Metaglossia: The Translation World

MOORESTOWN, Nueva Jersey, EE.UU. (AP) — El lema en latín grabado en el muro de una flamante biblioteca en el sur de Nueva Jersey decía algo muy distinto de lo que se propusieron los responsables.

Las autoridades suponían que la frase “nos secundus coniecto omnia” significaba “confirmamos todo dos veces”, pero la realidad es que la frase real dice “ponemos todo en duda”.

Rick Ragan, el arquitecto de Moorestown, dijo al Burlington County Times (http://bit.ly/1uQSV6j ) que se enteró del problema gracias a residentes que lo tradujeron en línea.

Regan dijo que pagará a un picapedrero para grabar la frase “Alentamos a todos”.

El alcalde Chris Chiacchio dijo al periódico que solo es error aquel que no se tiene el valor de corregir.

- See more at: http://pulsoslp.com.mx/2014/10/06/grave-error-de-traduccion-en-fachada-de-biblioteca-en-nueva-jersey/#sthash.G5jkOHWf.dpuf

More than £500,000 of new business has put The Translation People on course to hit sales of £4m.

The translation and language services provider, which has its headquarters in Cheadle Hulme, three other UK offices and operations in Paris, Bonn and Boston, said £500,000 of new business was the main growth driver.

Managing director Steve Wilde said the firm now offers more language combinations such as Japanese into German.

He said demand has surged as more companies focus on their global operations and driving export-led growth.

He said: “We have continued to reap the benefits of our clients’ ongoing focus on global business, which we support by assisting with their multi-lingual requirements.

“The business is increasingly being viewed as a leading European translation agency, rather than purely a UK company.

“Our expertise is increasingly being sought by companies from other continents seeking to break into European markets.

“As we now offer an increased number of language combinations, such as Japanese into German, we are able to attract a wider range of companies from different countries.

“We aim to continue in this vein to strengthen our position even further in 2015.”

In the year to December 31 2013 sales were £3.5m.

Overseas sales now account for 43 per cent of overall revenues, up from 39 per cent a year ago, boosted by 27 per cent revenue growth across France and Germany, the firm’s fastest-growing foreign markets.

Clients in France include retailer Galeries Lafayette and drinks giant Pernod Ricard, while those in Germany include Henkel’s Schwarzkopf hair care brand.

The Translation People uses a global network of more than 4,000 professional translators who work on projects such as websites, brochures, software, technical manuals, legal documents and videos. They provide more than 250 language combinations.

The first Arab-American novel, Ameen Rihani's The Book of Khalid (1911), has grown in visibility in recent years as people have returned toward it in exploring and considering the past and present encounter between the United States and the Arab world. A philosophical work that relates the migration of two young men from Baalbek, Lebanon to New York City, the book elaborates Rihani's hopes and dreams with a still universal resonance. One of the most significant recent developments for Rihani admirers is its translation into the Italian language, a monumental undertaking and a labor of love by Francesco Medici, a scholar who deeply admires the author. With such a significant development demonstrating the international appeal of this early Arab-American work, published by the Mesogea press, I decided to interview Mr. Medici.

The Book of Khalid has always been a book that appeals to a specific subset of people, themselves unsure if the work's time has come yet. What has been the overall reception of the Italian translation? Does it speak to any themes in contemporary Italy, or to Italians attempting to understand the Middle East at this dramatic moment?

My translation of the book was released only a few months ago, so I am only beginning to observe the reception. For now, it seems that it has generally attracted the interest of scholars of modern and contemporary Arab history and literature. It has certainly aroused the curiosity of Arabists within Italian academia, to the extent that the work is going to be adopted as a text for study in the next academic year by the faculty of Linguistic and Cultural Mediation Sciences at the University of Milan.

In one review, an Italian literary critic recently wrote: "It is rare that a book dredged up from the past is so significant about the present, and perhaps the future as The Book of Khalid by Ameen Rihani." Perhaps the "Arab Spring" is still far from realization, but it is now, in these dark times, that I believe we must read this masterpiece. I want to be optimistic as Rihani, and I want to believe that the disappearance of his hero Khalid at the end of the novel represents the promise of a return, of a renaissance of the Arab world and of our society as a whole at the opportune time, rather than a final defeat without any more solutions.

People often warn us not to attempt to politicize writers of the past or to try to make their work speak to current issues, but heeding this recommendation with Rihani is difficult given his uncanny relevance and his intentionally forward-facing stance. Do Rihani and The Book of Khalid help inform your own processing of the contemporary crisis in Syria and Lebanon in any way?

The Palestinian-American literary theorist Edward Said once suggested that novels are aesthetic objects that fill gaps in an incomplete world by adding to reality fictional characters in which we can believe. From this perspective, The Book of Khalid is a typical postmodern novel, conceived with the aim to criticize and eventually change our reality - not only in Middle East, but also here in Italy or in the United States. Fundamentally, it aims to accomplish, finally, a free and peaceful society without inequality or discrimination by race, gender or religion, as Rihani had hoped for in many of his works.

In addition to The Book of Khalid, are there any other texts by Ameen Rihani that you continually return to in your own thinking and believe are worthy of greater awareness and study?

If it is true that JFK's famous 1961 line, "Ask not what your country...," is a quotation from Kahlil Gibran's The New Frontier, published in Arabic about forty years prior and translated into English for the first time in 1958, I believe that Martin Luther King's renowned public speech delivered in 1963, "I Have a Dream," is very similar, in its themes and in its rhetorical structure, to "The Great City," a speech delivered by Ameen Rihani in Beirut in 1908 and included in his Rihaniyaat essay collection in 1910. I believe that the "Philosopher from Freike," as Rihani was universally known, is worthy of greater awareness not only as a writer, poet and dramatist, but also and above all as a social reformer, for his avant-garde ideas. For example, Rihani was far ahead of his time in his writings about the liberation of women in the Arab world: suffice to say that he was the first Arab author to use the words "feminism" and "sisterhood" in the early twentieth century, and boldly to encourage women to declare a jihad against the tyranny of men (a basic principle of modern Islamic feminism). I consider Rihani to be a forerunner of Arab feminism, greater than Rifa'a al-Tahtawi or Qasim Amin.

