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Charles Tiayon
September 21, 2022 10:56 PM
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Beit Al-Hikma, à Carthage, organise sa conférence inaugurale, le 1 er octobre 2022, sous le thème «Pour un universel de traduction», donnée par le Pr Souleymane Bachir Diagne.
Researchers across Africa, Asia and the Middle East are building their own language models designed for local tongues, cultural nuance and digital independence
"In a high-stakes artificial intelligence race between the United States and China, an equally transformative movement is taking shape elsewhere. From Cape Town to Bangalore, from Cairo to Riyadh, researchers, engineers and public institutions are building homegrown AI systems, models that speak not just in local languages, but with regional insight and cultural depth.
The dominant narrative in AI, particularly since the early 2020s, has focused on a handful of US-based companies like OpenAI with GPT, Google with Gemini, Meta’s LLaMa, Anthropic’s Claude. They vie to build ever larger and more capable models. Earlier in 2025, China’s DeepSeek, a Hangzhou-based startup, added a new twist by releasing large language models (LLMs) that rival their American counterparts, with a smaller computational demand. But increasingly, researchers across the Global South are challenging the notion that technological leadership in AI is the exclusive domain of these two superpowers.
Instead, scientists and institutions in countries like India, South Africa, Egypt and Saudi Arabia are rethinking the very premise of generative AI. Their focus is not on scaling up, but on scaling right, building models that work for local users, in their languages, and within their social and economic realities.
“How do we make sure that the entire planet benefits from AI?” asks Benjamin Rosman, a professor at the University of the Witwatersrand and a lead developer of InkubaLM, a generative model trained on five African languages. “I want more and more voices to be in the conversation”.
Beyond English, beyond Silicon Valley
Large language models work by training on massive troves of online text. While the latest versions of GPT, Gemini or LLaMa boast multilingual capabilities, the overwhelming presence of English-language material and Western cultural contexts in these datasets skews their outputs. For speakers of Hindi, Arabic, Swahili, Xhosa and countless other languages, that means AI systems may not only stumble over grammar and syntax, they can also miss the point entirely.
“In Indian languages, large models trained on English data just don’t perform well,” says Janki Nawale, a linguist at AI4Bharat, a lab at the Indian Institute of Technology Madras. “There are cultural nuances, dialectal variations, and even non-standard scripts that make translation and understanding difficult.” Nawale’s team builds supervised datasets and evaluation benchmarks for what specialists call “low resource” languages, those that lack robust digital corpora for machine learning.
It’s not just a question of grammar or vocabulary. “The meaning often lies in the implication,” says Vukosi Marivate, a professor of computer science at the University of Pretoria, in South Africa. “In isiXhosa, the words are one thing but what’s being implied is what really matters.” Marivate co-leads Masakhane NLP, a pan-African collective of AI researchers that recently developed AFROBENCH, a rigorous benchmark for evaluating how well large language models perform on 64 African languages across 15 tasks. The results, published in a preprint in March, revealed major gaps in performance between English and nearly all African languages, especially with open-source models.
Similar concerns arise in the Arabic-speaking world. “If English dominates the training process, the answers will be filtered through a Western lens rather than an Arab one,” says Mekki Habib, a robotics professor at the American University in Cairo. A 2024 preprint from the Tunisian AI firm Clusterlab finds that many multilingual models fail to capture Arabic’s syntactic complexity or cultural frames of reference, particularly in dialect-rich contexts.
Governments step in
For many countries in the Global South, the stakes are geopolitical as well as linguistic. Dependence on Western or Chinese AI infrastructure could mean diminished sovereignty over information, technology, and even national narratives. In response, governments are pouring resources into creating their own models.
Saudi Arabia’s national AI authority, SDAIA, has built ‘ALLaM,’ an Arabic-first model based on Meta’s LLaMa-2, enriched with more than 540 billion Arabic tokens. The United Arab Emirates has backed several initiatives, including ‘Jais,’ an open-source Arabic-English model built by MBZUAI in collaboration with US chipmaker Cerebras Systems and the Abu Dhabi firm Inception. Another UAE-backed project, Noor, focuses on educational and Islamic applications.
In Qatar, researchers at Hamad Bin Khalifa University, and the Qatar Computing Research Institute, have developed the Fanar platform and its LLMs Fanar Star and Fanar Prime. Trained on a trillion tokens of Arabic, English, and code, Fanar’s tokenization approach is specifically engineered to reflect Arabic’s rich morphology and syntax.
India has emerged as a major hub for AI localization. In 2024, the government launched BharatGen, a public-private initiative funded with 235 crore (€26 million) initiative aimed at building foundation models attuned to India’s vast linguistic and cultural diversity. The project is led by the Indian Institute of Technology in Bombay and also involves its sister organizations in Hyderabad, Mandi, Kanpur, Indore, and Madras. The programme’s first product, e-vikrAI, can generate product descriptions and pricing suggestions from images in various Indic languages. Startups like Ola-backed Krutrim and CoRover’s BharatGPT have jumped in, while Google’s Indian lab unveiled MuRIL, a language model trained exclusively on Indian languages. The Indian governments’ AI Mission has received more than180 proposals from local researchers and startups to build national-scale AI infrastructure and large language models, and the Bengaluru-based company, AI Sarvam, has been selected to build India’s first ‘sovereign’ LLM, expected to be fluent in various Indian languages.
In Africa, much of the energy comes from the ground up. Masakhane NLP and Deep Learning Indaba, a pan-African academic movement, have created a decentralized research culture across the continent. One notable offshoot, Johannesburg-based Lelapa AI, launched InkubaLM in September 2024. It’s a ‘small language model’ (SLM) focused on five African languages with broad reach: Swahili, Hausa, Yoruba, isiZulu and isiXhosa.
“With only 0.4 billion parameters, it performs comparably to much larger models,” says Rosman. The model’s compact size and efficiency are designed to meet Africa’s infrastructure constraints while serving real-world applications. Another African model is UlizaLlama, a 7-billion parameter model developed by the Kenyan foundation Jacaranda Health, to support new and expectant mothers with AI-driven support in Swahili, Hausa, Yoruba, Xhosa, and Zulu.
India’s research scene is similarly vibrant. The AI4Bharat laboratory at IIT Madras has just released IndicTrans2, that supports translation across all 22 scheduled Indian languages. Sarvam AI, another startup, released its first LLM last year to support 10 major Indian languages. And KissanAI, co-founded by Pratik Desai, develops generative AI tools to deliver agricultural advice to farmers in their native languages.
The data dilemma
Yet building LLMs for underrepresented languages poses enormous challenges. Chief among them is data scarcity. “Even Hindi datasets are tiny compared to English,” says Tapas Kumar Mishra, a professor at the National Institute of Technology, Rourkela in eastern India. “So, training models from scratch is unlikely to match English-based models in performance.”
Rosman agrees. “The big-data paradigm doesn’t work for African languages. We simply don’t have the volume.” His team is pioneering alternative approaches like the Esethu Framework, a protocol for ethically collecting speech datasets from native speakers and redistributing revenue back to further development of AI tools for under-resourced languages. The project’s pilot used read speech from isiXhosa speakers, complete with metadata, to build voice-based applications.
In Arab nations, similar work is underway. Clusterlab’s 101 Billion Arabic Words Dataset is the largest of its kind, meticulously extracted and cleaned from the web to support Arabic-first model training.
The cost of staying local
But for all the innovation, practical obstacles remain. “The return on investment is low,” says KissanAI’s Desai. “The market for regional language models is big, but those with purchasing power still work in English.” And while Western tech companies attract the best minds globally, including many Indian and African scientists, researchers at home often face limited funding, patchy computing infrastructure, and unclear legal frameworks around data and privacy.
“There’s still a lack of sustainable funding, a shortage of specialists, and insufficient integration with educational or public systems,” warns Habib, the Cairo-based professor. “All of this has to change.”
A different vision for AI
Despite the hurdles, what’s emerging is a distinct vision for AI in the Global South – one that favours practical impact over prestige, and community ownership over corporate secrecy.
“There’s more emphasis here on solving real problems for real people,” says Nawale of AI4Bharat. Rather than chasing benchmark scores, researchers are aiming for relevance: tools for farmers, students, and small business owners.
And openness matters. “Some companies claim to be open-source, but they only release the model weights, not the data,” Marivate says. “With InkubaLM, we release both. We want others to build on what we’ve done, to do it better.”
In a global contest often measured in teraflops and tokens, these efforts may seem modest. But for the billions who speak the world’s less-resourced languages, they represent a future in which AI doesn’t just speak to them, but with them."
Sibusiso Biyela, Amr Rageh and Shakoor Rather
20 May 2025
https://www.natureasia.com/en/nmiddleeast/article/10.1038/nmiddleeast.2025.65
#metaglossia_mundus
"Appel à tous les apprenants et locuteurs de langues autochtones!
Le Programme mentor-apprenti recherche de nouveaux mentors qui souhaitent enseigner leur langue autochtone et les apprentis qui souhaitent l’apprendre.
Le Programme mentor-apprenti est un programme d’apprentissage des langues qui consiste à jumeler un locuteur compétent (le mentor) à un apprenant sérieux (l’apprenti) pour qu’ensemble ils se livrent à des activités de la vie courante en n’utilisant que leur langue autochtone.
Les apprenants souhaitant apprendre une langue autochtone doivent trouver un mentor disposé à leur enseigner, et les locuteurs de langues autochtones souhaitant faire du mentorat et enseigner leur langue doivent trouver un apprenti. L’objectif du programme est de permettre aux apprentis d’améliorer leur capacité à comprendre et à parler leur langue en « vivant dans la langue ».
Les paires mentor-apprenti doivent accepter de passer environ 5 à 7 heures par semaine ensemble pendant le programme. Ils devront réaliser 200 heures d’immersion linguistique sur une période d’environ neuf mois à compter de mai 2026.
Le programme est ouvert aux apprenants de tous les niveaux. Les apprenants doivent être âgés d’au moins 18 ans. Les mentors et les apprentis sont rémunérés pour leur participation au programme grâce à des fonds provenant à la fois du gouvernement des Territoires du Nord-Ouest et de leur gouvernement autochtone. Jusqu’à dix paires mentor-apprenti par gouvernement autochtone partenaire seront sélectionnées pour y participer.
La date limite pour soumettre votre candidature est le 28 février 2026.
Pour obtenir de plus amples renseignements ou pour présenter une demande, veuillez visiter le www.ece.gov.nt.ca/fr/PMA, composez le 867-767-9346, poste 71044, ou écrivez à Indigenous_languages@gov.nt.ca.
Les représentants des médias sont priés de s’adresser à :
Agata Gutkowska
Gestionnaire des relations publiques et des communications
Gouvernement des Territoires du Nord-Ouest
agata_Gutkowska@gov.nt.ca"
Yellowknife — 11 décembre 2025
https://www.gov.nt.ca/fr/newsroom/appel-tous-les-apprenants-et-locuteurs-de-langues-autochtones
#Metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus
By encouraging cross-cultural understanding and collaborative learning, the program prepares student leaders to thrive in and contribute to an increasingly interconnected world.
"Participants in this year’s Emory Intercultural Leadership Program (EILP) recently gathered for the annual leadership retreat, which Ava Havidic described as transformative.
“The EILP leadership retreat allowed me to expand international friendships across schools at Emory,” says Havidic, a second-year student at Emory College of Arts and Sciences. “It was a place of true connection, where vulnerability was welcomed. I was able to actively listen to the stories of those different than me, which will help me shape a better Emory, Atlanta and global community.”
That connection is exactly what the EILP aims to foster. Part of International Student and Scholar Services (ISSS), EILP is designed for both international and domestic students across Emory’s undergraduate, graduate and professional schools.
The EILP is an academic-year-long cohort program that equips participants with a powerful toolkit of global leadership skills and intercultural communication strategies, culminating in a service-learning experience.
“The EILP empowers students to lead with curiosity, empathy and purpose,” says Shinn Ko, assistant vice provost of International Student and Scholar Services. “By encouraging cross-cultural understanding and collaborative learning, the program prepares these student leaders to thrive in and contribute to an increasingly interconnected world.”
