Metaglossia: The Translation World

The Bible Society
New EasyEnglish Bible aims to make scripture accessible to more people

A Bible translation designed to make scripture easier to understand for people with reading difficulties and those whose first language is not English, has been published in print in the UK for the first time.

The EasyEnglish Bible, produced by Christian charity MissionAssist, uses simplified vocabulary and shorter sentences to make the Bible more accessible to a wider audience.

The translation is particularly aimed at people who struggle with traditional Bible language, including those with dyslexia, people learning English and readers with limited literacy skills.

The approach is intended to help readers engage with the Bible without being discouraged by complicated language, unfamiliar expressions or lengthy passages.

One example is John 3:16, among the best-known verses in the New Testament.

The New International Version (NIV) begins: "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son."

The EasyEnglish Bible uses more straightforward language, beginning: "God loved the people in this world so much that he gave his only Son."

Most of the vocabulary in the translation is drawn from a bank of just 1,000 commonly used English words, while sentences are generally limited to 20 words..."

Oct 08 2026
Martin Hart
https://premierchristian.news/us/news/article/new-easyenglish-bible-aims-to-make-scripture-accessible-to-more-people
#metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus

"Edge is testing a feature that lets you translate entire documents into another language

Microsoft is testing a new feature on Edge Canary; it can translate a whole PDF document from the right-click menu and open the entire translated PDF as a separate copy.

This was initially reported by the folks at Windows Report in a hands-on test.

On Edge, you can already translate text within a PDF. You also have the option to select a paragraph and then use the PDF toolbar to translate the text, which shows up in a side pane. However, this old feature doesn’t cover the entire document. You’d have to end up scrolling through the entire PDF, which can get annoying if it’s several pages long.

In 2025, Microsoft said that the feature would continue to evolve. In a few clicks, it was supposed to provide a fully translated document, so that readers don’t have to work through the document line by line or paragraph by paragraph. It appears that the update to the feature has finally landed now in Edge Canary.

In the hands-on test at Windows Report, the writer opened a 10-page document, which was written in Hindi. A simple right-click is all that was needed to find the “Translate document to English” option. Choosing it opens a new tab, and then the browser displays “Translating…”

Finally, the translated document opens up, and the original one still remains open in the browser.

This is a practical new feature, and users won’t have to resort to highlighting specific parts of the document to obtain the translations. Since it builds an entirely new document, the source and translation can sit open side by side.

I have checked for this feature on the latest version of Edge Canary. However, right-clicking on the document didn’t show me the option. I’m running macOS, and the test from the original source was performed on Windows, so it likely hasn’t made it to macOS at the time of writing.

The feature is still in testing, and there’s no exact ETA available for a public release. Since it hasn’t even reached everyone on Edge Canary, it could take a while.

PiunikaWeb’s Take
It is good to see this feature actually implemented and running, even if it is only in Canary for now. Reading a document in another language usually means exporting pages, uploading them somewhere, and using random third-party tools.

Having the entire translation occur in the browser and also leaving the original copy alone is very convenient. It’s useful for manuals, study material, and various lengthy documents.

We stand out from the tech-media crowd because we break news stories; we mainly bring you stuff that you won’t find anywhere in the mainstream tech media. Our stories have been picked up by some of the world’s most popular websites and media outlets...
Sudhanshu K
Oct 10, 2026
https://piunikaweb.com/2026/10/10/edge-testing-feature-translate-documents-language/
#metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus

"AI Translation Needs More Than Speed to Serve Global Customers

A message that works in one market can miss the mark in another. Fast AI translation still needs human judgment to get local context right. (AI-generated image)
For global e-commerce and CRM teams, fast AI translation does not necessarily produce content that fits local markets. Keeping product information and customer communications current across languages also requires workflows that preserve accuracy, brand voice, and cultural context.

Localization adapts content for a market's language and cultural expectations. Continuous localization connects that work to content systems so new or revised text moves through translation and review as part of ongoing updates rather than separate projects.

Translation and localization company Acclaro introduced its Augmented Translation offering in August. According to the company, it combines machine translation, automated editing, AI-based quality assessment, and human review to help enterprise teams manage multilingual content.

Connecting Translation to Content Updates
Andrew Thomas, vice president of marketing at Acclaro, told CRM Buyer that the approach connects localization to ongoing content production rather than handling each update as a separate translation project.

Application programming interfaces (APIs) connect content systems with translation services, allowing new or changed text to move through the localization workflow automatically. Publication timing depends on the review requirements and system configuration.

Andrew Thomas, VP of Marketing at Acclaro
Consider a retailer updating a product description and a promotional slogan. The description might need approved terminology and an accuracy check, while the slogan could require creative adaptation for each market. Continuous localization can keep both changes moving through the process, with different review requirements for each.

Acclaro connects with systems such as Salesforce, HubSpot, Adobe Experience Manager, Shopify, and code repositories to retrieve updated text and return localized versions with less manual file handling, he explained.

Clients can also connect Acclaro's services to their existing translation management systems, he noted. Integration capabilities and update timing depend on the systems involved.

The platform is designed to preserve brand voice and tone and support regulatory compliance as content changes across markets. However, he cautioned that speed without context can weaken brand messaging.

Feedback from local reviewers, sales teams, and end users can inform future translations, Thomas explained. Translation memories — databases of previously translated text — help teams reuse approved wording.

Routing Content by Audience
Within a continuous localization process, different content may require different treatment, according to Thomas. Incremental software updates may need straightforward translation and review, while marketing campaigns may require transcreation — adapting a message's creative intent for a local audience rather than translating it directly.

Metadata identifying the intended audience can also guide terminology and review decisions within those workflows. The workflow includes decision points for assigning tasks to automated tools or human reviewers, he explained.

For example, content for engineers may require different terminology from content for marketers. Applying those distinctions across languages and markets requires detailed workflows and substantial integration work, he added.

Where Human Judgment Matters
AI can help generate wording options, but sensitive creative work still requires human judgment, Thomas explained. Cultural meanings can change, making local reviewers important even when a translation is linguistically accurate.

"Performing well in one market might actually harm brand impact in another due to cultural nuances," he said.

He recommended using market-level content performance to guide decisions about when direct translation is sufficient and when a message needs creative adaptation.

Turnaround time alone does not establish whether localization is effective. Other considerations include how much editing translations require, how often terminology needs correction, and how localized content performs with customers.

Managing E-Commerce and Customer Communications
Product catalogs and digital campaigns require frequent changes to promotional banners, product descriptions, and pricing messages.

Customer communications across emails, push notifications, support portals, and sales materials also need consistent terminology and messaging across languages.

For teams managing those updates, the practical challenge is deciding which tasks can be automated and which need human review.

Consumer expectations also extend to transparency. Research published in 2025 by language services provider RWS, involving about 5,000 consumers across 14 markets, found that 62% said transparency about AI use would increase their trust in a brand. More than 80% believed AI-created text, images, and video should be clearly labeled.

The survey measured attitudes toward AI-generated content broadly, not AI translation specifically.

In Acclaro's announcement, Amy Grace O'Brien, senior linguistic quality manager at Adobe, said automating repetitive translation tasks can give linguists more time for work that requires their expertise. A thoughtful combination of AI and human review can help teams manage more content while preserving quality and brand voice, she added."
Jack M. Germain
October 9, 2026 5:00 AM PT
https://www.crmbuyer.com/story/ai-translation-needs-more-than-speed-to-serve-global-customers-177759.html
#metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus

"Two Chinese Books Shortlisted for US National Translation Awards
This week’s shortlist announcement included two works of prose originally written in Chinese. A separate Chinese anthology was also longlisted for the poetry prize last month.

Two books translated into English from Chinese have been shortlisted for the 2026 U.S. National Translation Awards, which recognize excellence in both original and translated literary works.

The shortlist, announced Tuesday by the American Literary Translators Association, includes two originally written in Chinese: Chinese author Shuang Xuetao’s short story collection “Hunter,” translated by Jeremy Tiang, and Hong Kong writer Hon Lai Chu’s “Mending Bodies,” translated by Jacqueline Leung, among a total of 11 poetry and prose works translated from nine languages.

“The Ruins,” an anthology by Chinese poet Ye Hui and translated by Li Dong, was longlisted among 23 works across prose and poetry on Sept. 3 but did not make the shortlist. Ye is known for his spare, understated poems that draw on everyday life and nature and explore questions of time, memory, and existence.

Established in 1998, the awards rank among the world’s top professional accolades for literary translation. Winning translators in both categories — poetry and prose — each receive a $4,000 prize. Translations of Chinese works have previously been listed for the prize, including works by contemporary writers Xu Zechen and Yan Lianke, as well as Qing dynasty (1644–1911) novelist and playwright Li Yu.

Shuang Xuetao, author of “Hunter,” one of the two shortlisted Chinese works, was born in 1983 in Shenyang, capital of the northeastern Liaoning province. He is widely considered a leading figure in the “Dongbei Renaissance,” a cultural movement emerging from northeast China, or Dongbei. Known for his use of local dialect, Shuang often portrays the lives of ordinary people in the region, long dismissed as a cultural backwater and rust belt. Several of his works have been adapted into films.

“Hunter” features 11 standalone stories, some of which were originally written in Dongbei dialect: from provincial ambulance drivers searching for a hospital in the middle of the night, to a legendary knife fighter working in a factory. In a note about their selection published alongside the announcement, the competition’s judges wrote that Shuang’s stories “paint a portrait of a region marked by gritty pragmatism, dark humor, and magical realism.”

The work was translated by Shuang’s long-term collaborator Jeremy Tiang — a novelist in his own right. The judges wrote that Tiang “expertly translated Shuang’s often inventive, utterly unique description; his English texts are layered and witty.”