Papers invited for sixth annual international translation conference

October 06, 2014 - 4:28:16 am

Doha: Hamad Bin Khalifa University’s Translation and Interpreting Institute (TII) will host the sixth annual international translation conference on March 23-24, 2015 at Qatar National Convention Centre.

The conference, entitled ‘Translating the Gulf: Beyond Fault Lines’ serves to facilitate conversation about divergent forms of theoretical inquiry and methodological approaches; it conceives of translation as a critical vehicle in the creation of knowledge and the bridging of chasms between and across cultures.

To achieve the objective, the conference departs from metaphorical inquiry into geographical fissures of the region — tectonic fault lines, desert expanses, seasonal rivers, mountains, valleys, and urban constructs — to arrive at a new formulation of translation networks.

The conference is also meant to draw linkages between conceptual divisions, inherent in a wide range of disciplines and paradigms.

Considering that translation presupposes and enhances mutual understanding, respect, and sensitivity for cultural-linguistic contrasts and nuances, its relevance exceeds the act as such.

At a time when economies continue to expand throughout and beyond the region, translation can contribute to the creation of connections between the region and many developing and developed areas around the world.

Extensive efforts, spearheaded by regional governments, directed at the enhancement of education, preservation of cultural heritage, and the elevation of media across platforms, enable the cultivation of discourse, which is as critical for development as is economic progress.

In light of these trends and dynamics, TII is calling for papers on themes that include but are not limited to translation and the Knowledge Economy, New Directions in Post-Colonial/ South-South Translation, and Translating and Interpreting in Arab Media.

Authors may submit papers in Arabic or English — the two  conferences languages — and should provide a 250 to 300-word abstract, contact details, and information about their institutional affiliation. Proposals received after October 30, 2014 will not be considered.

Selected attendees will have an opportunity to present their papers in 20 minutes, and respond to questions from peers and/or the audience over 10 minutes.

Those interested in submitting a proposal are encouraged to consult the TII website for details through the link http://www.tii.qa/conference

The Penninsula

Fairbanks, AK - According to a US District Court Order, the Alaska Division of Elections has until October 10th to provide outreach and poll workers in three remote regions of the state with election materials and voting information that has been translated from English into either Yupik or Gwich'in. In Fairbanks Gwich’in translators are finding the process challenging.

Allan Hayton was contracted by the state Division of Elections.  “Some of it is very technical language, legal jargon," he says. 

But this isn’t the first time he and his colleague, Marilyn Savage have tried to translate a large body of work into their native language. “We’ve translated other materials too, like Shakespeare," says Hayton. "Marilyn and I worked last year translating King Lear into Gwich’in, so we’re used to difficult challenges but we’re happy to do this.”

For Marilyn Savage, this is also personal. “I’m think about my uncle in Fort Yukon," she says.  "He’s blind and so it will be good for him to hear our language.  I think he’ll have a sense of pride and for a lot of us it will increase voting.  So people will say ‘oh, did you go to vote? It’s in our language now,’ so I’m excited about it.”

Savage plans to use the Gwich’in ballot this November.  “Just mainly because it’s available and I’m curious to see how it’s presented," she laughs.

And how it’s presented is key. Hayton says they have to remain objective, regardless of how they feel about a candidate or a ballot measure. “You can’t try to sway voters, you just have to present the material as it is.”
MArilyn Savage does think it's tough. “Oh yeah, I think it is challenging and you do think about what this is going to do for people’s lives," she says.

But there’s also no direct translation in Gwich’in for words like ‘commerce,’ ‘marijuana’ or terms like ‘Department of Natural Resources,” and those words all appear on Alaska’s November ballot. Gary Holton is a linguistics Professor at UAF’s Alaska Native Language Center.  He says translating election materials is daunting because culturally, Gwich’in can’t describe some of the concepts involved in the process.
“If you were going to design a language that’s as different from English as possible, you would probably come up with Gwich’in," Holton says.

There are no Latin roots and Gwich’in vocabulary is vast. “If you’re looking for a word that means ‘to go,’ you may struggle because in Gwich’in, talking about ‘to go,’ it makes a difference whether you’re talking about one person or two people or three people or an animal that’s migrating," Holton explains. "All of those are different words for ‘to go’ that in English we would use the same words for those.”

The state has been ordered to translate everything from public service announcements to buttons for poll workers as well as the four regional election pamphlets.  That’s more than 600 pages of material. Marilyn Savage says she never expected her native language to be involved in the modern election process.
“I always thought our language was from people from ancient times and that it was just their day-to- day language for day- to- day living," says Savage. "Now, we’re in a century that’s pretty high tech.”

Every registered voter receives an election pamphlet by mail, but in an email, State Division of Elections Director Gail Fenumiai says there’s no way to know for sure whether voters read them before they go to the polls. Allan Hayton says that doesn’t matter. “I think in the long run, we do need to have everything that every other voter would have in their language.”

According to the Alaska Native Language Center, there are roughly 300 native Gwich’in speakers in the state.  It’s not clear how many of them plan to vote this November, but if they do, it will be the first time they’ll use a ballot written in their native language and they might discover a few new words.

Abstract

In Italy, the rapid increase of foreign students has represented a test for the traditional tendency of the Italian school to inclusion. The Italian regulation on migration shows a model of school that is integrative and intercultural. The intercultural dimension involves all the school, which has the duty to create equal possibilities to learning, justice and equity. Interculturality, as a specific objective of a school undergoing transformation, requires the complementarity of action lines that include the integration of immigrant students and intercultural exchange in scholastic and extra-scholastic relations, in the knowledge and the competences.

The study investigates - through the analysis of the results of an empirical research carried out through the administration of a questionnaire on a sample of over 1300 Italian and foreign preadolescents attending the second and third year of secondary schools of first degree in Abruzzo, in the centre of Italy - the experience of preadolescents in a transforming society and school, that are characterized in growing measure by a multiple living together, with the intention to deepen inclinations that are being shaped among new generations as regards integration and the formation of social bonds.