At the leadership retreat, students experienced immersive activities like storytelling, listening circles and team building. Intercultural conflict styles were also explored as a way to better understand diverse cultural perspectives and techniques to communicate across differences — tools necessary to lead in intercultural settings.
Through monthly seminars, students strengthen their understanding of emotional intelligence and intercultural effectiveness while engaging in rich, perspective-shifting dialogue. Reflecting on her decision to join the group, Emory College student Camilla Basco shared, “Within the EILP, I hope to build bridges not for the sake of connection alone, but for the new possibilities that can emerge when we cross those bridges together.”
In the spring semester, EILP participants will collaborate on a service-learning project, applying these skills in a real-world context to foster positive change.
“The EILP empowers the next generation of leaders to think globally, act with empathy and lead with purpose,” says Soundharya Kumaresan, a first-year PhD student in the Graduate Division of Biological and Biomedical Sciences with Laney Graduate School.
To learn more about the program, visit the ISSS EILP page. Follow @EmoryISSS on Instagram for participant spotlights and program updates."
https://news.emory.edu/stories/2025/12/er_isss_leadership_program_09-12-2025/story.html
#Metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus
"Translanguaging and Multimodality in ESP: Enhancing Cross-Cultural Communication through Multiliteracies Pedagogy
Abstract
Rapid internationalization in higher education has created complex multicultural environments that necessitate advanced intercultural competence alongside linguistic proficiency. This study explores how multiliteracies pedagogy mediates cross-cultural communication challenges within a Sino-German Industrial Design ESP program. By analyzing classroom interactions and perspectives from German lecturers, Chinese ESP teachers, and undergraduates, the research identifies communicative tensions such as linguistic barriers and student reticence. Findings demonstrate that multiliteracies strategies—specifically multimodal instruction and translanguaging—effectively mitigate these challenges. These approaches enabled students to synthesize visual, textual, and oral communication, fostering greater empathy and engagement. The study argues that multiliteracies pedagogy serves as a vital mechanism for translating macro-level bilingual policy objectives into practical classroom strategies. The implications for ESP curriculum design and teacher professional development in internationalized contexts are discussed."
Posted: 10 Dec 2025
Zizhe Huang
Independent - affiliation not provided to SSRN
PEILING TAN
Independent - affiliation not provided to SSRN
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=5898628
#Metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus
Google Translate, the popular language translation application, has recently broadened its language tutoring capabilities.
"Speakers of the following languages can now benefit from Google Translate’s English language teaching capabilities:
– Bengali
– German
– Hindi
– Italian
– Dutch
– Romanian
– Swedish
– Chinese (Simplified)
Enhancing Language Proficiency
Google Translate’s tool provides an excellent platform for users to refine their language skills. Its recent update includes an option that allows users to practice English, even if their display language is set to English. This feature caters to users who are looking to improve their English language capabilities or simply wish to practice English in a risk-free environment.
AI-Powered Features
In recent months, Google has introduced a range of new features to the Translate app, many of which leverage artificial intelligence. These features include real-time conversation translations and large-font translations. The recent developments underscore Google’s understanding of the common scenarios where people use the Translate app – primarily in real-life situations.
Aspirations for Further Language Options
Despite the recent advancements and Google being a US company with a focus on English language learning, there is a desire for more diverse language training options, specifically between two non-English languages. This is due to Google’s global presence, with offices worldwide. Additionally, users are expressing interest in seeing the app move beyond repetitive speaking and listening practice by including grammar lessons.
Questions & Answers
What new languages can English speakers learn on Google Translate?
English speakers can now learn Portuguese and German on Google Translate.
What new languages can non-English speakers learn English in on Google Translate?
Non-English speakers of Bengali, German, Hindi, Italian, Dutch, Romanian, Swedish, and Chinese (Simplified) can now learn English on Google Translate.
What are some new features Google has added to the Translate app?
Some new features include real-time conversation translations and large-font translations."
https://www.retailnews.asia/expand-your-language-spectrum-google-translate-adds-new-languages-to-its-learning-tool/
#Metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus
"Direction le Palais de justice de Bruxelles, non pas pour assister à une audience, mais pour découvrir une exposition inédite consacrée aux traducteurs et interprètes dans le monde judiciaire.
L’exposition met en lumière un métier souvent méconnu mais essentiel au bon déroulement des procès. Son origine remonte au procès de Nuremberg, après la Seconde Guerre mondiale, où pour la première fois, un système d’interprétation simultanée a été mis en place pour permettre à la justice internationale de fonctionner.
■ Reportage de Maël Arnoldussen, Frédéric De Henau et Laurence Paciarelli"
https://bx1.be/categories/news/palais-de-justice-une-exposition-dediee-aux-traducteurs-et-interpretes-jures/
#Metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus
L'interprète n'a pas pu retenir ses larmes : "Le témoignage d'un jeune ukrainien de 11 ans sur la mort de sa mère en direct du Parlement européen a suscité une vive émotion. L'interprète à ses côtés, en charge de la traduction, n'a pas pu retenir ses larmes.
Submergée par l'émotion. À l'écoute du témoignage du jeune ukrainien de 11 ans Roman Oleksiv sur la mort de sa mère à la suite d'un bombardement russe, l'interprète à ses côtés, en charge de traduire les propos en anglais, n'a pas pu s'empêcher de pleurer. Trop touchée par le témoignage du garçon, l'interprète a même laissé son collègue prendre le relais, le temps de se remettre de ses émotions. La vidéo a mis en émoi les réseaux sociaux.
Lors de son témoignage au Parlement européen, Roman a raconté avoir retrouvé sa mère le 14 juillet 2022, jour de sa mort sous les bombes russes : «Je l’ai vue sous les décombres et j’ai vu ses cheveux. Je les ai caressés et je lui ai dit au revoir», a-t-il déclaré.
Ce jour-là, Roman Oleksiv était dans le même hôpital que sa mère, subissant également les conséquences de cette attaque. Il a ainsi été brûlé sur plus de 80% de son corps et est resté dans le coma pendant plus de 100 jours. Il a depuis subi 36 interventions chirurgicales.
Aujourd'hui, il se rétablit à Lviv, où il vit avec son père, Yaroslav. Il a repris l’école et se passionne pour la musique et la danse, rapporte 7 sur 7."
Par CNEWS
Publié le 12/12/2025 à 17:27 - Mis à jour le 12/12/2025 à 17:27
https://www.cnews.fr/monde/2025-12-12/guerre-en-ukraine-un-garcon-raconte-la-mort-de-sa-mere-dans-une-frappe-russe-et
#Metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus
"In the discussion after a screening of documentaries about Ukrainian children, a translator burst into tears while interpreting the speech of 11-year-old Roman Oleksiv from Lviv. The boy survived a Russian missile strike in Ukraine's city of Vinnytsya. The July 2022 strike killed Oleksiv's mother." https://www.rferl.org/a/interpreter-cries-translating-ukrainian-boy/33620745.html
#Metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus
"The White House is appealing court orders to restore interpretation services at press briefings.
The White House is making an unusual argument as it resists advocates’ push for sign language interpretation at press briefings conducted by President Donald Trump and press secretary Karoline Leavitt.
Providing American sign language interpretation in press conferences “would severely intrude on the President’s prerogative to control the image he presents to the public,” Justice Department attorneys argued in a lawsuit filed by the National Association for the Deaf.
The novel argument is just one part of the White House’s case against providing ASL interpretation, and DOJ attorneys haven’t elaborated much on the alleged intrusion. But it has raised concerns among advocates, and even the judge in the case.
U.S. District Judge Amir Ali issued an order last month requiring the White House to provide real-time ASL interpretation for Trump and Leavitt’s briefings, rejecting the administration’s argument that closed captioning and transcripts give Americans who are deaf or hard of hearing sufficient access to the president’s statements.
“To the extent the defendants argue that they prefer to act free from association with accessibility for people with disabilities, their gripe is with Congress and” federal anti-discrimination laws themselves, Ali wrote.
The Trump administration immediately appealed Ali’s ruling. The White House has begun providing interpretation for more events since the court issued its injunction, although the two sides of the case have disagreed over the specifics of what’s required.
The administration has argued that complications could arise if, for example, Trump spontaneously chooses to take questions from the press at events other than briefings. The Trump administration has asked Ali to limit his ruling to events scheduled at least 24 hours in advance, but the judge said the White House’s concerns were based on a misunderstanding of his order, which requires officials to “take all reasonable steps” to provide interpretation whenever they have advance knowledge that Trump or Leavitt will provide information or take questions.
The plaintiffs have also noted that President Joe Biden’s administration was able to provide ASL interpretation for events that were announced to the press pool less than an hour before Biden delivered his remarks.
White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson told POLITICO that “the Administration is in compliance with” the judge’s November order. The White House did not respond to additional questions seeking to clarify its position in the case.
Brittany Shrader, director of legal services at the National Association of the Deaf Law and Advocacy Center, told POLITICO that she would rather not speculate about the administration’s “image” arguments.
“The disability laws don’t require a showing of animus or ill will toward people with disabilities to prove discrimination. The laws require that the White House provide access and the failure to provide that access is itself discrimination,” Shrader said. The White House’s arguments are “not a sound basis for declining to provide reasonable accommodations,” she said.
The organization first sued over a lack of sign language interpretation during Trump’s first term, in a bid to ensure that deaf and hard of hearing Americans had access to critical health information from government leaders during the Covid-19 pandemic. The Trump White House fought that lawsuit, but did not make arguments related to the president’s control of his image and messaging.
The Biden White House provided ASL interpreters for its press briefings, but the practice disappeared when Trump came back into power. The National Association of the Deaf filed a new discrimination lawsuit against the administration in May, naming Trump, Leavitt and White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles among the defendants.
The NAD and White House are awaiting action from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, which could uphold or block Ali’s order."
Hassan Ali Kanu
12/11/2025
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/12/11/donald-trump-sign-language-lawsuit-00687712
#Metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus
"Translators who work on Parliament Hill say changes to their accreditation process risks worsening the quality of language interpretation in the federal government.
The Translation Bureau...has quietly begun using an external consultant during accreditation exams instead of a jury of senior interpreters from within the bureau.
As of November, an external juror has carried the same weight as four staff interpreters combined previously. In the case of a disagreement, a Translation Bureau executive will break the tie, according to the Canadian chapter of the International Association of Conference Interpreters (AIIC-Canada).
“It’s really the impact on the quality of official languages, at Parliament of all places, where you need high-quality interpretation to make sure that parliamentarians understand one another and can do their job properly for their constituents.”
Michèle LaRose, a spokesperson for Public Services and Procurement Canada, said the Translation Bureau was now including “independent experts from the high-level conference interpretation community to provide an external perspective on the evaluations.”
“This allowed us to obtain a diversity of opinions from experts in their field, ensure greater transparency in the process, and inform any necessary improvements to the process,” said LaRose, who added that there were “no changes to the evaluation criteria from previous years, and performance and quality expectations remain the same.”
In previous years, the bar for the accreditation exam was set so high that some did not pass at all, according to AIIC-Canada.
Since 2022, LaRose said, 193 external candidates had taken the accreditation exam, “of which only 22 were accredited, representing a passing rate of 11 per cent.”
LaRose added that 60 candidates took the most recent exam in November, but she said that the department could not provide the number of successful candidates “as the evaluation process is still ongoing.”
Critics of the change accused the government of seeking to suddenly increase the pool of working freelance interpreters following new procurement rules.
Skup said a “significant number” of freelance interpreters had not bid for contracts since the new procurement rules came into effect because they included an hourly pay model and other changes. She estimated that between one-third and one-half of interpreters in the association had chosen not to work in Parliament because of the new rules.
For Antoine Hersberger, vice-president of the translation group of the Canadian Association of Professional Employees and a translator with the Translation Bureau, giving so much power to an external consultant over experienced staff interpreters was “a bit insulting.”...
“If we’re lowering the bar in Parliament, you can imagine how low the bar can go in other contexts.”"
Matteo Cimellaro
Dec 11, 2025
https://ottawacitizen.com/public-service/freelance-interpreter-accreditation
#Metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus
"IRC offers its digital safety classes in 12 languages...
