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June 29, 2022 12:16 AM
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Cultural intelligence helps people live and work successfully across cultures. Posted June 28, 2022 | Reviewed by Abigail Fagan KEY POINTS - Cultural Intelligence (CQ) is comprised of motivational, cognitive, metacognitive and behavioral components.
- Cross-cultural exposure does not automatically lead to CQ.
- CQ can be trained using various interventions.
- CQ offers many benefits for those living and working in intercultural contexts, as well as for overcoming our differences at home.
Source: ElisaRiva/Pixabay/CC0 The recipe for living and working successfully across cultures calls for many ingredients. One of them is a set of capabilities under the umbrella of Cultural Intelligence (CQ). Regarded as an essential intelligence for the 21st century, CQ is a complex and dynamic construct. For decades, psychologist Soon Ang — one of the first scholars to introduce the concept of CQ — has been researching what makes certain individuals and organizations more proficient in maneuvering the novelty and discrepancy inherent in cross-cultural encounters. After all, as Ang noticed during her extensive travels, it wasn’t only our values that varied across the world — even the values we assigned to our lives were far from identical. The reality of our vast differences co-exists with the still vaster potential of human intelligences. Drawing upon our social, emotional and academic faculties, CQ allows us to find solutions, adapt to our environments and learn from each other. 4 Components of CQ Ang and her colleagues have identified 4 key components of CQ and their subdivisions. Below is a summary of their findings (Van Dyne et al., 2012). 1. Motivational CQ Motivational CQ refers to the ability to “direct attention and energy toward learning about and functioning” in cross-cultural situations. Individuals with high motivational CQ tend to be drawn to intercultural experiences and have the confidence to manage them successfully. - Intrinsic interest: The satisfaction and value that interactions with others from different cultural backgrounds bring. People with high intrinsic interest tend to gain “self-generated benefits” from their cross-cultural experiences.
- Extrinsic interest: Being motivated by the tangible, variable-dependent benefits of cross-cultural experiences, including promotions and new opportunities. Organizations frequently use these extrinsic rewards as incentives for employees on international assignments.
- Self-efficacy to adjust: Confidence in the ability to engage, interact and work across cultures.
2. Cognitive CQ Cognitive CQ describes the wide scope of general knowledge individuals hold about cultures. Here, as Ang points out, Google can be our best friend. Two kinds of knowledge contribute to the success of cross-cultural experiences: culture-general and context-specific knowledge. - Culture-general knowledge: Declarative knowledge about the main elements that make up cultures (value systems, political, historical and philosophical traditions, social and communication norms, insight into local languages).
- Context-specific knowledge: “Insider understanding” of the norms and rules of behavior among various demographic subcultures within a culture (age, gender, occupation).
article continues after advertisement 3. Metacognitive CQ Metacognitive CQ refers to a person’s “mental capability to acquire and evaluate cultural knowledge.” Individuals with high metacognitive CQ have heightened awareness of self, other and situation, monitoring and adjusting their inferences in response to input from intercultural experiences. Metacognitive CQ involves 3 processes that are activated before, during and after interactions: - Planning: Preparation before cross-cultural encounters. Individuals reflect on their goals and objectives prior to the interaction and anticipate possible outcomes by considering the cultural perspective of their interlocutors.
- Awareness: Being conscious in real-time of culture’s influence on thinking, feeling, and behavior.
- Checking: Re-calibration of expectations, assumptions and beliefs that occurs during or after cross-cultural interactions. As new information is learned, the individual adapts their mental maps accordingly.
4. Behavioral CQ Behavioral CQ is the capability to put knowledge into practice and to demonstrate an extensive range of culturally appropriate verbal and non-verbal behaviors. Individuals with high behavioral CQ can appear as more effective and respectful communicators, thanks to their ability to adjust the content, structure and style of their communication. - Verbal behavior: Capacity to express oneself linguistically. This might include tailoring one’s tone of voice or the speed, warmth, formality of speech to appropriate cultural standards. Knowing when and how to use silences during conversations, as well as the etiquette surrounding taking turns are all implicated in linguistic rules of communication.
- Non-verbal behavior: Ability to express oneself through culturally appropriate non-verbal means (gestures, facial expressions), as well as to read others’ body language.
- Speech acts: Knowledge about the culture-specific nuances of expressing apologies, gratitude, warnings and refusals.
article continues after advertisement Source: Marianna Pogosyan/Van Dyne et al., 2012 The How of CQ According to Ang, the belief that cross-cultural exposure will automatically yield CQ is a common misconception. Employers, for example, often consider the travel history of their employees when assessing potential candidates for global assignments. Empirical research, however, suggests a more complicated picture. Firstly, as Ang points out, people engage with local cultures to varying degrees. The anxiety and uncertainty that frequently accompanies cross-cultural experiences might prompt some to stay close to their comfort zones, even while being far from home. This might mean sticking to familiar types of people, foods and situations, rather than venturing into a deeper engagement with the new culture. Secondly, there are various moderators involved in translating contact into CQ. According to the experiential learning theory, for example, having a cross-cultural experience is only the first step of a four-step learning process required for developing CQ. The other three steps involve critically reflecting on the experiences, turning reflections into “more general theories to guide future behavior,” and testing out the new behaviors to evaluate their effectiveness (Ang, 2021). Training CQ Researchers have devised various interventions to train the four components of CQ. For example, to train metacognitive CQ, Ang and her colleagues use intercultural situational judgment tests (SJTs). The premise of these trainings resembles theory of mind exercises. After watching short video clips depicting various cross-cultural situations, participants are asked questions to gauge their insights into the characters’ minds (“What are the characters in the clip thinking and feeling? What is their intention?”). Ang has found that people who can’t accurately “diagnose” cross-cultural situations, tend to hold rigidly ethnocentric views that prevent them from seeing things from other perspectives. The Why of CQ For those living and working in intercultural contexts, CQ offers obvious benefits, including cross-cultural adjustment, cross-cultural negotiating proficiency and global leadership. If at the heart of human intelligence is the ability to solve problems, then, like with other kinds of intelligences, CQ can serve us in finding solutions in unexpected ways. David Livermore, a leading expert in CQ, offers three possibilities. article continues after advertisement 1. CQ as a catalyst of innovation The link between diversity and innovation is not as straightforward as commonly presumed. In fact, research shows that when it comes to innovative ideas, homogenous teams often outperform diverse teams. The reason, according to Livermore, is because it’s easier to work with people who think and communicate like us. CQ appears to be the catalyst that facilitates innovation from the wealth of perspectives that diverse teams foster. Livermore calls CQ a multiplying factor. “When diversity is combined with CQ, it does, indeed, lead to innovation. In fact, diverse teams with high CQ produce over three times more innovative ideas than homogeneous teams.” 2. CQ as a common language for addressing issues of diversity From working with global organizations, Livermore noticed that often, US companies receive feedback from their international offices about their D&I initiatives being too US-centric (e.g., focused on issues of race). CQ, according to Livermore, “goes beyond awareness of differences to developing the skills needed to address diversity.” Thus, CQ allows companies to find “a shared approach while allowing each region to address the specific areas of discrimination and bias in their respective regions.” 3. CQ as a bridge between differences, near and far The benefits of CQ are not limited to those whose lives traverse cultural borders. As Livermore notes, “the competencies that make up CQ are ideally suited to help us overcome polarization with individuals closer to home who have wildly different perspectives than us.” In fact, according to Livermore, CQ might even teach us how to loosen our insistence on being right and use our differences as an impetus. “By learning to apply the same curiosity, understanding, and mindfulness to a family member or friend with a different perspective as what we do when interacting with someone from the other side of the world, we can find common ground and discover solutions to some of our challenges.” A note on harnessing our differences In a way, CQ points to the potential of navigating our differences more skillfully. As Ang notes, in any given interaction, our differences can be seen as enriching or threatening. For example, the more diverse people are, the greater the potential to learn from each other. However, besides providing opportunities to exchange information, our interactions often turn to exercises in social categorization. We attend to available cues and assess our standing in our shared space. “Is it a you and a me, or is it a we? Do I feel like I belong, or do I feel out of place?” According to Ang, it is this clash between cognition and social identity that makes harnessing our differences so complex. Her advice: in your interactions with others, before diving into information exchange, establish a felt sense of belonging together first. Connect to our common humanity — helpful instructions for interpersonal relations of all designs, at home or abroad. Many thanks to Dr. Soon Ang and Dr. David Livermore for their time and insights. Professor Ang is Distinguished University Professor at the Nanyang Technological University in Singapore (NTU, Singapore). She pioneered the concept of cultural intelligence. David Livermore is an author, a social scientist researching cultural intelligence and global leadership, and the founder of the Cultural Intelligence Center in East Lansing, Michigan. References Ang, S. (2021). Cultural intelligence: Two bowls singing in Chen, X. P., & Steensma, H. K. (Eds.). A Journey Toward Influential Scholarship: Insights from Leading Management Scholars. (pp. 26-51). Oxford University Press. Van Dyne, L., Ang, S., Ng, K. Y., Rockstuhl, T., Tan, M. L., & Koh, C. (2012). Sub‐dimensions of the four factor model of cultural intelligence: Expanding the conceptualization and measurement of cultural intelligence. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 6(4), 295-313. Templer, K. J., Tay, C., & Chandrasekar, N. A. (2006). Motivational cultural intelligence, realistic job preview, realistic living conditions preview, and cross-cultural adjustment. Group & Organization Management, 31(1), 154-173. Imai, L., & Gelfand, M. J. (2010). The culturally intelligent negotiator: The impact of cultural intelligence (CQ) on negotiation sequences and outcomes. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 112(2), 83-98. Rockstuhl, T., Seiler, S., Ang, S., Van Dyne, L., & Annen, H. (2011). Beyond general intelligence (IQ) and emotional intelligence (EQ): The role of cultural intelligence (CQ) on cross‐border leadership effectiveness in a globalized world. Journal of Social Issues, 67(4), 825-840. Livermore, D. (2022). Digital, Diverse & Divided: How to talk to racists, compete with robots, and overcome polarization. Oakland, CA: Berrett-Koehler. Bresman, H., & Edmondson, A.C. (2022). Research: To Excel, Diverse Teams Need Psychological Safety. Harvard Business Review. Livermore D., Van Dyne L. & Ang S. (2021). Organizational CQ: Cultural intelligence (CQ) for 21st century organizations. Business Horizons. Ng, K. Y., Van Dyne, L., & Ang, S. (2009). From experience to experiential learning: Cultural intelligence as a learning capability for global leader development. Academy of Management Learning & Education, 8, 511–526. Rockstuhl, T., & Van Dyne, L. (2018). A bi-factor theory of the four-factor model of cultural intelligence: Meta-analysis and theoretical extensions. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 148, 124-144. Ng, K. Y., Van Dyne, L., & Ang, S. (2009). From experience to experiential learning: Cultural intelligence as a learning capability for global leader development. Academy of Management Learning & Education, 8, 511–526. Morereferences About the Author Marianna Pogosyan, Ph.D., is a lecturer in Cultural Psychology and a consultant specialising in cross-cultural transitions.
Alassane Ba, ex-dirigeant de Shelter Afrique et de la BAD, publie le premier lexique bancaire et financier français-pulaar pour l'inclusion en Afrique.
"La publication du Lexique spécialisé Banques/Finances Français-Pulaar marque une étape singulière dans le rapprochement entre langues africaines et terminologie financière. Son auteur, Alassane Ba, ancien Directeur général de Shelter Afrique, ex-haut responsable de la Banque africaine de développement (BAD) et ancien Directeur général par intérim d’Africa50, mobilise une expérience de plusieurs décennies au sommet de l’architecture financière africaine pour livrer un outil sans précédent. L’ouvrage s’inscrit dans un mouvement plus large de valorisation des langues vernaculaires, désormais intégrées aux politiques publiques, aux curricula scolaires et aux stratégies d’inclusion sur le continent.
Un projet linguistique au service de l’inclusion financière
Le pulaar, parlé par des dizaines de millions de locuteurs du Sénégal au Tchad en passant par la Mauritanie, le Mali, la Guinée, le Burkina Faso, le Niger, le Nigeria et le Cameroun, n’avait jusqu’ici jamais fait l’objet d’une codification systématique du vocabulaire bancaire et financier. Le projet d’Alassane Ba comble cette lacune en transposant dans cette langue les concepts clés de la comptabilité, des marchés de capitaux, de la microfinance ou encore de la régulation prudentielle. L’enjeu dépasse la simple curiosité académique. Il touche à la capacité des populations rurales et des opérateurs informels à comprendre, négocier et utiliser des produits financiers souvent libellés dans une langue étrangère.
Les politiques d’inclusion financière menées au sein de l’Union économique et monétaire ouest-africaine (UEMOA) et de la Communauté économique des États de l’Afrique de l’Ouest (CEDEAO) butent régulièrement sur cette barrière de la langue. Les taux de bancarisation, encore modestes dans les zones où le pulaar prédomine, s’expliquent en partie par l’éloignement culturel des produits proposés. Un lexique de référence offre aux établissements bancaires, aux institutions de microfinance et aux régulateurs un socle commun pour concevoir des supports de communication adaptés.
Traduire les concepts sophistiqués de la finance moderne
L’exercice de transposition relève d’un défi méthodologique de premier plan. Comment rendre en pulaar des notions telles que « titrisation », « swap de taux », « ratio prudentiel » ou « actif sous-jacent » sans dénaturer leur sens technique ? Alassane Ba revendique une démarche méthodique, à mi-chemin entre l’expertise sectorielle et le travail lexicographique. Le lexique ne se contente pas de juxtaposer des équivalents. Il propose une grille de lecture qui mobilise le génie propre de la langue pour exprimer des réalités économiques contemporaines, depuis la finance islamique jusqu’aux instruments dérivés.