Keywords

• Immigration; 
• Integration; 
• Social Bonds; 
• Interculturality.

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The Tel Aviv District Court overturned a lower court decision to extend the remand of an asylum-seeker for one day, because there was no interpreter present so the suspect could follow the court proceedings.

District Court Judge Khaled Kabub chastised Tel Aviv Magistrate’s Court Judge Yaron Gat last week for denying the suspect’s basic right to be able to understand the hearing, and said he should have honored the defense request to postpone the hearing until an interpreter could be found.

The suspect, Abraham Pisha, is suspected of abusing his life partner – threatening her with a knife, beating her and preventing her from leaving the house. The woman complained to police after he fled their home with her salary and did not return. He was arrested 10 days after she filed the complaint.

Pisha, who speaks only Tigrinya, was questioned by police via an interpreter, and an interpreter was also present when he consulted with his attorney, Yifat Katz of the Public Defender’s Office. But there was no interpreter available during his remand hearing. Katz asked that the hearing be delayed, making clear that otherwise her client would understand nothing of the proceedings.

But Gat extended his remand until the next day, saying that while it was indeed the right of every suspect to have a hearing in a language he could understand and the lack of an interpreter was an unfortunate oversight, “One must always balance such oversights with the public interest, and examine each case regarding the grounds for detention, and particularly the risk posed by the suspect. Under these circumstances, the public interest cannot suffer the release of the suspect, despite said oversight.”

Katz filed an urgent appeal to the district court, which heard the appeal that evening. Judge Kabub said the lack of an interpreter was a fundamental flaw in the proceeding and there was no place to extend the suspect’s remand without one. He criticized Gat for holding the hearing at all, noting that without an interpreter the suspect could not communicate with either his attorney or the judge.

Kabub ordered Pisha released on bail, even as he noted that he may well have been a candidate for continued detention, saying Pisha’s right to a hearing he could understand “had been disproportionately undermined.”

MOORESTOWN, N.J. (AP) — The Latin motto engraved on the wall of a new library in southern New Jersey got lost in translation.

Officials had thought the phrase "Nos Secundus Coniecto Omnia" meant "we confirm all things twice." But it actually means "we second-guess all."

Moorestown architect Rick Ragan tells the Burlington County Times (http://bit.ly/1uQSV6j ) he learned of the problem from residents who translated it online.

Ragan says he'll pay a stone cutter to change the phrase to "We encourage all." He'll also have the Roman numerals fixed to reflect the proper year.

Mayor Chris Chiacchio tells the newspaper a mistake is only a mistake if you do not have the courage to correct it.

Inspiré par le Professeur Ram Prakash, de nombreux étudiants mauriciens ont autrefois mis le cap sur la Grande péninsule pour approfondir leurs études dans plusieurs domaines. Aujourd’hui beaucoup d’entre eux gardent de lui un souvenir rempli de gratitude et d’affection.

Samedi, au centre Indira Gandhi pour la culture indienne, a eu lieu la présentation d’un numéro spécial d’Indradhanush, un magazine trilingue axé sur la vie du Professeur Ram Prakash. Ce magazine est une initiative du Indradhanush Sanskritic Parishad, dirigé par l’écrivain Pahlad Ramsurrun en collaboration avec Yvan 
Martial, Shakuntala Boolell, Breejan Burrun, Sangeeta Ramsurrun-Nankoo et le Dr Indradutt Chunnoo, entre autres. C’est un vibrant hommage qui a été rendu 
au Professeur Ram Prakash devant un parterre d’invités constitué de ses proches, d'académiciens et d'enseignants, qui l’ont côtoyé lors de son vécu.


Un fin intellectuel charismatique

Le Prof Ram Prakash était un fin intellectuel charismatique. Il maîtrisait la littérature en plusieurs langues et parlait couramment le sanskrit, l'anglais, le français, l'hindi, l'urdu, le bengali et le punjabi. Il avait également une bonne connaissance du pali, du tamil, du telugu et de l’oriya, entre autres.

Avant de venir à Maurice, il a été enseignant et chef du département de sanskrit et de l’hindi au SD College à Lahore (avant la partition de l'Inde) et au SD College à Ambala (après la partition). Il était un fin académicien qui a reçu plusieurs récompenses, notamment des médailles d’or à l'University of Punjab ainsi que pour son BA Hons et MA en Sanskrit. Il avait aussi un MA en anglais, hindi et un BA en français. 

La thèse du Professeur Ram Prakash était axée sur les cérémonies prénatales d’après le ‘Vedic Grihasutras’. Il avait effectué plusieurs recherches aux côtés du célèbre professeur Raghuvira, soit le fondateur de l'Académie internationale de la culture indienne (SaraswatiVihar) dans l'archéologie, l’histoire et la linguistique pour mieux cerner l'influence de l'Inde dans la région de l'Asie entre la Turquie et le Japon jusqu'à Bali. 
Parmi ses élèves les plus illustres de l'Inde étaient Shri Balram Jhakar, ancien président du Lok Sabha et l’ancien gouverneur du Madhya Pradesh.

Brin d’histoire… 

En ce qu’il s’agit du Professeur Ram Prakash, l’histoire témoigne qu’il a été une figure de proue très respectée à Maurice. Il est décédé en 2009 à New Delhi, en Inde, après une riche carrière à Maurice, pendant plusieurs années. Il est connu pour avoir formé plusieurs générations d'enseignants mauriciens dans les langues orientales et la culture indienne, ainsi que pour la dissémination des connaissances sur la culture millénaire à des centaines d'étudiants mauriciens dans divers établissements secondaires du pays. C’est le 16 juin 1949 que le Prof Ram Prakash est arrivé à Maurice avec sa famille. Il était alors âgé de 31 ans. Il a été envoyé au pays par le gouvernement de l'Inde à la demande du gouvernement britannique pour l'enseignement des langues indiennes, la culture indienne et l’indologie. Il 
était affecté au ministère de l'Éducation et excerçait au Teachers’ Training College.