International Rescue Committee is adding safe artificial intelligence use to its digital literacy classes.
For newcomers to the U.S., artificial intelligence can be very helpful—and very dangerous...
International Rescue Committee serves refugees and forced migrants for at least five years after they come to the US.
That means they can help people develop longer-term skills that are essential to living in the States—like digital literacy.
IRC's chapter in Spokane has long offered classes on things like setting up an email account or paying bills online.
But thanks to emerging tech, their newest digital skills classes are tackling topics like AI.
Ab Denman, a digital skills specialist with IRC, says artificial intelligence is being woven into new translation tools—and making them a lot better.
“AI translation is really helpful for things to do with tone and context, especially dialect,” Denman said. "My clients have said that dialect is becoming a really big barrier when it comes to, like, Google Translate because it doesn't understand the differences between the same language with different regions and countries."
But if non-English speakers ask ChatGPT for help with personal issues, that can put them at risk.
“Basically, if you wouldn't tell it to a stranger, don't tell it to the AI," Denman said. "So even if it's something like asking why you're having a specific health issue, we are kind of at the mercy of companies when it comes to trusting that they'll protect our data and not sell it to, say, insurance companies that will want to know about health problems in a specific area and then raise rates.”
Denman also teaches participants how to spot housing scams on Facebook Marketplace, or gauge whether the voice on the other end of the phone is actually a government official or an AI-generation.
"Unfortunately, the scams move faster than some of the warnings and it's getting very smart," Denman said.
Once participants finish the class, they get to take home a brand new Lenovo tablet. That's thanks to a generous IRC donor. Denman says that kind of technology is essential to navigating doctor's offices, banking, and self-sufficiency.
And despite its threats, Denman refuses to villainize artificial intelligence.
"AI is a tool like any other thing," they said. "Like a hammer, it can be used to fix big problems and it can be used to damage the wall entirely."
Denman teaches the digital safety classes in English. Thanks to a real-life translator on the other end of a phone, the lessons are translated into 10 different languages.
But IRC says it would be a whole lot cheaper to use an AI translator instead."
Spokane Public Radio
Eliza Billingham
December 10, 2025
https://www.spokanepublicradio.org/regional-news/2025-12-10/artificial-intelligence-language-translation-international-rescue-committee-spokane
#Metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus
"What you don’t realize about theatrical translators
Christopher Hampton, veteran English-language translator, and Daniël Cohen, longtime Dutch-language translator, weigh in on the job that’s trickier than it seems, their specific works and plays versus musicals.
Ruthie Fierberg
December 11, 2025
Theatrical translation is much more than converting words in the original language to words with equivalent meaning in a new one. Though a translation is nothing without meaning and clarity, those attributes are not enough. Theatrical translators must consider the style and tone of the show, the way in which language is used (differentiating direct and literal from poetic and beatific), linguistic history (matching words to the era in which the piece is set), cultural understanding (choosing references that ring true for a new audience), rhythm, phrasing and character.
“It’s juggling with 10 balls at the same time,” said Daniël Cohen, a Dutch playwright, lyricist director and translator who has translated more than a dozen musicals from English to Dutch. At the end of the day, these myriad factors that translators consider combine to achieve a simple — if not easy — goal. “The aim is to try and deliver as accurate a translation as possible,” declared Christopher Hampton, a British playwright and translator who has translated dozens of plays into English. “Your duty really, as a translator, is to get out of the way and present as close as you can to what the author intended.”
On Broadway, it’s been historically rare for a musical to have originated in a language other than English. One of the most famous is the French “Les Misérables,” with lyrics by translator Herbert Kretzmer; the most recent is the Korean “Maybe Happy Ending,” translated by its original writing team, Will Aronson and Hue Park. More common is the export of American musicals to countries around the world, which require translation from English to other languages.
When it comes to straight plays on Broadway, there is a long tradition of English translations. Many of the so-called classics originated outside of English: Sophocles’ Greek, Chekhov’s Russian, Ibsen’s Norwegian, Molière’s French. Modern translations have been fewer and farther between. But the fall of this 2025-2026 Broadway season has welcomed three: Samuel Beckett’s “Waiting for Godot,” a translation from French to English by Beckett; Sophocles’ Oedipus, a new adapted English translation by Robert Icke; and Yasmina Reza’s “Art,” a revival of the Tony Award-winning play with translation from French to English by Hampton.
There is a distinct art to translation, a necessary discipline for cultural exchange. But, according to Hampton, the practice of hiring a specifically theatrical translator — rather than someone who can simply reword — is fairly new.
A tale of two translators
The distinction between academic and performative translation gained prominence in the 1960s, both according to this scholar and Hampton’s own experience.
Hampton began working for London’s Royal Court as soon as he completed university, and the Royal Court wanted to shake things up. “They had developed a theory that the classics ought to be translated by playwrights, not by academic translators because, prior to that, whenever there was an Ibsen or a Chekhov production, they would use the Oxford edition translated by some eminent linguist academic,” Hampton explained. But the Royal Court wanted to emphasize “speakable dialogue,” as Hampton put it. He was assigned Chekhov’s “Uncle Vanya,” his first ever attempt.
But Hampton doesn’t speak Russian. The Royal Court paired him with a Russian woman who made a literal translation, then Hampton created the play version from that. Soon, he was called to do Ibsen (he doesn’t speak Norwegian). “I found that I really enjoyed the process of translation,” Hampton said of his early exposure to the job. “As opposed to writing your own own plays, it was like going to the gym or something. It was a linguistic exercise.”
Eventually, Hampton transitioned to translate French — a language in which he is actually fluent. Years later, that led him to Reza and “Art.”
Cohen took a different path to translation — one forged from necessity. As a theater director in Amsterdam, Cohen wanted to stage Stephen Sondheim’s “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum.” “In my youthful arrogance, I thought, ‘Well, I’ve never done this before, but I’m sure I can do it,’” he recalled. Directing his own translated text confirmed firsthand the truth in the Royal Court’s 1960s theory. As Cohen said, “It taught me that all the things that I invented writing at my desk weren’t necessarily the best choices for the actors.”
How Hampton translates
Hampton describes translating as “a huge number of small decisions.” With a comedy, like “Art,” those choices are not only about how actors can perform the play, but how the text allows them to elicit laughter from the audience. “The way to do that is often the phrasing,” Hampton said. “That often has to do with word order.” Even in a straight play, there is musicality to consider."
https://www.broadwaynews.com/what-you-dont-realize-about-theatrical-translators/
#Metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus
"L’Association Camerounaise pour la Traduction de la Bible et l’Alphabétisation (CABTAL) a inauguré son nouveau Complexe Missionnel à Efoulan à Yaoundé, marquant une étape importante dans sa mission de soutenir les individus, les communautés, les églises et les partenaires.
Le Complexe Missionnel CABTAL est équipé d’une imprimerie qui facilitera la production de documents liés à la traduction de la Bible et à la promotion de la littératie. L’organisation prévoit de traduire la Bible dans 17 nouvelles langues et de lancer de nouveaux partenariats pour soutenir ses activités. C’est aussi un bâtiment de quatre niveaux en dehors du sous-sol. Son objectif est de « faciliter le déploiement du corps de Christ en créant un cadre agréable et propice pour le repos et la ressource ». C’est ce qu’à laissé entendre Jean Marc ZE, président du conseil d’administration du CABTAL.
Le Directeur Général de CABTAL, Dr Emmanuel Keyeh Lufang, a souligné que l’objectif de l’organisation est de voir les individus et les communautés transformés par la Parole de Dieu dans leur langue maternelle. Il a également annoncé que CABTAL a déjà traduit le Nouveau Testament dans 38 langues camerounaises et l’Ancien Testament dans deux langues. « C’est un centre mis sur pied pour générer des ressources et pouvoir financer plusieurs travaux, faciliter la traduction de la Bible, le développement communautaire….. »
L’inauguration du Complexe Missionnel CABTAL est un pas en avant vers la réalisation de la vision de l’organisation de promouvoir la littératie et la traduction de la Bible au Cameroun."
11 décembre 2025
Valère Francine Manuela MBANGO KOUOH
https://chretiens.com/chretiensdumonde/chretiens-du-cameroun/lassociation-camerounaise-pour-la-traduction-de-la-bible-et-lalphabetisation-a-son-nouveau-local/2025/12/11/10/30/
#Metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus
Santiago Artozqui assesses the linguistic strategies and sociohistorical stakes involved in retranslating Margaret Mitchell’s 1936 novel «Gone with the Wind» into French in 2020.
"In 2020, Éditions Gallmeister published Autant en emporte le vent, a French version of Margaret Mitchell’s lone novel Gone with the Wind, in a new translation by Josette Chicheportiche. The same day, Éditions Gallimard rereleased an earlier translation by Pierre-François Caillé from 1938, accompanied by the preface that J. M. G. Le Clézio wrote in 1989, and by excerpts from the correspondence between the author and her translator. Recent events, impossible for either publishing house to have foreseen, have triggered a global, collective reflection on the place of Blacks in societies in which they are discriminated against. Without a desire to read these two translations exclusively through the lens of the Black Lives Matter movement, it is all the same interesting to note how, seen from this angle, both say “almost the same thing.”
Margaret Mitchell, Autant en emporte le vent, translated from the American English by Josette Chicheportiche, Gallmeister, Vol. 1, 720 p., 13€ – Vol. 2, 720 p., 13€.
Margaret Mitchell, Autant en emporte le vent, translated from the American English by Pierre-François Caillé, Gallimard Folio, Vol. 1, 784 p., 13€ – Vol. 2, 832 p., 13€.
Ever since its original publication, Gone with the Wind has invited superlatives. In 1936, this first novel by an unknown writer was “the most read,” “the most sold,” and, three years later, the eponymous film was “the most watched,” “the highest grossing”… The two French editions published in 2020 have not broken from this tradition—the back cover blurbs mention its “immense success,” its “mythical title,” its “unparalleled historical fresco.” Le Clézio, in his 1989 preface, climbed aboard, affirming in his opening line: “Gone with the Wind is a unique and exceptional book, it is the perfect novel,” and going on to evoke the millions of copies sold and the one hundred and twenty million viewers of the film.
This success and the position the book has taken in Western culture is enough to justify the necessity of a new translation into French, but as Marie Vrinat-Nikolov explained in Retraduire: pourquoi ? [“Retranslation: Why Bother?”, En Attendant Nadeau, 7 August 2017], all such justification is pointless: regardless of the text in question, we must retranslate, not against earlier translations, but with them. A translation is a reading, it evolves over time, and this evolution orients the placement of certain markers which, as they provide the text with a frame of reference, anchor a translation within its era.
The first of these markers is surely the title. Both French publishers stuck with Autant en emporte le vent, the octosyllabic title already crowned in France by cinematic, editorial, and commercial glory that it would have been foolish to do without. It has a better ring to it than “Emporté par le vent,” a more literal translation that is rather flat, but this embellishment diverts attention from the message: something has been carried off by the wind. This unnamed thing, central to the book’s premise, is the pro-slavery idyllic society constructed by the Whites, a sort of lost paradise where Blacks were happy and stayed in their place. The novel tells the story of Scarlett O’Hara, a wealthy heiress who is going to lose it all because of the War. What follows are fifteen hundred pages of adventures, drama, and unexpected developments during which Scarlett attempts to recover what she considers to be her due: Tara, the family plantation, the literary symbol of a Golden Age to which the American Civil War put an end. But in between the love scenes, the balls, and the battles, this “unparalleled historical fresco” offhandedly defends the idea that Blacks are inferior beings.
Consider the following excerpt, in which Pork, one of the slaves on the plantation, presents the woman he has just married to his master (Gerald). She is quick to thank her new master.
From Gone with the Wind, 1936:
When she spoke, her voice was not so slurred as most negroes’ and she chose her words more carefully.
“Good evenin’, young Misses. Mist’ Gerald, I is sorry to ‘sturb you, but I wanted to come here and thank you agin fo’ buyin’ me and my chile. Lots of gentlemens might a’ bought me but they wouldn’t a’ bought my Prissy, too, jes’ to keep me frum grievin’ and I thanks you. I’m gwine do my bes’ fo’ you and show you I ain’t forgettin’.”