Ce travail intervient alors que plusieurs pays du Sahel ont engagé des réformes éducatives intégrant les langues nationales comme vecteur d’apprentissage. Le Sénégal, la Mauritanie et le Mali figurent parmi les États où le pulaar bénéficie d’un statut officiel ou para-officiel. La disponibilité d’un corpus financier structuré ouvre la voie à des formations professionnelles dispensées dans la langue maternelle des apprenants, notamment pour les agents de terrain des institutions de microfinance.
Une trajectoire au sommet de la finance africaine
L’auteur n’est pas un inconnu dans l’écosystème financier continental. À la tête de Shelter Afrique, institution panafricaine dédiée au financement du logement, il a piloté des opérations dans une trentaine de pays. Son passage à la BAD et à Africa50, plateforme d’investissement dans les infrastructures, lui confère une connaissance fine des instruments mobilisés pour mobiliser l’épargne et orienter les flux vers les économies réelles. Cette double culture, technique et institutionnelle, irrigue le contenu du lexique.
La démarche pourrait essaimer. D’autres langues africaines à forte audience, du wolof au haoussa en passant par le bambara ou le swahili, manquent encore d’outils comparables dans le domaine bancaire. La publication d’Alassane Ba dessine un modèle reproductible, susceptible d’alimenter une véritable stratégie continentale de souveraineté linguistique appliquée aux secteurs régaliens de l’économie. Reste à mesurer l’appropriation par les acteurs financiers et les autorités de tutelle, condition d’une diffusion à grande échelle. Selon Financial Afrik, l’ouvrage constitue une première du genre dans le paysage éditorial africain."
Aïcha Diallo
10 juin 2026
https://africtelegraph.com/blog/alassane-ba-publie-le-premier-lexique-bancaire-francais-pulaar/
#metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus
"Researchers want to close the gap between today's audio speech models and real listeners. Their system handles dialog, translation, and sound recognition all at once.
Today's audio voice models, like GPT-4o or Qwen 3.5-Omni, work like a dictation machine with a button: they only respond when the recording ends. Streaming systems like Moshi for dialog or Paraformer for live subtitles do listen in, but they can only handle one task at a time and treat sounds like coughing as background noise.
Researchers from China, Hong Kong, and Singapore want to combine both approaches with "audio interaction." The model listens to an audio stream continuously, breaks it into 0.4-second chunks, and decides after each chunk whether to stay silent or speak. Translation, transcription, chatting, and reacting to everyday noises all run in a single three-billion-parameter model...
The model listens to a continuous audio stream and decides moment by moment whether to stay silent or react, combining classical and streaming audio capabilities in one system. | Image: Xie et al.
According to the paper, Audio-Interaction scored 58.15 points on the audio benchmark MMAU, narrowly beating its base model Qwen2.5-Omni-3B. It also comes close to much larger 7B models. On English-Chinese translation, the model improves a lot over the base.
Where previous systems each solve a task in a separate model, Audio-Interaction combines recognition, translation, dialog, and proactive response in a single streaming setup. | Image: Xie et al.
For the model to learn when to step in, the team needed the right training data. Existing audio datasets consist of short, isolated clips and lack long sequences with sparse response signals, the researchers say.
So they built their own scenes in three stages. First, a language model designed a plausible setting—say, a kitchen in the morning—with three to 15 sub-events. The system then searched a database for matching clips or had missing sounds like breaking glass created by audio models like AudioX or ElevenLabs. A preprocessing step then smoothed out the cut edges so the recordings sounded natural.
The resulting StreamAudio-2M dataset contains 2.6 million units and about 302,000 hours of audio across seven skill areas and 28 subtasks.
Two recurring streaming problems
Two weaknesses kept showing up during training. First, the model forgot earlier content in long, noisy sequences. The fix: asking questions that point back to passages from much earlier in the audio, forcing the model to build up long-term memory.
Second, the model fired too often on sounds that didn't matter. The team countered this with large amounts of verified silence and background audio that's explicitly not supposed to trigger a response. On the newly introduced ProactiveSound Bench with 644 human-curated events the model beats Gemini 3 Flash, Kimi-Audio-Instruct, and Step-Audio 2, among others.
In a single everyday scene, the model runs through five of its seven task types, from proactive warnings to audio understanding and real-time translation. | Image: Xie et al.
A queue instead of a blocking pipeline
For real-time use, the researchers split incoming audio processing from response generation. Both run in parallel and swap data through a queue: the audio side keeps writing new chunks, and the response side only reads them when it has nothing to say. Without this split, time-to-first-response jumped from 392 to 831 milliseconds, and the system got stuck 5.2 percent of the time.
The 0.4-second chunk size is a tradeoff. At 0.2 seconds, there isn't enough context and the model falls apart in dialog. At 0.8 seconds, latency climbs to 786 milliseconds.
SoundFlow lines up the audio signal, intermediate representations, and control tokens in a time sequence, jointly training when the model talks and when it stays quiet. | Image: Xie et al.
Code and instructions for downloading the weights are on GitHub under the Apache 2.0 license, with no restrictions on commercial use. The full training dataset is set to follow later."
https://the-decoder.com/new-open-source-voice-model-listens-nonstop-and-decides-every-0-4-seconds-whether-to-speak-or-stay-silent/
#metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus
""The familiar scene at international conferences is quietly vanishing. Gone are the long queues for clunky headsets and the nests of wires snaking from interpretation booths. In their place, attendees are simply pulling out their smartphones. A new report from Salzburg-based LiveVoice confirms a tectonic shift in how global events overcome language barriers, driven by cloud-based platforms that deliver real-time AI translation directly to a user’s own device.
This move away from expensive, logistics-heavy hardware isn't just a cost-saving measure; it represents a fundamental rethinking of accessibility and global communication. As companies like LiveVoice gain traction with major clients like Siemens, Mercedes, and Web Summit, the event industry is grappling with a new reality where artificial intelligence is not just an option, but a core component of the attendee experience.
The End of the Hardware Era
For decades, simultaneous interpretation was a marvel of analog logistics. It required shipping crates of equipment, renting expensive radio frequency transmitters, and staffing booths with technicians. The model was effective but costly and rigid. According to LiveVoice, its hardware-free approach can slash these costs by up to 80%.
The new paradigm is built on a simple premise: Bring Your Own Device (BYOD). Attendees scan a QR code, open a link, and instantly access a stream of translated audio in their chosen language through their own earbuds. The audio, captured from the speaker's microphone, is processed by AI in the cloud and delivered to thousands of devices with a latency of around 0.2 seconds.
This trend is validated by broader market analysis. Cloud-based deployment now dominates the generative AI language market, holding nearly three-quarters of the market share in 2024. Experts at Gartner identified AI-enabled translation as a "significant, decades-long disruption" as early as 2020. The appeal is clear: scalability and flexibility. An organizer can add a new language channel in minutes, not days, and a 5,000-person summit with 18 languages no longer requires a warehouse of gear—just a stable internet connection.
"The logistical overhead of legacy systems was a significant barrier for many event organizers," one event technology consultant noted. "By moving interpretation to the cloud, you democratize it. Smaller events, corporate town halls, and even community gatherings can now afford to be multilingual."
Expanding Access and Breaking Barriers
Beyond the economic argument, the rise of AI-powered platforms is a significant leap forward for inclusivity. The technology's impact extends far beyond simple audio translation. LiveVoice, for instance, integrates AI-generated live captions and automatically translated subtitles that can appear on a user's phone or be projected onto main event screens.
This multi-modal approach makes sessions accessible to attendees who are deaf or hard of hearing. The same infrastructure can also support audio description channels for visually impaired participants, creating a more universally designed event experience. It addresses a clear demand; recent industry surveys show that a staggering 94% of event planners would consider using AI for live translation services, with AI-powered speech translation nearly as popular as traditional human interpretation.
By centralizing language access onto a single, software-based platform, organizers can cater to a wider spectrum of needs without complicating their tech stack. This shift is turning the promise of the "global event" into a tangible reality, where language and ability are no longer barriers to participation. The focus moves from simply providing a service to fostering a genuinely inclusive environment where every attendee can fully engage with the content.
AI and Interpreters: A Hybrid Future
The most pressing question arising from this disruption is its impact on human interpreters. While the specter of automation looms, the reality emerging is less about replacement and more about a new, hybrid collaboration between human and machine.
LiveVoice itself acknowledges this, recommending human interpreters for high-stakes legal, medical, or diplomatic content where nuance and cultural context are non-negotiable. The platform is designed to support both modes, allowing an event to use AI for general-session keynotes while switching to a channel with a human interpreter for a sensitive legal panel. This hybrid model is gaining consensus as the most practical path forward.
Professional bodies like the American Translators Association (ATA) emphasize that while modern neural machine translation is powerful, it still struggles with idioms, cultural norms, and the subtle emotional context that a human expert navigates instinctively. Inaccuracies in high-stakes scenarios can have severe consequences, making human oversight essential. "AI is an incredible tool for drafting and for handling predictable, low-risk content," a representative from a language services association explained. "But it highlights, rather than diminishes, the necessity of an expert human linguist to handle complexity and ensure true meaning is conveyed."
This is reshaping the role of the language professional. The interpreter of the future may be a tech-savvy expert who uses AI to prepare, manage glossaries, and handle routine translation, freeing them to focus their cognitive energy on the most challenging aspects of communication. Their role is evolving from a voice in a box to a strategic partner in ensuring quality and cultural relevance.
The Race for the Cloud-Based Crown
LiveVoice is a prominent player, but it is not alone. The market for AI event translation is heating up, with competitors like Interprefy and Wordly also offering robust, cloud-based solutions. As the industry consolidates, the winning platforms will be those that can reliably do four things: stream low-latency audio to thousands of devices, seamlessly integrate both AI and human interpretation, provide comprehensive accessibility features like captions and subtitles, and scale on demand without long-term contracts.
The adoption by major brands serves as a powerful endorsement, signaling that this technology is moving from a niche experiment to a mainstream standard for international events. As the industry continues its rapid transformation, the silent revolution powered by AI and the cloud is ensuring that more voices can be heard, understood, and included than ever before.
📝 This article is still being updated
Are you a relevant expert who could contribute your opinion or insights to this article? We'd love to hear from you. We will give you full credit for your contribution."
Margaret Mitchell: Unfiltered
The Silent Revolution: AI Redefines the Voice of Global Events
SALZBURG, AUSTRIA – June 08, 2026
https://briefglance.com/articles/the-silent-revolution-ai-redefines-the-voice-of-global-events
#metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus
Jun. 8, 2026, 05:24 AM
Shenzhen, China, June 8th, 2026
Enterprise multilingual communication is undergoing significant change, and most of it is happening inside localization teams rather than boardrooms. Translation has evolved from a supporting service into a strategic operational capability. It now directly influences how products perform in foreign markets, how regulatory compliance is maintained across jurisdictions, and whether international customers decide to trust a brand or abandon it.
MarsTranslation has developed its enterprise strategy around this shift. The company has developed an advanced AI + human translation workflow built specifically for enterprise-scale deployments, one that addresses a challenge growing increasingly costly as businesses expand internationally: maintaining language consistency across content types, systems, and markets that never stop evolving.
Beyond the Document: How Enterprise Translation Has Changed
Not long ago, enterprise translation meant sending documents to a vendor and waiting. That strategy worked when content was stable and global operations worked at a slower pace. Today, neither of those assumptions has changed.
Modern enterprise translation is no longer a single workflow problem. MarsTranslation is an example of a multilayered language translator company, providing services such as document translations, website localization, software and app localization, multimedia translations, interpreting, and even artificial intelligence-powered processes under structured quality evaluation standards. The variety of such services is necessary because enterprise content behaves in the same way, updating itself continuously on product interfaces, compliance sites, customer dashboards, and other SaaS applications.
Relying on static, project-by-project translation even from a well-regarded translation agency creates fragmentation that compounds quietly over time. Terminology becomes inconsistent. Tone shifts between regions. Legal language that was accurate in one version becomes outdated in the next. By the time those inconsistencies surface as performance problems, they are usually embedded across multiple systems.
Where AI Fits and Where Humans Take Over
MarsTranslation's workflow is built around a clear division of responsibility. AI manages high-volume, repeatable translation tasks efficiently: first-pass translation, structural consistency, and high-volume content processing. Human linguists then apply the judgment that machines cannot replicate, ensuring that the final output reads naturally for local audiences.
The result is a system that delivers speed without abandoning accountability. That distinction matters significantly in regulated sectors. In legal, healthcare, and financial services, minor deviations in meaning carry real downstream consequences. A mistranslated clause in a compliance document is not a stylistic issue. It is a liability. The human oversight layer in MarsTranslation's model exists precisely to catch what automation cannot be trusted to get right on its own.
"Pure automation produces fluent output," said Cindy Fu, CEO of MarsTranslation. "But fluency and accuracy are not the same thing, and in sensitive industries, that gap can be expensive. Our model is built around that distinction."
The Consistency Problem Most Companies Notice Too Late
Translation issues often emerge gradually rather than immediately. They do not typically show up as obviously wrong sentences that a reviewer catches immediately. Instead, they surface as subtle inconsistencies that accumulate slowly—slightly different terminology across regional product interfaces, legal disclaimers that read as technically correct but feel tonally disconnected from the brand, and marketing messages that carry full authority in one language but lose credibility in another cultural context. These issues are easy to miss in isolation. Across dozens of markets and content systems, they become a real operational problem.