 Il enseignait également aux Royal College de Curepipe, Royal College de Port-Louis et John Kennedy College. 

Il était aussi régulièrement sollicité pour présider des fonctions à travers le pays par diverses organisations socioculturelles, y compris les associations de jeunes et les ‘Pathshalas’, entre autres. Il était aussi un conférencier régulier pour le Bhagavad-Gita Study Circle, la Société des Arts et des Lettres, le British Council, l’Union Catholique, l’Iqbal Circle et le Triveni. Il intervenait aussi à la radio nationale. Le Professeur Ram Prakash a contribué au quotidien Advance et à plusieurs revues et magazines litté-raires, dont l’Indian Cultural Review. 

Il avait aussi contribué à l'organisation de la célébration du centenaire de Rabindranath Tagore sur une période d'une année en 1961, en tant que secrétaire du comité organisateur, notamment en promouvant les prolifiques pièces de théâtre, peintures et chansons, poèmes et romans écrits par ce fameux lauréat du Prix Nobel. Il avait pour objectif de favoriser une prise de conscience pour la littérature, la culture et la philosophie de l'Inde tout en encourageant les jeunes à participer activement à sa démarche. D’ailleurs, le succès retentissant des activités mises en avant par le Professeur Ram Prakash a inspiré l’Indo-Mauritian Catholic Association pour des échanges et des rencontres pour promouvoir la compréhension mutuelle entre l’Orient et l’Occident. Le Professeur Ram Prakash a également été derrière l’organisation de la ‘Second World Hindi Convention’ en août 1976 à Maurice. Celle-ci a, d’ailleurs, permis à Maurice de faire sa grande entrée en 1983 au sein de la diaspora indienne.


Une profonde influence sur les personnalités mauriciennes

Le Prof Ram Prakash a eu une profonde influence sur les principales personnalités mauriciennes des années 1950 et 1960. Ses lettres personnelles échangées avec Malcolm de Chazal, André Masson, Jean Erenne, Swami Dhruvanand et France Boyer de la Giroday se trouvent maintenant à la Bibliothèque nationale de Maurice. 

Il y a aussi les lettres de ses élèves, y compris celles de Kher Jagatsingh et Abhimanyu Unuth. Photographies, livres et lettres liés à son amitié avec Robert Edward Hart ont également été donnés à la bibliothèque à sa demande.


Formaliser l’apprentissage et l’enseignement des langues indiennes

La mission du professeur Ram Prakash était d'organiser et de formaliser l'apprentissage et l'enseignement des langues indiennes à Maurice. A partir de 1949, il s’était  familiarisé avec  de nombreuses personnes de l'Etat et celles des milieux de l'enseignement. 

Malgré les nombreux obstacles qu'il a rencontrés, le Professeur Ram Prakash a eu la force de caractère et la patience de continuer à travailler sans relâche. Il avait 
à cet effet obtenu le soutien constant du Dr Seewoosagur Ramgoolam, alors officier de liaison pour l'éducation, pour relever les défis qui ont dû être surmontés. 

Après que ses premières propositions ont été présentées, la première promotion des enseignants stagiaires pour la langue hindi est sortie en 1950. Dès lors, le Prof Ram Prakash est devenu responsable de l'enseignement des méthodes et  de la langue aux aspirants enseignants de l’hindi. 

Il a initié le développement du matériel pédagogique adapté à l'enfant mauricien pour apprendre l'hindi , au fil des années. 

Il a également travaillé sur des manuels scolaires pour les six classes primaires, afin de  répondre aux besoins des enfants. Au fil des ans, les enseignants stagiaires de 
l'urdu, du tamil, du  telugu et du marathi ont été recrutés.

Comme la demande d’autres enseignants se faisait sentir, le professeur Ram Prakash était en mesure de les orienter. 


Retour en Inde pour sa retraite

Le Prof Ram Prakash a quitté Maurice pour sa retraite en 1978 avec sa femme, Roop Sudha, qui était avec lui pendant tout  son séjour à Maurice. Il est revenu à Maurice brièvement à quelques reprises pour diverses fonctions en 1995. Enfin en 2001 à la demande de la Sanatan Dharma Temples Federation, il y est venu comme invité d'honneur pour la célébration du 500e anniversaire de Shri Goswami Tulsidas. 

Il a reçu le prix ‘Feroze Gandhi’ pour ses services à la culture indienne en 2002 et en 2008. L'Université de Jabalpur lui a décerné un doctorat honorifique pour son travail dans la promotion de la culture indienne. Son épouse et lui s'étaient installés à Aravali à New Delhi à leur retour. 
Sa fille aînée est Sarita J. Das, ancienne directrice de la State Trading Corporation de l'Inde, qui est devenue plus tard secrétaire du National Capital Region Planning Board, avant de prendre sa retraite. 

Il est aussi le père de Meenakshi Seetulsingh qui a été à la tête du Maurice College of the Air. Sollicitée, elle affirme les larmes aux yeux, que cet hommage rendu à son père Ram Prakash , a été pour elle, un moment rempli d’émotions. Le magazine trilingue Indradhanush, axé sur la vie du Professeur Ram Prakash, est en vente à Rs 150.

Le sous-titre du spectacle est : « 60 min pour parler toutes les langues ». Mais il ne s’agit pas d’une performance. C’est un conte. Qui propose une théorie. Incroyablement vraie. Incroyablement juste.

Note de la rédaction : ★★★★★

Patrick Corillon, silhouette fine et air à la fois bonhomme et aérien, ne s’encombre, pour son spectacle, que d’une table. Et de quelques croquis, qu’il glisse à la verticale dans ses fentes. Sauf qu’il a réalisé les dessins d’après les formes du bois de sa table. Les planches de celles-ci étant par ailleurs des quasi reproductions du crayonnage d’un plancher. Le plancher d’une cellule de prison. Celle du poète Ossip Mandelstam. Prisonnier russe qui racontait à ses codétenus des histoires avec des dessins… glissés entre les fentes du plancher.