The second book nominated for the prize, “Mending Bodies” by Hong Kong writer Hon Lai Chu, is a work of speculative fiction and follows a young woman adjusting to life after surgically binding her body to a partner, in a future where people are encouraged to do so. Hon has previously drawn praise for her surreal, introspective fiction, which often explores the fragility of the body, memory, and human relationships.

According to the judges, Jacqueline Leung, the book’s Hong Kong-based translator, “flawlessly translates the between-the-lines subtleties of the languages.”

“The shortlisting of these works carries substantial significance for the overseas circulation of Sinophone literature and its greater visibility within global professional literary circuits, representing, in a sense, a multifaceted retelling of Chinese stories across fiction and poetry,” Shao Dong, an assistant professor of creative writing at Hong Kong Metropolitan University, told Sixth Tone.

The overall award winners will be announced on Oct. 23 as part of the American Literary Translators Association’s annual conference.

By Li Xin
Oct 09, 2026
Editor: Marianne Gunnarsson
https://www.sixthtone.com/news/1019103
#metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus

"Anne Carson's Nobel Prize Win Settles an Argument About Translation That Has Run For a Century

Anne Carson prints the holes in Sappho where other translators quietly filled them. The Swedish Academy has now called that work original, settling something it left open in 1913.

The Swedish Academy said something on Thursday that it has spent more than a hundred years avoiding. Announcing the 2026 Nobel Prize in Literature for Anne Carson, it stated that her translations from Classical Greek stand as independent works rather than as service to somebody else's text. Translators are rarely told any such thing. The convention holds that translation is honourable, secondary labour, the kind acknowledged in small type on a copyright page while the author's name carries the cover.

Anne Carson's Nobel Citation Says What Tagore's In 1913 Only Implied

What The Academy Said In 1913
The argument has a precedent, and it belongs to India. Rabindranath Tagore's citation praised his profoundly sensitive, fresh and beautiful verse, by which, with consummate skill, he had made his poetic thought, expressed in his own English words, a part of the literature of the West.

Five of those words carry the entire problem. The Academy honoured the English, and the English was Tagore's own rendering of poems he had written in Bengali. Nominated by the British poet Thomas Sturge Moore, he was known to the committee largely through a slim body of self-translated material. Scholars have argued ever since about whether the prize went to 'Gitanjali' or to 'Song Offerings', which are not the same book.

What Carson Does With A Damaged Page
Her method makes the question concrete in a way that no amount of theory manages. 'If Not, Winter', her Sappho published by Knopf in 2002, prints square brackets wherever the papyrus is torn. Sappho survives in scraps, and most of her translators have quietly completed her. Mary Barnard in 1958 grew a four-word fragment into a poem. Willis Barnstone in 1998 took a scrap of eleven words and produced eight stanzas with a title attached. Carson leaves the holes open instead, and one fragment arrives in her version as four words on a white page: do not move stones. She has written that brackets are exciting, and that they imply a free space of imaginal adventure.

The Position The Academy Has Now Taken
Refusing to fill a gap is a decision, and it belongs to the translator rather than to Sappho. Barnstone's eight stanzas were also a decision. Both are acts of composition, and what separates them is temperament rather than fidelity, which is precisely the thing the profession has spent centuries declining to admit.

That admission is what Stockholm has now made. In 1913 the Academy arrived at the same conclusion by accident, crowning a Bengali poet for English sentences he had built himself and then saying nothing further about it. In 2026 it has put the claim in the citation.

Nothing about the economics shifts because of a sentence from a committee. Translators remain poorly paid and frequently uncredited, and a great deal of Indian writing still travels the world inside English versions whose makers nobody can name. What has changed is that the most conservative institution in letters has stopped treating the work as invisible, and it took a woman who spent fifty years alone with a dead language to extract the concession..."
Girish Shukla
Oct 9, 2026
https://www.timesnownews.com/lifestyle/books/anne-carsons-nobel-prize-win-settles-an-argument-about-translation-that-has-run-for-a-century-article-156299251
#metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus

Binghamton University's Translation Research and Instruction Program (TRIP) hosted the 15th International Association for Translation and Intercultural Studies (IATIS) Regional Workshop on Oct. 3-4 at the University Downtown Center.

"The language of resistance: Binghamton University hosts conference on translation and intercultural studies
First North American conference for IATIS focused on literary activism

Binghamton University's Translation Research and Instruction Program (TRIP) hosted the 15th International Association for Translation and Intercultural Studies (IATIS) Regional Workshop. Image Credit: Ava Poole '27.
By Ava Poole '27
October 09, 2026
Binghamton University's Translation Research and Instruction Program (TRIP) hosted the 15th International Association for Translation and Intercultural Studies (IATIS) Regional Workshop on Oct. 3-4 at the University Downtown Center.

The first IATIS conference to be held in North America featured 21 speakers from eight different countries and 10 different educational or publication institutions, including five TRIP faculty members and PhD candidates.

As an international conference, it presented the opportunity to showcase Binghamton's local charm and history to academics from around the world.

On Saturday, the group took a tour that started with the new Harriet Tubman statue and continued through several stops along the Downtown Binghamton Freedom Trail, a project begun by Binghamton University in 2021. Associate Professor Sharon Bryant, associate dean for diversity, equity, and inclusion for the Decker College of Nursing and Health Sciences, led the tour. Bryant showcased the history of the City of Binghamton and its role in the Underground Railroad.

Associate Professor Sharon Bryant led a tour showcasing the history of the City of Binghamton and its role in the Underground Railroad as part of the International Association for Translation and Intercultural Studies (IATIS) Regional Workshop. Image Credit: Ava Poole '27.
The IATIS Regional Workshop attracts professors, PhD candidates, translators, and independent researchers from across the globe to discuss and present their studies in translation. This year, the topic of the conference was "Translating Resistance: Literary Activism in Conflict and Solidarity," which opened the floor for presenters to focus on numerous humanitarian topics in translation, from historical presentations of feminist writings to modern poetry calling out political violence.

Keynote speaker Professor Samah Selim from Rutgers University spoke on Saturday. Her presentation, titled "Translating Archives: 'Radical Remembering' and the Politics of Solidarity," discussed a commissioned translation of three short books written by Egyptian painter and activist Inji Aflatoun.

"It started out as a commissioned project, but then it evolved into what I sometimes call a passion project. My journey with Aflatoun led me to an archive of transnational feminism that helped me think about the problems of women's struggles in Egypt today in new and productive, empowering ways," Selim said.

Throughout her speech, Selim referred to translation as a medium of memory, a form of political labor, and a journey of discovery. These ideals were echoed by the presentations that followed, which addressed the many applications of translation work...

Professor Omid Ghaemmaghami from Binghamton’s Department of Middle Eastern and Ancient Mediterranean Studies (MEAMS) gave Saturday’s final presentation.

"Translation," he said, "is never neutral. It can frame, it can amplify, and contest, and the act of undertaking it can determine who gets to read a text at all."

For organizers, the IATIS presentations represented the different aspects of translation that add to a text or divide the reader from the original. Who and what is translated, now and throughout history, affects what information readers have access to across language barriers.

They hope that conferences such as the IATIS Regional Workshop continue the global conversation around translation and keep the intentions, interests, and responsibilities of translators clear and peer-reviewed.

© 2026 Binghamton University

State University of New York
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https://www.binghamton.edu/news/story/6529/the-language-of-resistance-binghamton-university-hosts-conference-on-translation-and-intercultural-studies
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Canadian poet, essayist and translator Anne Carson won the Nobel Prize in literature Thursday for playful, genre-blending works that fuse the classical and the modern

"By The Associated Press
STOCKHOLM — Canadian poet, essayist and translator Anne Carson won the Nobel Prize in literature Thursday for playful, genre-blending works that fuse the classical and the modern.

Toronto-born Carson, 76, draws on themes and stories from ancient Greek and Roman literature for works that often mix elements of poetry, essay and fiction.

Ingrid Carlberg, permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy, said Carson was in Iceland “listening to the wind” when the academy reached her to notify her of the win.

“She was very taken by surprise,” Carlberg said.

Works range from classical Greek translations to poetry
Carson’s books include “Eros the Bittersweet,” a look at the pleasure and pain of desire in ancient Greek literature; the verse novel “Autobiography of Red”; “Men in the Off Hours,” a collection of poetry and prose that won Canada’s Griffin Prize for poetry in 2001; and “Norma Jeane Baker of Troy,” which compares Marilyn Monroe and Helen of Troy.

She also has translated works of classical Greek literature that, the Swedish Academy said, “may be regarded as independent works in their own right.” They include “If Not, Winter,” based on poem fragments by Sappho; Sophocles’ tragic plays “Electra” and “Antigone”; and Euripides’ “Bakkhai.”

“Almost all her literary production has centered upon the intersection between the philologist’s obsession with words and the poet’s desire for new meaning,” said Anders Olsson, chair of the literature committee.

Olsson added that Carson’s juxtaposition of influences ranging from the ancient Greeks to John Keats, Virginia Woolf and Emily Brontë “leads to playful and ironic works that move not only between classical and modern poetry but also between different genres and artforms.”

Carson wrote about her own life and struggles
Carson has taught classics at several North American universities and has lived in Iceland, where she and her husband, Robert Currie, were granted citizenship in 2022...

She also has drawn on her own life for works such as “Nox,” which was published in 2010 and dealt with the decades-long absence and then death of her brother Michael. Olsson called it “a creation as sculptural as it is literary, an epitaph in the form of a box containing an accordion-fold-out of pictures, letters and other written texts dedicated to her dead brother.” It also includes Carson’s translation of an elegy by the Roman poet Catullus for his own brother.

Among her most recent work is “Wrong Norma,” a wide-ranging 2024 collection of pieces from publications including The Paris Review and The New Yorker, accompanied by Carson’s hand-drawn illustrations.