“Hum–hurrump,” said Gerald, clearing his throat in embarrassment at being caught openly in an act of kindness.
Translation by Pierre-François Caillé, 1938:
Lorsqu’elle parlait, sa voix n’était pas aussi confuse que celle de la plupart des Noirs et elle s’exprimait avec plus de recherche.
— Bonsoi’, mes jeunes demoiselles. Missié Gé’ald, moi je suis t’iste de vous dé’anger, mais je voulais veni’ vous ‘eme’cier de m’avoi’achetée avec l’enfant. Des tas de missiés ils voulaient m’acheter, mais ils voulaient pas acheter ma P’issy pou’ m’empêcher d’avoi’ du chag’in et je vous ‘eme’cie. Moi je fe’ai tout ce que je pou’ai pou’ vous et pou’ vous mont’er que moi j’oublie pas.
— Hum… hum… dit Gérald en s’éclaircissant la gorge. Il était fort gêné d’être pris en flagrant délit de bonté.
Translation by Josette Chicheportiche, 2020:
Lorsqu’elle parla, sa voix n’était pas aussi confuse que celle de la plupart des Noirs et elle choisissait ses mots avec plus de soin.
— Bonsoir, jeunes demoiselles. M’sieur Gerald, je suis désolée d’vous déranger, mais je voulais venir vous remercier encore que vous m’avez achetée, moi et ma p’tite. Des tas de messieurs m’auraient peut-être achetée, mais y auraient pas acheté ma Prissy aussi pour pas que je pleure et je vous remercie. J’ferai de mon mieux pour vous et pour vous montrer que j’oublie pas.
— Hum, hum, fit Gerald, se raclant la gorge, gêné d’être pris en flagrant délit de bonté.
Evidently, on a formal level, the 1938 transliteration of Dilcey’s “patois” doesn’t hold up very well today—the colonialist echoes here are a bit too blatant—and in her translation, Josette Chicheportiche offers to this character a mode of speech that is more comfortable for the contemporary reader, simply because it is less caricatured and less crude. And yet, in the above excerpt, neither of the translators can change the implications of the two sentences that frame Dilcey’s line. In the first of these, the omniscient narrator announces that the speech that is about to follow (despite its approximated syntax) is “less slurred” and “chosen more carefully” than that of “most negroes.” In a tale that endeavors to describe an era with realism and great attention to detail, this “universal truth” is a lie, as much during the period the story takes place—when men such as Frederick Douglass distinguished themselves by their eloquence—as it would have been in the era of the book’s initial publication, when writers such as Zora Neale Hurston were authoring books destined to become classics of American literature. As for the second sentence, where the narrator informs us that Gerald is embarrassed to have been “caught openly in an act of kindness,” suffice it to say that the benevolent act that upsets his natural modesty is the purchase of two slaves, one of whom is a twelve-year-old girl.
But the most striking feature is that by comparing these two French translations, we note that the omniscient narrator, himself, has hardly changed over the past eight decades.
When she spoke, her voice was not so slurred as most negroes’ and she chose her words more carefully. (1936)
Lorsqu’elle parlait, sa voix n’était pas aussi confuse que celle de la plupart des Noirs et elle s’exprimait avec plus de recherche. (1938)
Lorsqu’elle parla, sa voix n’était pas aussi confuse que celle de la plupart des Noirs et elle choisissait ses mots avec plus de soin. (2020)
“Hum–hurrump,” said Gerald, clearing his throat in embarrassment at being caught openly in an act of kindness. (1936)
— Hum… hum… dit Gérald en s’éclaircissant la gorge. Il était fort gêné d’être pris en flagrant délit de bonté. (1938)
— Hum, hum, fit Gerald, se raclant la gorge, gêné d’être pris en flagrant délit de bonté. (2020)
The text is littered with examples of this sort. Over the course of the book’s pages, it becomes clear that this omniscient narrator’s racism—another marker that the novel hinges on—is not only more insidious, but also more deep-seated than the racism we thought we could make out in the transliteration of the slaves’ patois. Accordingly, even if it is worth pointing out the remarkable job that Josette Chicheportiche has done on the language and the overall text, the problem resides elsewhere. In this book, the slaves are happy with their lot and imagine nothing more for their lives than service to their master; that is enough to make them content, and no matter how much the translator fiddles with the syntax and refines the style, the very notion is racist, today as it was yesterday.
Hattie McDaniel, Olivia de Havilland, and Vivien Leigh in Gone with the Wind (1939)
Upon the initial release of the book, and most notably among those who were campaigning for civil rights, the numerous voices that were raised against the manner it represented slavery were largely met with indifference, stifled by its sales figures. An anecdote related by John Bracey, professor of Afro-American Studies at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, can serve to illustrate the position of American authorities when it came to race in 1939; this regards extras the city of Atlanta recruited to act in vignettes at the film’s premiere. As Bracey explained, the idea was to dress them up like slaves and have them chant spirituals. All the area churches refused, except for one: Ebenezer Baptist, where Martin Luther King, Sr., the father of Martin Luther King, Jr., was a preacher. At the premiere of Gone with the Wind, a ten-year-old Martin Luther King, Jr. found himself seated on a cotton bale, made up like a “colored” from the good old days: a symbolic incarnation of the old South, brought along to amuse the white elites.
Let us also recall that Hattie McDaniel, the black actress who played Mammy, was not permitted to attend the opening because the cinema in which it was held was reserved strictly for whites. And at the Oscar ceremonies, where she received the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, she was seated at the back of the hall, separate from the other actors. It makes sense that in a society like this, the arguments put forward by Gone with the Wind didn’t encounter much genuine pushback.
That brings us back to the novel, a classic that is emblematic of an important side of American history. Not that of a Golden Age, the end of which is being lamented, but that of the fraction of America who, for the past eighty years, has lauded this novel and who sees itself in the values that it defends. As to these two new publications, the novel’s translation and its retranslation…When a novel tells us that slavery was great, there’s nothing the translator can do about that, because, as Umberto Eco put it, he or she can only say “almost the same thing” as the original. And yet, the publishers are not without resources. They have the option of adding a critical apparatus if they feel the work merits it. In this case, neither of the publishers felt it necessary. However—and this has nothing to do with current events, as it was equally true months and years ago—it wouldn’t have been meaningless to warn readers that the image this novel gives of Blacks is fallacious and that slavery, as it is depicted in the novel, is not in keeping with historical facts. Some might argue that this warning is entirely contained within the very word “novel.” They would be incorrect, as the novel and works of fiction are essential to the construction of the mental image that each of us has of the society we live in, and accordingly, to what we think.
Translated by Chris Clarke
This essay originally appeared in French in En Attendant Nadeau, No. 108, on July 1, 2020. Hopscotch Translation is grateful to the author and to the team of En Attendant Nadeau for their kind permission to publish this English translation."
https://hopscotchtranslation.com/2025/12/09/translations-come-and-go-racism-remains/
#Metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus
"Artificio Processes Documents in 80+ Languages, Enabling Multinational Corporations to Automate Global Operations
News provided by
EIN Presswire
Dec 09, 2025, 8:23 AM ET
Advanced OCR and NLP capabilities now support cross-border document processing in 80+ languages, eliminating translation bottlenecks for multinational companies
Global enterprises shouldn't need separate document automation systems for each country—our multilingual platform delivers the same accuracy across 80+ languages.”— CEO, Artificio Products Inc.
IRVINE, CA, UNITED STATES, December 9, 2025 /EINPresswire.com/ -- Artificio Products Inc., a leader in AI-powered intelligent document processing and enterprise workflow automation, today announced that its platform now processes documents in more than 80 languages, positioning the company as a comprehensive solution for multinational corporations managing cross-border document operations. This expanded multilingual capability eliminates translation bottlenecks, reduces operational costs, and accelerates global business processes for enterprises operating across multiple countries and regions.
As businesses expand internationally, they face mounting challenges processing documents in diverse languages—from customer invoices and vendor contracts to regulatory filings and employee documentation. Traditional document processing systems require separate workflows for each language, forcing organizations to maintain translation services, language-specific teams, and disconnected automation solutions. Artificio's unified multilingual platform addresses these challenges by delivering consistent, accurate document intelligence regardless of language or script.
Comprehensive Language Coverage Across Six Continents
Artificio's multilingual document processing capabilities span major global languages including English, Spanish, French, German, Portuguese, Italian, Dutch, and Polish across Europe; Mandarin Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Hindi, Bengali, Vietnamese, Thai, Indonesian, and Arabic across Asia and the Middle East; and numerous regional languages serving local business needs worldwide.
The platform's advanced optical character recognition technology handles diverse scripts including Latin, Cyrillic, Arabic, Chinese characters, Japanese Kanji, Korean Hangul, and Devanagari scripts with exceptional accuracy. Unlike generic OCR tools that struggle with non-Latin scripts or require separate processing pipelines for different language families, Artificio's unified architecture automatically detects document language and applies optimized extraction models without manual configuration.
"Global enterprises shouldn't need separate document automation systems for each country where they operate," said Lal Singh, Founder and CEO of Artificio Products Inc. "Our multilingual platform delivers the same accuracy and automation capabilities across 80+ languages, enabling truly unified global document operations."
Financial institutions processing loan applications across multiple countries benefit from Artificio's ability to extract and validate financial data from documents in any language, automatically converting currencies, normalizing date formats, and ensuring regulatory compliance across jurisdictions. Manufacturing companies managing supplier documentation from China, Germany, Mexico, and Vietnam process purchase orders, invoices, and quality certificates through a single workflow regardless of document language.
Advanced Natural Language Processing Across Language Families
Artificio's platform combines optical character recognition with sophisticated natural language processing capabilities that understand context, terminology, and business logic across languages. The system doesn't simply extract text—it comprehends document meaning, identifies key entities, and applies business rules appropriate to each language and regional market.
For complex documents containing multiple languages, such as international shipping manifests or multinational corporate contracts, Artificio's AI agents automatically segment content by language, process each section with appropriate models, and synthesize results into unified structured data. This multi-language document handling capability proves particularly valuable for global logistics operations managing documentation in English, Spanish, Portuguese, and Chinese across transpacific shipping routes.
Insurance companies processing claims documentation submitted by multilingual policyholders achieve 92% straight-through processing rates regardless of document language. Healthcare organizations handling patient records and medical documentation across diverse populations maintain HIPAA compliance while processing information in English, Spanish, Vietnamese, Arabic, and Tagalog through unified workflows.
Right-to-Left Language Support and Regional Script Variations
Artificio provides native support for right-to-left languages including Arabic, Hebrew, Urdu, and Persian, maintaining proper text direction, alignment, and layout understanding critical for accurate document processing. The platform handles regional script variations and dialects, recognizing differences between Simplified and Traditional Chinese, Brazilian and European Portuguese, and Latin American and Castilian Spanish.
The system's adaptive learning capabilities improve accuracy for specific industry terminology and regional language variations over time. When processing legal contracts in French Canadian versus Metropolitan French, or technical documentation in British versus American English, Artificio's AI agents learn terminology preferences and regional conventions, ensuring outputs match local business requirements.
Eliminating Translation Bottlenecks in Global Workflows
Traditional approaches to multilingual document processing require manual translation before automation can begin, creating days or weeks of delay in time-sensitive business processes. Artificio eliminates these translation bottlenecks by processing native-language documents directly, extracting structured data, and delivering outputs in the organization's preferred working language when needed.
A multinational retail corporation reduced purchase order processing time from 5 days to 4 hours by implementing Artificio's multilingual automation across supplier documentation in English, Mandarin, Hindi, Spanish, and Vietnamese. The company eliminated translation costs exceeding $500,000 annually while improving order accuracy and accelerating inventory replenishment cycles.
A global pharmaceutical company processing regulatory submissions across North America, Europe, and Asia automated compliance documentation in English, German, French, Italian, Spanish, Japanese, and Korean. The organization achieved 75% reduction in regulatory filing preparation time while ensuring consistent data quality across all language versions of submission packages.
Technical Architecture Enabling Multilingual Intelligence
Artificio's multilingual capabilities leverage advanced machine learning models trained on diverse language datasets, including both common global languages and less prevalent regional languages. The platform employs transfer learning techniques that enable high accuracy even for languages with limited training data, leveraging linguistic similarities across language families.