MarsTranslation's centralized workflow addresses this directly. Translation memory systems retain approved terminology and phrasing across projects. AI-assisted processing applies those standards consistently at scale. Human linguists work within those guardrails rather than starting from scratch each time. The combined effect reduces fragmentation across content pipelines in a way that purely manual or purely automated approaches cannot handle over time.
Stability as the Deeper Advantage
Most industry conversation about AI translation centers on speed, and speed is a genuine benefit. But MarsTranslation's model is built around something less discussed and arguably more valuable at enterprise scale: stability.
When AI handles initial processing and human linguists refine outputs according to system-level consistency rules, the workflow becomes more predictable over time. Terminology stays controlled. Brand voice remains recognizable across markets. Multilingual content quality becomes something that can actually be managed and measured.
For organizations operating across dozens of regional markets simultaneously, that predictability has compounding value. Uncontrolled variation in language across product versions, support content, and marketing campaigns creates operational risk that grows alongside the business. A professional translation services partner that maintains consistency across languages and markets helps prevent these risks from growing as global operations expand.
What the Shift Means for Enterprise Decision Makers
For organizations evaluating translation partners, the relevant questions have changed. Organizations increasingly evaluate partners based on how consistency is maintained across content types, how terminology is governed as products evolve, how localization workflows scale without degrading quality, and how quickly content can be adapted when market conditions or compliance requirements shift. In this context, a professional language translation company functions less like a project vendor and more like a long-term component of global communication. MarsTranslation has structured its enterprise offering around this reality, combining AI efficiency with organized human oversight to serve as an embedded partner in multilingual operations rather than a service provider engaged on a project-by-project basis.
About MarsTranslation
MarsTranslation is a global language translation company providing professional translation services across document, software, multimedia, and enterprise localization. The company's AI + human workflow model is designed to deliver consistency, speed, and quality control at enterprise scale across regulated industries and commercial markets.
Website: https://www.marstranslation.com
Contact
Media Relations
Mars Translation
contact@marstranslation.com
+86 755 8611 7878"
https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/currencies/marstranslation-introduces-advanced-ai-human-translation-workflow-for-enterprise-clients-1036231662
#metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus
"The conference, organized by the SNSF research project "Global Bones: Entangled Histories, Transfers, and Translations in the Early Modern Age" explores the religious and cultural meanings and functions of human remains in various early modern contexts. Particular attention is given to regions in which different traditions of engaging with the dead encountered one another.
Spatial and Semantic Translations of Human Remains in the Early Modern World (1550–1800)
Are the deceased truly dead? Across different religious traditions, human remains have served—and continue to serve—as bearers or mediators of living energies. Especially revered deceased individuals could continue to act within the world of the living as ancestors or saints.
The conference, organized by the SNSF research project "Global Bones: Entangled Histories, Transfers, and Translations in the Early Modern Age" explores the religious and cultural meanings and functions of human remains in various early modern contexts. Particular attention is given to regions in which different traditions of engaging with the dead encountered one another.
Past relic scholarship has demonstrated that the bones of Christian saints and martyrs often acquired increased significance through their translation. Indeed, with the global expansion of Christian missions during the Counter-Reformation, these human remains attained an unprecedented degree of mobility. Almost simultaneously with the rediscovery of the Roman catacombs in 1578, larger collections of bodily relics—and later even entire corpses—began to be transferred to extra-European territories. These relics served to establish new altars and, more broadly, to christianize supposedly 'new' territories. In this process, the Christian cult of relics came into contact with other traditions of handling human remains and venerating ancestors. Such encounters at times resulted in violent conflicts, appropriations, and the destruction of revered remains, but they also generated other forms of negotiation, translations, and adaptations, as well as processes of mutual knowledge production and the emergence of new traditions.
The conference focuses on spatial and semantic processes of translation and exchange surrounding bodily relics in the early modern period. The term “translation” is deliberately understood in a double sense: on the one hand as the physical transfer and relocation of human remains, and on the other as process of cultural, religious, and semantic reinterpretation. We invite contributions and case studies from different regions of the world addressing both Christian and non-Christian contexts, as well as comparative and transregional perspectives on such encounters. Our central questions can be outlined through three thematic clusters and related lines of inquiry:
1. What constitutes a relic?
How do human remains become venerated relics in the first place? What status and functions do the bones of ancestors hold in different cultural contexts? How is this status communicated and stabilized through practices and mediating forms such as reliquaries, processions, burial sites, images, and texts?
2. Did the meaning of human remains change through transfer into different cultural contexts?
How and for what reasons were bones appropriated and transported? From the perspective of different actors, what happened to the value and meaning of human remains when they were transferred into new places and contexts? Which intentional and unintentional processes of translation accompanied such transfers? Were the dead themselves perceived as active agents within such transfers?
3. What role did relics play within the tension between global and local powers?
How did globally operating institutions such as the Catholic Church, or the Spanish Crown engage with venerated human remains? Which universal claims and systems of value were attached to such remains? How did these meanings come into tension or conflict with local forms of veneration and interpretation? How can the local relevance of human remains be identified and assessed?
These questions are intended as guidelines for submitted proposals. We invite abstracts of no more than 500 words. Please send proposals by July 31, 2026 to urte.krass@unibe.ch and alberto.saviello@unibe.ch
The conference is currently planned as a one-and-a-half-day event to be held at the University of Bern on April 16–17, 2027. It will include a keynote lecture as well as the presentation and publication of the project database.
The main conference language will be English, although papers may also be presented in French, German, Italian, or Spanish.
A publication of the conference papers is planned. Travel and accommodation expenses will be covered.
For information regarding the Global Bones Project, please visit our website and blog:
Global Bones Project Website: https://globo.unibe.ch/
Global Bones Project Blog: https://globo.hypotheses.org/
hsk.redaktion@geschichte.hu-berlin.de."
https://www.hsozkult.de/event/id/event-162820?title=spatial-and-semantic-translations-of-human-remains-in-the-early-modern-world-1550-1800&utm_source=hsozkult&utm_medium=site&utm_campaign=home-event&utm_content=readon
#metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus
"Two new major Chinese translation works, The Four Books of Xenophon and Quintilian: A Roman Educator and His Quest for the Perfect Orator, will be showcased in the Classical Civilization Achievements Exhibition at the second World Conference of Classics in Athens, Greece, from June 9 to 10.
These works are part of the "Classics and Interpretation" series published in collaboration with the Shanghai Translation Publishing House and the Division of Classics with the Institute of Foreign Literature of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. Edited by Liu Xiaofeng and He Fangying, the series aims to systematically translate and study classical works from both Chinese and international civilizations, creating an academic discourse that connects the ancient with the modern.
Themed "Dialogue Between Ancient and Modern: Contemporary Inspirations from Classical Wisdom", this year's biennial conference aims to explore the modern role and mission of classical studies, focusing on how classical wisdom can be revitalized to address the opportunities and challenges of our times and offering insights and guidance for the development of human society and the advancement of civilization today.
As one of the largest, most comprehensive series in China's classical studies field, the "Classics and Interpretation" series is committed to expanding its editorial philosophy of blending ancient and modern insights while valuing both the classics and their interpretation. Through thorough translation and research, the series seeks to help Chinese scholars better understand the historical context and modern relevance of classical civilizations worldwide.
In 2026, Shanghai Translation Publishing House officially launched the "Classics and Interpretation" series. From 2026 to the first half of 2027, about 10 works will be published, with plans to expand the series to around 100 titles.
Xenophon (430-354/355 BC) was an ancient Greek writer born in Athens. He was a follower of Socrates in his youth. At 30, he joined a military expedition to Persia and was later elected to commander, leading 10,000 soldiers back to Greece. He eventually settled in Sparta, where he lived until his death.
Known as the "Muse of Attica", Xenophon wrote extensively across various genres, including philosophy, history, politics, ethics, military science, and economics, leaving a lasting influence on future generations. Compared with Plato's Socrates, Xenophon's portrayal of Socrates is more worldly and political. The two portrayals complement each other.
Translated by Peng Lei, a professor specializing in Western classics, classical political philosophy and Shakespearean drama at Renmin University of China, from the Greek language, The Four Books of Xenophon includes four works by Xenophon featuring Socrates as the main character: Memoirs of Socrates, Oeconomicus, Symposium, and Apology of Socrates.
These works showcase different facets of Socrates and convey Xenophon's interpretation of his political philosophy. Peng treats these four works as a unified collection, aiming to present a more comprehensive portrayal of Socrates as depicted by Xenophon. The Greek text is based on the edition compiled by the British classicist EC Marchant in Xenophon: Opera Omnia.
Quintilian was an educator and orator in ancient Rome. His work, The Education of an Orator, is the first comprehensive treatise on educational issues in the ancient Western world. It covers foundational content on the theory of argumentation and has become an important basis for later theories on argumentation. As a culmination of ancient Greco-Roman educational thought, Quintilian's theories were rediscovered during the Renaissance and had a significant influence on humanistic education.
The late author Kennedy was an internationally renowned scholar in classical studies and authored foundational works on the history of classical rhetoric, including The Art of Persuasion in Greece, The Art of Rhetoric in the Roman World, Classical Rhetoric and its Christian, and Secular Tradition from Ancient to Modern Times.
The book delves into various aspects of his life, the historical context in which he lived, his intellectual influences, his educational system, and his impact on future generations. It focuses particularly on his major work, Institutio Oratoria (The Education of an Orator), examining it through four main lenses: his educational philosophy, rhetorical theory, literary criticism, and his ideal goals.
Kennedy writes exceptionally clearly and fluently, articulating Quintilian's main ideas and providing a relatively fair assessment. The book is translated by Huang Hanlin, a scholar from the School of Journalism and Communication of South China University of Technology"
https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202606/09/WS6a2785dea310d6866eb4d365.html
#metaglossia #metaglossia_mundus
"AI-powered enSpeak platform, which adds spoken language translation to company’s existing captioning ecosystem, will be demonstrated at InfoComm, in Las Vegas this month
ENCO, a specialist in automated captioning and broadcast translation technology, will showcase enSpeak at InfoComm this month, introducing a voice-to-voice translation solution designed to deliver real-time multilingual audio across live venues, classrooms, courtrooms, corporate environments and public address systems.
First shown at NAB Show 2026 in April, enSpeak extends ENCO’s existing captioning and translation platform with AI-powered speech synthesis, allowing audiences to hear live presentations and announcements in their preferred language with low latency. The solution is designed to operate alongside the company’s enCaption and enTranslate tools, creating an end-to-end multilingual workflow — or as a standalone voice-to-voice translation system.
The platform supports cloud, on-premises and hybrid deployments, and translated audio can be delivered through personal mobile devices or integrated AV systems alongside simultaneous multilingual captions.
Ken Frommert, president at ENCO, said: “enSpeak gives AV integrators and end users an on-prem solution with the ability to add real-time spoken language translation alongside captions and text translation, creating more inclusive experiences for classrooms, corporate communications, live events, and virtually any environment where clear communication matters.”
At InfoComm, ENCO will demonstrate how enSpeak integrates with enTranslate Mobile, enabling users to switch between text and voice translations from smartphones or browsers. InfoComm runs June 17-19 at the Las Vegas Convention Center."
David Smith
June 8, 2026
https://www.installation-international.com/infocomm/enco-to-introduce-live-voice-translation-solution
#metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus
"The Notsi people in Papua New Guinea initially dismissed the value of Scripture in their mother tongue but now see its power.
Christianity Today
June 9, 2026
Dozens of bare-chested men in leafy sashes and wreaths dance in formation down the road in Lossu 1, a village in New Ireland, Papua New Guinea. They wave colorful leaves in time to their song and make their way toward the village church. Women follow in traditional, brightly colored meri blouses with fresh leaves tied around their foreheads. Other villagers walk behind them, their cellphones held high to capture video of the historic Notsi New Testament dedication. It’s June 25, 2025—114 years since the gospel first came to the Notsi (pronounced NO-chee) ethnic group.
“What did you come here for?” a young man asks in Notsi to the parade leaders.
“We come to give you the Good News,” Bible translators Kevin and Gertrude Nicholas reply as church leaders carry a wooden ark holding a newly printed Notsi New Testament with a red cover embossed with the words Inesaait Mamainaang Laa Sin Notsi—The Good News Going to the Notsi.
This celebration has been a long time coming, with a Bible translation effort that began 39 years ago. The Notsi people, who today number 3,800 and are 90 percent Christian, were initially ambivalent about the project. Yet by the time the New Testament was completed last year, local translators and many parishioners not only had a deeper understanding of God and his Word, but they also recognized that God cared enough about them to put his Word into their words.
Davis Powell, president and CEO of the Bible translation group Seed Company, which helped with the New Testament translation, said his team members frequently hear the recipients of a new translation say, “We now know that God is not a foreign God that speaks another language. God is a God that knows us and speaks our language,” he said. “We don’t have to learn another language to get to God. But he sees us, he knows us, and we can pray in the language that our mother spoke to us since birth and have a relationship with him.”
Fijian Methodist missionaries first came to Papua New Guinea’s Island Region (northeast of New Guinea Island) in 1875. Papua New Guinea is one of the world’s most linguistically diverse nations, with 838 spoken languages. So when the missionaries introduced the gospel to Notsi speakers in the village of Libba in 1911, they dealt with the overwhelming diversity of languages by using an island-wide church lingua franca—in this case, Kuanua from nearby New Britain Island. It simplified and streamlined the process of training church leaders from many tribes and languages in New Ireland province and meant missionaries only had to learn one language to minister to many tribes.