Also that year, Carson wrote in the London Review of Books about being diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. She said, “A symptom particularly mortifying to me was that my handwriting disintegrated.”

“Hard to describe or explain the shame of bad handwriting,” she said. “Bad handwriting is ugly. Also it is inauthentic. In the sense it is not you.”

The prize was announced by the Swedish Academy in Stockholm. The Associated Press’ efforts to reach Carson and her literary agent, Nicole Aragi, were not immediately successful.

Friday to bring peace prize winner
The prize money this year is 12 million Swedish kronor (about $1.2 million) per prize.

Last year, Hungarian writer László Krasznahorkai, whose surreal and anarchic novels combine a bleak world view with mordant humor, won the Nobel Prize in literature for work the judges said upholds the power of art in the midst of “apocalyptic terror.”"

https://www.nbcnews.com/world/europe/nobel-prize-literature-awarded-stockholm-rcna602243
#metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus

Jean-Louis Robert traduit Kafka en créole et enrichit la langue de 300 mots
Jean-Louis Robert vient de publier une traduction en créole réunionnais du chef-d’œuvre de Kafka, Le Procès. Un travail qui a permis au passage d’enrichir la langue de quelque 300 nouveaux mots. Explications.

Jean-Louis Robert a fait paraître une traduction en créole réunionnais du chef-d’oeuvre de Franz Kafka, Le Procés.

Le 29 septembre 2026 à 08h44
On ne pourra pas le soupçonner d’avoir recours à l’IA, ou de faire des emprunts chez les collègues. « La traduction d’une œuvre en créole réunionnais est un pur travail de réécriture. Il n’y a pas de modèle, et on ne peut pas se servir d’une machine », glisse Jean-Louis Robert, écrivain, professeur de lettres à la retraite, et aujourd’hui traducteur de chefs-d’œuvre de la littérature mondiale.

Le créole à la conquête de l’écrit
Ce qui ne l’a pas empêché pourtant de glisser quelques passages du texte original, écrit en allemand, dans le traducteur DeepL. Mais pour passer de la langue d’origine au français uniquement, seul le créole haïtien ayant semble-t-il droit de cité dans la bulle IA. L’un des intérêts justement de permettre au créole d’investir toujours plus le champ de l’écrit, alors que les traductions de classiques se comptent actuellement sur les doigts des deux mains.

Le Procès de Kafka vient s'ajouter aux traductions déjà disponibles chez Orphie de L'étranger de Camus et Candide de Voltaire.

« Le texte original est resté ouvert des mois sur mon bureau, en compagnie de deux traductions françaises de référence. J’avais besoin de confronter souvent les trois pour voir où ça pouvait coincer, et trouver un chemin pour déployer le créole ».

Un travail qui se compte en heures, en mois… « Houlà, je n’ai pas compté », répond seulement Jean-Louis Robert quand on l’interroge. L’auteur n’en est cependant pas à son coup d’essai. Dès 2009, il s’était confronté à l’auteur romain de langue grecque, Babrius. Suivront quelques années plus tard La Fontaine, Voltaire ou encore Camus.

« On voit toute la puissance du créole pour dire des choses dans des domaines qui n’ont pas encore été explorés comme l’existentialisme, l’absurde, l’intimité psychologique ou encore l’angoisse ».

Une façon de confronter le créole à des registres ou des lexiques singuliers, et d’assurer un travail d’adaptation difficilement réalisable à l’oral. « Quand on parle et qu’on cherche une correspondance, le chemin le plus simple et le plus immédiat est l’emprunt au français. Un chemin qui ne se fait pas dans l’autre sens, et entraîne un appauvrissement progressif, alors que le créole est déjà très riche ».

Face au texte de Kafka, Jean-Louis Robert a fait appel à près de 300 néologismes qui sont venus enrichir son « karné nouvomo » déjà riche de nombreuses occurrences. Une manière de bousculer « la situation de diglossie » qui caractérise l’île.

« Il s’agit d’une cohabitation asymétrique de deux langues, avec ici la prépondérance du français sur le créole. Le danger avec la multiplication des emprunts est d’assister à une décréolisation de la langue. Pour résilience par exemple, on peut choisir d’écrire et dire rézilians. Mais l’expression ''vanzé ek in zafèr'' évoque précisément cette notion de résistance à quelque chose dans le sens de ne pas se laisser sombrer. Je préfère donc faire appel à des notions préexistantes et leur permettre de se déployer dans un nouveau registre, pour éviter un emprunt de facilité que l’on retrouve à l’oral ».

Pour éviter la simplicité de piocher dans le français, Jean-Louis Robert s’est fixé plusieurs procédés permettant de travailler, à partir des préfixes et suffixes créoles, des troncations liées à l’accentuation, du recours au synapsie…

La fabrique des néologismes
« Ce sont en quelque sorte des moules naturellement présents dans la langue, qui permettent de travailler le lexique pour l’enrichir. C’est ce travail qui permet à mon sens d’anlérizé (valoriser) et zarlorizé (enrichir) le créole réunionnais ».

Une manière de procéder qui fait aussi directement écho aux questionnements qui agitaient Kafka lui-même dans l’utilisation de la langue. « Il s’exprimait dans un dialecte germanique de Prague, mais a adopté la langue allemande pour son œuvre écrite. Il y déploie un style clinique, chirurgical, débarrassé de toute fioriture ou ornementation. Assez loin de ce qu’on imagine du créole, et pourtant sa plasticité permet d’y répondre parce que le créole est très loin d’être aussi simple qu’on l’imagine »."
https://www.lequotidien.re/article/culture/2026/09/29/jean-louis-robert-traduit-kafka-en-creole-et-enrichit-la-langue-de-300-mots

"Maroc : le « Moushaf Mohammedien » traduit en amazighe après plusieurs années de recherches
IQNA-La Fondation Mohammed VI pour l’édition du Saint Coran a publié une nouvelle traduction des sens du Coran en langue amazighe, dans sa variante chleuh, parlée notamment dans le sud du Maroc.

Selon moroccoworld, cette édition de 1 278 pages est le fruit de plusieurs années de travail collectif, de recherches et de vérifications scientifiques menées par des oulémas de la région du Souss. Présentée comme la première traduction officielle et scientifique du Coran en amazighe au Maroc, elle vise à faciliter l’accès des amazighophones aux sens du texte coranique, tout en tenant compte de leur patrimoine linguistique et religieux.

Une édition associant le texte coranique à sa traduction

Le nouveau « Moushaf Mohammedien » a été imprimé dans un format de 25 × 35 centimètres. Sa couverture ivoire est ornée de décorations dorées. Le texte du Coran apparaît sur les pages de droite, en écriture maghrébine de style mabsout, avec quinze lignes par page, tandis que la traduction amazighe figure sur les pages opposées.

La présentation associe la tradition de la calligraphie maghrébine à des motifs décoratifs inspirés de la culture amazighe. Les divisions du Coran sont signalées dans les marges par des ornements particuliers, également utilisés pour séparer les sourates.

La traduction a été réalisée dans la variante chleuh, parlée dans certaines régions du sud du Maroc. Les traducteurs ont privilégié des mots courants et compréhensibles pour les populations concernées, en évitant les expressions rares, peu familières ou nouvellement créées.

Afin de faciliter la lecture, le texte amazighe comporte des signes diacritiques. Leur utilisation suit une méthode proposée par Mohammed Mokhtar Soussi, érudit et chercheur marocain. L’objectif est de permettre aux lecteurs de consulter directement la traduction à côté du texte original.

Un travail collectif soumis à plusieurs vérifications

Cette traduction est le résultat d’un travail collectif et non de celui d’un seul traducteur. Des oulémas de la région du Souss ont participé à sa préparation afin de réduire les risques d’erreurs liés à une traduction individuelle.

Les membres du comité se réunissaient chaque semaine pour examiner les textes et discuter des choix de traduction. Chaque participant traduisait une partie du Coran, puis soumettait son travail aux autres membres, qui procédaient à un examen collectif.

Après cette phase de concertation, la traduction a été soumise à une évaluation scientifique. Une fois la mise en page et la composition typographique réalisées par la Fondation Mohammed VI, la version finale a fait l’objet de trois relectures.

Les traducteurs ont cherché à restituer directement les sens des versets, sans transformer l’ouvrage en commentaire détaillé. Pour préciser leur compréhension, ils se sont néanmoins appuyés sur plusieurs commentaires reconnus, notamment le Tafsir al-Jalalayn, ainsi que ceux d’al-Baydawi, d’Abou al-Saoud, d’an-Nasafi et d’Ibn Kathir.

Le travail tient également compte de la tradition religieuse marocaine, du droit musulman selon l’école malikite et de la théologie acharite.

Le patrimoine religieux amazighe mobilisé

Les chercheurs ont complété les références arabes par des ouvrages issus du patrimoine intellectuel amazighe du Souss. Parmi les sources consultées figurent Al-Hawd et Bahr ad-Doumou, de Sidi Mohammed ben Ali Akbil Ouzal, ainsi qu’une traduction de Al-Mourchid al-Mouin, réalisée par Sidi Mohammed ben Abdallah ben Daoud at-Timsmaouati.

Le comité a également étudié le commentaire de Al-Hawd rédigé par Sidi al-Hassan ben Moubarak ben Mohammed at-Tamoudizti.

Le recours à ces ouvrages vise à préserver le lien entre les concepts coraniques et la langue des lecteurs. La traduction ne repose donc pas uniquement sur les références classiques en arabe : elle prend aussi en considération les ressources linguistiques et religieuses propres aux communautés amazighes de la région.

La préface de l’édition présente quatre raisons justifiant le projet. La première est le renforcement de la culture coranique au Maroc. La deuxième concerne la nécessité de traduire les sens du Coran en amazighe, à l’image de ce qui a été réalisé dans de nombreuses autres langues.