Soulevez un chapeau, vous en trouverez un autre. Et encore un autre. Le spectacle du conteur belge, par ailleurs artiste contemporain, fonctionne selon ce principe. Et lancé à dix mètres du sol, il sait retomber sur ses pattes. Sont donc convoqués, dans un ordre étudié : menhirs, forêts épaisses, habitants mythiques des fleuves, fleurs, vers et fantômes. Et un chat, aussi. Tout cela, pour apprendre les langues étrangères… Ca se tient, ça se tient…Le français n’est-il pas la langue de l’eau ? l’anglais, celle des pierres ?

Que raconte-t-il, Patrick Corillon ? Quelque chose qui ressemble à sa vie. Temps passé dans la nature, étude des fleuves parisiens, ou des murs de son appartement (d’où le titre)… Et puis un conte émouvant, pour lequel il sort un ordi… Trahison ? Non : un petit film à l’animation très spéciale, très belle, suit… Il est très parlant et touchant, en tout cas, le parcours semi imaginaire de cet artiste. Qui œuvre avec rien, pour parler de presque rien. Aux Francophonies, le presque rien semble être roi. Car il est énorme, en fait. Et précieux.

L’Appartement à trous appartient au cycle Les Vies en soi, projet de quatre performances. Présentées par Patrick Corillon dans les théâtres, les musées, les bibliothèques…

Les dates de L’Appartement à trous après le festival : le 22 novembre à Clamart (Festival MAR.T.O., la Nuit de la marionnette) ; du 4 au 12 décembre à Evry (Théâtre de l’Agora).
A Evry passera également Le benshi d’Angers, autre spectacle du cycle desVies en soi, en 2015 : les 29 et 30 janvier.

Generous” and “thoughtful” were labels that came to mind when I received a book in the mail titled “Labels for Locals: What to Call People from Abilene to Zimbabwe” and read the enclosed card from author Paul Dickson that mentioned his enjoying my columns and making a gift of his informative book.

Dickson’s book of “demonyms,” or “a name for a resident of a particular locality,” is “meant to be used by those who want to find the proper form — or forms — of address or reference for people in a particular locale.” 

Having grown up in Abilene, Texas, I was pleased to see he got “Abilenian” right, but the “Alaskan” entry was more interesting. 

“(T)here is some resistance to its use as an adjective,” Dickson noted. He cites the respected Russell Tabbert, author of “Dictionary of Alaskan English”: “I have heard from some Alaskan journalists and read in some of their style sheets the claim that ‘Alaskan’ should be used only as a noun referring to a person and should never be used as an adjective. However,” Tabbert added, “this rule certainly doesn’t fit Alaskan usage, including much journalistic usage.”

The label “pedantic,” or “giving too much importance to details and formal rules, especially of grammar,” is popping up more frequently, following a trend towards picking nits generally, especially online. 

A number of hoary English grammar rules sprang from well-intentioned Victorian classists who wanted to impose on our inconsistent English the regularity of Latin. 

Many of these rules, like “no dangling participles,” have been abandoned by popular usage. Some were overly contrived from the get-go. As Debra Crosby, my favorite online grammarian, recently posted, “I before e, except when you run a feisty heist on a weird beige foreign neighbor.”

The Internet abounds with incorrect misspellings and flawed grammar, which invariably drives some well-lettered friends to distraction and occasions them to post corrections online. 

Is this pedantry or is it justifiable raging against the darkness of miscommunication? And how to take well-meaning online articles like “Five Thinking Strategies of Good Readers,” taken from an excerpt of Brenda Smith’s “Breaking Through to College Reading”?

Smith’s strategies include “Form Images,” “Draw Comparisons, and “Check Understanding.” 

“For good readers,” Smith writes, “the words and the ideas on the page trigger mental images that relate directly or indirectly to the material. Images are like movies in your head.” 

She suggests comparing what you’re reading to your existing knowledge, and keeping “an internal summary or synthesis of the information as it is presented and how it relates to the overall message” while supervising your own comprehension. 

The other strategies were “Make educated guesses,” and “Do not accept gaps in your reading comprehension.”

That’s easier said than done, especially while reading, and imagine low-level readers trying to follow that advice. 

My recommended strategy for reading promotion is: “Make it fun.” 

Reading’s difficult, but we crave entertainment, and reading’s far easier when it’s also thrilling, hilarious, informative or intriguing, for our brains are wired to “Delight in the Unexpected.” 

That’s the subtitle of a 1963 Atlantic Magazine article by Walt Kelly, creator of the Pogo comic strip. 

Kelly wrote that “Inserting bounces into already formed speech, you get something like ‘horribobble.’ There is no deep meaning behind the device … The Pogo speech pattern is full of noises signifying nothing more than the grunts of a determined grandfather eating corn.” 

Humorists know that humans find amusing verbal discombobulates engaging.

Kelly suggested not getting bogged down in rules. 

To get kids reading, “It is not important to communicate exact shades of meaning, but it is necessary to get across a sense of fun.” 

The fun goes out of reading for many boys around third and fourth grades, so the locally-grown Fairbanks Guys Read program has won awards by showing those very boys how much fun books can be by featuring books that are “boy-friendly” in content and accessible to low-level readers while entertaining good readers.

While the boys read silly books for the sheer fun of it, they’re honing vocabulary, comprehension and other skills that will carry over into more serious reading.

“Reader” is a pretty good label.

As “Star Trek”’s George Takei noted, “A child who reads will be an adult who thinks.”

Greg Hill is the former director of Fairbanks North Star Borough libraries. Contact him at 479-4344.

Entre’01 et 2013, le prix Nobel a récompensé 847 personnes, âgées en moyenne de 59 ans, et 25 organisations. Qui est le plus âgé des lauréats Nobel? Le plus jeune? Combien de femmes ont été distinguées?