The system's ensemble architecture combines multiple AI models optimized for different aspects of multilingual document understanding. Vision transformer models handle layout analysis independent of language, while language-specific natural language processing models extract semantic meaning and business entities. An intelligent arbitration layer combines outputs from multiple models to maximize accuracy across all supported languages.
For organizations operating in specialized industries, Artificio's platform supports custom vocabulary training, enabling high accuracy on technical terminology, industry jargon, and proprietary product names across languages. Pharmaceutical companies processing drug safety reports, automotive manufacturers managing supplier quality documents, and telecommunications providers handling service agreements all benefit from domain-specific multilingual models.
Compliance and Data Sovereignty Across Jurisdictions
Artificio's multilingual platform addresses data sovereignty and regulatory compliance requirements critical for cross-border document processing. Organizations can deploy the platform within specific geographic regions, ensuring documents processed in European Union countries remain within EU data centers for GDPR compliance, while Asian operations utilize regional infrastructure meeting local data protection requirements.
The platform maintains audit trails and processing logs in multiple languages, supporting regulatory reporting and compliance verification across jurisdictions. When European financial regulators require German-language audit documentation, while Asian regulators mandate local-language records, Artificio generates jurisdiction-specific compliance outputs from the same source documents.
Real-Time Language Detection and Adaptive Processing
Artificio's intelligent intake agents automatically detect document language upon receipt, routing content through appropriate processing pipelines without manual configuration. When processing mixed-language document batches—such as international vendor invoices arriving via email from suppliers worldwide—the system identifies each document's language and applies optimized extraction models automatically.
The platform handles code-switching and multilingual documents that contain embedded content in multiple languages. When processing English contracts containing Spanish legal clauses, or Chinese technical specifications with English product codes, Artificio's AI agents maintain context across language transitions, ensuring complete and accurate data extraction.
Integration with Global Enterprise Systems
Artificio's multilingual document processing integrates seamlessly with international ERP deployments, supporting SAP installations across Europe and Asia, Oracle systems managing North American and Latin American operations, and Microsoft Dynamics implementations serving global enterprise customers. The platform handles language-specific field mappings, translates codes and classifications when needed, and ensures data consistency across multinational system landscapes.
For organizations utilizing region-specific enterprise software—such as Japanese accounting systems, German HR platforms, or Chinese procurement systems—Artificio's AI agents adapt outputs to match system expectations including date formats, number formats, and character encoding requirements. This localization extends beyond simple translation to ensure seamless integration with local business systems.
Deployment Options for Multinational Organizations
Artificio offers flexible deployment options supporting multinational enterprises' diverse needs. Global deployments provide centralized multilingual processing with regional data centers ensuring compliance with local data protection regulations. Country-specific instances enable localized operations while maintaining consistent processing capabilities across the organization's global footprint.
The platform's scalable architecture handles varying document volumes across regions, accommodating high-volume markets like China and India while efficiently serving smaller regional operations. Organizations pay only for languages and regions actively used, with the flexibility to add new language support as business needs evolve.
Pricing and Availability
Artificio's multilingual document processing capabilities are available immediately for existing customers, with new organizations able to access the platform through flexible subscription plans. Language support is included in standard platform pricing, with enterprise customers receiving dedicated support for multilingual deployments, custom vocabulary training, and integration with regional business systems.
About Artificio Products Inc.
Artificio Products Inc. provides enterprise-grade AI-powered document processing and workflow automation solutions. The company's platform combines specialized AI agents that work collaboratively to automate document intake, classification, extraction, validation, and integration with business systems across 80+ languages. Serving multinational enterprises including Fortune 500 companies, financial institutions, healthcare organizations, logistics providers, and manufacturing firms, Artificio processes millions of documents monthly with industry-leading accuracy and security. The platform's no-code interface enables business users to deploy sophisticated automation without technical expertise, while maintaining enterprise-grade security and compliance across global operations. For more information, visit https://artificio.ai"
https://www.cbs42.com/business/press-releases/ein-presswire/873831589/artificio-processes-documents-in-80-languages-enabling-multinational-corporations-to-automate-global-operations/
#Metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus
"Three Utica Community Schools translators, who help support communications in Albanian, Arabic and Spanish, recently received their Language Line certifications.
The translators are UCS employees who work full time in the district. The district paid them to take the courses and get certified as part of their positions at UCS.
“The translators work during the day and are busy with enrollment, Individualized Education Plan (IEP) meetings, discipline/student code of conduct meetings, and support communications between the buildings and the families,” Utica Community Schools Public Relations Coordinator Jennifer Kane said in an email. “Buildings can contact the translators directly and staff can send them documents to be translated.”
They can be asked to perform extra duties that require them to work extra hours, such as at open houses, conferences, job fairs and back-to-school events.
“I think the certification adds to their credentials and ensures we have high quality translators using best practices in the field of translation and interpretation,” Jennifer Hernandez, Utica Community Schools executive director of state and federal programs, said in an email.
Luljeta Guri, Aned Bazan and Raad Tomika received their certifications after completing a six-hour online course going over the essentials of interpreting, and three hours of instructor‑led live sessions. The course covers skills such as attentive listening, dual-tasking, note-taking, memory development, and professional presentation and delivery.
“Going through the certification program helped with refreshing my industry-based knowledge, assessing the current level of my translation and interpretation skills, and comparing it with the current industry standards,” Guri said in a press release.
One key area that their work touches on is enrollment. They are there in every step of the process offering guidance and support to non-English-speaking families.
“The adjustment journey is normal but is also challenging and the starting point of that journey is proper communication,” Guri said in a press release. “The difficulties diverse families are facing are not limited to language proficiency.”
Guri said the challenges also include balancing new and old ways of life among family members.
“We are aware that the experience of working with a diverse population is enriching and challenging at the same time,” Guri said in a press release. “People who come from a diverse culture bring with them life views and approaches that are unique and different. Along with those values they also bring a desire to fit into the U.S. culture. We as interpreters can relate to that.”
For more information, visit uticak12.org."
By: Sarah Wright | Shelby-Utica News | Published December 8, 2025
https://www.candgnews.com/amp/news/utica-community-schools-translators-obtain-language-line-certifications-9759
#Metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus
Already longlisted for the prestigious Man Booker International Prize in 2016 for her translation of Maylis de Kerangal’s Mend the Living, and named on the New York Times’ Top Ten Books of 2023 for her translation of De Kerangal’s Eastbound, Moore has now won the 2025 Governor General’s Literary Award for translation for Uiesh/Somewhere.
"Jessica Moore wins 2025 Governor General’s Literary Award for translation
...Moore has now won the 2025 Governor General’s Literary Award for translation for Uiesh/Somewhere.
In the poetry collection, Innu elder Joséphine Bacon — who writes first in French and then self-translates into Innu-Aimun — reflects on her experiences in the northern wilderness of Nitassinan and the bustling city life. Working from the French text and Bacon’s voice, says Moore, meant tuning into the author’s cadence and ensuring it resonated in English.
“It’s a difficult prize to win,” she recalls. “All genres are considered together, and I assumed there was no way I could win with a book of poetry.”
Then came the phone call. “My whole body was tingling, and I really tried to soak it in,” she says.
‘Translation is the rewriting of a work in a new language’
Moore’s path to becoming a French-to-English translator began early. Raised by English-speaking parents, she was encouraged by her grandmother to learn additional languages. She attended a bilingual elementary school, learning in French for half of the day, and eventually did an exchange in Lausanne, Switzerland. Moore then spent a year abroad in Aix-en-Provence, France, where she took her first course in literary translation.
These experiences cemented her decision to pursue translation as a career.
“It requires so much care,” she says. “It’s often in the stage of revision that I see things and make sure to not lose something in translation. I look for creative ways to include the intention and heart of the original.”
Moore’s passion for translation comes from two impulses, she notes: “First, I have always been a writer, and translation is the rewriting of the work in a new language. The second impulse is the deep satisfaction of arranging things in just the right order and delivering words from one language to another.”
Honing her craft
Choosing Concordia’s MA in Translation Studies was “the right choice,” says Moore. “The program allowed me to do an interdisciplinary master’s so I had one foot in Concordia’s English department (creative writing) and another in the translation department.”
It also helped launch her career. Her first literary translation — which started as part of her master’s thesis — was Turkana Boy, a 2012 novel-poem by Jean-François Beauchemin. The book follows a grieving father who grapples with the mysterious disappearance of his son by searching for meaning in the fossilized remains of “Turkana Boy.”
That work helped shape Moore’s own creative practice. In 2012, she published Everything, Now, a hybrid lyric-memoir about navigating grief after the sudden loss of her partner. She uses her own translation of Turkana Boy as a template.
“The two were interwoven,” she explains. “I took phrases from the book as scaffolding for my own pieces — it was a call and response.”
For Moore, her writing and translation remain inseperable.
“I find the greatest strength for translating is that skill and sensibility as a writer,” she says. “I feel very clearly how the writing serves the translation.”"
December 9, 2025 | By Rita Simonetta
https://www.concordia.ca/cunews/offices/advancement/2025/12/09/jessica-moore-wins-2025-governor-general-s-literary-award-for-translation.html
#Metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus
New research shows our pragmatic language abilities — which allow us to understand nonliteral expressions like sarcasm or metaphors — can be grouped together based on what types of inferences they require. MIT researchers identified three clusters of pragmatic skills based on understanding social conventions and rules, how the physical world works, and differences in tone.
"MIT researchers identified three cognitive skills that we use to infer what someone really means.
In everyday conversation, it’s critical to understand not just the words that are spoken, but the context in which they are said. If it’s pouring rain and someone remarks on the “lovely weather,” you won’t understand their meaning unless you realize that they’re being sarcastic.
Making inferences about what someone really means when it doesn’t match the literal meaning of their words is a skill known as pragmatic language ability. This includes not only interpreting sarcasm but also understanding metaphors and white lies, among many other conversational subtleties.
“Pragmatics is trying to reason about why somebody might say something, and what is the message they’re trying to convey given that they put it in this particular way,” says Evelina Fedorenko, an MIT associate professor of brain and cognitive sciences and a member of MIT’s McGovern Institute for Brain Research.
New research from Fedorenko and her colleagues has revealed that these abilities can be grouped together based on what types of inferences they require. In a study of 800 people, the researchers identified three clusters of pragmatic skills that are based on the same kinds of inferences and may have similar underlying neural processes.
One of these clusters includes inferences that are based on our knowledge of social conventions and rules. Another depends on knowledge of how the physical world works, while the last requires the ability to interpret differences in tone, which can indicate emphasis or emotion.
Fedorenko and Edward Gibson, an MIT professor of brain and cognitive sciences, are the senior authors of the study, which appears today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The paper’s lead authors are Sammy Floyd, a former MIT postdoc who is now an assistant professor of psychology at Sarah Lawrence College, and Olessia Jouravlev, a former MIT postdoc who is now an associate professor of cognitive science at Carleton University.
The importance of context
Much past research on how people understand language has focused on processing the literal meanings of words and how they fit together. To really understand what someone is saying, however, we need to interpret those meanings based on context.
“Language is about getting meanings across, and that often requires taking into account many different kinds of information — such as the social context, the visual context, or the present topic of the conversation,” Fedorenko says.
As one example, the phrase “people are leaving” can mean different things depending on the context, Gibson points out. If it’s late at night and someone asks you how a party is going, you may say “people are leaving,” to convey that the party is ending and everyone’s going home.
“However, if it’s early, and I say ‘people are leaving,’ then the implication is that the party isn’t very good,” Gibson says. “When you say a sentence, there’s a literal meaning to it, but how you interpret that literal meaning depends on the context.”
About 10 years ago, with support from the Simons Center for the Social Brain at MIT, Fedorenko and Gibson decided to explore whether it might be possible to precisely distinguish the types of processing that go into pragmatic language skills.
One way that neuroscientists can approach a question like this is to use functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to scan the brains of participants as they perform different tasks. This allows them to link brain activity in different locations to different functions. However, the tasks that the researchers designed for this study didn’t easily lend themselves to being performed in a scanner, so they took an alternative approach.