Sometimes tribes would adopt the church language as their own. For others, like the Notsi, the language was only used in portions of the church service, which meant many Notsi couldn’t understand the preaching, Bible readings, or songs, even as they professed faith in God.
“Today, they could sing all four verses of a Kuanua hymn, but not understand what they’re singing,” Gertrude Nicholas said. Even now, only a few Notsi people speak Kuanua. During the week, they speak their mother tongue of Notsi. Many also speak Tok Pisin and some English, Papua New Guinea’s national languages.
Although Tok Pisin Bibles are common in the country, the English-based Creole language is “handicapped,” explained Wycliffe Bible Translator’s former regional director Holly Hong. “There aren’t many vocabulary words. It has to keep borrowing from English and has a very simplified preposition system.” Even if Tok Pisin had been used more widely in Notsi church services, its simplified grammar and vocabulary limit in-depth communication about faith and Scripture.
Despite such limitations, in the 1980s, the three Notsi speakers who would later help translate the Bible into their mother tongue became Christians. Wesley Kurang and Shirley Taupis came to know Christ through revival-like conventions, and Lynette Topaipo became a Christian through a Bible study.
In 1986, Wycliffe Bible translators Lee and Laurinda Erickson came to New Ireland, where they learned Notsi, analyzed its sound patterns and grammar, and developed an orthography, or written language. (In the 1920s, an American anthropologist had developed a Roman alphabet–based spelling system for Notsi, but it was incomplete and inconsistent.)
Yet Notsi villagers considered a Bible translation project to be pointless."
https://www.christianitytoday.com/2026/06/papua-new-guinea-notsi-bible-translation/
#metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus
"Traduire des mangas dōjin avec IA, sans toucher les bulles
BOOKWALKER teste une voie médiane entre lecture en langue originale et traduction éditoriale complète. À partir du 15 mai, la plateforme japonaise et Taiwan BOOKWALKER ont lancé une vente croisée de mangas dōjin, lisibles avec un système de traduction automatique développé avec Mantra.
Le communiqué de Dwango annonce environ 340 titres concernés au démarrage de cette opération. Les ouvrages japonais peuvent être proposés aux lecteurs taïwanais avec traduction vers le chinois traditionnel, tandis que des mangas en chinois traditionnel deviennent accessibles au Japon avec traduction vers le japonais.
Une traduction qui ne touche pas à la planche
Le principe reste volontairement simple. La page originale demeure intacte. Le lecteur appuie sur une bulle, ou la survole à la souris, puis lit la traduction affichée en bas de page. Les textes placés hors bulles, comme les effets sonores ou certaines onomatopées, ne sont pas traduits. La fonction se limite au navigateur web : elle n’est disponible ni dans les applications ni dans les extraits de consultation.
Ce choix évite un point sensible. Remplacer les dialogues directement dans l’image reviendrait à produire une version localisée, avec tout ce que cela suppose en matière de nuance, de lettrage, de responsabilité éditoriale et de respect de l’œuvre. Le sous-titre assume au contraire son statut d’aide de lecture.
Le terrain d’expérimentation est lui aussi révélateur. Ici, dōjin désigne des créations personnelles ou issues de cercles d’auteurs, non des catalogues commerciaux classiques. Les autorisations peuvent donc se négocier plus directement avec les créateurs, alors que l’édition commerciale implique souvent des contrats de traduction, de cession et de diffusion déjà structurés.
Le laboratoire discret de la traduction manga
Dans un entretien publié par HON.jp, Dwango et Mantra détaillent la logique du projet. Le média précise avoir obtenu un entretien préalable avec les acteurs concernés et signale, par transparence, que Dwango soutient ses activités comme membre institutionnel, sans paiement ni relecture préalable de l’article.
Mantra revendique une reconnaissance des textes en bulles atteignant 99 %. La traduction, elle, reste plus variable : lorsqu’un traducteur humain relit le résultat, la proportion de bulles nécessitant correction se situe entre 10 % et 40 % selon les œuvres. La société indique aussi qu’un ouvrage demande environ une heure de traitement, de l’analyse des images à la préparation des données pour le lecteur.
Certes, l’outil réduit fortement le coût d’entrée pour des œuvres difficiles à localiser de manière traditionnelle, mais ne remplace pas encore le travail éditorial d’une traduction publiée comme version définitive. Et ce, particulièrement pour les titres complexes, les jeux de langue ou les effets graphiques hors bulles.
En cas d’élargissement des titres et des langues, ce modèle servirait de sas entre autoédition, export numérique et traduction commerciale. Pour l’heure, la promesse reste concrète : permettre à des lecteurs japonais et taïwanais de lire des œuvres dōjin au-delà de leur langue d’origine, sans altérer la page dessinée.
Clément Solym
08/06/2026 à 15:25
Contact : cs@actualitte.com
https://actualitte.com/article/131782/edition/traduire-des-mangas-dojin-avec-ia-sans-toucher-les-bulles
#metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus
"Confronté à l’uniformisation des biais algorithmiques, traduire est non seulement la célébration de l’altérité mais un impératif éthique. Car seule la réinterprétation constante des faits permet d’appréhender la complexité du réel.
Le vieil adage italien « Traduttore, traditore » (Traduire, c’est trahir) hante depuis des siècles quiconque s’essaie à passer d’un bord à l’autre d’une pensée. Pourtant, cette « trahison » n’est peut-être qu’un malentendu. Car toute communication est un mouvement, une traversée entre deux rives qui, sans ce pont, resteraient isolées. Traduire, c’est accepter le voyage et les transformations qu’il impose. Entre la traduction, qui se veut passage fidèle, et l’interprétation, qui assume sa subjectivité, s’établit une tension créatrice. Traduire n’est pas copier ; c’est faire éclore une vérité qui, sans cela, resterait muette. Aujourd’hui, l’interprétation, devient un impératif existentiel, pour appréhender la complexité du monde, là où les opinions et l’émotion, amplifiés par les algorithmes, prennent le pas sur l’analyse. Chaque version devient alors une facette d’un diamant qui, par sa complétude, serait l’idéal à atteindre
Le mur du sens : un passage obligé
Entre ce que nous percevons et ce que nous parvenons à en dire, il existe une faille, un espace de silence que nous tentons désespérément de combler. C’est là que naît la traduction qui est bien plus qu’un simple transfert technique : c’est une négociation avec l’invisible. Mais dès que l’on traduit, on interprète. On choisit, on privilégie, on déforme. Cette tension entre la rigueur du passage et la liberté du regard est le moteur de toute culture.
Si l’on a longtemps réduit la traduction à une « trahison nécessaire », ne devrions-nous pas plutôt y voir le seul chemin vers une « vérité vivante » et en perpétuel mouvement ? Car au-delà du mot à mot, traduire, c’est accepter que la réalité ne se donne jamais sans filtre, et que c’est précisément dans cet « entre-deux » que se loge notre humanité.
Photo Hagay Sobol
« Traduire, c’est accepter que la réalité ne se donne jamais sans filtre »
Le mythe de l’original : l’impossible absolu
Nous chérissons souvent l’idée d’un « original » pur, une sorte de vérité absolue qui préexisterait à son expression. Qu’il s’agisse d’un paysage traduit en tableau, d’une émotion exprimée en poème ou d’un fait d’actualité rapporté en dépêche, l’œuvre originale est déjà, en soi, un compromis. L’artiste ou le témoin ne livre jamais le « réel » brut. Il livre une négociation entre sa vision et les limites de son support. La forme d’une expression dépend de la culture de l’auteur, de l’urgence du moment et des silences ou des biais de son époque.
L’original n’est pas une entité fixe, mais une capture d’écran d’un flux mouvant. Ainsi, derrière un chef-d’œuvre achevé, combien d’esquisses ou de repentirs ? Combien de sources d’inspiration pour un élément de rupture ? L’original lui-même trouve son fondement dans la réinterprétation de ce qui l’a précédé. Prétendre à l’objectivité totale est un leurre : toute expression est une première traduction du monde. Car chaque individu est unique, le fruit de son expérience et de son patrimoine génétique. Ce que ses sens captent et ce qu’il en restitue ne peut être qu’un fragment de la réalité qui trouvera son achèvement dans le partage. La traduction n’est donc pas une porte qui se referme mais une porte qui s’ouvre.
« La traduction n’est pas une porte qui se referme mais une porte qui s’ouvre »
Le prisme de l’appropriation : la seconde traduction
Le voyage ne s’arrête pas à l’émission du message. À l’autre bout de la chaîne, celui qui reçoit – le lecteur, l’auditeur, le spectateur, – devient à son tour traducteur. Nous ne lisons pas un livre, nous nous l’approprions à travers le filtre de notre propre vécu, de notre propre subjectivité. Ce prisme de l’appropriation transforme le message initial.
Lorsque Bach rend hommage à Vivaldi, en transcrivant pour claviers[1] un concerto pour 4 violons, il ne livre pas une copie, mais créé une œuvre originale. Le lieu et le moment de la réception réécrivent l’œuvre. Ainsi, l’universalité d’un texte ne réside pas dans son immuabilité, mais dans sa capacité à être interprété différemment par chacun et au cours du temps.
« L’universalité d’un texte ne réside pas dans son immuabilité, mais dans sa capacité à être interprété différemment »
La diffraction des sens : une éthique de la nuance
Si toute traduction s’éloigne de la source, il ne faut pas y voir une perte mais le reflet de la diversité humaine. Plutôt qu’un miroir plat, la vérité ressemble à un diamant. C’est la diffraction de la lumière à travers ses facettes qui révèle l’éclat du réel.
L’éthique de la traduction consisteà maintenir ces sens divergents en dialogue permanent pour faire émerger une vérité partagée, riche de ses nuances. Admettre qu’aucune traduction n’est « la seule véritable » est l’antidote du fanatisme. Comme dans la tradition Talmudique, où le sens naît de la confrontation des interprétations. Accepter les différences permet de réparer un univers fragmenté. C’est un acte de résilience. Carla vérité est une source qui ne doit jamais se tarir sous le poids d’une interprétation unique.
« La vérité est une source qui ne doit jamais se tarir sous le poids d’une interprétation unique »
L’IA et l’automatisation du compromis
À cette chaîne humaine s’ajoute désormais l’Intelligence Artificielle (IA). Elle se présente comme le traducteur ultime, capable de passer d’une langue à l’autre, ou du texte à l’image, avec une fluidité déconcertante. Mais l’IA opère une « trahison sans intention » en proposant une version statistique. En cherchant la réponse la plus « probable », elle lisse les aspérités du langage et risque de transformer le fleuve du sens en un lac immobile.
L’IA reste un filtre opaque, une « boîte noire ». Elle ne ressent pas la vérité, elle en imite la structure par une traduction algorithmique. L’éthique nous impose de ne pas nous laisser duper : si l’IA peut jeter des ponts, c’est à l’humain qu’il appartient de les emprunter. Il nous faut extraire le sens de la donnée pour laisser à nouveau couler le fleuve de l’interprétation.
« L’IA reste un filtre opaque, une boite noire. Elle ne ressent pas la vérité, elle en imite la structure »
Le canal et le filtre : de Moïse à l’Humanité
La figure de Moïse incarne ce paradoxe spirituel. La tradition le présente comme le prophète ultime, le « canal pur » par lequel Dieu parlait sans déformation. Pourtant, cet absolu fut inaudible pour le peuple. Il a fallu des interprètes, comme Aaron son frère, afin d’opérer une « descente » dans le langage humain.
Plus tard, Moïse lui-même, en transmettant son souffle à Josué, perdit l’accès direct à cette clarté originelle. Cette leçon d’humilité nous rappelle que nous sommes des êtres de filtres. À chaque temps sa traduction. Vouloir figer le sens, c’est vouloir arrêter le temps. La fidélité absolue est une illusion, une chimère inaccessible.
« À chaque temps sa traduction. Vouloir figer le sens, c’est vouloir arrêter le temps »
La Fidélité dans la différence
Une traduction n’est une trahison que si l’on s’obstine à croire qu’une copie conforme est possible. En réalité, traduire est un acte d’amour et de ponts jetés entre les solitudes ou des individualités. La diffraction n’est pas une perte de message mais une condition de la vérité.
Et en assumant notre regard critique sur nos propres « traductions » du monde, notre subjectivité, nous ne dupons personne. Nous invitons l’autre à ajouter sa propre nuance à la grande fresque de l’humanité. Ainsi, nous ne perdons pas la vérité, nous la rendons vivante. D’une idole figée, nous la transformons en un voyage toujours renouvelé, en une pierre d’autant plus précieuse que ses facettes sont nombreuses.
Photo Hagay Sobol
« La diffraction n’est pas une perte de message mais une condition de la vérité »
Art&Facts No 8 – TRADUIRE : Interpréter, Transposer, Décorer. Le magazine où l’art rencontre l’éthique et l’actualité. Numéro Double 228 pages, 24 articles, de nombreuses vidéos, illustrations. https://www.calameo.com/artetfacts/books/0079620392c1c76d54357
Hagay Sobol
Hagay Sobol, Professeur de Médecine est également spécialiste du Moyen-Orient et des questions de terrorisme. A ce titre, il a été auditionné par la commission d’enquête parlementaire de l’Assemblée Nationale sur les individus et les filières djihadistes. Ancien élu PS et secrétaire fédéral chargé des coopérations en Méditerranée. Il est Président d’honneur du Centre Culturel Edmond Fleg de Marseille, il milite pour le dialogue interculturel depuis de nombreuses années à travers le collectif « Tous Enfants d’Abraham »."
https://www.tribunejuive.info/2026/06/08/pourquoi-traduire-est-un-acte-de-liberte-et-de-verite-par-hagay-sobol/?amp=1
#metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus
"Bilingualism and Multiculturalism: Commission on the offensive
The National Commission for the Promotion of Bilingualism and Multiculturalism (NCPBM) is stepping up efforts to promote bilingualism in #Cameroon. The state organ is at #SAGO2026 to enforce section 4 of Law no 2019/19 of 24 December 2019 on the promotion of the official languages in Cameroon.