Voici quelques-unes des réponses selon les données de la Fondation Nobel:

- Nobel record. 278 candidats, c'est le nombre de noms soumis en 2014 pour le Nobel de la Paix, un record pour ce prix. A l'exception de celui du lauréat, ils ne seront dévoilés que dans 50 ans.

- Refus du Nobel. Deux lauréats ont refusé leur prix: le Français Jean-Paul Sartre pour le prix de Littérature en’64 et le Premier ministre vietnamien Le Duc Tho qui a refusé de partager le prix de la Paix’73 avec le secrétaire d’État américain Henry Kissinger. Par ailleurs, Adolf Hitler a interdit à trois lauréats allemands de recevoir le prix -- Richard Kuhn (chimie’38), Adolf Butenandt (chimie’39) et Gerhard Domagk (médecine’39) -- et le gouvernement soviétique a forcé Boris Pasternak à décliner le prix de littérature en’58.

- Nobel de la Paix incarcérés. Trois lauréats étaient en prison lorsque leur prix a été annoncé: le pacifiste et journaliste allemand Carl von Ossietzky (1935); l'opposante birmane Aung San Suu Kyi (1991); le dissident chinois Liu Xiaobo (2010). Mme Suu Kyi a pu finalement prononcer son discours d'acceptation à Oslo plus de 20 ans après, en juin 2012.

- Vieux Nobel. À 90 ans l'Américain d'origine russe Leonid Hurwicz, prix d'économie 2007, a été le lauréat le plus âgé. Mort en juin 2008, il n'aura vécu que quelques mois avec le prix. Chez les femmes c'est la romancière britannique Doris Lessing qui, à 87 ans, a été récompensée la même année par le prix de littérature. Elle est décédée en novembre 2013.

- Jeune Nobel. Le Britannique Lawrence Bragg, 25 ans, fut le plus jeune lauréat à recevoir un Nobel, celui de Physique en’15, partagé avec son père William. Il lui restait 55 ans à profiter de ce titre de gloire.

- Nobel en famille. L'histoire de la famille Curie se confond avec celle des prix Nobel: en’03, le couple Pierre et Marie Curie est récompensé en Physique. En’11, Marie Curie (née Sklodowska), première femme lauréate d'un Nobel, remporte seule le prix de Chimie, et est toujours la seule femme double lauréate. En’35, sa fille Irène Joliot-Curie et son mari Frédéric Joliot reçoivent à leur tour le prix de chimie.

- Nobel et les femmes. 44 femmes dont Marie Curie deux fois, contre 803 hommes, ont été lauréats des Nobel depuis sa création en’01. Il a fallu attendre 2009 pour qu'un prix Nobel d'économie récompense une femme, l'Américaine Elinor Ostrom. En Physique, deux femmes seulement pour’1 hommes ont été récompensées, la dernière en’63.

- Domaines plébiscités par le Nobel. Les lauréats de littérature écrivent le plus souvent en prose. En physique, c'est la physique des particules qui est le plus souvent récompensée; en chimie, il s'agit de la biochimie; en médecine, la génétique a pris les devants; et en économie, la macroéconomie.

- Langues. L'anglais arrive en première place des langues d'écriture des Nobel de littérature avec 27 lauréats, suivi par le français et l'allemand (13), l'espagnol (11), le suédois (7), l'italien (6), le russe (5), le polonais (4), le norvégien et le danois (3), le grec et le japonais (2). L'arabe, le chinois et même l'occitan, entre autres langues, sont également représentés.

Ces données proviennent du site internet officiel de la Fondation Nobel, nobelprize.org.

MOORESTOWN, N.J. — The Latin motto engraved on the wall of a new library in southern New Jersey got lost in translation.

Officials had thought the phrase "Nos Secundus Coniecto Omnia" meant "we confirm all things twice." But it actually means "we second-guess all."

Moorestown architect Rick Ragan tells the Burlington County Times (http://bit.ly/1uQSV6j ) he learned of the problem from residents who translated it online.

Ragan says he'll pay a stone cutter to change the phrase to "We encourage all." He'll also have the Roman numerals fixed to reflect the proper year.

Mayor Chris Chiacchio tells the newspaper a mistake is only a mistake if you do not have the courage to correct it.

By Jeffrey Selingo

Three years ago, this headline appeared in The New York Times: "Virtual and Artificial, but 58,000 Want Course." We all know the rest of the story. When the artificial-intelligence class at Stanford University started that fall, 160,000 students in 190 countries had signed up, touching off MOOC mania on campuses around the world.

Massive open online courses were heralded as the invention that would disrupt higher education’s expensive business model and would become the next big innovation in the tech world. By the end of 2012, the Timesdeclared it "the year of the MOOC."

But a year later, after a series of high-profile failed experiments using MOOCs, another proclamation from the Times about the massive classes arrived in this front-page headline: "After Setbacks, Online Courses Are Rethought." In the news media, MOOCs had gone from being higher education’s savior to a bust in a little more than a year.

That doesn’t mean MOOCs are dead, however. Far from it. More than six million people have signed up for a MOOC since 2011. Massive open online courses are clearly resonating with an audience looking for instruction on the web. And the format is able to scale education in a way that simply can’t be done on a physical campus.

MOOCs might not put thousands of colleges out of business in the next 50 years, as Sebastian Thrun, a co-founder of Udacity, predicted in 2012, but they are changing how students learn, how professors teach and grade, and how higher-education leaders figure out what differentiates face-to-face instruction from online learning.

These remain the early days of MOOCs. Remember the early days of the web? "No one knew what web search would become in 1998," Ryan Baker, an associate professor of cognitive studies at Teachers College, Columbia University who has taught a MOOC, told me. "We had Infoseek and AltaVista, and Yahoo tried to do it like a phone book. And then Google came along, and that’s how we remember search today."

It’s during this time, after the phase of the initial and unrealistic hype, that the primary players—Coursera, edX, and their college sponsors—need to answer three fundamental questions about the position of MOOCs in the academic ecosystem if the technology is ever to deliver on some of its promises.