This approach, known as “individual differences,” involves studying a large number of people as they perform a variety of tasks. This technique allows researchers to determine whether the same underlying brain processes may be responsible for performance on different tasks.
To do this, the researchers evaluate whether each participant tends to perform similarly on certain groups of tasks. For example, some people might perform well on tasks that require an understanding of social conventions, such as interpreting indirect requests and irony. The same people might do only so-so on tasks that require understanding how the physical world works, and poorly on tasks that require distinguishing meanings based on changes in intonation — the melody of speech. This would suggest that separate brain processes are being recruited for each set of tasks.
The first phase of the study was led by Jouravlev, who assembled existing tasks that require pragmatic skills and created many more, for a total of 20. These included tasks that require people to understand humor and sarcasm, as well as tasks where changes in intonation can affect the meaning of a sentence. For example, someone who says “I wanted blue and black socks,” with emphasis on the word “black,” is implying that the black socks were forgotten.
“People really find ways to communicate creatively and indirectly and non-literally, and this battery of tasks captures that,” Floyd says.
Components of pragmatic ability
The researchers recruited study participants from an online crowdsourcing platform to perform the tasks, which took about eight hours to complete. From this first set of 400 participants, the researchers found that the tasks formed three clusters, related to social context, general knowledge of the world, and intonation. To test the robustness of the findings, the researchers continued the study with another set of 400 participants, with this second half run by Floyd after Jouravlev had left MIT.
With the second set of participants, the researchers found that tasks clustered into the same three groups. They also confirmed that differences in general intelligence, or in auditory processing ability (which is important for the processing of intonation), did not affect the outcomes that they observed.
In future work, the researchers hope to use brain imaging to explore whether the pragmatic components they identified are correlated with activity in different brain regions. Previous work has found that brain imaging often mirrors the distinctions identified in individual difference studies, but can also help link the relevant abilities to specific neural systems, such as the core language system or the theory of mind system.
This set of tests could also be used to study people with autism, who sometimes have difficulty understanding certain social cues. Such studies could determine more precisely the nature and extent of these difficulties. Another possibility could be studying people who were raised in different cultures, which may have different norms around speaking directly or indirectly.
“In Russian, which happens to be my native language, people are more direct. So perhaps there might be some differences in how native speakers of Russian process indirect requests compared to speakers of English,” Jouravlev says.
The research was funded by the Simons Center for the Social Brain at MIT, the National Institutes of Health, and the National Science Foundation."
https://news.mit.edu/2025/when-it-comes-language-context-matters-1210
#Metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus
"A team of researchers from Saarbrücken and Leipzig has examined around 1,700 languages to identify structures that might occur universally. Of 191 grammatical patterns – known as linguistic universals – one third were found to be present in the languages studied. The team, led by Annemarie Verkerk of Saarland University and Russell Gray from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, has published its findings in Nature Human Behaviour.
Natural languages follow certain patterns. To facilitate the analysis and comparison of these patterns, the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig made the world’s largest database of grammatical features publicly available two years ago. This database, known as ‘Grambank’, was developed with contributions from over a hundred linguists worldwide and provides the foundation for the current study on shared characteristics among languages. ‘We used several highly complex statistical methods to analyse the Grambank data in order to identify which of the 191 hypothesized linguistic universals were consistently observed across all languages,’ explains Annemarie Verkerk, Junior Professor of Language Science at Saarland University. By using a variety of statistical approaches, the research team was able to achieve a level of statistical precision far beyond that offered by earlier studies.
‘Up until now, linguists have typically focused on languages that are geographically distant from one another to avoid excessive similarities within the same language family – for example, comparing Slavic languages not only with other Indo-European languages such as Italian and Romanian, but also with languages from, say, the Turkic or Afro-Asiatic language families,’ Verkerk notes. However, many of these previous studies not only restricted themselves to comparisons between a limited number of languages – resulting in reduced statistical significance – they also paid little attention to language history. ‘Our methods allow us to trace how languages have evolved over time and how they relate geographically to others. By making use of a kind of family tree for each individual language, we were able to exploit inter-language relationships to estimate how linguistic universals arise,’ explains Annemarie Verkerk.
Analyses from multiple perspectives confirmed that roughly one third of the 191 proposed universals appear as recurring patterns across all languages. ‘This is a clear indication that language evolution is not random. That’s why we need to continue studying language change to understand why so many languages share similar underlying grammatical structures. It seems very likely that there are deeply rooted principles governing how effective human communication systems are constructed,’ says Verkerk.
As an example of a language universal, Verkerk cites word order in sentences – whether verbs precede or follow objects and how this relates to other recurring patterns. In German, verbs typically precede the object, while in Japanese the reverse is true. A related feature is the order of adpositions and nouns. Adpositions are linking words that express a spatial or temporal relationship between a noun and other words or phrases in a sentence. German, for example, uses prepositions, which come before a noun or noun phrase, whereas Japanese uses postpositions, which come after a noun or noun phrase. The correlation between object–verb order and postpositions, as observed in Japanese, is among the strongest universals identified in the study. ‘Using Bayesian statistics, we calculated the probability that these universals can be recognized as grammatical patterns across different languages,’ explains Verkerk.
Verkerk‘s research colleague and a co-author of the study Russell Gray of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig explains how the team chose to present their results: ‘We debated whether we should present the findings as a “glass half-empty scenario” or as a “glass half-full”. Should we emphasize how many of the proposed universals lack robust statistical support, or should we highlight the solid evidence that we found for about a third of them?’ ‘Ultimately,’ says Gray, ‘we chose to focus on the recurring patterns and to demonstrate that human languages tend towards a limited set of preferred grammatical solutions, shaped by shared cognitive and communicative constraints.’
For future research in this field, Annemarie Verkerk recommends moving away from small samples of individual languages, focusing instead on large cross-linguistic datasets: ‘Future studies should not simply analyse dependencies between features appearing in multiple language systems, they should also consider how human languages have changed over time and which social, ecological and demographic factors have influenced their development.’
Wissenschaftliche Ansprechpartner:
Junior Professor Annemarie Verkerk
Department of Language Science and Technology
Saarland University
Tel.: +49 681 302-2550
Email: annemarie.verkerk@uni-saarland.de
Professor D. Russell Gray
Director of the Department of Linguistic and Cultural Evolution
Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
Tel.: +40 341 3550-259
Email: russell_gray@eva.mpg.de"
09.12.2025
https://idw-online.de/de/news863040
#Metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus
"A groundbreaking new monolingual dictionary by Foras na Gaeilge that provides people with a new way to understand, use and learn the Irish language, without relying on dictionaries in English or in other languages, has gone live.
Until its publication, anyone trying to understand an unfamiliar Irish word or phrase typically had to look it up in an Irish-English dictionary...
An Foclóir Nua Gaeilge (The New Irish Dictionary) is the first comprehensive monolingual "Irish-Irish" dictionary and was launched by President Catherine Connolly at a special Foras na Gaeilge event in the EPIC Irish Emigration Museum in Dublin.
"A contemporary monolingual dictionary is an essential resource in any living language, in which the language itself and its uniqueness are defined in its own words and by its own community, instead of constantly being defined through the medium of another language," said President Connolly.
"This new dictionary places the Irish language and Irish speakers on an equal footing with other modern languages and communities.
"Irish-language dictionary resources are now a model of best practice for other minoritised languages around the world."
For generations, Irish speakers who encountered unfamiliar Irish words were forced to translate them into English and then search for definitions in English dictionaries.
"This tedious process not only created unnecessary barriers to learning but also shaped how Irish speakers understood the world - through the lens of English," CEO of Foras na Gaeilge Seán Ó Coinn said.
An initial tranche of 20,000 entries has gone live on Focloir.ie
"The new monolingual Irish dictionary changes this paradigm. Instead of asking 'What's the English for X?', speakers will now be empowered to ask 'What does X mean?' in their own language.
"This shift has the potential to transform the teaching and learning of Irish at all levels - from young children discovering new vocabulary for the first time, to advanced speakers seeking deeper linguistic insight," he added.
The monolingual Irish dictionary has several features that make it the first of its kind, such as reflecting Irish as a living language by including real-world, every-day, contemporary usage, aiming to re-affirm current good practice in the standard language as well as recognising common dialectal forms.
It also includes definitions of foreign words that are in common use in the Irish language, such as ad hoc, al fresco, baguette, cappuccino and aide-de-camp.
Work on compiling An Foclóir Nua Gaeilge began in September 2022, with Foras na Gaeilge chief dictionary editor Pádraig Ó Mianáin and dictionary programme manager Cormac Breathnach leading the project.
An initial tranche of 20,000 entries, comprising 40,000 word senses, has gone live on Focloir.ie.
The main phase of the dictionary project is scheduled to be completed by August 2027, by which time it will comprise 30,000 entries and 80,000 senses."
10 Dec 2025
Sharon Lynch
https://www.rte.ie/news/ireland/2025/1209/1548134-new-irish-dictionary/
#Metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus
"IA inclusive : pourquoi les langues africaines sont un enjeu stratégique pour l'économie numérique
L'IA inclusive valorisant les langues africaines : réduire les biais, renforcer la souveraineté numérique et ouvrir de nouvelles opportunités économiques.
1. Pourquoi parler d'IA inclusive ?
L'IA est partout : traduction, assistants vocaux, chatbots, applications éducatives. Mais derrière ces progrès, une réalité inquiétante : plus de 80 % du contenu en ligne est produit dans une dizaine de langues, laissant de côté les milliers de langues africaines. Cette absence entraîne des biais culturels et linguistiques, avec un risque d'écarter des millions de citoyens du numérique.
2. Un levier économique sous-estimé
La valorisation des langues locales peut générer de nouvelles opportunités :
Éducation et formation : outils d'apprentissage adaptés aux langues locales.
Tourisme et culture : mise en valeur du patrimoine linguistique.
Innovation et emploi : création de postes pour les data engineers, linguistes, chercheurs.
Selon certains experts culturels à l'instar de Njeunga Yopa, les projections l'IA pourrait rapporter jusqu'à 2 900 milliards de dollars à l'économie africaine d'ici 2030, si son potentiel est exploité pleinement.
3. Les défis d'une IA inclusive en Afrique
Infrastructures insuffisantes : moins d'une centaine de data centers sur tout le continent.
Diversité linguistique extrême : plus de 2 000 langues, souvent non standardisées.
Manque de données annotées : sans corpus, impossible d'entraîner des modèles fiables.
Vision politique encore faible : besoin de financements et de stratégies nationales.
4. Stratégies pour construire des corpus inclusifs
Exploiter les sources publiques : actualités locales, blogs, mozilla commons, réseaux sociaux.
Collaborer avec les communautés : crowdsourcing, collecte via applis mobiles, partenariats avec des locuteurs natifs.
Créer des données synthétiques : paraphrases, back-translation, substitution lexicale.
Traduction et alignement : bâtir des corpus parallèles multilingues grâce à des ressources comme FLORES-200, metchoup translate ou JW300.
5. Étude de cas : le Medumba au Cameroun
Le Medumba, langue bamileke parlée par 200 000 personnes, illustre les difficultés. Faute de ressources numériques, chaque terme technique doit parfois être créé de toutes pièces. Une équipe de chercheurs a récemment constitué un corpus de 2 050 phrases traduites en Medumba. Résultat : un premier pas vers des modèles capables de traiter cette langue, mais aussi un exemple des efforts titanesques nécessaires pour chaque langue africaine.
6. Vers une souveraineté linguistique et numérique
Bâtir une IA inclusive, c'est :
Garantir la souveraineté numérique du continent.
Rendre la technologie accessible à tous, y compris aux populations non alphabétisées via les interfaces vocales.
Stimuler la création de start-ups locales spécialisées dans la data et l'IA.
Favoriser une économie de la connaissance ancrée dans les réalités culturelles africaines.
7. Conclusion & perspectives
L'Afrique ne doit pas seulement consommer l'IA, mais la co-construire. Chaque langue intégrée dans les modèles est une victoire contre l'exclusion numérique et une opportunité économique. La route est longue, mais les initiatives montrent qu'une IA inclusive est possible."