The law states that, « encourage the promotion of official languages in private entities, employers’ and Labour organizations, civil society organizations and voluntary agencies ».
In keeping with this law, staff of the commission at SAGO are engaging with visitors on their role in promoting social cohesion, fighting hate speech and xenophobia, and the use of the official languages.
From June 6 to 13, the NCPBM will continue public sensitization at the interactive exhibition stand, combat hate speech and xenophobia and distribute brochures on the NCPBM’s missions"
9 juin 2026
https://crtv.cm/news/non-classe/bilingualism-and-multiculturalismcommission-on-the-offensive
#metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus
"New Gemini 3.5 Live Translate Model Provides Near Real-time Translation in Over 70 Languages
Google has released today a new Gemini 3.5 Live Translate audio model that supports near real-time speech-to-speech translation in over 70 languages. It’s available across the Google Translate app for iOS and Android, but it’s also coming to Google Meet.
“The model automatically detects 70+ languages and generates smooth, natural-sounding translated speech that preserves the speakers’ intonation, pacing and pitch. Unlike turn by turn systems that wait for the speaker to finish speaking before responding, 3.5 Live Translate generates speech continuously, balancing the trade-off between waiting for context to improve quality and translating immediately to stay in sync with the speaker,” Google said today.
In the Google Translate mobile app, the Live Translate feature, which can be used with or without headphones, can provide even faster and more accurate real-time translations in your language. On Android, the new Listening mode can also stream the translation through the phone’s earpiece instead of using the built-in speakers.
Live Translation with Google’s Gemini 3.5 Live model is now available in private preview in Google Meet for select Google Workspace customers. It will expand the list of supported languages from 5 to over 70, and the app will automatically identify the speaker’s language that needs to be translated in near real-time.
Google’s Gemini 3.5 Live Translate is also available for app developers in public preview via the Gemini Live API and Google AI Studio. The latest translation model can be used to enable live dubbing of video content, real-time multilingual translation, and more."
Laurent Giret
Jun 09, 2026
https://www.thurrott.com/a-i/337167/new-gemini-3-5-live-translate-model-provides-near-real-time-translation-in-over-70-languages
#metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus
A bill giving Israeli Sign Language state recognition passed its second and third readings in the Knesset plenum on Monday.
"Knesset passes bill recognizing Israeli Sign Language
Former MK and deaf political activist Shirly Pinto praised the passing of the bill as “a historic day for the State of Israel.”
A bill giving Israeli Sign Language state recognition passed its second and third readings in the Knesset plenum on Monday.
The bill, initiated by MKs Avichai Boaron (Likud) and Chili Tropper (National Unity), passed with the support of six MKs and with no opponents or abstentions.
“Israeli Sign Language serves as the main language and as a means of creating communication and conveying messages among deaf and hard-of-hearing people in Israel who use it,” said the explanatory notes of the bill.
“In addition, Israeli Sign Language plays a part in the identity, culture, and pride of members of the deaf community in Israel. The purpose of the bill is to recognize Israeli Sign Language as the natural language of deaf people in Israel.”
Tropper said the bill passed thanks to cooperation between the coalition and the opposition. “These are difficult days for the people of Israel, but there are moments of grace, and this is one such moment,” he stated.
'Historic day for the State of Israel'
Former MK Shirly Pinto, who had promoted the issue in the past, welcomed the legislation's completion and described the step as “a historic day for the State of Israel.”
The language’s official recognition in law is a victory for justice, equality, and accessibility, according to Pinto, who thanked the law's initiators and the social activist Boaz Ahad Ha’am for leading the move.
Pinto, a deaf political activist, is fluent in Israeli Sign Language and is one of the founders of The Israeli Center for Deaf Studies.
“The time has come for every citizen to feel that they belong and have access in Israeli society,” she said.
Culture and Sports Minister Miki Zohar (Likud) was designated as the official responsible for implementing the language, and the Academy of the Hebrew Language is set to preserve, develop, and promote it nationwide."
By AVIHAI CHIIM
JUNE 9, 2026 04:35
Updated: JUNE 9, 2026 09:04
https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/politics-and-diplomacy/article-898785
#metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus
"Parler d' "urgences linguistiques" aujourd'hui n'a rien d'une formule rhétorique : c'est reconnaître la diversité des situations de minor(is)ation linguistique à l'oeuvre dans les sociétés contemporaines. Entre reconnaissance institutionnelle et invisibilisation persistante, les langues régionales, d'Outre-mer et minor(is)ées se trouvent au coeur de rapports de pouvoir qui traversent les sphères politiques, éducatives et sociales. Cet ouvrage collectif explore ces urgences à partir de terrains variés, en France et à l'international. Croisant approches sociolinguistiques et analyses empiriques, il interroge les processus de minor(is)ation, les politiques linguistiques, les pratiques éducatives et les expériences vécues des locuteurs. Loin d'une vision uniquement patrimoniale, il invite à penser les langues comme des ressources essentielles pour construire des sociétés plus justes, inclusives et plurielles."
Coraline Pradeau
Acheter sur Furet.com
https://actualitte.com/livres/907733/extraits/langues-regionales-d-outre-mer-et-minor-is-ees-coraline-pradeau-9782806642448
#metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus
"Concordia engineering student takes home top prize at Délie ta langue ! French-language public speaking competition
Wendy Mbog’s winning speech encouraged women to tune out the noise and define their own paths
Wendy Mbog, a Concordia software engineering student, won first place at the 2026 edition of Délie ta langue!, the annual French-language public speaking competition. The accomplishment earned her a $5,000 prize, awarded by Quebec’s Ministère de la langue française.
Mbog’s presentation centered on the French expression, “Les chiens aboient, la caravane passe,” (“the dogs bark, but the caravan moves on”), which she used as a lens to address the pressures placed on women. Her speech explored the contradictory expectations women often face, encouraging them to step away from external judgments and define their own paths.
Claiming space through language
For Mbog, French is not just for academics or competitions. As her first language, it is tied to her Cameroonian origins and has shaped her experiences at home, in school and in how she engages with the world. She says she is drawn to the language’s richness and precision, and she admires those who can use it to express complex ideas with clarity and simplicity.
For Mbog, participating in Délie ta langue became a way to take ownership of her relationship with the language.
“I had been wanting to take part in a public speaking competition for a long time, to step out of my comfort zone and experience the power of spoken words,” she says.
Preparation and support
Mbog’s journey to the stage was supported by a network across Concordia. Espace Franco and Réussir en français coordinated her participation, with support from the Département d’études françaises, which provides mentorship to students from all disciplines.
“You could really say the whole university was behind her,” says Sophie Mailloux, Espace Franco manager and Concordia’s representative on this year’s Délie ta langue! organizing committee. “It was a proud moment to see francophone students who chose Concordia finding success and confidence in French.”
Pascale Sicotte, dean of the Faculty of Arts and Science, has attended the competition every year since Concordia began participating in 2022.
“It’s inspiring to see our students excel and share their passion for French,” she says. “Year after year, the candidates raise the bar. Standing on that stage takes courage, and their dedication and skill are evident in every moment of their performance.”
Mbog was also mentored by Julien Perrier-Chartrand, professor in the Département d’études françaises, and Noah Labranche, BFA 20 (Theatre), an actor and public speaking coach. She says they helped her refine her delivery and stage presence, complementing her own extensive preparation.
Where words meet action
Reflecting on her approach, Mbog connects her experience on stage with her engineering studies.
“My mother often says that scientists are first and foremost good writers: ‘It is necessary to understand the subtleties of a problem before being able to solve it,’” she says. “I think this also applies to the way I built my speech.”
For Mourad Debabbi, dean of the Gina Cody School of Engineering and Computer Science, Mbog’s success reflects a broader form of student development.
“It’s remarkable to see our engineering students embrace opportunities that cultivate leadership, communication and critical thinking — skills that are essential to their success as professionals and members of our community,” Debabbi says.
“Initiatives like this one allow students to grow in ways the classroom alone cannot.”"
June 8, 2026 | By Meera Nehme
https://www.concordia.ca/news/stories/2026/06/08/concordia-engineering-student-takes-home-top-prize-at-delie-ta-langue-french-language-public-speaking-competition.html
#metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus
"30e congrès annuel de la Fondation pour les langues en danger, FEL XXX (2026)
La Fondation pour les langues en danger (FEL), le CESSMA (Centre d'études en sciences sociales sur les mondes africains, américains et asiatiques) et l'Inalco vous invitent au 30e congrès annuel de la FEL à l'Inalco, Paris, France, du 3 au 5 novembre 2026.
Du mardi 3 au jeudi 5 novembre 2026
Inalco - Maison de la recherche (2, rue de Lille - Paris 7e) - Auditorium Dumézil
Type d'appel
Appel à communication
Équipe de recherche
CESSMA
Date limite
Vendredi 10 juillet 2026
Type d'évènement
Colloque
Site
https://ogmios.org/conferences/2026/
Thème de la conférence
Langues en danger et technologies innovantes : documentation, traitement et revitalisation
Alors que de plus en plus de langues dans le monde sont menacées d’extinction, en raison de l’accélération du changement linguistique et de la puissance croissante des langues économiquement ou politiquement dominantes et prestigieuses, les communautés linguistiques et les chercheurs s’efforcent de renverser la tendance afin d’empêcher la disparition des langues. Dans le cadre de leurs efforts, ils s’intéressent aux nouvelles technologies et à leurs diverses applications, ainsi qu’à leur potentiel pour améliorer la documentation et soutenir la revitalisation des langues en danger.
La documentation n'étant plus la seule option, puisqu'elle vise uniquement à dresser un état des lieux d'une langue à un moment donné, d'autres options et approches potentiellement plus efficaces, telles que la prévention, la préservation et la promotion des langues en danger, gagnent en importance. En fin de compte, la revitalisation, objectif ultime pour les langues en danger, a besoin de technologies et d'outils nouveaux et plus puissants pour réussir. Les technologies numériques peuvent fournir des outils précieux pour l'enseignement, l'enregistrement et le partage des langues, ainsi que pour la création de métadonnées pouvant être utilisées de manière créative dans des contextes de recherche et d'éducation.
Aujourd'hui, de nombreuses technologies et systèmes numériques innovants sont en grande partie conçus et fonctionnent à partir de données issues d'un petit nombre de langues dominantes et bien documentées. En conséquence, de nombreuses communautés, en particulier celles dont les langues sont en danger, principalement orales ou sous-documentées, restent exclues de ce qu’on appelle la sphère numérique. Cette exclusion ne constitue pas simplement une privation ou une absence d’accès aux outils, systèmes ou infrastructures technologiques, mais résulte de la domination des langues officielles sur les communautés linguistiques moinsbien dotées . Une telle domination a des conséquences directes sur la transmission linguistique et culturelle, l’accès aux nouvelles technologies, ainsi que sur les droits linguistiques.
De nombreuses communautés à travers le monde relèvent le défi et s’emploient activement à récupérer, préserver et revitaliser leurs langues. Dans ce processus, on tente parfois d’utiliser des outils et des technologies numériques, qui ont le potentiel de soutenir la documentation, l’apprentissage et la transmission. Cependant, ces outils ne répondent souvent pas efficacement aux besoins des communautés linguistiques en danger et peuvent au contraire imposer des hypothèses et des modèles dérivés des langues dominantes.
Bien que les technologies numériques puissent être des instruments puissants pour lutter contre la mise en danger des langues, elles peuvent être plus efficaces si elles sont développées en collaboration avec les communautés linguistiques, dans le plein respect de leurs connaissances, de leurs priorités et de leur souveraineté en matière de données.
Cette conférence, la trentième organisée par la Fondation pour les langues en danger (FEL), en collaboration avec le CESSMA et l’INALCO, place les communautés au centre du débat. Elle explore comment les technologies innovantes peuvent soutenir la documentation linguistique et renforcer la revitalisation, et, inversement, comment les savoirs communautaires et la diversité linguistique peuvent redéfinir la conception, l’évaluation et la finalité des systèmes numériques eux-mêmes, contribuant ainsi à une réponse plus durable et plus efficace à la menace qui pèse sur les langues.
Un défi majeur pour la préservation et la revitalisation reste le goulot d’étranglement persistant en matière de documentation. Il existe de vastes collections d’enregistrements pour de nombreuses langues en danger, mais seule une petite partie a été transcrite, annotée ou mise à la disposition des communautés à des fins de revitalisation. Cela ne reflète pas un manque d’efforts, mais des réalités et des défis structurels : la documentation est chronophage, nécessite une collaboration étroite avec les locuteurs et s’effectue souvent dans des contextes où les pratiques d’alphabétisation diffèrent ou où les connaissances sont sensibles sur le plan culturel.
Parallèlement, les approches technologiques et outils actuels s’appuient fortement sur de vastes ensembles de données standardisés, qui sont rarement disponibles pour les langues en danger. Les nouvelles technologies ont le potentiel de résoudre les problèmes de transcription et d’annotation, de collecte et d’analyse des données, ainsi que de promotion et de diffusion des modèles et pratiques culturels et linguistiques, à condition qu’elles soient rendues accessibles aux communautés et aux institutions communautaires, grâce à des formations et partenariats collaboratifs.