What role should MOOCs play at traditional colleges and universities?Although a few MOOC pioneers still see the free online courses as capable of changing the world, the courses right now can be best viewed as a supplement to formal classroom learning and as a professional-development tool for people who already have a college degree. MOOCs have augmented a system of education, not replaced it. Lost in the disillusionment over the end of the MOOC hype are the hundreds of thousands of students who have actually completed the courses, and how for many of them the online classes served a critical need for professional and personal development.

College leaders should focus on using MOOCs to complement and enhance their continuing-­education programs, as the number of options students have for education in small bites and on their own schedule continues to grow.

How do colleges make open online courses actually open? Despite the word "open" in their name, MOOCs are not really open in a way that allows anyone to adapt and redistribute courses or that allows open collaboration among users. Indeed, it’s still not clear exactly who owns the content delivered through a MOOC: the professor or the college. The answer has significant implications for MOOC students because it will affect the incentives both colleges and professors have to offer free online classes, and ultimately the ability of today’s MOOC students to have access to a rich catalog of courses when they want them.

Perhaps the biggest battle yet to come between the MOOC providers and colleges is just how long MOOCs should be "turned on" for students. Most MOOCs are run like traditional courses, with a start date and an end date, meaning students who drop out usually can’t pick up another offering of the course until the following year.

Course materials often disappear from the web a few weeks after a class ends. Andrew Ng of Coursera told me he wants to run courses more frequently and to allow the content to always be available. But that means colleges and faculty members would need to allow intellectual property to live online indefinitely, and professors would need to be available to moderate courses year round, all for classes that don’t make a cent for colleges.

How can the quality and success of MOOCs be measured? Both Coursera and edX have turned away so many institutions asking to offer MOOCs that they have lost count. But when the providers reject colleges, they don’t have the best interests of today’s MOOC students in mind. After all, those students are searching for skills-building courses across a range of careers and interests, so they want more choices of colleges and classes, not fewer.

Both the MOOC providers and their college partners still view free online courses through the lens of the traditional, on-campus students they are accustomed to teaching. They are trying to protect what they currently offer to 18-year-olds fortunate enough to have gotten into top-tier colleges, rather than thinking about MOOCs for the adult continuing-­education market the courses are already serving. (Udacity has already changed its direction to serve that continuing-education audience.)

Higher education also measures the success of MOOCs by applying traditional measurements of completion. Declaring MOOCs a failure because fewer than 10 percent of students complete them ignores the motivation of many students who enroll to try out courses or to sample a particular lecture. They hadn’t planned to complete the course, and they have nothing to lose when they stop taking it.

The companies that rode to fame on the MOOC wave had visions of offering unfettered online elite education, not just providing what amounts essentially to continuing education for adults. For many of today’s MOOC students, however, what the companies created is incredibly valuable.

But we should eventually expect more from MOOCs given the time and money colleges have spent developing and offering the courses.

Whether MOOCs follow through on their pledge to alter higher education and, in the process, reduce costs and improve outcomes for everyone depends on whether colleges and the MOOC providers tackle the difficult questions facing them in the next few years while they are out of the media spotlight.

Jeffrey Selingo is a contributing editor at The Chronicle. This essay is adapted from his latest book, MOOC U: Who Is Getting the Most Out of Online Education and Why, published this month by Simon & Schuster.

Après l'autorisation de Facebook, c'est maintenant aux internautes bretonophones de traduire la plateforme du réseau social.

Facebook vient de rajouter le breton à la liste des 120 langues déjà disponibles. C'est un communiqué de l'équipe de Facebook qui s'occupe des traductions daté de vendredi qui l'annonce.

Cela faisait plus de 3 ans qu'une page Facebook, forte de 11.000 membres, le demandait. "Si on travaille sur une interface en français, on va avoir tendance à écrire un message en français alors que si l'interface est en langue bretonne, on va plus facilement s'exprimer en breton. C'est aussi un site extrêmement fréquenté par les jeunes générations donc c'est important pour toute langue d'être sur Facebook", estime Fulup Jakez, directeur de l'office public de la langue bretonne interrogé par France Info.

Passée la reconnaissance de la langue régionale, les internautes s'activent. En effet, comme pour les autres langues, ce n'est pas le géant de l'Internet basé à Menlo Park en Californie qui se charge de la traduction. Chacun peut proposer sa traduction qui est ensuite soumise au vote des utilisateurs. Il y a déjà plus de 400 traducteurs bénévoles.

"On commence par traduire un glossaire avant de s'attaquer à la traduction de l'interface en elle-même. Par exemple, "like", pour "j'aime" peut se traduire "plijus" ou "me 'blij din plijus", explique Fulup Jakez.

La date de mise en ligne de la version bretonne de Facebook dépendra donc de l'avancée des traductions, mais pour les plus impatients, sachez que Wikipédia, Firefox, Open Office ou Skype ont déjà été traduits.

Evening English classes begin for a cluster of refugees — Somalis, Sudanese, Kenyans, Eritreans and Burmese — in an apartment in the Vickery Meadow neighborhood of northeast Dallas.

“Have you heard about Ebola?” asks the volunteer teacher, Mizra Baig.

Some look puzzled. But Abdala Mahmoud, a reed-thin Sudanese man, knows precisely where “Patient Zero” was staying and that a hospital let him go after an initial visit. “The clinic, they no report to the government,” he says.

The patient, Thomas Eric Duncan, returned to the hospital days later with the first case of Ebola diagnosed in the United States. His release from Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital after his initial visit endangered some residents within a community known for welcoming a global mix of people.

Vickery Meadow is a landing place for refugees and immigrants, and the foreign-born population has quadrupled over the last 20 years. Now the stunning news must be translated into more than two dozen languages: Ebola has struck the U.S., in their neighborhood, and five schoolchildren living just blocks away have been exposed.

In this little class of about 15 people, students speak six different languages. “People have come from war-ravaged countries, and they have a higher tolerance for bad news,” Baig says. But he admits, “It’s scary.”

A Muslim-focused nonprofit called the Islamic Community Center of North Texas offers English classes at this aging apartment building. Cindy Weber-Taha, the program head, said it isn’t especially surprising Ebola struck in Vickery Meadow, given all the international travel among the residents.

