioma moderno.

Actualmente existen más de 29 dialectos mayas.

Por primera vez la Constitución Política Siglo XXI fue traducida y entregada a los pueblos indígenas en tzeltal, tzotzil, tojolabal, chol y zoque, con lo que en Chiapas se celebró el Día Internacional de la Lengua Materna.

The Cherokee Phoenix is running a six-part series on the Cherokee Nation Translation Specialists.

English would be named the state's official language if Sen. Don Benton, R-Vancouver, has his way.

But Benton's bill doesn't seem to do anything more than designate English as the official language. The bill claims it would save the state some money on translation services but doesn't explain how.

Kennewick City Councilman Bob Parks said the bill does send a message he can support but feels watered down since there are a lot of exemptions.

Although Senate Bill 6053 states that English should be used for all official business of the state, it still allows other languages to be used to protect health, safety and liberty, and would not change the need to print ballots in Spanish or provide translators to criminal defendants in court who are not fluent in English.

Parks said he is been frustrated with bilingual requirements for jobs and agencies such as school districts being forced to use a language other than English.

It’s five minutes past noon on Thursday and lunch items are already under a heating lamp at Primo’s Market.

The Laurel Street business, which was present for a meeting of merchants earlier this month, recently received the assistance of a city resident with translating their Spanish menu to include English text.

“It’s a family business,” said Andrys Garcia, who has helped out at the nine-year-old business since she was old enough to do so.BRIDGETON — It’s five minutes past noon on Thursday and lunch items are already under a heating lamp at Primo’s Market....

David Shook—who has reviewed for Three Percent. in the past—is starting a new project to produce a short documentary film and a five-chapbook set of indigenous Mexican poetry. Rather than explain this in my own words, I asked him to write a short introductory post laying out the basis for this venture. As you can see below, you can help make this possible by donating through Kickstarter and at the very bottom I’ve included the trailer for _Kilometer Zero, a covertly filmed documentary about poets in Equatorial Guinea._

I’ve been writing about endangered languages since 2007, when I co-wrote the headnote to World Literature Today’s Endangered Literatures issue, which sought to extend the defense of endangered languages by emphasizing the quality and diversity of their respective literatures. In short: the death of a language means the death of a literature, whether its skeleton is preserved (and rearranged) in the literary ossuaries of the academy or forgotten wholesale.

I began translating Isthmus Zapotec poet Víctor Terán in early 2008, from an anthology of contemporary indigenous poets I picked up on one of my many trips through Oaxaca, where I had spent time in several Zapotec communities. That translation project resulted in a remarkable friendship, first stoked over mezcal-boiled plums in Oaxaca City and further strengthened by a three-week tour of the UK in 2010. Over the course of our relationship I found myself increasingly inspired—not just by Víctor’s poems, which often combine an erotic pastoralism with a sonic delight I aspired and struggled to replicate in my English-language translations, but by his activism, his vision to strengthen the Zapotec language and culture by the act of writing poetry.

La primera Biblia completa en patois se presentará en el 50 aniversario de la independencia de Jamaica.

Melvin Rivera Velázquez, Secretario de Área de las Américas de Sociedades Bíblicas Unidas (SBU) ha manifestado su satisfacción con la traducción de la Biblia al patois o creole jamaicano.

“Este proyecto de traducción de la Biblia que estamos haciendo en Jamaica es uno de los que más me emociona. Estamos traduciendo la Biblia al patois, un lenguaje creado por los esclavos africanos, con el fin de que no los entendieran los ingleses. La traducción de la Biblia completa se presentará el 6 de agosto, en el 50 aniversario de la Independencia de Jamaica de Inglaterra ”, publicó recientemente en su Facebook.

Esta es la primera vez que se traduce la Biblia en el patois jamaiquino. La traducción se hizo desde el griego y constituye un audaz intento para estandarizar el idioma al transcribir esta lengua, que históricamente es de carácter oral, en una nueva forma fonética.

Traducirán derechos de la infancia a lenguas indígenas - El Universal - Cultura...

Lucila Orive Gutiérrez, presidenta ejecutiva del Consejo Estatal para la Protección y Vigilancia de los Derechos de las Niñas, Niños y Adolecentes, afirmó que la traducción de los derechos de los niños a lenguas indígenas originarias de la e...