Chronique de Kemit Ing
ktc
29 septembre 2025 11:33
https://www.journaldunet.com/intelligence-artificielle/1544739-ia-inclusive-pourquoi-les-langues-africaines-sont-un-enjeu-strategique-pour-l-economie-numerique/
#Metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus
"PEN America is delighted to announce the 2026 literary grant winners for works-in-progress. Juried by panels of esteemed and award-winning writers, editors, translators, and critics who are committed to recognizing their contemporaries, these winning works-in-progress show the potential for lasting literary impact. The following grant winners will be supported as they continue their important work. We look forward to seeing these bold and thought-provoking examples of literary excellence brought to the world.
Publishers, agents, and editors who wish to learn more about these projects are invited to contact the PEN America Literary Awards team at awards@pen.org.
PEN/Jean Stein Grants For Literary Oral History ($15,000)
The PEN/Jean Stein Grants for Literary Oral History recognize literary works of nonfiction that use oral history to illuminate an event, individual, place, or movement. The grants are made possible by a substantial contribution from American author and editor Jean Stein, whose groundbreaking work helped to popularize literary oral history. Since 2021, PEN America has conferred two grants with cash prizes of $15,000 each.
Judges: Katie Singer, Deborah Taffa, Raj Tawney
Dayna Bateman, Hustling Vinyl: A Hidden History of the Record Business
A personal examination of the music industry as it transitions from physical to digital formats, Dayna Bateman’s Hustling Vinyl: A Hidden History of the Record Business transcends a mere management chronicle by weaving together grief, cultural memory, and broader questions about exploitation in creative circles. From shame over her father’s career to recognition of its importance, the author’s project exposes the invisible labor that sustains artistic production while also reconciling her family legacy. With archival documentation and access to a group of historically exploited industry experts, many of whom launched rockstar careers, Bateman brings an analytical framework to what could otherwise be merely nostalgic. As the author notes, many key witnesses are aging or deceased making their voices a crucial archive. This book will fill a genuine gap in music industry literature by centering the experiences of those who made the record business function yet rarely received recognition or fair compensation for the joy they brought to millions.
Anja Aronowsky Cronberg, To Kill A Child
To Kill a Child by Anja Aronowsky Cronberg brings forward a subject that many of us might prefer to avoid. And yet, as Cronberg argues, the fact that filicide is not an uncommon occurrence should be reason enough for us to attempt an understanding, of both the crime and of those who commit it. A mother herself, Cronberg sits with a number of incarcerated women convicted of killing their own children. Contextualized alongside interviews of family and myriad professionals, we learn of lives lived before the crimes, and come to see just how seamlessly a “normal life” can ultimately turn to the deeply abnormal. While educated in Design History & Theory, Cronberg’s oral history project illustrates a practiced and empathetic interviewing style along with some incredibly literary writing. This will be a hard read for many, but in the end can speak to the humanity in all of us.
PEN/Phyllis Naylor Grant For Children’s And Young Adult Novelists ($5,000)
The PEN/Phyllis Naylor Grant for Children’s and Young Adult Novelists is offered annually to an author of children’s or young adult fiction for a novel-in-progress. The grant is made possible by a substantial contribution from PEN America Member and prolific author, Phyllis Reynolds Naylor. The award was developed to help writers whose work is of high literary caliber and assist in the novel’s completion. The author of the winning manuscript is selected blindly by judges and will receive a $5,000 grant.
Judges: Chris Grabenstein, Lesa Cline-Ransome, Padma Venkatraman
Emily Whitman, The Fire Cub
This middle grade fantasy showcases excellent writing, sensory descriptions, and world building. The author’s decision to employ multiple points of view adds interest and the readers are provided with insights into the characters’ failings and humanity.
Mima, a 12-year-old orphan, lives with her aunt and uncle, who warn her to stay away from “Dreadwood” – a forest that borders their farm. But something about Dreadwood calls out to Mima and she sneaks in whenever she can. Surrounded by the bushes and trees, watching the woodpeckers and worms, Mima feels safe there – until one day when she hears something roaring near the riverbank in Dreadwood. Like all intrepid adventurers, Mima isn’t scared away; instead she goes closer to investigate the source of the roar – and discovers a tiny treasure chest. She opens the chest – and sparks fly out. Unknown to her, one of the sparks enters her pocket… and out of her pocket emerges a lion cub with wings! Lonely Mima bonds instantly with this magical creature, and as it grows into a full-fledged lion, so does Mima’s courage and her ability to question the tales she has been told all her life about Dreadwood and the world beyond. Will she someday be so bold as to defy not only her uncle and aunt but also her king and country by escaping into the unknown on the back of her winged lion, in pursuit of freedom?
With language that sparkles, a feisty female protagonist whose character springs to life, a three-dimensional supporting cast and ambitious storytelling structure, The Fire Cub is a fantasy novel that we hope will enchant middle grade readers for many years to come.
PEN/Bare Life Review Grants ($5,000)
The PEN/Bare Life Review Grants support literary works in progress by immigrant and refugee writers, recognizing that the literature of migration is of inherent and manifest value. As of the 2024 grant conferral, PEN America confers two PEN/Bare Life Review Grants of $5,000 each.
The grants are made possible by a substantial contribution from The Bare Life Review, which celebrates world literature and has been a champion for migrant and diasporic arts.
Judges: Maria Kuznetsova, Rania Mamoun,Novuyo Tshuma
Simha Surendranathan, Annual Rings
Annual Rings is an impressive collection of powerful, moving poems. With a refined sensitivity to language, Surendranathan juxtaposes the daily brutalities of incarceration with the unbounded landscapes of the psyche. Here, thinking, feeling and dreaming become profound acts of freedom. Language becomes a mighty tool, metaphor and symbolism bringing into stark focus the human figure caged in the American prison cell. The prose is precise and sensuous, urgent and languid. Surendranathan takes us on epic migrations, from places private where language weaves delicate dreamscapes, to the prison block where public humiliations bludgeon the tongue. These poems move; they travel across cultures and languages—from Urdu to Malayalam to America’s various lexicons—excavating the ravages of confinement on the lofty human spirit. Here, poetry becomes a lifeline for the incarcerated subject, as life-giving as water. Through capturing life behind prison walls in such an exquisite register, Surendranathan invites us into a profound witnessing—at times a profound weeping—choosing life, life, life, at every turn.
Minerva Laveaga Luna, Reasons Why I’m Late to Places
Reasons Why I’m Late to Places is a memoir-in-essays that follows a Mexican-American author through her childhood during the devastating 1985 earthquake in Mexico City to her adulthood in America, where she navigates the challenges of immigration, premature menopause, misdiagnosis, and the way that women, especially immigrants, are often ignored or not heard correctly when they are suffering physically and emotionally. Through the themes of the passage of time, living out of time, and being late to places, the author not only tells her own story in a gripping, experimental, and unflinching way, but she also shares the narrative of any person who is struggling to be heard and truly known. Through her sensitive and life-affirming narrative, Luna demonstrates that we shouldn’t be sorry about being late to places–rather, we should celebrate that we have shown up at all.
PEN/Heim Translation Fund Grants ($4,000)
Now in their 23rd year, the PEN/Heim Translation Fund Grants promote the publication and reception of translated world literature into English. Established by a gift from Priscilla and Michael Henry Heim in response to the dismayingly low number of literary translations appearing in English, the fund has supported more than 200 projects since its inception.
For the 2026 cycle, the judges reviewed applications from a wide array of languages of origin, genres, and time periods. Selected from this vast field of applicants are 10 projects, including Indonesian, Wolof, Kven, Brazilian Portuguese, Chinese, and more. Each translator will receive a grant of $2,000-4,000 to support the translation’s completion.
Judges: Elvira Blanco, Ezra Fitz, Denise Kripper, Elizabeth Lowe, Jenny McPhee, Mario Pereira, Shuchi Saraswat, Declan Spring
Dominica Chang’s translation from the French of Among the Dunes by Louis Camara
Among the Dunes is a novel by the Senegalese author Louis Camara narrated by Nestor, a stray dog in Saint-Louis who recounts his life and that of his master, offering sharp, satirical, yet compassionate critiques of human society and behavior. From a novel as polyphonic as this—written in French, rooted in Senegalese culture, and layered with traditional Wolof oral idioms—Dominica Chang has produced a pitch-perfect translation, one that retells the story in English while hitting all the right notes. A challenging task expertly handled with a keen ear and a deft hand. Fans of canine characters from Garth Stein’s Enzo to Graciliano Ramos’ Baleia will find, in her attentive rendering, much to love and reflect on.
Milena Sanabria Contreras and Allison Stickley’s translation from the Spanish of A Brief History of Failure by Fátima Villalta
Fátima Villalta was born in Nicaragua in 1994 and currently lives in exile in Mexico. Breve Historia del Fracaso (A Brief History of Failure) is a collection of short stories that takes the reader through one hundred years of Nicaraguan history, beginning in a not-too-distant future and ending with a story set in the early 1900s. This will be Villalta’s first publication to be translated into another language. Milena Sanabria Contreras and Allison Stickley’s translation is remarkable for how it renders the voices of the everyday Nicaraguans populating these stories—foot soldiers, small bureaucrats, young people, and artists. While retaining the intimacy of the stories, Contreras and Stickley deftly put forward a history that isn’t as well known in the anglophone world. Their absorbing translation will find new resonances in our politically unstable times.
Robin Driver’s translation from the Brazilian Portuguese of Aquarium Fish by Rafaela Tavares Kawasaki
Aquarium Fish (original title: Peixes de Aquário), a debut novel by Rafaela Tavares Kawasaki is a contemplative, female-focused family saga about the lives of Japanese immigrants and their descendants in the Brazilian state of São Paulo. Published in 2021, the book was shortlisted for Brazil’s Prêmio Mix Literário, a prize focused on literary works that deal with subjects related to the LGBTQ+ community, later the same year. Translator Robin Driver deftly captures the elegiac, but never too sentimental, tone of Kawasaki’s lyrical prose. The English translation will bring an important work of Japanese-Brazilian fiction to the English-speaking world, which has little knowledge of this overlooked community.
Eirill Alvilde Falck’s translation from the Kven and Norwegian of The Heart of the Forest by M. Seppola Simonsen
The Heart of the Forest is an award-winning poetry collection written in both Norwegian and Kven— the Kven people are a Finnic ethnic minority in northern Norway whose language is spoken by fewer than 10,000 people. M. Seppola Simonsen, a nonbinary poet, is from the Norwegian island of Senja, and their exquisite, short poems explore the Kven heritage and the intersection of identity, language, and geography. Eirill Alvilde Falck’s translations have appeared widely in anthologies and literary magazines. Her translations vividly capture Simonsen’s imagery and their ability to render the power and complexity of nature and humanity’s place in it.
Marissa Grunes’ translation from the Spanish of Antarctica by Fabián Espejel
Antarctica by Mexican poet and translator Fabián Espejel, winner of the Aguascalientes Fine Arts Award in Poetry, takes us on a geographical and imaginative journey that inversely mirrors the expeditions of Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen, joining the long legacy of cultural fascination with Antarctica in the global south, and taking the reader through scenes of desire, loss, and the wild delight of language. This award will support an emerging translator bringing a new voice in Spanish-language poetry into English. Marissa Grunes’s translation is as musical and lyrical as it is experimental and bold and, above all, urgent.
Eliza Marciniak’s translation from the Polish of The Secret of the Looking-Glass by Deotyma (pen name of Jadwiga Łuszczewska)
This visionary work of speculative fiction by 19th-century Polish female writer, poet and early feminist Jadwiga Łuszczewska (writing as Deotyma) combines elements of science fiction, Gothic horror, adventure story, and philosophical dialogue to address numerous issues still current today such as the dangers of technology and the boundaries between genius and madness. Eliza Marciniak’s translations of Polish authors have won various awards and been widely published. Her translation here successfully brings across the sparkling prose, the impeccably crafted narrative, and the erudite nature of the discussions between this novel’s forward-thinking characters.