“These are nice families and well-chosen from the refugee camps to make it in America,” Weber-Taha said.

But she worries about the extra hours ahead for her translators.

“A lot of people still don’t understand this,” Weber-Taha said. “No one has translated it for them.”

Dallas ISD translated letters to parents about the Ebola virus into English, Spanish, Vietnamese, Arabic, Nepali, Karen, Burmese and Swahili. District spokesman Jon Dahlander said officials were also working to get letters in Tibetan, Amharic, Hindi and Thai.

“The next step is to take the letter out of the children’s backpack and read it,” Weber-Taha said.

In the Islamic center’s program, homework assistance and Quran lessons roll out after each school day. Two apartments are used as Muslim prayer rooms, for women and girls in rainbow-hued hijabs and for men and boys in flowing tunics or simple work clothes.

Refugee assistance programs settled the foreign-born in Vickery Meadow because of the supply of cheap apartments. Other immigrants, without refugee status, came, too, starting businesses that pitch homeland favorites — Injera bread for Ethiopians, noodles and black bean paste for Burmese and sweet cream with strawberries for Mexicans.

Half the residents in the area’s four central census tracts are foreign-born, according to 2012 Census Bureau data. In 1990, about one-eighth of the population was foreign-born.

“When people come from Africa, this is the first place they land,” said Habte Retta, 52, the Ethiopian-born manager of Maru Grocery. “This is a good place with different languages.”

Retta runs the grocery and co-owns a bakery that distributes Injera bread throughout the region. Over the years, the store has become a place for newcomers, who can find a job or make social connections, Retta said. A green, yellow and red Ethiopian flag dominates the store. Cards for African-owned businesses are within easy reach.

Guatemalan-born Henry Hernandez works there as a butcher and lives nearby. Hernandez and Retta have taught each other a bit of their native languages, Spanish and Amharic.

Ebola doesn’t worry Hernandez, though the Liberian-born Ebola patient lies gravely ill. “They are treating him and it is under control,” Hernandez, 27, said in Spanish.

Thawng Kung, 24, came to Dallas as a refugee from Mynanmar, the Southeast Asian country formerly known as Burma. The Burmese are one of the three largest refugee groups settling in Texas, which now leads the nation in overall refugee resettlement.

“I didn’t think the disease could be affecting us. This is from Africa,” Kung said as he worked at a store catering to the Burmese.

Vickery Meadow was once known simply as Vickery. In the 1940s, it was annexed by Dallas, and eventually it became a trendy apartment zone.

Over time, it lost its luster but became known for affordable rents for those struggling to make their way in America.

The neighborhood lies just east of Central Expressway, and its heart is near Park Lane and Greenville Avenue. To the south, retail revitalization percolates along Northwest Highway, with REI preparing a grand opening for a new store.

To the north, a riding stable signals the class gulf. Rocking M Stables’ patrons can learn the art of classical dressage, a sport some call “horse ballet.” Horse-boarding can cost about the same as the monthly $600 rent for a Vickery Meadow apartment.

To the east, the Dallas elite shop at high-end stores in NorthPark Center.

But in Vickery Meadow, the median household income is about $26,000 in the area around Park Lane, according to census data.

For the last few years, nonprofits in Vickery Meadow have increased social services, starting more English classes and after-school programs. Aging apartments have gotten some repair, including new fencing and gates to cut down burglaries. Vickery Meadow is also one of Dallas’ top crime hot spots, with some immigrants targeted as victims.

Darryl Ratcliff, an artist, moved into the neighborhood about a year and half ago when an art project called “Trans.Lation: Vickery Meadow” began as part of the 10th anniversary celebration of the Nasher Sculpture Center. The project aims to use “social sculpture” to inspire change.

As he stood outside Trans.Lation’s offices, Ratcliff contemplated the threat of Ebola.

“The challenge,” he said, “is to make sure a single incident doesn’t end up defining a community.”

Follow Dianne Solís on Twitter at @disolis.

“All schools should be provided with human resources with regards to teaching in that language,” the union said in a statement.

The congress also called for teacher training colleges to prioritise training teachers of indigenous languages.

The theme of the congress was “Restore the character of Sadtu as a union of revolutionary professionals, agents of change and champions of people’s education for people’s power in pursuit of socialism”.

“We declare that socialism is the future as it guarantees sustainable development and deconstruct[s] the exploitation of one man by another and will end poverty and misery in the world.”

The congress resolved that in the determination of teaching posts, the degree of complexity of curricula taught in different schools should be considered.

Delegates also agreed that teachers in the early childhood development sector should be highly qualified, with relevant competencies in health, social, psychological and educational issues.

“A standardised qualification must be agreed upon in order to establish uniform standards.”

All schools should have support staff, such as therapists and psychologists, to help teachers deal with pupils who had difficulties with mainstream learning.

The congress called for the Annual National Assessment (ANA) not to be “abused to label teachers and schools, thereby demoralising and de-professionalising them”.

ANAs are tests to determine pupils’ levels of competency in literacy and numeracy.

Feedback from the ANAs should be given to schools promptly, before the results were publicised, and should be followed up with meaningful intervention programmes.

“At a broader level, delegates note the recent attacks on Chapter 9 institutions of democracy from those meant to lead them.

“We are an organisation that fought many other injustices in our past and including the present and we have a moral obligation to protect these institutions even if it is against those that lead them,” Sadtu said.

Last month the union called on Public Protector Thuli Madonsela to stop using her office to “attack the ANC”.

This was after a letter Madonsela reportedly wrote to Zuma, about the R246 million spent on upgrades at his private Nkandla homestead in KwaZulu-Natal, was leaked to the media.

ANC secretary general Gwede Mantashe has publicly criticised Madonsela and said she was on a crusade to discredit the party.

At the time Sadtu’s national executive said in a statement: “The actions of advocate Thuli Madonsela are clear systematic signs planned to create anarchy and divisions within our society and the ANC in particular”.