Proponen establecer la figura de los traductores indígenas y crear el Centro de Intérpretes y Traductores de Lenguas Indígenas: Diputado Héctor Lorenzo Inocente

SAN RAYMUNDO Jalpan, Oaxaca, enero 13.- El presidente de la Comisión Permanente de Asuntos Indígenas del Congreso del Estado, Héctor Lorenzo Inocente, del Partido Acción Nacional (PAN), recibió dos iniciativas de Ley por parte del Centro Profesional Indígena de Asesoría, Defensa y Traducción (Cepiadet) que dirige Tomás López Sarabia.

A new company offers translation service for Bosnian, Croatian, Serbian or Slovenian. Translation Office Hatipovic offers: Translation services from English, German into Bosnian, Croatian, Serbian or Slovenian (and vice versa).

Ullapool Book Festival this week released the names of the writers who will be guests at the eighth festival that will be held from Friday 11 May to Sunday 13 May in Ullapool Village Hall.

Translation of the country's legal acts into non-official languages is low on the list of priorities for the Justice Ministry because interest from the public is low.
The Ministry said the official government guidelines are that the entire corpus of laws should be translated into English as a resource for potential investors and other business people.

China on Friday announced five software applications designed to further promote and standardize the use of minority languages.

De l’impératif de traduire les Constitution et Code Pénal du Cameroun en langues nationales.Cet article s’inspire du courage de notre compatriote Monsieur Oumarou Sanda qui a osé traduire le nouveau code de procédure pénale en langue nationale Fufuldé. Dans la Constitution camerounaise, le domaine de la justice subit un traitement assez particulier. Les régions du Nord-ouest et du Sud-ouest qui sont anglophones se réfèrent au droit privé de tradition britannique. Dans le reste du pays, c'est le droit civil français et la langue française qui sont usités devant la barre. Lorsqu'un Camerounais ne maîtrise pas l'une des deux langues officielles, alors le juge permet l'utilisation de la langue maternelle et exige un traducteur. (Source : Constitution, 1996).

The Bible is, for the first time, being translated into Jamaican patois. It's a move welcomed by those Jamaicans who want their mother tongue enshrined as the national language - but opposed by others, who think learning and speaking English should be the priority. In the Spanish Town Tabernacle near the capital, Kingston, the congregation is hearing the word of God in the language of the street. At the front of the concrete-block church, a young man and woman read alternate lines from the Bible. This is the Gospel of St Luke in Jamaican patois - or more precisely, "Jiizas - di buk we Luuk rait bout im".

The sound of the creole, developed from English by West African slaves in Jamaica's sugar plantations 400 years ago, has an electrifying effect on those liste

Des employés communaux procèdent actuellement au renouvellement des plaques de rues (différentes par leur couleur et leur présentation). La grande nouveauté : sur tous les panneaux figure une traduction en breton, effectuée par le service patrimoine linguistique de l'Office public de la langue bretonne de Carhaix. Le renouvellement des plaques a aussi amené à la consultation des archives de la mairie et à rencontrer deux Gourinois férus d'histoire locale, Marcel Carmard et Claude L'Hyver.

Egypt has three original copies of the historic book "Description de l'Egypte" (Description of Egypt) other than the one that was consumed by fire at the Scientific Academy in Downtown Cairo, Culture Minister Shaker Abdel-Hamid said.

An original copy is stored at the National Library and Archives, another at the Egyptian Geographic Society and an incomplete copy at Assiut University, Abdel-Hamid said.

The original translation of the book is also present, he noted.

The Great Translation Chain takes the need for retaining language seriously. What better subject to have on our 40th Chain other than language itself!
Source language: English > Dream: to be tr...

The Department of Education's spending on Irish language translation services rises significantly since 2006.

In answer to a question from the DUP's Mervyn Storey, Education Minister John O'Dowd revealed that more than £110,000 was spent in 2010/11, compared to £68,000 the year before.

The exams body CCEA has also spent more on translating and publishing documents in Irish.

In 2006/07 it spent £98,028, in 2010/11 the cost was £598,828.

In 2006/07 £5,361 was spent on translating and publishing Department of Education documents in Irish.

Mr O'Dowd said the department began employing Irish language officers in 2008 and has an obligation under the Good Friday and St Andrews agreements to promote and protect the Irish language.

He also cited duties under the European charger for Regional and Minority languages.

There are 81 Irish language medium schools in Northern Ireland, teaching 4,000 pupils from nursery to secondary level.

Favoriser toutes réflexions et entreprendre toutes actions relatives au multilinguisme et aux politiques linguistiques en Europe visant à promouvoir le plurilinguisme, une citoyenneté européenne active et l'identité européenne, dans un esprit d'ouverture...

En enero de 2011, el Senado español celebraba la primera sesión en la que se permitía a sus señorías utilizar cualquiera de las lenguas declaradas co...