Dans ce contexte, le défi des langues en danger ne doit pas être simplement considéré comme un problème de « faibles ressources » à résoudre. Elles peuvent devenir des terrains d’innovation qui remettent en question les hypothèses dominantes sous-jacentes au développement technologique et encouragent l’exploration de technologies plus flexibles, plus interprétables et ancrées dans la culture. En mettant de l’avant les perspectives des communautés et les expériences vécues, la conférence vise à explorer comment les technologies innovantes peuvent soutenir et pérenniser la revitalisation linguistique. Elle veutaussi montrer comment les initiatives, les expériences et les réalisations des communautés peuvent offrir de nouvelles perspectives et approches en ce qui a trait aux nouvelles technologies, telles que l’IA, et les transformer en outils plus pertinents pour la promotion et la revitalisation des langues en danger.
La conférence vise donc à établir un pont entre trois dimensions interdépendantes : les technologies, la documentation et la revitalisation, tant dans la pratique que dans le développement d’outils et d’approches futurs.
Nous invitons les contributions qui abordent, sans s’y limiter, les questions suivantes explorant l’application des technologies innovantes dans les efforts de documentation et les initiatives de revitalisation menées par les communautés :
Comment les technologies innovantes peuvent-elles améliorer la transcription, l'annotation et la constitution de corpus dans la documentation des langues en danger (EL) ?
Comment garantir des pratiques éthiques en matière de données et la souveraineté des données lors de l'application de nouveaux outils technologiques aux EL ?
Comment les pratiques d'archivage peuvent-elles être alignées sur les besoins et les valeurs des communautés, et quel rôle les systèmes d'IA peuvent-ils jouer dans ce processus ?
Comment acquérir, s'approprier et utiliser les nouvelles technologies linguistiques pour la transmission des langues en danger ?
Comment planifier et coconcevoir des technologies linguistiques avec les communautés de locuteurs ?
Comment définir et concevoir la formation des communautés, le renforcement des capacités et le transfert de connaissances à l'aide d'outils numériques afin de permettre la mise en œuvre de projets de revitalisation menés par les communautés ?
Quels exemples de réussite et études de cas peut-on identifier dans l'application des nouvelles technologies au processus de revitalisation des langues autochtones ?
Quels sont les risques, les limites et les conséquences imprévues des outils technologiques existants ou émergents dans le domaine de la revitalisation linguistique ?
La conférence vise à créer un espace de dialogue entre chercheurs, technologues et surtout, les communautés linguistiques elles-mêmes, abordant la question des opportunités et des défis présentés par les technologies innovantes dans les efforts visant à prévenir la perte des langues et à promouvoir la préservation et la revitalisation des langues en danger.
Nous encourageons vivement les soumissions de la part de membres de communautés, d'éducateurs, de militants et de praticiens, ainsi que les présentations de travaux collaboratifs entre partenaires universitaires et non universitaires.
Contact - Voir l'e-mail
Dates importantes
10 juillet 2026 : date limite de soumission des résumés
13 juillet 2026 : ouverture des inscriptions
1er août 2026 : notification aux candidats sélectionnés
15 septembre 2026 : date limite de soumission des versions complètes des résumés acceptés
3-5 novembre 2026 : dates du congrès
6 novembre 2026 : excursion (à confirmer)
Soumission et informations pratiques
Nous vous invitons à soumettre des résumés de 500 à 700 mots (références non comprises) via EasyChair à l'adresse suivante :
https://easychair.org/my/conference?conf=felxxx2026 avant la date limite du 10 juillet à 23 h59 GMT.
Les résumés doivent être rédigés en anglais et soumis au format PDF.
Veuillez noter que les résumés sous forme de documents Word ne peuvent pas être acceptés et qu'ils ne peuvent pas être soumis par e-mail.
Les résumés doivent décrire des travaux achevés ou en cours. Le volume final des actes contiendra des travaux originaux et inédits. Le résumé doit inclure des mots-clés.
Ils doivent mentionner le(s) nom(s) de l'auteur ou des auteurs. Des références doivent être incluses si cela permet de situer le travail par rapport à des travaux réalisés par d'autres.
Vous devez signaler toute utilisation d'outils d'IA dans l'élaboration de votre résumé et de votre article. Vous devez indiquer au bas de votre article le logiciel ou l'outil d'IA utilisé, la version de ce logiciel et la nature exacte de son utilisation. Le non-respect de cette consigne peut entraîner la disqualification de votre article.
Les auteurs dont les résumés auront été acceptés pour être présentés lors de la conférence seront informés avant le 1er août et devront développer leur résumé en un article de conférence de 2 000 à 3 000 mots (références non comprises) avant le 15 septembre.
Les articles de la conférence seront publiés dans le recueil de la conférence, qui sera mis à la disposition des participants à la conférence et des membres de la Fondation pour les langues en danger.
Une sélection d'articles issus de la conférence sera publiée après celle-ci dans le cadre de la série « Endangered Languages Yearbook », éditée par De Gruyter Brill.
Plus d'informations
Site de la conférence : https://ogmios.org/conferences/2026
Contact : Voir l'e-mail
INSTITUTIONS ORGANISATRICES
Foundation for Endangered Languages (FEL)
Centre d'Études en Sciences Sociales sur les Mondes Africains Américains et Asiatiques (CESSMA)
Institut National des Langues et Civilisations Orientales (Inalco)
Comité d'organisation de la FEL
Hakim Elnazarov (président)
Eda Derhemi
Steven Krauwer
Salem Mezhoud
Christopher Moseley
Mujahid Torwali
Comité d'organisation de l'Inalco
Abdul-Hakim HAMIDI (président)
Marie Chosson
Johanna Cordova
Hélène de Penanros
Donabedian Demopoulos
Valentina Fedchenko
Marie-Caroline Saglio-Yatzimirsky
Rima Sleiman
Il-Il Yatziv-Malibert"
https://www.inalco.fr/recherche/appels-communication/30e-congres-annuel-de-la-fondation-pour-les-langues-en-danger-fel
#metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus
"Toki Pona et Espéranto, deux initiatives linguistiques qui visent à briser les barrières de la communication mondiale. Que valent ces projets ambitieux ?
En prenant en compte les “entrées” du dictionnaire, la langue française compterait environ 100 000 mots, selon l’Académie française. Alors si même pour nous, parfois, certains arrivent à nous manquer, comment communiquer dans une langue qui ne compte que 137 mots ?
Toki Pona, jouet linguistique
Toki Pona n’est pas une langue à proprement parler, mais un projet philosophique ! Développé par Sonja Lang, une linguiste canadienne, le but est de créer une langue simplissime, qui maximise le sens et minimise la complexité. Toki Pona s’inspire de différents dialectes du continent européen comme le finnois, le néerlandais, l’anglais, mais aussi d’Asie comme le mandarin et le cantonnais.
Inventée en 2001, Toki Pona compte aujourd’hui des milliers de locuteurs et 137 mots essentiels. Des chansons en Toki Pona existent. Alors véritable langage, simple système de communication ou jouet linguistique ? Ce dialecte simplissime soulève de nombreuses interrogations.
Espéranto, sérieux projet humaniste
Ce n’est pas la première fois qu’un dialecte “universel”, s'inspirant de différents langages est créé. L’Espéranto, par exemple, est une langue proposée dans la deuxième moitié du XIXe siècle par un médecin polonais, le docteur Ludwik Zamenhof, avec comme objectif principal de simplifier les échanges d’un pays à l’autre, encourager la communication entre les peuples et abolir la barrière de la langue.
Aujourd’hui, on estime que l’espéranto compte 3 à 5 millions de locuteurs provenant de 120 pays différents ! L’espéranto est une langue qui se veut neutre sur le plan culturel, social, politique. Cette langue se veut également facile à apprendre et rapide à assimiler. L’espéranto n’est pas une langue morte car elle continue d’évoluer. Deux organisations veillent à son bon développement :
– l’Académie d’espéranto, qui contrôle l’apparition de nouveaux mots ;
– l’Association mondiale anationale, qui publie le plus grand dictionnaire reconnu en espéranto.
EN BREF
Sonja Lang a créé Toki Pona en 2001, une langue minimaliste avec 137 mots, inspirée de divers dialectes européens et asiatiques.
L'Espéranto, conçu par Ludwik Zamenhof au XIXe siècle, vise à simplifier les échanges internationaux avec 3 à 5 millions de locuteurs.
Découvrez comment ces langues artificielles cherchent à surmonter les barrières linguistiques et à promouvoir une communication universelle."
Publié le 08 Juin 2026 à 15H00
Louise Guyonnet
https://www.science-et-vie.com/cerveau-et-intelligence/toki-pona-une-langue-de-137-mots-parlee-par-des-milliers-de-personnes-125169.html
#metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus
" 'AI LINK's' English-conversion engine 'AI GLOBE'... translates 400 articles a day, more than 10,000 a month, into English in real time. It never stops, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Even real-time breaking news is converted into English and posted to the website in less than 10 minutes.
Since late last year, Seoul Economic Daily has been posting all articles uploaded to its website onto its English site through the AI GLOBE engine. Applying prompting to a top-tier AI foundation model makes the cost high, yet the cost of translating a single article and posting it to the website is only a few hundred won. Even running the English site on the Amazon Web Services (AWS) platform costs no more than the salary of one employee.
It is not only quantity and speed that stand out. Unlike machine translation that crudely swaps words, the engine renders systems and terms unique to Korea, along with corporate and financial context, in a way that English readers can easily understand.
Search Visibility Quadruples... Preparing for the 'Age of Asking AI' = The change is showing up in numbers. The number of times English articles appeared in Google searches rose fourfold in four months, from 3.38 million in January this year to 13.59 million in May. This means that, amid the stock market boom, more readers worldwide are seeking out and reading Korean news.
Seoul Economic Daily is taking this a step further. Until now, overseas readers found Korean news through search engines, but increasingly they ask AI tools such as ChatGPT directly. If Korean news is not accurately cited in those answers, the Korean perspective is left out of the global conversation. For example, when someone abroad asks AI "how are Korea's semiconductor exports," various tests are underway to ensure that Seoul Economic Daily's English articles are cited as the basis for that answer, going beyond appearing in searches so that AI can draw on Korean news as a trustworthy source.
Korea's Capital Market and Corporate Information in English = The English site offers more than just articles. It is surprisingly difficult for overseas investors to examine Korea's capital market and companies in depth in English, because English-language information is scarce or scattered. Seoul Economic Daily is filling that gap with content. 'SIGNAL,' which delivers exclusive scoops on Korea's capital market in English; 'Chaebol Tree,' which shows complex, intertwined conglomerate ownership structures at a glance; and 'AI KEY,' which provides various information on Korea's major conglomerates in English, are entering service one by one. They provide a window through which Korea's corporate information and news can be viewed in English, even without knowing Korean. Korean news, once confined within walls of text and language and kept within the country, can now cross those walls to reach readers and investors worldwide. While the form and language change, the facts remain unchanged, keeping the news flowing."
2026.06.07
Woo Seung-ho
https://en.sedaily.com/international/2026/06/07/ai-engine-translates-400-articles-daily-around-the-clock
#metaglossia #metaglossia_mundus
"...“Human creativity is under fire,” he tells Fortune. “Without it, society will lose far more than its capacity to innovate. Everything that brings joy, peace, or inspiration—music, art, sports, and even simple hobbies like baking—is a product of creativity.”
Much of this pressure stems from the rise of AI in advertising. The future cracked open by this technology is full of both awful and awesome possibilities. That duality is a challenge for organizations investing heavily in these tools, Reilly says.
“For a company like WPP which is deep into technology and deep into AI…the tension is: where does human creativity fit in?” he notes. The danger is that organizations, captivated by technological possibility, begin to mistake capability for value. “It’s easy to get distracted by technology,” he says. “AI in the hands of a skilled, visionary, creative person could be incredibly inspiring,” he says. “But in the hands of hacks, it’s only going to create more and more drivel.”
WPP ranking on Fortune 500 Europe
Even as creative work has become a prized corporate asset, many of the people responsible for producing it believe its value remains poorly understood, and poorly rewarded.
Marketing budgets have come under pressure as brands grapple with inflation, economic uncertainty, and demands for short-term efficiency. According to Gartner’s 2026 CMO Survey, marketing budgets have fallen to 9.6% of total company budgets, down from 11.4% a year earlier.
“I worry that creativity continues to be undervalued by the businesses that rely on it, how it’s paid for…all those things” Reilly says. In his view, the problem is partly structural. “Our business has not done itself a lot of favors when it comes to figuring out a really smart commercial model,” he argues, adding that “the advertising industry is struggling a bit and, you know…will continue to struggle.”
Protecting great ideas
A pressing question is whether organizations that depend on human creativity still know how to cultivate it.
“But in the hands of hacks, it’s only going to create more and more drivel”
For Eric Monnet, chief of staff and global director of creative excellence at WPP, the answer begins with leadership. “The most consistent thing I have heard from senior CMOs over the past year is that creative ambition is a quality of the leaders inside brands who intentionally decide to champion it, defend it, and build the conditions for it to survive,” he says.
Contrary to popular belief, creative excellence is rarely the result of a single breakthrough campaign. More often, it emerges from leadership teams willing to invest in ideas consistently and shield those who came up with them from the pressures of quarterly thinking.
Evidence of this can be found in some of the industry’s most enduring success stories. Dove’s “Real Beauty” campaign began more than two decades ago with a simple cultural insight and has since evolved into a brand platform worth an estimated $7.5 billion. Similarly, Volvo’s “EVA Initiative”, which was built on the company’s longstanding commitment to safety, releasing decades of proprietary crash-test data so that women could be safer in every vehicle, not just a Volvo.