La troisième raison est l’absence, selon les responsables du projet, d’une traduction officielle et scientifiquement fiable en amazighe. Ils estiment que cette lacune pourrait favoriser des traductions réalisées par des personnes ne disposant pas des compétences nécessaires. Le quatrième motif découle d’une recommandation formulée lors de la deuxième rencontre scientifique des conseils locaux des oulémas du Souss, organisée en décembre 2012 à Agadir.

Une tradition ancienne désormais reconnue officiellement

La traduction des sens du Coran en amazighe ne constitue pas une pratique nouvelle. Selon un témoignage rapporté en 1933 par Mohammed al-Hajoui ath-Thaâlibi, les enseignants du Coran dans les communautés amazighes expliquaient aux élèves le sens des versets dans une langue qu’ils comprenaient avant de leur demander de les mémoriser. Cette méthode facilitait l’apprentissage et se transmettait de génération en génération.

La nouvelle édition s’inscrit dans cette continuité, mais elle prend désormais la forme d’un projet officiel encadré par une institution nationale.

Maâdh al-Sahabi, professeur d’université et chercheur marocain spécialisé dans les sciences coraniques, les lectures et l’exégèse, a souligné l’importance scientifique de cette publication, notamment en raison de la participation collective des oulémas et des nombreuses vérifications effectuées.

L’ancien chef du gouvernement marocain Saadeddine El Othmani a également présenté l’ouvrage comme la première traduction officielle et scientifique du Coran en amazighe au Maroc.

Créée en 2010 par décret royal et inaugurée la même année par le roi Mohammed VI à Mohammedia, la Fondation Mohammed VI assure la vérification, l’impression, la publication et la distribution du Coran. Elle contrôle notamment l’écriture, les signes diacritiques et les lectures des exemplaires publiés. Au Maroc, le Moushaf Mohammedien suit la lecture de Warsh d’après Nafi‘.

Avec cette traduction, les sens du Coran en amazighe bénéficient ainsi d’un cadre scientifique et institutionnel national, tout en prolongeant une tradition éducative et religieuse ancienne. Le projet vise à rapprocher le texte coranique du patrimoine linguistique et culturel des communautés amazighes du Maroc.

4380934"
https://iqna.ir/fr/news/3496928/maroc-le-moushaf-mohammedien-traduit-en-amazighe-apres-plusieurs-annees-de-recherches
#metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus

Live captions and spoken translation on any phone
Breeze Translate works on any computer that is connected to an audio feed
Choose from around 200 languages and listen in around 75. Breeze is able to translate from around 60 languages

"A TRANSLATION service for churches that can provide live captions and spoken translation on any phone has been enabled by a “huge shift” in machine learning, its product and innovation lead, Mike Ashelby, said this week.

Breeze Translate works on any computer that is connected to an audio feed, which could be a sound desk feed, a clip-on microphone or a phone placed near a speaker lectern. The person running Breeze logs into their account, selects the audio input, and then presses “start”.

Breeze will then begin transcribing whatever is said. Worshippers can access a translation on their smartphone by scanning a QR code which will take them to the church’s translation page. They can choose from around 200 languages and listen in around 75. Breeze is able to translate from around 60 languages.

The product will celebrate its third birthday this weekend, when FaithTech runs its annual 24-hour Christian Hackathon, a coding event at which around 100 developers work to create solutions to challenges pitched by churches and Christian charities (News, 16 October 2025). In 2023, a prototype for Breeze was developed by the end of the 24 hours, Mr Ashelby recalled. A piece of “God-inspired architecture”, it was a response to a request from a church in Leicester with a large Gujarati population and developed by Ben Hartman, an American missionary working in Germany.

Developing it as a product, rather than open-source technology, was Mr Ashelby’s idea. It needed to be “off-the-shelf” and “church-focused”, he said. He aimed for it to be accessible to all churches, not just those with technical expertise or large coffers. It is now being used across six continents.

This week, he gave examples of stories of its use across the country. One woman at his own church had spoken in Urdu recently. “Everyone at the church said, ‘I didn’t recognise her — she was like a different person,’” he recalled. “She was so much more impassioned, so much more emotive, so connected.”

The development had been enabled by “really clever” people and the expansion of smartphones but also by a “huge shift” in AI, he said. This entailed the expansion of large language models’ predictive capabilities. “Things that we thought historically were human-only — apparently these models appear to be capable of them.”

Amid concern about the implications of AI for humanity — outlined in May in the Pope’s encyclical Magnifica Humanitas — Mr Ashelby acknowledged that technology could be “dangerous” but emphasised its potential to “rehumanise us”..."
Madeleine Davies
09 October 2026

https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/2026/9-october/news/uk/app-makes-translation-a-breeze

#metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus

"Join WLL’s Persian program and the MFA in Literary Translation for a night of Persian poetry! Author and translator Niloufar Talebi will read from and discuss the work of Ahmad Shamlou, a pioneer of modern Persian poetry.

https://www.bu.edu/wll/2026/10/07/10-27-2026-translating-ahmad-shamlou-with-niloufar-talebi/
#metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus

🌍 METAGLOSSIA WEEKEND DIGEST🌍 METAGLOSSIA WEEKEND DIGEST

The Pulse of Language, Translation, Interpreting and Interculturation

 

📅 9 October 2026 | Special Weekend Edition

 

📰 20 STORIES SHAPING OUR LINGUISTIC WORLD

 

Welcome to the Metaglossia Weekend Digest, your curated overview of developments in translation, interpreting, language technology, literary exchange and intercultural communication.

 

This edition explores how languages connect worlds, how artificial intelligence is reshaping professional practice, and why linguistic diversity, cultural identity and human understanding remain central to our shared future.

 

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📚 1. LITERATURE, CULTURAL EXCHANGE & THE TRANSLATOR’S CRAFT

 

1. 🇰🇷 Anton Hur recognised for his contribution to Korean literature
Korean literary translator Anton Hur has received a new award recognising his role in bringing Korean literature to international readers. His ambitious project to translate Park Kyung-ni’s Land into English highlights the dedication required to make major literary works accessible across linguistic and cultural boundaries.

 

🔗 Read the article

 

2. 🇹🇼 Taiwanese novel Ghost Town wins recognition in Italy
Translator Silvia Pozzi has received a Pisa Book Translation Award for her Italian translation of Kevin Chen’s Ghost Town. The recognition demonstrates how literary translation opens international pathways for stories rooted in particular histories, identities and cultural experiences.

 

🔗 Read the article

 

3. 🇮🇪 Dracula in Irish: translating literary worlds
The story of Dracula in Irish offers an opportunity to reflect on the challenges of translating fictional names, atmosphere and cultural references. Literary translation requires more than linguistic substitution: it calls for creative negotiation between the world of a text and the expectations of its new readers.

 

🔗 Explore the Irish literary context

 

4. 📖 William Tyndale and the enduring legacy of Bible translation
The legacy of William Tyndale invites reflection on the transformative power of making religious texts accessible in vernacular languages. His work illustrates the historical connections between translation, literacy, religious authority and access to knowledge.

 

🔗 Explore the Irish Times

 

5. 🇮🇳 Indian literature in translation: voices across languages
Literary initiatives such as The View From Here and Hyphen showcase writing from India's diverse linguistic traditions through English translation. They raise a fundamental question: how can a shared language facilitate literary exchange without marginalising the languages in which those works originated?

 

🔗 Read more in Frontline

 

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🤖 2. ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE, TECHNOLOGY & PROFESSIONAL PRACTICE

 

6. 🧠 Lara 3: AI designed for professional translation
Translated's Lara 3 focuses on evaluating translation alternatives and using contextual information to support professional-quality output. The key question for translators is whether specialised AI can improve accuracy, consistency and productivity while respecting the complexity of real-world translation assignments.

 

🔗 Read the article

 

7. 🎙️ Microsoft advances real-time speech transcription
Microsoft's MAI-Transcribe-2-Streaming is designed to transcribe speech in real time across numerous languages. Potential applications include live captions, accessibility tools and multilingual communication. Its effectiveness will depend on performance across individual languages, especially those with limited digital resources.

 

🔗 Read the report

 

8. 📚 AI translation of literary classics raises ethical concerns
Publishers have raised concerns about AI-generated translations of literary classics, including questions of quality, transparency, authorship and professional recognition. The debate highlights the difference between using AI responsibly as an aid and treating literary translation as a task that can be reduced to automated text production.

 

🔗 Read the report

 

9. 🎓 Can post-editing training make translators more efficient?
Research involving undergraduate English–Persian translation students examines whether structured post-editing training improves speed. The findings support an important principle for translator education: effective machine-translation use requires professional training, critical judgement and the ability to recognise errors.

 

🔗 Read the research

 

10. 💼 The translation market: is AI the biggest threat?
An analysis of the French translation market argues that economic uncertainty and changing demand may be as consequential as automation. For language professionals, specialisation, service quality, adaptability and the demonstration of added value remain important considerations.

 

🔗 Read the article

 

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🌐 3. LANGUAGE RIGHTS, CULTURAL IDENTITY & INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION

 

11. 🇹🇧 DeepZang and the future of Tibetan-language AI
The development of Tibetan-language AI illustrates the growing importance of digital tools for languages beyond the world's dominant linguistic communities. It also raises questions about data ownership, cultural representation, language access and the relationship between technological development and political priorities.

 

🔗 Read the report

 

12. 🇸🇦 Saudi Arabia's Tarjim initiative advances translation
Saudi Arabia's Tarjim initiative supports translation to and from Arabic and promotes the international circulation of Arab content. The programme illustrates how institutional investment in translation can contribute to cultural visibility, knowledge exchange and international communication.

 

🔗 Read the report

 

13. 💬 When “yes” does not necessarily mean yes
Intercultural communication can become complicated when politeness, indirect refusal and social expectations differ. A positive-sounding response may communicate hesitation rather than agreement. Translators, interpreters and intercultural mediators must therefore attend to context, intention and relationships—not just literal words.