Tímea Sipos’ translation from the Hungarian of Crybaby by Krisztián Marton
Krisztián Marton’s autobiographical debut novel, Crybaby, follows Marci, a biracial gay man growing up in the extremely homogenous society of Szeged in southern Hungary during the 1990s. In this raw and moving coming-of-age story, Marci navigates racial identity, fatherlessness, queerness, and complex relationships. In her translation, Tímea Sipos, a Hungarian-American writer and translator originally from Budapest, captures the tenderness, honesty, and nuances of this urgent narrative of identity, belonging, and emotional survival. With a sensitivity to the specificities of the Hungarian social and linguistic context pervading Marton’s novel, Sipos brings readers this candid exploration of race, masculinity, vulnerability, and LGBTQ+ experiences.
Annie Tucker’s translation from the Indonesian of Suspicious Days by Dea Anugrah
Suspicious Days is a sharp, funny, and self-aware novel that follows a young, directionless writer in Yogyakarta who stumbles into a literary mystery–and a violent quest for revenge–while searching for a missing poet. In a voice that shifts effortlessly between irreverent humor, cultural critique, and genuine yearning, Dea Anugrah offers a portrait of Indonesia’s contemporary literary and political landscape, filtered through the eyes of a disaffected youth. Annie Tucker’s clear and assured translation captures the novel’s fast-paced blend of autofiction, metafiction, and cultural commentary without losing its specificity to Indonesia’s literary world. With extensive experience translating contemporary Indonesian literature, Tucker brings both deep linguistic skill and cultural understanding to this project. Her work delivers the full force of Anugrah’s voice to English-language readers, introducing a fresh and fearless talent in contemporary Indonesian fiction.
Quentin Véron’s translation from the French of Solitude of a Python in Paris by Romain Gary (writing as Émile Ajar)
Romain Gary’s Gros-Câlin, first published in 1974 under the pseudonym Émile Ajar, occupies a unique and fascinating place in French literary history. When the author’s true identity was revealed after his death, it was hailed as one of the great literary revelations of the century––unmasking the only writer ever to win the prestigious Prix Goncourt twice. Gros-Câlin (“Big Hug” in English) tells the story of Michel Cousin, a lonely and eccentric Parisian statistician who adopts an eight-foot python in his quest for affection. With sensitivity, wit, and creative daring, Quentin Véron recreates in English the puzzling “foreign” language that a bored Cousin invents for himself, through which themes of affection, alienation, and rebirth take on renewed resonance. Navigating the “deluge of amusing malapropisms, puns, literary allusions, and warmly pathetic situational comedy” (translator’s words) of Gary’s signature “Ajarism,” Véron deftly renders the novel’s humor, pathos, and linguistic playfulness without losing its peculiar absurdity and tenderness.
Yě Yě’s translation from the Chinese of All of Our Homecomings Are Feted as Yi New Year by Jike Ayou
Jike Ayou, born in Puge county of Sichuan province, is the first migrant worker poet of Yi ethnicity and one of six poets featured in The Verse of Us, a documentary film on Chinese migrant worker poets. His collection of poems All of Our Homecomings Are Feted as Yi New Year was published in Chinese by Taibai Literature and Art Publishing House in 2019. His works have appeared in publications such as Selected Poems, Liangshan Literature, Workers’ Daily, and China Youth News. Like the ancient Chinese poets, Jike Ayou writes beautifully about Shanshui (landscapes) to lament his personal and political struggles. Translator Yě Yě carefully distills his delicate lines into terse English verse that echoes the lived experience of millions of migrant workers in China.
PEN Grant For The English Translation Of Italian Literature ($5,000)
Administered under and judged alongside the PEN/Heim Translation Fund Grants, the PEN Grant for the English Translation of Italian Literature honors a translator for a book-length translation of narrative prose and seeks to promote the publication of Italian literature into English. The winner will receive a $5,000 grant to aid in the project’s completion.
Lauren Green’s translation from the Italian of Adoration by Alice Urciuolo
Adoration is a fierce and absorbing novel set in the reclaimed marshlands south of Rome, where five teenagers struggle to make sense of a friend’s murder and the suffocating models of masculinity and desire that surround them. With shifting points of view and a keen eye for the rituals and violences that shape adolescence, Alice Urciuolo explores how a place saturated with Fascist history and patriarchal norms produces its own forms of rebellion as well as complicity.
Lauren Aliza Green’s translation reflects the urgency and intimacy of Urciuolo’s prose, capturing the novel’s polyphonic voices and its precise rendering of place, class, and coming of age. A novelist and poet herself, Green is well equipped to convey both the emotional range and the structural ambition of this compelling novel. Green’s English version delivers the novel’s full force: a clear-eyed and unsettling portrait of contemporary Italian youth, and the cultural legacies they inherit and resist."
https://pen.org/announcing-the-2026-pen-america-grant-winners/
#Metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus
They write that "they have been made aware that due to the acoustic conditions, the speaker's words were not of a quality that could be interpreted".
"Statement defending interpreter criticized for translation errors in Moscow issued by association
Days after the Hungarian delegation's trip to Moscow, the Hungarian Association of Translators and Interpreters (MFTE) issued a statement in response to criticism of their member's interpretation. The statement sent to Telex began by saying that their colleague has nearly three decades of experience as a high-level interpreter. She has been interpreting at the government level for a long time and has always performed excellently.
They write that the quality of an interpreter's work is not only influenced by their abilities, but also by several factors beyond their control, including acute health problems arising during the flight, exhaustion, their ears being clogged up due to flying, the lack of an in-ear monitor, or the fact that the person being interpreted for is not speaking audibly, or perhaps the acoustics of the room are not ideal.
They also noted that the protocol and security measures in place during such meetings are very strict – it is unclear what the consequences would have been if their colleague had jumped up to indicate that she could not hear.
“This is what occurred in the situation in question too. We understand that due to the acoustic conditions, the speaker's words were not of a quality that could be interpreted. This is confirmed by the fact that our colleague later performed excellently during the negotiations that followed the press conference.”
The statement also pointed out that some members of the delegation, including Péter Szijjártó, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade, said that they would not hold the interpreter responsible.
"The MFTE presidency stands by our colleague and repeatedly emphasizes that she meets all the professional requirements that can be expected in such situations."
At the end of the statement, they mentioned that they had wanted to publish it earlier, but due to the resignation of the organization's president on Tuesday, their time was taken up with organizational issues.
The Hungarian Prime Minister held talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin in the Russian capital on Friday. Ahead of the negotiations, Orbán and Putin spoke briefly in front of the cameras. Beyond the usual polite greetings, in this part of the talks, there could always be things said that predict the mood of the negotiations. Despite its significance, Orbán was given a rather superficial Hungarian translation of Putin's statement by the interpreter, who mistranslated almost the entire greeting of the Russian President. We detailed exactly what Putin said and how it sounded in Hungarian in this article..."
English
December 03. 2025. – 03:35 PM
Iván-Nagy Szilvia
Andrea Horváth Kávai (translation)
👇🏿👇🏿👇🏿
https://telex.hu/english/2025/12/03/statement-defending-interpreter-criticized-for-translation-errors-in-moscow-issued-by-association
#Metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus
"The Rada Removes the Russian Language From Ukraine’s Translation of the European Charter The Decision Is Largely Symbolic, as the Constitution Guarantees Protection for Any Language Spoken by at Least 40% of Citizens
The Verkhovna Rada has backed a bill revising the Ukrainian translation of the European Charter and removing Russian and Moldovan from its list of protected languages, while adding Urum, Rumeic, Romani, Czech, Krymchak, Karaim and Yiddish. The document was adopted in its entirety and formally strips Russian of the protection envisaged by the Charter.
What Does the European Charter Actually Regulate?
The European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages is designed to safeguard languages that are in the minority within specific territories. Several Ukrainian experts note that Ukraine has long relied on an inaccurate translation of the Charter’s title, creating the impression that it concerns the protection of “national minorities.” In fact, the Charter is aimed at preserving languages at risk of extinction as part of Europe’s cultural heritage.
Why Is the Rada’s Decision Largely Symbolic?
Analysts argue that the Rada’s decision is symbolic and will not produce practical effects. The Ukrainian state does not provide systematic support to any of the listed languages, and the removal of Russian may be seen as a gesture ill-suited to Russian-speaking citizens and potentially advantageous to Kremlin propaganda. The widespread claim that the Russian language is supposedly losing legal protection is, experts say, absurd—it is guaranteed by Article 10 of Ukraine’s Constitution, where it is mentioned alongside other minority languages. Various estimates suggest that at least 40% of Ukraine’s population considers Russian their native language, though precise data are unavailable or not publicised..."
https://sfg.media/en/a/rada-removes-russian-language-from-european-charter-translation/
#Metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus
"When thinking of ancient Greek philosophers, Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle will likely spring to mind, but only Plato and Aristotle left written works behind them that survive to this day thanks to the painstaking work of those who over the millennia copied and translated their texts. It is somewhat surprising that a philosopher as famous as Aristotle, who was also Alexander the Great’s teacher, should only be known through only a few of his treatises, but thankfully for scholars and philosophy enthusiasts, a new edition of his works is now available.
‘Aristotle: Complete Works’, edited by C. D. C. Reeve, the ΔΚΕ Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and Pavlos Kontos, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Patras, and published by Hackett in December 2025, is a monumental achievement, the first new English-language translation of the Aristotelian corpus since 1954. This edition reconfirms that Aristotle’s philosophy is both a cornerstone of history and an integral part of contemporary Western thought and culture, bringing Aristotle to life and making his works accessible for today’s readers.
For the first time ever, Greek scholars, mostly from the University of Patras, played a critical role, either as editors or readers. Such significant contribution by contemporary Greek scholars to an Anglophone edition of ancient Greek philosophical texts is unprecedented.
‘Aristotle: Complete Works’ is presented in two volumes and makes an excellent gift. The first volume includes his logic, biology, physics, natural sciences, and psychology. The second volume contains his metaphysics, ethics, politics, rhetoric, and poetics, a translation of the ‘Fragments’, the slightly dubious work ‘Magna Moralia’, and one work not by Aristotle, but probably from his school, the Athenian Constitution. It also contains an informative long Introduction, an elaborate Index with the numerous people and places mentioned by Aristotle, and an extensive, detailed Glossary of Aristotle’s key terms in Greek and English, accompanied by translation comments and references to pertinent passages. The Glossary allows readers to navigate the entire corpus on their own.
A distinguished group of scholars from Europe and the United States contributed translations of the Aristotelian treatises in which they specialize.
Professor Pavlos Kontos spoke with The National Herald about the impressive achievement. When asked how long the editing process took on such a monumental project, Prof. Kontos told TNH: “This is a nice question, but it’s difficult to answer! The whole thing started in 2012, when C. D. C. Reeve was translating Aristotle’s ‘Nicomachean Ethics’ for Hackett and asked me to serve as a line-by-line reader. I then urged him to re-translate Aristotle’s ‘Politics’, which he did. After that, he translated Aristotle’s ‘Metaphysics’, ‘Physics’, and other shorter treatises. I served as a line-by-line reader for all of these as well. Only after this did David have the ‘crazy’ idea that we edit an English translation of the entire corpus by commissioning the translation of certain treatises to other scholars. Final approval from Hackett was not received until as late as 2021! Thus, at least in my view, the correct way to calculate the timeline is from 2012: about 13 years.”
Prof. Kontos added that translating an Aristotelian text “requires mastery of Ancient Greek and English, expertise in Aristotle’s philosophy (and, in particular, in specific areas of his thought), knowledge of French and German (to allow comparison with the best available translations in those languages), and long experience in translation, so that one develops a distinctive ‘style.’”
“Our ‘Aristotle: Complete Works’ is, as far as we know, the only consistent translation of the entire corpus in any language, for though the translators are many, they all generously agreed to follow our choices (David’s and mine) in the translation of Aristotle’s key terms,” Prof. Kontos said.
More information is available online"
https://www.thenationalherald.com/this-centurys-monumental-translation-of-aristotles-complete-works/
#Metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus
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Scoop.it!
"Beit Al-Hikma, à Carthage, organise sa conférence inaugurale, le 1 er octobre 2022, sous le thème «Pour un universel de traduction», donnée par le Pr Souleymane Bachir Diagne."
#metaglossia mundus