Today, Monnet argues that large organizations are often structured in ways that make great creativity harder, not easier, to produce.
“It’s almost unnatural for a large organization to be able to create great work,” he says. “There are a lot of forces that go against creativity, and none of them are villains.” CFOs, he says, are focused on efficiency, procurement departments on cost control, legal teams on risk management, and operations leaders on consistency. Each is performing a necessary function.
“The most consistent thing I have heard from senior CMOs over the past year is that creative ambition is a quality of the leaders inside brands who intentionally decide to champion it, defend it, and build the conditions for it to survive”
The challenge is that creativity often requires organizations to tolerate uncertainty, embrace risk and make long-term investments whose value cannot always be measured immediately. “There must be a shared value for creativity across the organization,” Monnet insists. “When a brand views creativity as a force multiplier for growth rather than just an expense, it becomes easier to navigate the internal pressures.”
New chapter, same values
This may be the defining tension hanging over Cannes Lions this year. The festival was founded on the belief that advertising deserved recognition as a discipline worthy of artistic respect. Seventy years later, creative work has arguably never been more important to business. Yet many of the people responsible for it feel undervalued, whether by financial models that fail to reward it properly or by technological narratives that threaten to reduce it to a process.
“Cannes Lions has a thousand doors,” Reilly says. “Perhaps only a hundred of them lead directly into traditional creative work. The other nine hundred open into fields that would have seemed peripheral to advertising a generation ago—data science, venture capital, platform economics, creator ecosystems, and emerging technologies.”
For Reilly, however, none of this represents a departure from the festival’s original mission. He rejects the notion that creative ambition and commercial performance exist in opposition to one another. While Cannes continues to celebrate originality and craft, it increasingly rewards work that delivers measurable impact in the real world. “We don’t celebrate anything that doesn’t have good business results,” he says.
That belief underpins his optimism about the industry’s future. While acknowledging that there are “things we need to fix,” Reilly argues that the pace of change should excite rather than discourage creative professionals.
“If people aren’t psyched to be part of the industry now, they’re out of their minds,” he says. “The industry is changing so fast. If you’re not on the train, you’re going to be left behind.”
It is a lesson Cannes has reinforced for seven decades. The industry has weathered the arrival of television, the internet, social media, and every technological revolution in between. Each transformed how ideas were created and distributed, but none diminished the value of the idea itself.
There is hope—beneath the spectacle, the branded cabanas, AI demos and rosé-fuelled networking—that the original premise of that Venetian gathering still lingers. The belief that creativity, properly understood, is not an indulgence of business, but one of its most powerful engines."
https://fortune.com/2026/06/05/human-creativity-is-under-fire-wpp-cannes-lions-marketing/
#metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus
"ICC is looking for Tagalog, Cebuano translators ahead of Duterte trial
Apply via the ICC's website until July 4
Duterte's trial is set for Nov. 30.
The International Criminal Court is seeking Filipino and Cebuano interpreters ahead of the trial for former president Rodrigo Duterte.
On its website, The Hague tribunal posted two job openings for the following positions: Paraprofessional Interpreter - Filipino (Tagalog) and Cebuano (Bisaya) and Associate Court Interpreter - Filipino (Tagalog) and Cebuano (Bisaya).
The paraprofessional and associate court interpreters are tasked with interpreting witness testimony and other subject matter, including legal and forensic discourse, and providing consecutive and chuchotage interpretation. According to Accredited Language Services, chuchotage refers to a technique in which a linguist stands with a small audience and whispers a simultaneous interpretation of what's being said.
The positions also entail participating in supervised training, studying witness statements, compiling vocabulary lists, translating and proofreading documents, carrying out transcript corrections, and contributing to the terminology and reference databases of the ICC's Language Services Section.
Qualifications include an advanced university degree, preferably in interpretation, translation, linguistics, or law, or a first-level university degree with two additional years of qualifying experience.
Additionally, they need at least two years of relevant work experience in Filipino (Tagalog) and/or Cebuano (Bisaya), computer skills, basic knowledge of international legal instruments, procedure and law, as well as relevant specialist subjects like legal, political, military, medical, forensic, human rights, administrative, financial, and others.
Shortlisted applicants will undergo an aptitude test on their interpretation ability and an interview.
The paraprofessional interpreter can receive a minimum net annual salary of €55,665 (P3.96 million), while the associate court interpreter's starting yearly pay is €71,173 (P5.07 million). The contracts for the job will be until Dec. 31, 2026.
Interested applicants can apply via the ICC's website until July 4, midnight (The Hague time).
Duterte, who is detained at The Hague, is set to face trial at the ICC on Nov. 30. He is charged with three counts of crimes against humanity, with prosecutors alleging his involvement in at least 76 murders in his so-called "war on drugs.""
By AYIE LICSI
Published Jun 07, 2026
https://philstarlife.com/news-and-views/730815-icc-looking-for-tagalog-cebuano-translators-ahead-duterte-trial?page=2
#metaglossia #metaglossia_mundus
"The leader of a religious group - facing trial over the death of a woman whose body was found in Auckland's Gulf Harbour - has challenged parts of translations of Chinese handwritten notes found in his home, including saying one part of the English translation can sound like "cult induction".
The body of 70-year-old Shulai Wang was found wrapped in layers of rubbish bags in March 2024 and was initially unidentified for more than half a year, before rice bags filled with stones tied to the body led police to Kaixiao Liu and his Ōrewa home.
On Monday, Liu cross-examined veteran translator Crown witness Cyril Young on the accuracy of his translation of notes and diaries found at their home, claiming that he had found dozens of mistakes.
Earlier, the jury heard evidence from a book of over 70 translated documents that detailed the daily life at the house known as "the Ark" by its occupants - its contents ranging from women at the house writing "covenants" pledging their bodies and souls to Liu, to diary entries on the punishment of Wang in the days and weeks leading up to her death.
The Crown said Wang, from Hainan Island in China, came to New Zealand to seek religious instructions from Liu, and that she and five other Chinese women lived "in servitude" to Liu and his family.
Liu, his wife Lanyue Xiao, and his mother Xiuyun Li - who is a doctor of more than three decades - and his father Jingui Liu have each denied the kidnapping and manslaughter of Wang.
The four defendants are self-represented in the trial, with the assistance of court-appointed standby lawyers.
One note said Wang was caught back after she tried to escape to a neighbour's yard, followed by notes saying "placed him/her onto the little black bed to make him/her repent" and "placed into the big suitcase/box".
Liu questioned Young on his use of the word "conversion" in his translation of the title of a letter signed off by one of the women at the house, which said "I'm grateful to have the opportunity to be converted to the secret LIU family of the tribe of Judah, descendants of David".
"So in English, conversion can sound like religious recruitment or cult induction," said Liu.
Young said he did not think the word was wrongly translated.
Liu said the meaning of the Chinese text referred to "family affiliation".
Liu also questioned Young on his translation of a paragraph in a covenant letter by another woman in the house, in which Young's English translation said: "I, a slave like, ant like living thing, existing in the passing time and space, coming and going, searching and searching. Not knowing the direction of life, not knowing where the path of destiny is."
Liu, his wife Lanyue Xiao, and his mother Xiuyun Li - who is a doctor of more than three decades - and his father Jingui Liu have each denied the kidnapping and manslaughter of Wang. Photo: RNZ / Marika Khabazi
Liu asked where Young saw the word "slave" in the Chinese text, to which Young pointed to a word that he thought was the word "Nu" (奴) for slave.
Liu said that word wasn't "Nu", but "Ru"(如) meaning like or similar to, and that it was a four word idiom which which meant life like an ant (命如蝼蚁)
Young said that particular word was scribbled and that Liu's interpretation could be possibly correct.
Earlier, the jury heard translations of a diary entry that wrote of establishing a "kingdom", and having "many servants". The jury had been shown notes where Liu was referred to as "the lord" and Xiao as "the queen".
Liu also asked Young about his translated text of "Thick skin slap, beat the face until broken" (the Chinese characters on a photo of the original note said 脸厚，把脸抽破).
The body of 70-year-old Shulai Wang was found wrapped in layers of rubbish bags] in March 2024. Photo: Supplied / Police
Liu asked Young if he agreed that in Chinese, the word face could be idiomatic, such as the word thick skinned referring to arrogance.
Young said that was correct.
However, when Liu said he would translate it as "this person doesn't know shameful, so this person should break her own arrogance, not physically break the face, the literal face", Young disagreed.
Young said the Chinese characters in the notes said to beat the skin on the face until it's broken.
The more than 70 translated notes had references to slapping the face or swollen faces in many parts.
Including a note saying "those who delay for too long, slap/beat their face until broken," and a diary entry by Jingui Liu dated 3 March, 2024, saying Wang's face was swollen.
The notes revealed a point a system by which people in the house would be deducted points for breaking the rules, such as eating too slowly, or not having heads bowed while gardening, and awarded points for good behaviour, such as studying earnestly and singing seriously.
The trial is later expecting to hear audio recordings found on the devices seized from the defendants - including conversations between the defendants in Mandarin, mixed with Dongtai dialect.
Dongtai dialect is a language spoken in the Northern part of China's coastal Jiangsu Province."
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/regions_auckland/597591/gulf-harbour-body-trial-religious-leader-defendant-challenges-handwritten-note-translations
#metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus
"Perplexity Search as Code Lets AI Models Write Their Own Search Pipelines
June 8, 2026
Perplexity has launched Search as Code, a new architecture that lets AI models write their own search pipelines in Python instead of calling fixed APIs. The approach cuts token usage by 85% and outperforms OpenAI and Anthropic on research benchmarks.
Why Fixed Search APIs Are Breaking AI Agents
AI agents have a search problem. The standard loop — model writes a query, search API returns results, model reads them, model writes another query — was designed for humans, not for autonomous systems doing hundreds of rapid searches. Context windows get stuffed with junk because the filtering logic is locked inside the search engine. The model can tweak the query but cannot control how results are ranked, deduplicated, or filtered.
Perplexity's answer, announced on June 6, is Search as Code (SaC) — an architecture where AI models write their own search pipelines as Python code and execute them in a sandbox. As 1 put it: "Instead of calling a ready‑made search API, models in Perplexity's new Search as Code architecture write their own search workflows as Python code."
How Search as Code Works
The architecture has three layers, described in detail in Perplexity's research paper:
Model (Control Plane) The AI reasons about the task, decomposes it, and generates Python code that assembles a custom search pipeline. It decides strategy — not just which keywords to use, but how to combine retrieval, filtering, and ranking.
Compute Sandbox A secure execution environment with a persistent filesystem for cross‑turn state. Chosen over a REPL approach because explicit state handling via serialization improves reliability on long research trajectories.
Agentic Search SDK Breaks Perplexity's search backend into atomic primitives — retrieve, fanout, filter, dedupe, rerank, parse_field — that the generated code can freely combine. No retrieval operation is dispatched through function calling; everything is code‑driven.
The Numbers — 85% Fewer Tokens, 4x Competitor Accuracy
In a case study tracking down 200 high‑severity CVEs (2023‑2025) with vendor‑specific advisory formats, Perplexity reported that SaC achieved 100% accuracy while consuming 42,900 tokens — an 85% reduction from the 288,700 tokens used by Perplexity's own standard pipeline. Competing systems scored below 25% on the same task.
Across benchmarks, Perplexity claims SaC outperformed 1 on 4 out of 5 tests. The largest improvement came on the WANDR broad‑research benchmark, where SaC showed a 45% absolute gain over Perplexity's own baseline. On DSQA, the gain was 29%.
Code Is the New Interface Layer
Search as Code reflects a broader shift in how AI agents interact with infrastructure. As Perplexity's research team wrote: "Code is a powerful medium for orchestrating preexisting capabilities — it can also serve as a gap‑filler for capabilities that aren't present in the search stack or SDK."
Rather than the model being limited to the parameters a search API exposes, SaC gives it access to the same primitives a human engineer would use to build a search pipeline — then lets it compose them programmatically. As The Decoder noted, the emerging paradigm combines models for strategy with deterministic runtimes for batching and filtering, with search infrastructure becoming an I/O layer rather than a black box.
What This Means for Builders
Search as Code is rolling out now in Perplexity Computer, the company's agentic AI platform. For developers building AI agents that need to do complex research — gathering data across hundreds of sources, verifying facts, compiling reports — SaC represents a fundamentally different approach from the "one query, one response" model that dominates current search APIs.
The implications are significant. If models can write their own search pipelines, the bottleneck shifts from can the API return the right results to can the model design an effective search strategy That favors frontier models with strong reasoning and code‑generation capabilities — and puts pressure on search API providers to expose their internals as programmable primitives rather than black‑box endpoints. Perplexity's SDK‑based approach may become the template for how search infrastructure is packaged for the agentic era."
https://opentools.ai/news/perplexity-search-as-code-ai-models-write-search-pipelines
#metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus
"Lost in translation
Attempting to understand the lives and thought of our ancestors can teach us about ourselves
Emily Wilson opens Crossing the Wine-Dark Sea: Journeys Through Ancient Literature with a quote from Louis MacNeice’s 1938 poem Autumn Journal, written in the looming shadow of the Second World War. Wilson highlights MacNeice’s meditations on the value of looking back to antiquity in such dark times — or, perhaps, at the futility of such an endeavour.