 

🔗 Explore the discussion

 

14. 🎥 CIUTI: inspiring the next generation of translators and interpreters
The University of Geneva's Faculty of Translation and Interpreting publicises a student video competition exploring what would happen if translators and interpreters disappeared, alongside online seminars for the 2026–2027 academic year. Such initiatives help make the profession's contribution to society more visible.

 

🔗 Discover the initiative

 

15. 🎮 Corsican takes a step into the world of Minecraft
A community initiative seeks to translate Minecraft into Corsican through collaborative volunteer work. The project shows how video games and digital entertainment can become powerful environments for language learning, intergenerational transmission and the revitalisation of less widely represented languages.

 

🔗 Read the story

 

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🎯 4. INTERPRETING, PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT & THE FUTURE OF THE FIELD

 

16. 🥊 UFC press conference highlights the need for interpreting provision
An incident involving Cameroonian fighter Ateba Gautier highlights the importance of planning appropriate language support at international sporting events. Professional interpreting should be anticipated and organised rather than improvised, ensuring that participants can communicate and be understood in their preferred languages.

 

🔗 Read the report

 

17. 🌱 Mentoring emerging literary translators
The UK's National Centre for Writing has announced nine participants in its 2026–2027 Emerging Translator Mentorships programme. Supporting early-career translators helps develop professional skills, strengthen networks and bring literary works from a wider range of languages into international circulation.

 

🔗 Read the announcement

 

18. 🎓 Kent State University promotes advanced translation studies
Kent State University is promoting an information session for prospective students of its Master of Arts in Translation programme, scheduled for 13 November 2026. Advanced training remains important for developing the analytical, linguistic and professional skills required in a changing translation industry.

 

🔗 Find out more

 

19. ⚖️ The politics of translation: words, influence and responsibility
Translation is never entirely detached from power. Decisions about terminology, cultural references and tone can shape how audiences understand a message. This perspective invites language professionals to reflect on their ethical responsibilities whenever translation influences public debate, cultural representation or high-stakes communication.

 

🔗 Explore the discussion

 

20. 🌍 Translation in the age of AI: language rights and the future of the profession
Debates about translation, linguistic diversity and AI underline the importance of ensuring that people can access information in languages they understand. Technology can expand possibilities, but sustainable multilingual communication also requires skilled professionals, responsible institutions and investment in underrepresented languages.

 

🔗 Explore Gulf Times

 

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💡 THE METAGLOSSIA EDITORIAL PERSPECTIVE

 

What do these 20 stories tell us?

 

🔹 AI is changing translation—but human judgement still matters. From real-time transcription to literary translation, technological advances bring opportunities alongside questions of quality, accountability, ethics and professional recognition.

 

🔹 Linguistic diversity needs more than recognition. Tibetan AI, Corsican video-game localisation, Arabic translation initiatives and literary exchange show that languages thrive when communities have access to tools, education, publications and meaningful digital spaces.

 

🔹 Translation is about people, relationships and power. Whether in literature, sport, education or intercultural dialogue, translation helps determine whose voices are heard, whose knowledge circulates and how different communities understand one another.

 

🔹 Interculturation must go beyond linguistic equivalence. Lasting mutual understanding requires engagement with the conceptual worlds, cultural experiences and perspectives of the people communicating across differences.

 

For Metaglossia, these developments reaffirm a central conviction: translation and interpreting are not merely technical services. They are essential practices through which people and communities negotiate understanding across linguistic and cultural boundaries.

 

The challenge is not simply to make words travel, but to make understanding possible.

 

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🌍 OUR CALL TO THE GLOBAL LANGUAGE COMMUNITY

 

How can we ensure that artificial intelligence strengthens rather than diminishes linguistic diversity?

 

How can translators and interpreters secure the recognition, working conditions and professional standing their contributions deserve?

 

And how can we build a world in which every language community can participate meaningfully in global knowledge exchange?

 

💬 Join the conversation. Share your perspectives, experiences and ideas.

 

Because every language carries a world—and every act of genuine translation creates an opportunity for worlds to meet.

 

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METAGLOSSIA — THE TRANSLATION WORLD

 

The Pulse of Language, Translation, Interpreting and Interculturation

 

🌐 Explore our curated collection: https://www.scoop.it/topic/translation-world

 

#Metaglossia #MetaglossiaMundus #Translation #Interpreting #Interculturation #InterculturalCommunication #LanguageTechnology #AIandTranslation #LiteraryTranslation #LanguageRights #LinguisticDiversity #TranslationStudies #AfricanLanguages #Multilingualism

 

Editorial note: This digest is a curated overview of selected stories and discussions. Please verify article availability, publication details and individual source links before republication. Some links in the original selection lead to general publisher pages rather than verified article-specific pages.

Translating Gaza: A Conversation on Literature and Translation” Join a public lecture by Michelle Hartman, Professor of Arabic and Francophone Literature at McGill University and co-translator of A Long Walk from Gaza.

"American University in Cairo
AUC New Cairo Campus
Alwaleed Hall - Room P071
Sun 11, 1pm – 2pm: “Translating Gaza: A Conversation on Literature and Translation” Join a public lecture by Michelle Hartman, Professor of Arabic and Francophone Literature at McGill University and co-translator of A Long Walk from Gaza.
History Department Conference Room 2144
Wed 14, 1 PM – 2 PM: “History Hash Outs | Building the Future: Cold War Development in Egypt and the Gulf” Join Masha Kirasirova, associate professor of history at New York University Abu Dhabi, for a talk on how Egyptians imagined the future during the decades between decolonization and neoliberal globalization.

Beit Al Sett Wassila (House of Arab Poetry)
Al Azhar district, behind Al Azhar Mosque, Al Aini St, Tel 02 2510 3171
Every Saturday and Sunday, 5pm: The meeting and the workshop of the House of Arab Poetry to discuss the newly released literary works and the poetic experiences of the aspiring poets.

Diwan Bookstore
159, 26th of July St, Zamalek, Tel 01222 40 7084
Sat 10, 1pm - 2pm: “The Story of Haniya and Her Clever Idea, and Koka the Spinning Top” storytelling with Salma El-Banna. 
105, Abu Bakr El-Seddiq St, Heliopolis, Misr Algedida, Tel 02 2690 8184/85/ 0122 6000168
Sat 10, 1pm - 2pm: “Grandpa’s Story and the Hero” storytelling with Miram Khamis.

Radio Cinema, 24 Talaat Harb, Marouf, Qasr El Nil, Downtown, Cairo, Tel 02 25756562  
Mon 12, 7pm: Book signing and discussion of The Women of the Tudors book featuring author Dr. Aisha Khalil Abdel-Karim in conversation with Dr. Hala Kamal.

Tahrir Cultural Centre (TCC)
AUC’s Tahrir Campus, Al-Sheikh Rihan St, off Tahrir Square, Tel 02 2615 2694/01280009077
Oriental Hall
Tues 13, 9am – 5pm: “From Tomb to Text: Talks on Coptic History” conference uncovers the rich tapestry of Coptic history as leading scholars from Egypt, Europe and the United States gather at the AUC to present groundbreaking research. Organized by the Department of Sociology, Egyptology and Anthropology with the support of The Gratus Foundation by Mary and Bishoy Azmy, this insightful conference brings together diverse experts to explore the latest findings across art history, textiles, settlement archaeology and archaeobotany while charting exciting future directions for the field.

* A version of this article appears in print in the 8 October, 2026 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly"
https://english.ahram.org.eg/UI/Front/Inner.aspx?NewsContentID=578369
#metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus

"Translator Anton Hur has been named the first recipient of the Woori Eum Award, a special prize created alongside the 15th Park Kyung-ni Prize for 2026.

The Park Kyung-ni Prize Committee said it established the special award to honor translators who have helped introduce Korean literature to the world, and selected Hur as its first winner. Unlike the Park Kyung-ni Prize, which is awarded annually, the new prize is a one-time award marking the 100th anniversary of novelist Park Kyung-ni's birth and the start of a full English translation of her epic novel "Land." The prize carries 10 million won.

The committee praised Hur for bringing the distinctive sensibility and literary world of Korean writing onto a global stage. It said it also chose him to encourage his undertaking of translating all 20 volumes of "Land" into English. In August, the Toji Cultural Foundation and Woori Bank signed a cultural and arts cooperation agreement to work together on the full English translation of "Land."

Hur has translated works including Kang Kyeong-ae's "The Underground Village" and Bora Chung's "Cursed Bunny," introducing the originality of Korean literature to readers abroad. "Cursed Bunny" was shortlisted for the International Booker Prize in 2022 and was a finalist for the National Book Award in translated literature in 2023.

The award will be presented on the 29th at the Park Kyung-ni Prize ceremony at Hotel Inter-Burgo Wonju. The committee earlier named South African writer Damon Galgut as the winner of the 15th Park Kyung-ni Prize."
https://en.sedaily.com/culture/2026/10/06/translator-anton-hur-wins-new-park-kyung-ni-prize-special
#metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus

"Creators of China’s first Tibetan-language AI model have pledged to speed up upgrades aimed at promoting ethnic integration.
Approaches to advancing the large language model, DeepZang, were discussed at a seminar on Monday that brought together representatives from research institutes, universities and enterprises, according to state-run portal Chinanews.com.

It said the event held in Hohhot, in China’s northern Inner Mongolia autonomous region, addressed issues such as improving Tibetan artificial intelligence (AI) technologies and expanding the model’s application into multilingual simultaneous interpretation.

Speakers included Tenzin Norbu, the model’s founder, who vowed to continuously refine Tibetan AI technologies and advance their practical use. He also emphasised the use of technological innovation to “foster ethnic interaction and integration” and support digital development in ethnic minority regions.

DeepZang’s launch in March came roughly three years after the unveiling of Monlam AI, a Tibetan-language LLM developed by Monlam Tibetan IT Research Centre, a non-profit organisation based in Dharamsala – the Indian hillside town that has hosted the 14th Dalai Lama and the Tibetan administration-in-exile since 1960.

Tibet remains a top priority in ethnic and religious affairs for Beijing, which has consistently bolstered domestic Tibetan studies to regain control of international discourse on the issue. DeepZang is part of this broader effort to reshape global narratives around Tibet with its own authoritative data and technology.
Advertisement
These efforts are also reflected in Beijing’s push since 2023 to use the romanised Pinyin name “Xizang” instead of “Tibet” in English articles, projecting its sovereign narrative globally."
Published: 9:00am, 7 Oct 2026Updated: 9:08am, 7 Oct 2026
https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3369938/chinas-deepzang-ai-aims-transform-tibetan-language-tech-promote-ethnic-unity
#metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus

Tarjim Initiative Honored for Advancing Translation, Promoting Saudi Content Globally

Wednesday 26/04/1448

Riyadh, October 07, 2026, SPA -- The Abdullah bin Idrees Cultural Center honored the Literature, Publishing and Translation Commission, represented by the "Tarjim" initiative, in recognition of its contributions to advancing translation and facilitating the dissemination of Saudi and Arab content across diverse languages and cultures worldwide.
The honoring ceremony took place yesterday evening at the center's Cultural House in Riyadh's Al-Taawun district. The event coincided with the center's celebration of translating 20 million words as part of the broader "Translating a Billion Words" initiative and the release of the 10th issue of the "Wijha" newsletter. The gathering was attended by linguists and intellectuals and included the honoring of several prominent institutional and individual initiatives in the translation sector.
"Tarjim" is one of the strategic initiatives launched by the Literature, Publishing and Translation Commission to advance the cultural sector and stimulate translation to and from Arabic. These efforts aim to enrich Arabic content, foster cultural and knowledge exchange, and strengthen the global presence of Saudi literature and culture.
-- SPA
19:59 Local Time 16:59 GMT
0065
https://spa.gov.sa/en/N2695784
#metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus

Relay translation, translation from an intermediate translation rather than directly from the original, can occur in international publishing, but King said it requires authorization from both the original author and the translator of the source text...
European publisher used her English translation, rather than Yang’s original Mandarin novel 《臺灣漫遊錄 》as the source text for a translation into another language.

"Translator sues over alleged unauthorized relay translation of ‘Taiwan Travelogue’

Lin King, the English translator of "Taiwan Travelogue," announced on threads that she is filing a lawsuit. (Photo: Threads screenshot)
Lin King (金翎), the English translator of Yang Shuang-zi’s (楊双子) “Taiwan Travelogue,” has filed legal action over an alleged unauthorized “relay translation” of her English edition into a third language, according to a statement she posted on social media on Tuesday.

King said a European publisher used her English translation, rather than Yang’s original Mandarin novel 《臺灣漫遊錄 》as the source text for a translation into another language. The publisher also translated King’s annotations and afterword, she said.

King said she first learned of the project on July 2, about six weeks after “Taiwan Travelogue” won the International Booker Prize. She said the publisher’s translator appeared not to be able to read Chinese, making her English version the basis for the entire third-language edition. She said she is the sole copyright holder of the English “Taiwan Travelogue” and registered the copyright with the U.S. Copyright Office in 2024. King said she never authorized anyone to sell relay-translation rights based on her English edition.

After learning of the plan, King asked Taiwan’s rights agent to halt printing until a formal license was completed. She said the European publisher maintained that using the English translation was legal and released the book on July 10.

King said she later found that the foreign-language licensing contract had specified “Taiwan Travelogue,” rather than the Mandarin original, as the translation source from the outset. She said neither the English publisher, the Taiwan publisher, nor the agent representing the Mandarin original had obtained her permission.

After unsuccessful negotiations, King said she has hired lawyers at her own expense to pursue legal action in Taiwan and in the country where the third-language edition was published. King did not identify the publisher, rights agent, or country because the legal proceedings are ongoing. She said the case is not merely a financial dispute, but an effort to clarify translators’ rights in their own work and establish a legal precedent.

Relay translation, translation from an intermediate translation rather than directly from the original, can occur in international publishing, but King said it requires authorization from both the original author and the translator of the source text."
07/10/2026 17:03
Editor： Eloise Phillips
https://www.rti.org.tw/en/news?uid=3&pid=236264
#metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus

"Translated Launches Lara 3, Making the Case for Specialized Translation AI

Published October 7, 2026
By Aiden Cross, AI Product Strategy & Execution
AI Research Agent

Add Unite.AI to your preferred sources on Google
AI-generated editorial illustration by Unite.AI

Key Points
Specialized translation models can outperform general AI by learning to judge competing…
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A translation can read beautifully and still get the job wrong. A product term changes halfway through a manual, a support message loses its context, or a campaign arrives in another language without its original voice. Those are the problems Translated is targeting with the general release of Lara 3, its specialized AI translation model.

Announced on October 7, the launch makes Lara 3 available to enterprises, professional translators and individual users through the Lara API, TranslationOS and Lara Translate. It follows an introduction to selected partners in July and puts a focused translation system into a market increasingly crowded with general-purpose AI models.

The headline claim is substantial: in Translated’s blind evaluations, professional translators rated 82% of Lara 3’s translations as perfect, requiring no edits. The company reports lower scores for the general AI and dedicated translation tools it tested. The more interesting question is what specialization contributes when translation becomes part of an actual production workflow.

What the benchmark measures
According to the launch release, the evaluation covered 16,800 translations from English into 21 enterprise localization languages. It combined WMT25 material spanning books, news and user conversations with proprietary enterprise content in travel, technology and finance.

Averaged across the 21 language pairs, Translated reports the following shares of translations rated perfect:

Lara 3: 82%
GPT-5.6 Sol: 69%
Claude Fable 5: 67%
DeepL: 57%
Google Translate: 53%
The release says Lara finished first in 20 of the 21 language pairs. Lara’s public benchmark methodology note describes a majority judgment by at least two of three professional translators. These are company-reported results on a defined test set, rather than a universal accuracy rating across every language, domain or document.

That distinction matters. English-to-target-language performance does not establish the same ranking for every direction of translation, and a strong aggregate score can conceal differences between languages or content types. For a localization team, the relevant test remains its own terminology, material and review standards.

A model that practices before deployment
Translated’s technical introduction to Lara 3 describes a training approach it calls “learning by doing.” Imitation remains the foundation, but the model then practices generating alternative translations. An automatic judge, shaped by professional reviewers’ expertise, evaluates those attempts, and the model reinforces successful choices while correcting weaker ones.

The company says this cycle runs millions of times during training. The resulting behavior is built into the deployed model; it does not mean every customer request triggers a fresh training process.

The approach addresses a familiar difficulty in translation: several versions of a sentence may be valid, while only some fit the surrounding material. Learning to evaluate those alternatives offers a different objective from simply reproducing one reference answer.

In the release, co-founder and CEO Marco Trombetti argues that translation quality depends on understanding the problem in depth. Fluency alone is insufficient when an ambiguous phrase, an incorrect technical term or a missed cultural cue changes what a reader understands.

Context is part of the workflow
Training is only one layer. Lara’s developer documentation explains how the system uses relevant document context when translating individual sentences. For longer inputs, it can translate sentences in parallel while supplying surrounding text as additional model input.

Developers can also provide external context that should inform a translation without itself being translated. A blog title can be accompanied by the article’s body, for example, or a new chat message by the preceding conversation. This is particularly useful when professional translation tools have already divided a document into separate segments.

For enterprise users, that capability has a practical purpose: keeping small pieces of content connected to the information that gives them meaning. Glossaries and approved translation memories add another layer of consistency, especially when the same product vocabulary appears across a website, documentation and customer support.

From quality scores to production economics
The release also reports separate speed and cost benchmarks. In a single-thread test, Translated says Lara 3 delivered 23 times the throughput of Claude Fable 5 and translated 3.75 times as many characters for the same budget. Those comparisons are distinct from the quality evaluation and should be understood within their tested setup.

Lara’s API platform extends beyond plain text to HTML and XLIFF localization content, documents, images and audio. The product page describes support for more than 70 document formats with layout preservation, plus glossary and translation-memory integration. Coverage varies by input type, so text-language support should not be assumed to apply identically to audio or images.

Translated was founded in 1999 by linguist Isabelle Andrieu and computer scientist Marco Trombetti. Its launch release says the company serves more than 300,000 customers across 200 languages and over 40 subject areas. That history helps explain Lara’s emphasis on the less glamorous requirements of localization: consistent terminology, contextual accuracy and output that fits the intended use.

Lara 3’s general availability turns the specialization argument into a product decision. Its reported benchmark lead is a reason to investigate; the stronger test is whether it reduces editing and integration work on real content. For teams translating at scale, preserving meaning reliably is what makes a model useful long after the first impressive sentence.

Aiden Cross · AI Product Strategy & Execution
AI Research Agent
Aiden Cross is an AI-generated research agent at Unite.AI, covering AI product strategy, execution, and the practical challenges of turning experimental models into scalable, market-ready products. His work focuses on how startups and enterprise teams move from prototypes and demos to reliable systems used by real customers.With a pragmatic and detail-oriented perspective, Aiden analyzes product roadmaps, go-to-market strategies, platform decisions, and organizational trade-offs that determine whether AI initiatives succeed or stall. He pays particular attention to deployment realities, user adoption, infrastructure constraints, and the alignment between technical capability and business value.Articles authored by Aiden Cross are AI-generated and reviewed by Unite.AI’s editorial team to ensure clarity, accuracy, and responsible coverage of how AI products are built, shipped, and scaled in the real world."
https://www.unite.ai/translated-lara-3-specialized-translation-ai/
#metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus

"When "Yes" Doesn't Always Mean Yes: The Hidden Language of Polite Refusal

A simple "yes" does not always mean a definite agreement. For example, when a student is invited to go somewhere, they might say, "Yes, I'll check tomorrow first." It sounds like a positive answer, but it does not necessarily mean they have definitely agreed to go.
In everyday conversations, people do not always say exactly what they mean. A response that sounds like an agreement in one culture may have a different meaning in another. The problem starts when one person thinks they have received a clear "yes," while the other person is actually just trying to be polite or is still unsure.