Crossing the Wine-Dark Sea: Journeys through Ancient Literature, Emily Wilson, Profile Books, £10.99
MacNeice’s poem contrasts the difference between viscerally imagining the ancient world, and teaching it within the constraints of the 1930s educational system, as well as contemplating the prejudices and idealisations through which we may view the past. Despite the unimaginable gap in time, Wilson believes there are elements of the ancient world that she can clearly imagine. How a translator can bring alive this tension between the strangeness of the complex human beings and alien cultural practices from millennia ago and their strange familiarity is the core question that runs through her book. Is it possible to do so without projecting ideas from our time and place, and even the translator’s own personal experience? Can their words be brought back to life in a new language — or must the dead stay dead?
The book is a collection of Wilson’s essays she has unwoven and re-weaved, before stitching together as a coherent whole, so each chapter that explores a different aspect of ancient literature and culture and its journey into the present, adds to our understanding of the translator’s challenges. The chapters include a skewering of the modern “watered-down form” of Stoicism (it is a spiritual path for people who want to hold on to their sense of self and their own power: a fancy, rationalised form of egoism), a reminder of the invective and eroticism of Catullus, the fight over ownership of fragments of Sappho and fascinating essays on the comedies of Aristophanes and Terence, and the tragedies of Aeschylus and Euripides. Wilson also traces how Ancient Greek and Roman literature assumed its revered place in Western culture (in the US, Wilson claims this is in large part down to the work of Edith Hamiliton, whose stylistic “highly Americanised, vaguely Christianised” translations remain popular almost one hundred years after first being published and contribute to the belief in the continuity of a Western cultural superiority from Greece to modern-day America).
The last, longest essay, is the most fascinating. Wilson compares single phrases from the Odyssey across several translations. The different choices of not just words and phrases, but style and structure, each translator makes, shows the rich variety of options translators have. Wilson believes it is important to also translate the musical rhythms of ancient metrical verse. Many modern translations ignore this challenge and translate into English free verse or prose (Wilson’s version uses iambic pentameter). Wilson feels that by failing to do so you do not convey the artfulness of the originals, which is a major component of their strangeness for the modern reader. In both this book and her translations Wilson makes a strong case for this to be so. Through sharing the anguished and long debate Wilson had with herself in how to translate a single Greek word — polytropos — she draws back the veil on how a brilliant scholar approaches her work. After many twists and turns Wilson translates it as “complicated.” Others have used “man of many ways” (Richmond Lattimore), “that man skilled in all ways of contending” (Robert Fitzgerald), “man of many twists and turns” (Robert Fagles), and “resourceful man” (E. V. Rieu). Wilson describes the process that took “many hours, days and weeks” to eliminate countless other options before landing on “complicated” for a combination of syntactical and semantical reasons (from the number of syllables to liking the concept of complexity as a positive quality in the world of the poem).
Wilson states that the, “juxtaposition of ancient and modern languages, literatures and lives reminds us that it is through our words that we are remembered and understood, long after our deaths, and that even the most minute differences of language or phrasing may make all the difference.” With the increasing use of artificial intelligence applications and models to craft communications, this is a timely point to make. Many are now speaking through translators, when they outline the gist of what they want to say leaving technology to select specific words. Wilson’s explanation of her choice of “complicated” is an insight into the thought processes involved in translating and a reminder of the importance of what we are relinquishing to technology. It is also a justification for her deeply thought out choice.
Wilson’s 2017 translation of the Odyssey was the first by a woman into English. Inevitably, as the first woman, some critics argued that her approach at times distorted the original text by overlaying modern feminist ideas that would have been alien to those in Homer’s time. Her choice of “complicated” was the focus of some of that criticism. Supporters praised her for removing archaic, “imported” misogyny and challenging established interpretations. Wilson recognises that, “Language is never a neutral tool by which we represent the world: every word and phrase carries with it a tangle of cultural assumptions and connotations.” If Wilson is guilty of overlaying modern ideas, have not all previous translators been guilty of similar?
George Chapman, the first man to complete a full translation of the Odyssey and Iliad into English (published together in 1616 after decades of working on them), claimed that he was visited by the ghost of Homer. This, he believed, gave him unique insight into the poet’s true intentions. More believably, his interpretation of Homer would have been influenced by the philosophical currents of the Elizabethan Golden Age. In the introduction to her translation Wilson notes that Chapman transformed Odysseus into “a true soldier and a gentleman, a proto-Christian and a proto-Stoic, whose greatest virtue is his ability to endure suffering”. In translating the Greek into English, he translated Odysseus’ characteristics into those of a hero of his day. Whole passages of Aristophanes and Catullus were omitted by prudish Victorian translators, due to the moralities of their era.
In the same introduction Wilson announces that, “I try to avoid importing contemporary types of sexism into this ancient poem, instead shining a light on the particular forms of sexism and patriarchy that do exist in the text, which are only partly familiar from our world.” Wilson discusses the scene where Telemachus hangs the slaves (others have translated dmōai less literally as “maids” or “maidservants” which subtly suggests they would have had more agency in an elite household of that time than they would have). Most translations introduce derogatory language that suggests these women are justifiably punished due to their sexual digressions, yet original Greek does not contain such language. Their punishment is as likely motivated by wider dynamics of honour and the loss of face caused by the suitors’ breaches of etiquettes of hospitality (xenia) as for their promiscuity.
Wilson is not the first to challenge the orthodoxy of established translations or to use comparative analysis across multiple translations of Homer to do so. Argentinian writer Jorge Luis Borges in 1932’s The Homeric Versions conducted a similar exercise. The heart of the essay is a close reading of a single passage of the conversation between Odysseus and Achilles’ ghost, about his son Neoptolemus, across six English translations; “Buckley (literal prose), Butcher & Lang (literal but archaicizing), Cowper (1791, Miltonic blank verse), Pope (1725, heroic couplets with lavish amplification), Chapman (1614, vigorous and idiosyncratic), and Butler (1900, ironic bourgeois prose).”
Borges treats them as equally legitimate “perspectives on a mutable fact”. He asks and answers, “Which of these many translations is faithful? my reader will want to know. I repeat: none or all of them.” For Borges there is no “definitive text”: the concept corresponds only to “religion or exhaustion.” He argues that every text, including Homer’s, is mutable; what we take to be fixed and sacred is merely the product of familiarity and habit. He goes further and claims that translations are not inherently inferior to originals. A good text seems invariable only because we have read it many times; we mistake repetition for necessity. In his 1936 essay The Translators of The Thousand and One Nights, he declared: “The original is unfaithful to the translation.”
In The Homeric Versions, Borges discusses the famous 1861–62 exchange between Francis Newman (who advocated literal translation) and Matthew Arnold (who advocated eliminating distracting details in favour of Homer’s essential qualities: syntactical simplicity, flowing rapidity, and loftiness). Borges argues that both positions are valid. Wilson has also engaged with this debate on several occasions. Whilst acknowledging Arnold’s snobbery towards “poor Newman”, she has described his translation as unreadable, and in conversation about her Iliad translation, stated that she feels, “fairly directly inspired by Matthew Arnold’s discussion of what a Homeric translation should aim for — rapidity, plainness of thought and diction, and nobility.” Today, the debate is also between those who believe a good translator should be invisible, creating work as easily accessible as if it was not originally in a different language, and those who believe a translation should embody the strangeness of the original language and culture, not disguise it. The latter believing the former “colonises” texts into English creating a false kind of homogeneity. Wilson believes that the creation of a more reader-friendly translation does not necessarily imply a desire to appropriate or “colonise” the foreign original, but wants the shock and surprise of a foreign text to be preserved as much as possible.
In life sometimes literal translations are essential. In his translation of the Odyssey, Alexander Pope interprets Odysseus’ single black ship as a fleet. In Afghanistan, the interpreters I worked with needed to be more precise in the numbers of foreign fighters or IEDs on the road ahead. Errors in basic vocabulary could lead to the targeting of a wedding party over Taliban jirga. The coalition used service personnel who had often only been through less than a year’s worth of language training for the roles that required access to sensitive conversations, and for many other roles hired urban, Dari-speakers from the north to serve as interpreters in the rural, Pashtun-dominated south. The former would not be able to untangle the cultural assumptions and connotations and communicate past the words to the meaning of what each was trying to say. The latter often possessed marginal English skills and would fail to do the same in the reverse direction. Consequently, conversations between politicians, leaders, soldiers and elders were reduced to a dialogue conducted on the level of children pointing and naming when trying to navigate sensitive and complex cultural issues.
A tragicomic example was provided during the 2006 siege of Musa Qala in Helmand Province. British forces were using an interpreter who had been raised in Birmingham, UK. The local soldiers working alongside the British suspected that he was adding his own words and interpretations to the dialogue between them. Concern over mistranslations escalated into a physical confrontation, with the local soldiers chasing the interpreter around the compound. A British officer had to draw his pistol to stop the chase. In Afghanistan, at times the gulf between allies and enemies; between Western notions of democracy, liberalism and individualism and those of tribal loyalty and the values of the Pashtunwali honour code, felt as vast as that between the modern West and Homer’s Greece. We did not have interpreters with the depth of knowledge, eloquence and intellectual rigour as Wilson and her fellow translators of Homer. Even if we did, would we have understood the heroic code of the Pashtunwali as well as Odysseus might have?
Borges shows us that the reader is also complicit in the act of constant reinterpretation. In his 1939’s Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote, Menard sets out to immerse himself so thoroughly in Cervantes’ masterpiece, Don Quixote, that he can spontaneously “re-create” it, word for word, in the original seventeenth-century Spanish. (Initially, he considers achieving this by becoming Cervantes through learning Spanish, returning to the Catholic faith, fighting against the Moors, and forgetting the history of Europe 1602-1918. He ultimately rejects this approach as too easy). At the time of his death, Menard had successfully produced the ninth and thirty-eighth chapters of the first part of Don Quixote, along with a fragment of chapter twenty-two. The narrator compares a passage from Cervantes’s text with the identical passage from Menard’s text. Despite the words being exactly the same, the narrator argues that Menard’s version is infinitely richer, more subtle, and more complex because it was written by a modern man with the weight of three centuries of history behind him. Menard’s achievement is not that he wrote the same book again but that he wrote another book.
Anticipating post-structuralism, Borges implies that the meaning of literary works depends on the historical and social contexts in which they are read. The act of reading becomes the primary site of meaning creation. Each generation rewrites the classics by reading them through the lens of their own contemporary experiences as much as each translator does. We did not arrive in Afghanistan as blank slates, but as the products of a civilisation that traced itself back to Ancient Greece on a mission to convert those we found there to the pinnacle of a superior culture and way of being: western liberal democracy. Unable to think outside of our own paradigm, we could not understand that even if we could deliver what we were claiming we were going to (without the resolve and resources to do so) it was what few wanted. Afghanistan was not a military failure; it was a failure of translation.
These ancient texts can help us to see the air we breathe and the water in which we swim
In the challenge, though, there is also opportunity. Wilson claims that it can be as difficult for us to see the cultural assumptions of our own time as for a bird to see air, or fish water. Yet, these ancient texts can help us to see the air we breathe and the water in which we swim. Reading translations of both past and present foreign works can help us see that some of what is normal to us is alien to others. They can give us a sense that another way of being is possible. The evidence of this can be found in the smallest nuance of one translated word in the changing layers of translations over time. As Wilson states “it is more valuable than ever to remember that the world has not always been as it is now.” We are living through a time of social, geopolitical and technological transition.
MacNeice’s Autumn Journal is both a panorama of his era — capturing the anxieties of the Munich crisis, the Spanish Civil War and the looming shadow of another global conflict, as well as the disintegration of his personal life — and a situating of his time against the people and thinkers of the past. As MacNeice did in his time of uncertainty, we should meditate on the flux of the present, the fleeting moment between past and future, and try to imagine ourselves amongst those so unimaginably different yet strangely familiar. Their anxieties were not our anxieties, but also not wholly different. We cannot simply mirror their solutions but understanding them may help open us up to the possibilities of our complicated times, and knowing that they endured should give us comfort that we may too.
Wilson’s book is a timely reminder that that selection of words and phrases is key to the richness of human interaction and explaining what we really mean. We may not ever be able to fully understand the dead, but in trying to do so we may understand ourselves a little better."
Artillery Row 8 June, 2026
Andy Owen
https://thecritic.co.uk/lost-in-translation-2/
#metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus
"$250,000 for African Language AI Projects
LINGUA Africa funds projects that build the open data, models, and applications African languages need to participate in modern AI. The program goal is reaching one billion Africans with locally relevant AI tools by 2029.
Three grant categories are open:
Data creation: building, curating, translating, or licensing language datasets. Up to $50,000 in cash and $50,000 in compute credits.
Model or tool development: creating or adapting models, benchmarks, and infrastructure for African languages. Up to $100,000 in cash and $100,000 in compute credits.
Sectoral applications: piloting language technologies in real-world settings with a credible path to measurable impact. Up to $250,000 in cash and $400,000 in compute credits.
Priority sectors include agriculture and food security, education, healthcare and public health, financial inclusion, and government and civic services. All supported projects must contribute openly licensed resources.
Who Can Apply
Eligible applicants include nonprofits, universities, research institutes, social enterprises, cultural organizations, startups, and consortia working in the public interest. Organizations based outside Africa can apply if they show meaningful partnership with Africa-based institutions or communities.
Beyond cash, selected projects receive Azure and Google Cloud Platform credits and in-kind technical collaboration from Microsoft AI for Good Lab.
Apply Now: Deadline is June 15, 2026
More Funding Opportunities
Please sign up now to get our email updates. Learn how to get startup funding for your technology business, and find new funding opportunities with donors..."
https://www.ictworks.org/apply-now-250000-for-african-language-ai-projects/
#metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus
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