Why Directness Is Not Universal
Saying "no" may seem simple, but people do not always express refusal in the same way. Edward T. Hall (1976) introduced developed the distinction between high-context and low-context communication to explain how people rely on context differently when interpreting messages. In high-context communication, meaning is often understood through the surrounding situation, relationships, and other contextual cues, while low-context communication places greater emphasis on explicit verbal messages. These differences can affect how people interpret agreement, disagreement, and refusal. This difference in Communication style shows how cultural dimensions can shape the way people express and interpret meaning.

The Indonesian Example

Indonesia provides an interesting example of how refusal can be communicated indirectly. Cultural Atlas describes Indonesians as generally indirect communicators who pay attention not only to words but also to posture, facial expression, and tone of voice. It also notes that concerns about politeness and "saving face" can make people reluctant to give a direct "no," even when they disagree. Instead, speakers may leave their meaning open to interpretation and expect listeners to pay attention to the surrounding context (Cultural Atlas, 2016).

This pattern is also supported by research on Indonesian university students. Chojimah (2015) examined how 161 Indonesian university students refused offers, invitations, and suggestions from people of higher, lower, and equal social status. Across all three relationships, indirect strategies were more common than direct ones. The most frequent indirect strategies were criticizing the offered thing, presenting another agenda, showing a preference, and stating a personal limitation. Social status had little effect on whether students refused directly or indirectly, but it shaped how politely they refused: students used the most softening expressions, such as apologies, thanks, and deferential phrases, when refusing someone of higher status. 
This tendency can also be seen in research on Javanese communication. Wijayanto (2019), for example, compared refusal strategies used by native Javanese speakers in Indonesia and native British English speakers. Using written discourse completion tasks, the study found that both groups favored indirect refusal strategies, although the types of expressions and softening elements they used differed. Javanese speakers also varied their refusals according to the social status of the person they were refusing. This shows that indirectness is not exclusive to one culture; rather, cultures can differ in how indirectness is expressed and understood.
However, these findings should be interpreted with caution. The studies focus on specific groups, namely university students and Javanese speakers, so they cannot be generalized to all of Indonesia's highly diverse society. Chojimah (2015) notes that her participants came from only two universities in East Java, and Wijayanto (2019) acknowledges a small sample of 35 Javanese and 20 British participants. Both studies also relied on discourse completion tasks, which may not fully reflect what people say in natural conversation.

When Good Intentions Backfire

The difficulty begins when people with different communication expectations interact. A listener who expects direct answers may interpret a vague response as agreement, while the speaker may have intended it as a polite way of avoiding a direct refusal. In this situation, the problem is not necessarily that one person is being dishonest or that the other is being rude. Rather, the two people may be following different expectations about how agreement and refusal should be communicated.
This is why a phrase that sounds positive on the surface may not always carry the same meaning across cultures. Understanding the speaker's intention may require attention to the context, the relationship between the speakers, the tone, and other cues surrounding the words. In cross-cultural communication, listening to the words alone may therefore not be enough (Cultural Atlas, 2016).

More Than Just a "Yes"

A "yes" may sound clear, but communication is rarely that simple. What one person understands as agreement may be another person's way of being polite, avoiding discomfort, or leaving an option open. These differences become especially important when people from different cultural backgrounds communicate.
The lesson is not that one way of communicating is better than another. Instead, cross-cultural communication requires us to look beyond the words themselves and pay attention to context, tone, relationships, and cultural expectations. Sometimes, understanding what someone means requires more than simply listening to what they say.

REFERENCES
Hall, E. T. (1976). Beyond Culture. https://books.google.com/books/about/Beyond_Culture.html?id=GrPZAAAAMAAJ
Cultural Atlas. (2016). Indonesian -- Communication.  https://theculturalatlas.org/indonesian-culture/indonesian-culture-communication
Chojimah, N. (2015). "Refusal and politeness strategies in relation to social status: A case of face-threatening act among Indonesian university students." Theory and Practice in Language Studies https://doi.org/10.17507/tpls.0505.04
Wijayanto, A. (2019). "Refusals in Javanese and English: A Comparative Study of Saying 'No' in Two Different Cultures." Journal of Intercultural Communication, 19(2), 1--22.  https://immi.se/index.php/intercultural/article/view/Wijayanto-2019-2

Author: Tamlik Makarima Helmingski

Najwa Ayu Nurfadilla"
https://www.kompasiana.com/najwaayunurfadilla/6ac6f5b134777c0e10312463/when-yes-doesn-t-always-mean-yes-the-hidden-language-of-polite-refusal
#metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus

Beyond the Language Barrier: How Cultural Differences can shape and impact
7 Oktober 2026, 18:12 WIB

In today's interconnected global economy, workplaces have transformed into vibrant mosaics of cultures, languages, and perspectives. Employees from different national, ethnic, and linguistic backgrounds now collaborate daily across time zones and continents. This rich diversity can shape  innovation and creativity, yet it also introduces complex communication challenges that organizations cannot afford to ignore. As the Harvard Business Review (2020) highlighted, while different kinds of  teams excel at problem-solving, their potential is often blocked by tackling in daily interactions.

Miscommunication in multicultural settings rarely stems from language proficiency alone. A team might speak fluent English, yet still fail to execute a project effectively due to unspoken cultural rules, for example if certain worker in work is having a problem they can ask for help cause anyone in that office speak the same language but the problem is they have different background or culture so it the worker afraid that it may sound rude

Differences in communication styles---specifically direct versus indirect strategies, and high-context versus low-context cultural frameworks---frequently create misunderstandings that escalate into professional friction. As businesses continue to expand across borders and remote work soften geographic boundaries, understanding and addressing these communication challenges has become more critical than ever. This article explores the root causes of miscommunication in multicultural workplaces

Anthropologist Edward T. Hall classified cultures based on how context influences communication. In low-context cultures, such as those in the United States or Germany, communication is direct, explicit, and literal; what is said is precisely what is meant. In high-context cultures, including many East Asian and Southeast Asian societies, communication relies heavily on background, non-verbal cues, and shared context.

Consider a common scenario in an international corporate meeting: an American project manager asks a Japanese developer if a tight deadline is feasible. The developer replies, "That might be difficult," while gently lowering their eyes. To the low-context manager, this sounds like a challenge worth negotiating. To the high-context developer, it is a polite, definitive "No" intended to save face and preserve harmony. When the manager continues pushing, the developer feels disrespected, while the manager later feels blindsided when the project stalls.

Similarly, power distance---a concept identified by sociologist Geert Hofstede show how hierarchy is navigated in professional settings. In high power-distance cultures, questioning a supervisor's directive publicly is considered insubordinate. In low power-distance cultures, employees are expected to challenge ideas openly regardless of corporate rank. A silence that signals respect and deference in one culture can easily be misread as a lack of initiative or disagreement in another. These subtle disconnects erode trust, hinder collaboration, and silently degrade team morale over time.

Some business leaders argue that standardization is the ultimate fix---that enforcing a single corporate language (such as English) and standardized digital workflows eliminates cross-cultural friction entirely. Proponents of this view suggest that focusing on cultural differences creates unnecessary division or overcomplicates simple tasks.

However, relying solely on language fluency misses the root problem. As the BBC (2021) observed in a report on global remote work, sharing a common vocabulary does not mean sharing common workplace expectations. Expecting a single language to erase decades of cultural socialization is unrealistic. When organizations ignore cultural nuances, employees often feel alienated or misunderstood, leading to reduced engagement and higher turnover rates.

To turn cultural diversity from an operational hazard into a competitive advantage, organizations must move beyond surface-level language courses and foster true intercultural communicative competence. First, companies should implement continuous cross-cultural training that focuses on real-world scenarios rather than rigid stereotypes. Understanding why a colleague communicates indirectly allows managers to adapt their questioning techniques---for instance, replacing open-ended pressure with private one-on-one check-ins.

Second, teams must establish clear "ground rules" for communication. Defining how feedback is delivered, how deadlines are confirmed, and how disagreement should be voiced creates a safe, predictable baseline for everyone.

Finally, building an inclusive culture requires individual empathy and active listening. Recognizing that our own communication style is not the universal default is the first step toward genuine collaboration. When leaders prioritize cultural intelligence alongside technical skills, diversity stops being a source of confusion and becomes the creative catalyst it was always meant to be."
https://www.kompasiana.com/ndradity9768/6ac6293034777c67a10643d4/beyond-the-language-barrier-how-cultural-differences-can-shape-and-impact
#metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus

Réfléchir au rôle essentiel des professionnels dans les métiers de la traduction et de l’interprétation

"CIUTI: concours vidéo et séminaires
Participez au concours vidéo CIUTI
🗣️Vous étudiez à la FTI et souhaitez prendre part à une initiative créative ? Alors, n'hésitez plus et participer à l'édition 2026 du concours CIUTI sur le thème: "What would happen if translators and interpreters disappeared?"

Ce concours est l'occasion de réfléchir au rôle essentiel des professionnels dans les métiers de la traduction et de l’interprétation.

Pour participer, vous devez soumettre une courte vidéo avant le 20 janvier 2027.

📌 Pour plus d’informations, veuillez consulter les modalités de participation.

 

Assistez aux conférences en ligne
🗓️D'octobre 2026 à mai 2027, vous pouvez assister gratuitement à une série de conférences en ligne sur la traduction et l'interprétation. Découvrez-en plus en consultant le programme des interventions prévues durant cette période.

⚠️La participation est gratuite, mais l'inscription est obligatoire.

5 oct. 2026"
https://www.unige.ch/fti/a-la-une/concours-video-ciuti-2026
#metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus

"Un jeune Corse lance un appel pour traduire le jeu vidéo "Minecraft" en langue corse
Par Pierre-Manuel Pescetti

Publié le 05/10/26 à 10:00

 

Pierre François Marchiani a commencé à traduire Minecraft en langue corse.

José Martinetti

Corte - Corti

Joueur passionné, Pierre-François Marchiani a déjà traduit plusieurs termes du jeu plébiscité par 170 millions de joueurs chaque mois. Il lance un appel au travail collectif pour y faire rentrer la langue corse.
L'idée lui est venue presque par hasard, en relançant Minecraft après plusieurs mois loin de ce jeu vidéo. "Je me suis promené dans les options et j'ai vu qu'ils proposaient le jeu en basque, en breton, en catalan. Je me suis dit : Pourquoi pas en corse ?" Pierre-François Marchiani en est convaincu, la langue corse a toute sa place dans l'univers de Minecraft. Il a commencé à "traduire" le jeu grâce à Crowdin, une plateforme de traduction collaborative sur internet. Le principe : des communautés de contributeurs proposent les traductions, qui peuvent ensuite être intégrées au jeu par ses éditeurs. "Il y a plus de 30 000 mots à traduire. C'est un sacré chantier", lance le doctorant en "cultures et langues régionales" à l'université de Corse. Et si cinq à six personnes participent déjà à la traduction sur la plateforme, Pierre-François Marchiani voit plus grand. Il a lancé un appel sur les réseaux sociaux : "Seul, cela me prendrait énormément de temps. Et puis, un travail collaboratif permet d'inclure les gens dans le projet, de le faire connaître."

Immersion dans un quotidien ludique
Pour Pierre-François, l’enjeu va au-delà du simple clin d’œil linguistique : "On parle de plus en plus d’immersion. Quand on sait qu’un enfant peut passer une dizaine d’heures par semaine devant les jeux vidéo, ce serait autant d’heures supplémentaires passées en lisant la langue corse.""
https://www.corsematin.com/article/societe/17100935144896/un-jeune-corse-lance-un-appel-pour-traduire-le-jeu-video-minecraft-en-langue-corse

"Publishers say using AI to translate classics is ethically wrong

Publishers Krista Kaer and Piret Lemetti warn that AI-assisted re-translations of literary classics appearing on the market are unethical, unfair to readers, and devalue the work of human translators.

Varrak Editor-in-Chief Kaer said that the overall situation for translated literature in Estonia has not improved from the viewpoint of publishers.

"Print runs of books have dropped sharply, and translated literature is expensive to publish. In addition to purchasing rights, there is the translation cost, which is very significant for larger books. Overall, the amount of valuable translated literature has decreased. With the classics, everything is fine — the Hieronymus series publishes books very nicely, and what should have appeared long ago is well covered. However, the situation is bad with contemporary quality literature," Kaer admitted.

"Books are published that are more or less a sure bet. There is nothing to be done; a large part of the world is still uncovered for Estonians, and this situation will not change in the near future either. The Cultural Endowment helps, thank God," Kaer laughed.

"I look with great envy at the French and Germans, where very important works published all over the world appear very quickly and continuously. In Estonia, books that appear quickly tend to belong to the field of entertainment and crime fiction," she noted.

Eesti Raamat Editor-in-Chief Piret Lemetti agreed.

"Often you look at a book that you would very much like to publish, but you know that publishing it would be a very big risk. Especially if it is English-language literature, because people read a lot in English. If you cannot publish the book at the same time it appears in English, then you have already missed the train," Lemetti admitted.

Publisher: AI will come for translators and illustrators first
"The share of translations from English is decreasing in other European countries as well because many people read in English. For Estonia, translating literature published in the Nordic countries is becoming more important, as is Central Europe. Of course, Asia is still half-undiscovered for us. South Korean literature is currently making a huge breakthrough, but we simply do not have enough translators," Kaer added.

"It is also very difficult to introduce unfamiliar foreign names to Estonian readers because there is a deep distrust — people prefer to take a book by a well-known author or at least someone who can be associated with something," Kaer noted.

Lemetti added that a point of comparison is crucial for readers. "If readers cannot associate authors with someone or something, they are not very inclined to buy the book," she said.

"If print runs drop by another couple hundred, there will actually be no point in publishing these books anymore," Kaer said, expressing hope that books people hesitate to buy will still be borrowed from libraries, provided libraries have enough money to purchase them.

"At the same time, all agents are gradually raising author fees and translation-rights fees. One can fight this and negotiate down, but these costs are becoming higher and higher. For some reason, there is an opinion that books are being bought more and more and publishers are doing better and better, which of course is not true," Kaer laughed.

The publishers added that exciting niche works remain untranslated because, in Estonia, their target audience would only be 300 to 400 people.

At the same time, older translations are also being updated. Varrak has published Dostoevsky texts, and Kaer herself has retranslated Yeats.

"These are probably needed, but new mystical translations have appeared — for example, of Conan Doyle — that are clearly made with artificial assistance and are completely terrible. Such things are very bad: taking classics to which copyright no longer applies and for which one does not have to pay, and then simply throwing them onto the market in a way that they cannot even be called translations or books," Kaer warned.

Lemetti added that she has encountered such books herself. "It is actually written on the title page that artificial intelligence assistance has been used in translation. I do not understand why this has been done," she noted.

Kaer believes the driver is a quick cash grab.

"This is unfair toward the author, and it is unfair toward buyers and readers. Doing such things is simply ethically wrong," Kaer said.

"This is also the devaluation of the translator's work. Essentially, the translator is reduced to a glorified editor. I do not understand what the point of this is," Lemetti added."
03.10.2026 10:50
Krista Kaer. Source: Siim Lõvi /ERR
https://news.err.ee/1610153521/publishers-say-using-ai-to-translate-classics-is-ethically-wrong
#metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus

Dana White apologizes after UFC 332 presser runs out of translators

Ateba Gautier answered in French, the language of his hometown of Douala. No one in the room translated the exchange...

"The UFC 332 pre-fight press conference in Salt Lake City was meant to frame a middleweight main-card opener. It became a language mix-up instead.

Cameroon’s Ateba Gautier, who trains with Manchester Top Team, meets Roman Kopylov on Saturday at the Delta Center. Gautier is 11-1, riding a 10-fight winning streak and tied for the longest active run in the UFC middleweight division.

A reporter opened by addressing him in French, the language of his hometown of Douala. Gautier answered in French. No one in the room translated the exchange.

A later question came in English, about whether Kopylov, a veteran with far more UFC experience, represented a sterner test. Gautier answered in English, and the reply was difficult to miss.

He asked whether Kopylov was human, noted the two legs and two hands, then corrected himself on the size of those legs, and said the two of them would find out in the cage. He added that he takes the Russian seriously and acknowledged the gap in professional experience.

Dana White still went looking for help. The UFC CEO told the room the promotion had been caught short.

“We got f—-d out of that one,” White said. “We don’t have a translator for him. Sorry.”

The clip spread quickly. Fans noted that Gautier had just spoken English, that he has done so in other recent interviews, and that Cameroon lists both English and French as official languages. Others asked how the largest promotion in the sport could fly a fighter in for a main-card bout and not have a French speaker on hand.

A few compared it to an earlier press conference, when White requested a translator after Mexico’s Diego Lopes answered in English with an accent that was mistaken for Spanish.

Gautier smiled through the exchange. The awkward part belonged to the people running the microphone."
https://larrybrownsports.com/mma/dana-white-apologizes-ufc-332-presser-runs-out-translators/772746
#metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus

‘Ghost Town’ translator wins Italian book award
Staff writer, with CNA
Add TT as Preferred Source

Italian translator Silvia Pozzi has won a Pisa Book Translation Award for her translation of Ghost Town (鬼地方), a novel by Taiwanese author Kevin Chen (陳思宏).

The Italian edition, titled Citta fantasma, was recognized at a ceremony held Friday at the Palazzo della Sapienza in Rome as part of the Pisa Book Festival, an annual literary event that brings together authors, publishers and readers.

The novel is set in Yongjing, a town in Changhua County, and follows a man who returns home after serving a prison sentence in Germany for killing his boyfriend. Through his return and interactions with his family, the novel explores family trauma, hometown ties and the impact of Taiwan’s past.

The cover of the Italian edition of Ghost Town, a novel by Taiwanese author Kevin Chen, is pictured in an undated photograph.
Photo courtesy of the Ministry of Culture

In a news release, Minister of Culture Li Yuan (李遠) said Chen’s distinctive writing style gives local history a magical, dark and melancholic character, making his work appealing to international publishers.

Pozzi is a professor of Chinese and Southeast Asian languages and literature at the University of Milano-Bicocca. Besides Ghost Town, she has translated Chiu Miao-chin’s (邱妙津) Last Words from Montmartre (蒙馬特遺書) and Wu Ming-yi’s (吳明益) The Man with the Compound Eyes (複眼人) into Italian. She has also been commissioned by an Italian publisher to translate Yang Shuang-tzu’s Taiwan Travelogue (台灣漫遊錄), which won the International Booker Prize earlier this year.

Ghost Town has received international recognition, including multiple mentions in The New York Times Book Review in 2022 and a place on the 2023 PEN Translation Prize longlist. Its translation rights have been sold in more than 10 languages."
https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2026/10/04/2003865366
#metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus