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Justice Prabha Sridevan discusses the emotional intricacies and challenges of translating Imayam's works at The Hindu Lit for Life 2026. "Translator has to be functionally true to the author, says Justice Prabha Sridevan January 17, 2026 B. Kolappan Translating the works of Imayam is an emotional experience and a form of catharsis, said Justice Prabha Sridevan, who has translated four books by the Sahitya Akademi Award–winning writer. “He asked me whether I would go through the same pain that he had experienced. I said yes,” Ms. Sridevan said in conversation with journalist Kavitha Muralidharan on the Joys and Challenges of Translating Imayam at The Hindu Lit for Life 2026. She said she had to remain functionally true to the author and ensure that the reader experienced a significant degree of the pain and anguish she herself felt during the process of translation. When Kavitha Muralidharan asked about the challenges faced by a translator — particularly since the English reader enters the work during the act of translation — Ms. Sridevan said, “I hear the words in Tamil when I read, and I hear them in English when I translate them into English.” She reiterated that she translated the works not as Justice Prabha Sridevan, but as Ms. Prabha Sridevan. Describing her collaboration with Mr. Imayam during the translation process as a “lovely journey”, she said her chief concern was the possibility of misunderstanding elements related to tradition and custom, which are not easily translated. She pointed out that neither Begetter in English nor Le Père in French could fully capture the meaning of the Tamil word Pethavan (father). No area of the Constitution should be immune from judicial review, says former CJI D.Y. Chandrachud She added that Mr. Imayam himself was unhappy with the English title Salt Seller for Uppu Vandikaran, as it suggests a stationary shopkeeper. By contrast, a salt vendor conveys movement — someone who pulls a cart and travels from place to place. “Vendor alone gives mobility to the word Uppu Vandikaran,” she said. Responding to a question on whether her familiarity with the author and the text made her prone to overlooking details, Ms. Sridevan said she did not read the text as a reader. “I do not overlook even a comma. Every word is an adventure. If I overlook anything, I fail as a translator,” she said. Ms. Sridevan also clarified that the objective of translation was not to make the work read better. “Something is always lost in translation. It is like carrying water in your hands — however careful you are, some water will spill,” she said. Kavitha Muralidharan observed that retaining the author’s voice was essential and that the translator could not afford to intrude upon the text. Ms. Muralidharan opened the session by quoting Mr. Imayam’s social media post: “I understand life as I write, and as I write, life itself becomes writing.” Mr. Imayam said that words overheard often became the origin for his stories. He recalled how, at a recent funeral, a father’s cry at the graveyard — “How will I go home alone without you? (his son)” — had become an obsession. He said that once he began writing a story, he lost himself in the process and became the characters he created. “I become the Arokyam of Koverukazhuthaikal. I become Sedal. But once the book goes to print, the story and the characters leave me. Then, like a beggar, I begin searching for new stories,” he said. His advice to aspiring writers was simple: “Follow writing as though your parents begot you for that purpose.”" https://www.thehindu.com/lit-for-life/imayam-and-prabha-sridevan-convo-with-kavitha-muralidharan-lfl/article70481852.ece #Metaglossia #metaglossia_mundus #métaglossie
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
"The Hindu Lit for Life 2026
Translators discuss the challenges of re-representing authors across languages
In conversation with Mini Krishnan at the session on ‘Translation: The Bridge Over Lives and Landscapes’, Chandan Gowda, Gowri Ramnarayan, and Vanamala Viswanatha say it’s essential to create the ambience and feel of the original text for meaningful translations
Translation is not only a representation of an author in another language, it is also re-presenting the author, with change at the heart of translation, bilingual scholar and translator Vanamala Viswanatha said here at The Hindu Lit for Life 2026, on Saturday (February 17, 2026).
At the session on ‘In Translation: The Bridge Over Lives and Landscapes’, Ms. Viswanatha, along with journalist and author Gowri Ramnarayan, and columnist, Professor and Dean, School of Liberal Arts, Bengaluru’s Vidyashilp University Chandan Gowda discussed various aspects of translations and their challenges in a conversation with Mini Krishnan, Managing Editor, Tamil Nadu Textbook and Educational Services Corporation.
Elaborating on her English translation of celebrated Kannada author Kuvempu’s novel Malegalalli Madumagalu, into Bride in the Hills, Ms. Viswanatha said Kuvempu was not just a writer, he was a symbol of Kannada culture and literature, and also an icon of Kannada pride.
Set in 1893, the novel traces the social and spatial history of the Malnad region in Karnataka, advocates values of equality, and presents the novelist’s critique of caste prejudices. The canvas of the novel is not human-centered alone but deeply biocentric, rooted in the landscape of the Western Ghats, making it a compelling read. As part of the translation, Ms. Viswanatha said she drew up a list of characters, their location, and a map of region.
Speaking about his edited anthology, Sangama-Pastorale: The Kannada and English Short Stories of Rajalakshmi N. Rao, Mr. Gowda said the author wrote for only a few years while in her early 20s during the mid-1950s, and then vanished from the literary scene. One of her stories, ‘August 15’, was a surrealistic response to India’s Independence celebrations. A translator must strike a relationship with the voice of the text, Mr. Gowda said.
Highlighting her translation of Kalki’s Ponniyin Selvan, Ms. Ramnarayan said that although she had read the book many times, translating it was a learning experience. Author Kalki believed art and culture must foster communal harmony, and embedded ethical convictions in some of his characters, Ms. Ramnarayan said. He used writing as a responsibility to oppose violence and regressive ideas, while promoting liberal and humane values, she said.
The speakers noted that it was essential to create the ambience and feel of the original text for meaningful translations."
January 17, 2026
Lakshmi Immanuel
https://www.thehindu.com
#Metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus
#métaglossie
"New translations, fresh understanding
Eldon Peterson Jan 17, 2026 0
On Dec. 16, 2025, the newsroom of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints issued a statement titled “New Guidance on Bible Translations for Latter-day Saints.” It reported that the updated section of the General Handbook provided examples of English Bible translations that “members can consider as they seek to better understand the teachings of the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament.”
Elder Jörg Klebingat of the Seventy, a member of the Scriptures Committee, said: “There’s a misconception that modern translations of the Bible are less than faithful to the ancient sources — that in modernizing the language, translators have compromised or dumbed down the doctrine.”
Recognizing this misconception can open the door to greater biblical understanding.
I had witnessed this in the testimony of two men. First, in the 1990s, a man from Tremonton came into our store looking for some camouflage New Testaments to give to scouts in his troop. Because they were only available in the New International Version, he bought those. He later returned, excited to tell me that reading the New Testament in this modern translation enabled him, for the first time, to understand its meaning.
Then, 20 years later, I met another man who had moved here from Florida. As our conversation turned to how he came to faith in Christ, he said it was through listening to the Bible in a modern translation. Although he had grown up reading the King James Version (KJV), it wasn’t until he listened to God’s Word Translation on audiobook that the Bible’s meaning came alive for him. He was glad to find a church in Logan where the translation used was not a barrier.
Elder Klebingat also observed: “Modern translators often have access to manuscripts that were not available to early translators. And most modern translations were produced by faithful scholars and linguists who are utterly convinced that the Bible is the word of God. The simplified language they use supports — rather than compromises — understanding of the doctrine of Jesus Christ.”
My experience is that the more I have to think about a text’s meaning, the more likely I am to get it wrong. Don’t misunderstand me. There can be inherent problems with translations that oversimplify the text’s meaning. But a modern, faithful, scholarly translation of the biblical text can bring an otherwise perceived archaic text to life. While not all translations are equal, it is important that we not disregard modern translations because of our misconceptions.
When people come into our store to buy a Bible, I tell them my primary goal is to help them find a translation they can easily understand. Everything else is secondary to finding a translation whose meaning is clear to them. Let me offer a simple example from 2 Peter to illustrate. By considering three translations of a single passage, we will see that while they say the same thing, the meaning of some are clearer than others.
First, consider how the King James Version expresses 2 Peter 1:20–21: “knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation. For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.”
Next, the English Standard Version (ESV): “knowing this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone’s own interpretation. For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.
Finally, the New Living Translation (NLT) reads: “Above all, you must realize that no prophecy in Scripture ever came from the prophet’s own understanding, or from human initiative. No, those prophets were moved by the Holy Spirit, and they spoke from God.”
All three are translated from Greek and Hebrew, but each uses a different translation methodology and reads differently while conveying the same message. The NLT is the simplest because of its translation method’s goal. Additionally, differences between the KJV and modern translations are partly due to changes in English over the last 400 years. The KJV’s antiquated language and sentence structure can make understanding difficult. I’ve found that many prefer the KJV, not because it is easier to understand, but because it is familiar.
It’s my hope that in 2026 you will discover the Bible anew. I’ve found that following a Bible reading plan in a modern translation will not only give you a fresh understanding of the Bible but also help you apply it. As the Reformers said: “Sola scriptura.”"
https://www.hjnews.com/features/column/new-translations-fresh-understanding/article_382cd8c7-bfec-4202-b19d-688e733c7770.html
#Metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus
#métaglossie
A world where many worlds fit: indigenous knowledges and intercultural creativity
11 Feb 2026, 17:00 – 18:00
Room 826
20 Bedford Way
London
WC1H 0AL
United Kingdom
Join this event to hear Dr Gloriana Rodríguez Álvarez examine how art can serve as a celebratory, emancipatory form of diversity beyond tokenistic approaches.
"Gloriana’s work seeks to foreground voices that have been historically marginalized, by employing Indigenous and critical methodologies as foundational frameworks. By prioritizing these perspectives, she aims to recentre narratives and knowledge systems that have been systematically side-lined. Her presentation expands its theoretical base by incorporating Indigenous, anti-racist and feminist paradigms. Within this framework, digital art is approached as a transgressive medium that transcends the boundaries between formal and informal, physical and virtual spaces, enabling new forms of knowledge-making.
This seminar will examine how art can serve as a celebratory, emancipatory form of diversity beyond tokenistic approaches. It will demonstrate that, rather than repressing or erasing diversity, art can create spaces centred on celebrating it. In this regard, the role of art is twofold: it allows for more diverse expressions of the human experience whilst inspiring us to connect.
This event will be particularly useful to interculturalists, decolonial scholars, applied linguists, creative practitioners and curious minds.
International Centre for Intercultural Studies UCL200 seminar series 2026
This event is part of the International Centre for Intercultural Studies Seminar Series 2026, titled 'Intercultural Creativity: exploring the potential offered by intercultural creativity as praxis'. In this series, we invite a number of leading academics, working across the fields of intercultural communication and creative arts, to share their work."
United Kingdom
https://www.ucl.ac.uk/ioe/events/2026/feb/world-where-many-worlds-fit-indigenous-knowledges-and-intercultural-creativity
#Metaglossia
#métaglossie
"Atelier "Multicultural Babel Tower"
Présentation
Dans le cadre du consortium UNICIA, un second atelier intitulé "Multicultural Babel Tower" est ouvert aux inscriptions.
Cet atelier en ligne vous aidera à améliorer vos compétences en communication dans les différentes langues des établissements partenaires du consortium. Plusieurs sessions sur cette thématique auront lieu tout au long de l'année, chacune animée par un membre de l'université partenaire. L'idée est de découvrir les principes de communication dans différentes langues nationales par le biais de conversations interactives dans la vie courante.
Au cours du prochain atelier, qui aura lieu le mardi 20 janvier 2026 de 13h à 15h, vous approfondirez vos connaissances sur les mécanismes qui sous-tendent l'apprentissage des langues étrangères, afin de comprendre comment votre cerveau assimile une nouvelle langue, la culture du Sénégal et la langue wolof, explorées à travers des sessions animées par des représentants de l'université Gaston Berger (Sénégal), le tout dans une ambiance authentique et vous garantissant des connaissances concrètes.
Conditions de participation
Les participants doivent remplir les conditions suivantes :
Avoir entre 18 et 26 ans
Etre étudiant, étudiante ou en activité professionnelle
Etre domicilié·e en France, en Pologne, en République tchèque, au Sénégal, au Nigéria ou bien en Afrique du Sud.
Je m'inscris à l'atelier du mardi 20 janvier 2026 à 13h
Formulaire à remplir...
Pour plus d'informations sur le consortium UNICIA, n'hésitez pas à contacter l'équipe projets de la Direction des Relations Internationales."
https://www.u-bordeaux-montaigne.fr/fr/actualites/international/participez-a-l-atelier-multicultural-babel-tower-d-unicia-1.html
#Metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus
#métaglossie
Must-read book: Poetry after Barbarism: The Invention of Motherless Tongues and Resistance to Fascism (Jennifer Scappettone - Oct 2025)
"Against a backdrop of xenophobic and ethnonationalist fantasies of linguistic purity, Poetry After Barbarism uncovers a stateless, polyglot poetry of resistance—the poetry of motherless tongues. Departing from the national and global paradigms that dominate literary history, Jennifer Scappettone traces the aesthetic and geopolitical resonance of “xenoglossic” poetics: poetry composed in the space of contestation between national languages, concretizing dreams of mending the ruptures traced to the story of Babel. As global migration, aerial bombardment, and the wireless telegraph shrank distances with brute force during the twentieth century, visions of transcultural communication emerged in the hopes of bridging linguistic difference. At the same time, evolving Fascist ideologies denied the reality of cultural admixture and the humanity of the stranger.
Authors who write xenoglossic verse occupy languages without a perceived birthright or sanctioned education; they compose in ecstatic “orphan tongues” that rebuff nationalist ideologies, on the one hand, and globalization, on the other, uprooting notions of belonging ensconced in nativist metaphors of milk, blood, and soil while rendering the reactionary category of the barbarian obsolete. Raised within or in the wake of fascism, these poets practice strategic forms of literary and linguistic barbarism, proposing modes of collectivity that exceed geopolitical definitions. Studying experiments between languages by immigrant, refugee, and otherwise stateless authors—from Baroness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven to Emilio Villa, Amelia Rosselli, Etel Adnan, LaTasha N. Nevada Diggs, Chika Sagawa, and Sawako Nakayasu—this book explores how poetry can both represent and jumpstart metamorphosis of the shape and sound of citizenship, modeling paths toward alternative republics in which poetry might assume a central agency.
About the Author
Jennifer Scappettone is a professor of literature, creative writing, gender studies, and environmental humanities at the University of Chicago. She is the author of Killing the Moonlight: Modernism in Venice (Columbia, 2014) and the cross-genre verse books From Dame Quickly and The Republic of Exit 43. She is also the translator of Locomotrix: Selected Poetry and Prose of Amelia Rosselli."
Poetry After Barbarism | Columbia University Press
Format: Paperback
List Price: $40.00£35.00
Pub Date: October 2025
ISBN: 9780231212083
408 Pages
Format: Hardcover
List Price: $160.00£134.00
Pub Date: October 2025
ISBN: 9780231559201
408 Pages
Format: E-book
List Price: $39.99£35.00
https://share.google/MJssrxouttIjne695
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Allegedly, some 45% of languages descend from one, ancient ”Proto-Indo-European“ tongue. But why focus on a hypothetical lost language, when we can work instead to hear one another today?
"in Poetry After Barbarism: The Invention of Motherless Tongues and Resistance to Fascism (explicitly and abundantly antistatist) Jennifer Scappettone engages with national language traditions without reinscribing dominant geopolitics. Instead, the book offers a course toward “alternative republics … in which poetry (and its undervalued kith, translation) might assume a central agency...”
Difference, not an anachronistic Eden of similarity, is the indubitable protagonist of Scappettone’s story. Approaching the poetic traditions and artistic practices of fugitives, waywards, and exiles, from Etel Adnan to LaTasha N. Nevada Diggs, Scappettone retells not the story of Babel but the story of the Pentecost: wherein Christ’s followers, inspired by the divine spirit—“inspired” in the literal sense of “breathed into”—are suddenly able to speak languages foreign to them.
The Pentecost does not repair Babel but redrafts it, placing an antidote for our separation and noncommunication back in the hands of those who believe and care enough to speak beyond sameness: poets. Guided by the potential of xenoglossy—the spontaneous knowledge of an unlearned language—Scappettone’s book gathers near-magical moments of people producing works intelligible to those othered to them. These achievements, Scappettone notes, are not because of a myth of shared descent, but because of the possibility of their shared occupation of a homeland, enacted not through the state but through experience, performance, and poetics.
Thus, Poetry After Barbarism might be an inaugural bid at a philology without Babel. Scappettone’s book embraces Ahmed’s impossible invitation for language study to not repair through shared heritage or reform through shared futurity, but instead to regenerate legibility, refuse the pure, reembrace the gift of the unknown. Our new guiding myth, I take it, must be the Pentecost. We must live not at the moment of our scattering but at the moment of our spontaneous, and earned, remembrance. Importantly, though, Scappettone makes clear her work is not originary but collectivizing: it brings under a shared light generations of language workers before her...
In this, Scappettone offers the ultimate rejoinder to both Auerbach and Said. To her, it is not enough that our philological home is the earth. In fact, our language—our home—must also be planetary and cosmic, escaping the entrapments that make an internationalized earth just another vestige of the state.
We need not see ourselves as scattered halves looking to be made whole by a return to a unified state. Escaping Babel’s haunt, it’s possible to see—xenoglossically—our bodies, our histories, our languages as complete in themselves. The task remains, then, to extend care, humanity, solidarity, and life, to tongues—and people—outside of the trajectories inscribed by our protos; to raze the language tree that dictates our cultural debt and our naturalized nations; and to reinvest in living with, and living for, difference."
https://www.publicbooks.org/against-babel-or-how-to-talk-to-strangers/
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"The world's first dataset aimed at improving the quality of English-to-Malayalam machine translation—a long-overlooked language spoken by more than 38 million people in India—has been developed by researchers at the University of Surrey.
Malayalam is considered a low-resource language in the world of machine translation, and until now, there has been almost no data available to evaluate the accuracy of machine-translated text from English, limiting progress for communities that rely on digital translation tools.
The Surrey-led research published in ACL Anthology focused on two key areas—Quality Estimation, which predicts how good a translation is without the need for a reference text, and Automatic Post-Editing (APE), which automatically corrects errors.
The team curated 8,000 English-to-Malayalam translation segments across finance, legal and news—domains where accuracy is essential. Each segment was reviewed by professional annotators at TechLiebe, an industry partner, who provided three human quality scores and a corrected "post-edited" version of the machine-translated text.
Dr. Diptesh Kanojia, senior lecturer at the Surrey Institute for People-Centered AI, and project co-lead, said, "Low-resource languages like Malayalam are often left behind simply because we don't have the datasets needed to improve machine translation. Our work provides a strong foundation for both assessing and correcting translations—supporting Malayalam speakers while also opening the door to similar resources for many other underserved languages."
An additional layer of annotation known as "weak error remarks" was also introduced, allowing human annotators to quickly note and describe the types of errors they spotted, such as mistranslations, missing words or added phrases.
Early findings show that when these added notes are combined with large language models, systems can interpret the translation better on where the translation went wrong—a method that is already outperforming current approaches.
Postgraduate researcher and project lead at Surrey, Archchana Sindhujan, who introduced this novel idea, said, "Malayalam is one of India's classical languages, spoken by millions, yet it remains severely under-resourced for reference-free machine translation evaluation. By introducing Weak Error Remarks, we offer a lightweight and interpretable form of human-annotated supervision that captures translation errors beyond scalar scores.
"This added context enables learning signals that help large language models reason more effectively about translation quality, demonstrating how simple, human-centric annotations can significantly strengthen MT evaluation in low-resource settings."
The research team have completed the majority of annotations, with a public release of the dataset planned for April 2026. The methodology could serve as a blueprint for other low-resource languages, including many across India, Africa and Creole-speaking regions, where high-quality translation data is urgently needed."
by University of Surrey
edited by Sadie Harley, reviewed by Andrew Zinin
https://techxplore.com/news/2026-01-dataset-english-malayalam-machine-critical.html
#Metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus
#métaglossie
"Pedro the Vast, the debut novel from Chilean writer Simón López Trujillo, was translated into English from Spanish by Robin Myers. The novel has been called “mind-blowing” by Gabriela Cabezón Cámara and follows a eucalyptus farm worker who survives a deadly fungal outbreak and becomes the focus of scientific obsession and religious fervor, while his abandoned children struggle to interpret his transformation as their separate reckonings collide in an unforgettable, catastrophic end.
In our latest interview series, “Writer/Translator,” we ask a writer and their translator to interview each other about their work. Below, Trujillo and Myer discuss rewriting, intertextuality, and the role of politics in translation.
Robin Myers: I always love hearing about the path from the book a person intends to write and the book they end up writing. What was the novel you imagined writing when you started work on Pedro the Vast, and what surprised you most about what happened along the way?
Simón Lopez Trujillo: In a way, this novel was a major lesson in what to make with the intentions I have when I’m writing a book. I started working on Pedro the Vast in 2018 and the first draft was completed in early 2019, but the main editing process took place between 2020 and 2021. In the meantime, not only the Covid-19 pandemic happened, but also – and more importantly – the social outburst of October 2019 in Chile. That context, marked both by intense violence and police brutality, but also by a new effervescence that opened the possibility of a new social change, pushed me to transform the novel into a sort of “protest novel” (novela de denuncia). During the hiatus between the first and second draft, I did a lot of research on big forest companies in Chile, their dependency on decree-laws and the dispossession of peasant land in the south of Chile during Pinochet’s dictatorship, and social leaders such as Rodrigo Cisterna (a forestry worker killed by the police in 2007, to whom the novel is dedicated). All this research resulted in an extra 100 pages or so, mainly of information that I wanted the reader to have in mind while reading the novel. But when my editor finally had the chance to revise this second draft, she told me: “Look, why don’t we go back to the previous draft?” I immediately said: “What? But this involved so much work and research…” And she replied: “Yes, but you’re losing your tone.” Then, I went back to the original draft and realized that she was right. I had unwittingly given up the very thing that had led me to write the novel in the first place: a strangeness in the language and story fleshed out by voices and characters that I wasn’t in absolute control of, but which I wanted to follow. And it was this curiosity that made the book feel like a novel, and not a mere device for my own personal political intentions or beliefs. This does not mean that I don’t believe in “political literature” or anything like that – of course I do. But I also believe that nowadays, in times of complex political turmoil and an excessive velocity in the circulation of discourse (where authorship seems reduced to a mere authorial image, and literary content to what “content” means in social media), we must be especially aware of what the actual pace of literature is. Because I don’t believe it moves as fast as we think. Reading, writing, and translating literature are still silent, slow, mostly solitary experiences. And maybe that’s why a good book affects us so deeply: because we feel its language is related to our own private experience. Because we can hear it as if it belonged to us, in a way, and we process it at the speed of abstraction. I’m talking about a slow, deep sense of hearing/reading, something akin to what Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht calls “the production of presence” –which is precisely what the mere meaning or content of a novel cannot convey. A strange intimacy, more connected to the mystery of human sensibility than to our intelligence, and more proximate to the realm of political imagination than of political discourse.
RM: One of the things I most admire about Pedro the Vast (and one of the parts I most enjoyed wrestling with as a translator) is the wide (wild!) range of voices: human and non-human, first person and third, with all kinds of different registers in the mix. Was there one of these voices that came to you first?
SLT: I think it probably was the voice of Pedro’s sermons. For me, it’s no accident that the novel opens with that voice, that lyrical and mystical tone, italicized precisely because we don’t know (as readers but also me as writer) its true origin. He begins by confessing precisely this confusion: “If that’s what looking is—you know? I don’t know what I saw, but I saw so much.” It was important for me to work with that feeling of having seen something that you then can’t describe, because that is a way of talking about a certain form of reading, one that usually happens when I’m reading poetry. It’s a strange experience of being carried through a field of images and music, where sense is more a movement than an arrival at a specific point of meaning. In a way, all the main voices of this novel (Pedro’s, Patricio’s, Giovanna’s) are marked by this sort of poetic expansion, because my writing was very much inspired by the language of others: Juan Rulfo, scientific papers on fungi and biology, the testimonies of farmers and forest workers persecuted and killed by Pinochet’s dictatorship, Cristina Rivera Garza, Juan Emar, and “two Spinozas”: Baruch Spinoza, the God-intoxicated rationalist philosopher, and Juan de Espinosa Medrano, a Peruvian poet, priest, and preacher. Both lived and worked during the 17th century and in very different ways: Spinoza’s Ethics is written in extremely dry, heavy logical-mathematical language, while Espinosa Medrano’s La novena maravilla is profoundly baroque, brimming with metaphors and symbols. Every fragment of Pedro’s sermons was written by taking fragments of these “Spinozian” texts and rewriting them until that mystical italicized voice appeared. It’s a voice that seems both above and beneath the surface of the text. That, for me, is the fungal function in the novel: a metaphor for intertextuality. Pedro the Vast is profoundly inspired by that concept and, specifically, by that of rewriting (reescritura): the idea of writing through and with the voices of others. This notion was fundamental for me when I was mainly a writer of poetry, and it’s also a feature of the works of some of my favorite poets, who also tend to be translators: for example, Soledad Fariña, Rosmarie Waldrop, Mirta Rosenberg, and Leónidas Lamborghini, who write or wrote with a language profoundly marked by the experience of translation. As if what they saw and felt (and also had to wrestle with) in the fertile darkness of the in-between were a more intense way of approaching the poetic voice than the more traditional notion of the lyrical “I”: some kind of homogenous subjectivity that simply speaks, without worrying about whether what he says is the “right” choice because he (thinks he) is the sole “owner” of its language.
But while I was writing Pedro I was interested in the very opposite: a language whose speaker is not his owner. In fact, I wanted to advance in the direction of a “disappropriated, ownerless writing,” as explored by Rivera Garza in The Restless Dead. This, for me, is the case of Pedro after he gets infected. I truly think that his voice was also very much inspired by my own experience as a translator. Because that’s the thing with translation: you are not the owner, and you have to choose. For each word in the foreign language, there are multiple options in the language you are writing in, and you’re always responsible for making the right choice. Besides, since everybody wants to shoot the messenger, I think the task is to achieve the sense of something final, indisputable where words are free from objection. For me, this is the only way, as a translator, to become invisible, to survive, but also to mimic the most fundamental feature of writing literature: that is, to feel the language, the written word, as a sort of destiny. To enter the text not as a contingent fact but, instead, as the definitive path for what lies beyond the words. And this, for me, is linked to the metaphoric, to language employed as a vessel for seeing more than what one can see. Donald Davidson once wrote that “metaphor is the dreamwork of language,” whose grace lies not in what the metaphor means (which is actually more the task of metonymy), but in what it makes us “see.” In traversing this expanded field of countless associations where things are no longer identical to themselves. I sincerely think that this aspiration intoxicated much of the spirit of the novel: poetic language employed not as mere figurative speech, but as radical world-making. An opening, a bursting out of the experience of the self.
RM: Could you talk a bit about some of the other writers and works (or other artists and works of art) that influenced you in Pedro the Vast?
SLT: For this novel, I was very influenced by the work of Chilean and Latin American writers who explore the rural territory and rural consciousness not with a folk or naturalistic approach, but with some sense of the visionary, the poetic, and even the hallucinatory. In this sense, Juan Emar’s Ten (recently translated into English by Megan McDowell) was a sort of lighthouse. He goes to the rural land, pushes through it, reinvents it, and manages to find, as a result, a new sort of avant-garde language and vision of things. In this same vein, the writings of José María Arguedas, Marta Brunet, Carlos Droguett, and Manuel Rojas were of major importance to me, as well as more contemporary authors such as Samanta Schweblin (Fever Dream), Marina Closs (The Depopulation), and Juan Cárdenas (The Devil of the Provinces). Nevertheless, my main influence was, without a doubt, Juan Rulfo. Personally, the naming of my protagonist as Pedro is a Platonic gesture in his direction: Pedro Páramoconceived as the perfect, pure, and ideal model from which Pedro the Vast sprouts out as a contingent, humble, imperfect copy. Of course, these are two completely different characters, but Rulfo’s sense of space, time, image and language were a sort of distant murmur that enveloped and followed the contours of my own writing.
I also did a lot of research on subjects like fungi, Spinoza, the history of timber companies in Chile, and their relationship with Pinochet’s dictatorship. Here, works like Anna Tsing-Lowenhaupt’s The Mushroom at the End of the World, Marilena de Souza Chaui’s La nervadura de lo real: imaginación y razón en Spinoza, Manuel Acuña Asenjo’s La rebelión de los trabajadores forestales,and Thomas Miller Klublock’s La Frontera: Forest and Ecological Conflict in Chile’s Frontier Territory were fundamental.
Simón Lopez Trujillo: There’s a beautiful short poem in your book Having that says: “How will I know/ which voice/ was mine?”. It made me wonder: do you think translation has affected, influenced or shaped your own experience as a poet and a writer? Does it have some similarities or points of contact with the experience of living abroad, considering that you have lived in different parts of Latin America?
Robin Myers: Translation has affected me and my writing in more ways than I’m even fully conscious of, I think. I mean, some ways are pretty clear: as I explore other writers’ styles, registers, resources, and approaches, and as I do my best to inhabit them as a translator, I’m constantly reminded of what’s possible – and I feel pushed to explore, in turn, what I might otherwise assume is my “natural” voice. In this sense, translation is also a perennial reminder that every voice is learned: it’s from listening to others (reading others) that we come to speak (and write) however we speak (and write). Every voice can change. I love how your question also probes at what it means to live somewhere else. For me, this living-elsewhere – mostly in Mexico and more recently in Argentina – means an experience of continual, generative discomfort, even and perhaps especially when you start to feel comfortable where you are. To paraphrase my poet-translator friend Adalber Salas Hernández, migration means having one foot in one place and another foot in no place at all. You’re always learning to walk, and you can’t take any ground entirely for granted. There’s both melancholy and wonder in the vertigo of it all. I aspire to this wondrous discomfort, and to this neverending beginner’s-mind, as both a poet and a translator.
Going back to the first part of your question, though, I’ll also say that translation has made me a less anxious writer. I’m far less nervous about not writing than I used to be: about the fallow periods themselves, and about the sense of loneliness that can come from feeling unable to write for a while. Because when you translate, you are writing, but you’re never alone.
SLT: Perhaps this is too simple a question, but when and why did you start translating literature? And did you have or still have any role models, any literary translators that serve as inspirations for your own work?
RM: It’s not too simple a question at all! I started translating in earnest when I moved to Mexico City in 2011. I’d translated a handful of poems before, but it was then and there that I began to translate the work of young writers (mostly poets at first) I met on arrival, poets who became my friends. Beyond any more abstract interest I had in translation, though, these early experiences gave me a new way of being where I was – in a city that beguiled and challenged and stimulated me; in the company of people I admired and came to love. I translated in hopes of being more there, if that makes sense. Gradually, translation evolved into more of a practice, as well as a livelihood: for many years, I translated non-literary texts for income, and I also started translating more literary prose, which is now the bulk of my work. As for role models, there are so many translators I look up to that I couldn’t possibly name them all here! But to mention a few, Sophie Hughes and Katherine Silver have been among my lodestars for many years. More recently, I’ve gotten to know Julia Sanches and Rosalind Harvey, and I revere them both as translators and as organizers for translatorly rights and labor conditions.
SLT: In our complex times, when we’re constantly confronting horrors we thought were a thing of the past, when everything seems beholden to a nonnegotiable urgency, what do you think the political role of translation is or remains?
RM: To answer this question, I’d like to share some words from other translators I admire.
Johannes Göransson: “Translation brings in alternate canons and texts, and in so doing it also opens up alternative models of authorship. Rather than the singular great author, translation foregrounds the collaborative element of writing as well as the cultural issues and contexts at play in both the creation and transmission of the text… A poetry [or literature in general] that is profoundly engaged with foreign poetry is a poetry that is aware that nations are not homogenous, that while the institutions of literature are almost always hierarchical, writing itself is not.”
Jen/Eleana Hofer: “For years I’ve been thinking and writing through ideas around the ways translation can generate empathetic not-understanding as an alternative to simplistic and often essentializing or assimilationist ideas around the way texts in translation can provide a ‘window’ into other cultures… At its most radically politicized, translation can function to interrogate and destabilize our ideas about how language functions to make meaning, and can therefore invite us into an awareness of how our own modes of perception are configured, encouraging us to use the tools language offers — as the daily currency of thought, experience and communication — to reconstruct the very foundations on which our currently distressing world rests.”
Olivia Lott: “The reason I translate is to use my position within the United States and my native tongue subversively, to contribute to the dismantling of the imperialist vision of Latin America and to express my allyship with this struggle.”
Jeremy Tiang: “Perhaps if the dominant anglophone culture actually acknowledged itself to be part of the world, rather than treating ‘world literature’ as a spice rack to save itself from total blandness, more than three percent of books published in the United States would be in translation?”"
January 13, 2026
by Adam
https://debutiful.net/2026/01/13/writer-translator-simon-lopez-trujillo-and-robin-myer-pedro-the-vast/
#Metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus
#métaglossie
"Le prix Saif Ghobash Banipal 2025 de traduction littéraire arabe est décerné à Marilyn Booth pour sa traduction de « Honey Hunger » de Zahran Alqasmi, publiée en 2025 par Hoopoe, une maison d'édition de l'American University in Cairo Press. Après la liste des six finalistes annoncée le 1er décembre 2025, le jury a désigné Marilyn Booth lauréate du prix 2025, qui sera remis par la Society of Authors le 10 février 2026.
À partir du prix 2025, le jury choisit le finaliste, qui reçoit un prix de 1 000 livres sterling généreusement sponsorisé par la famille Ghobash. La traduction par Kay Heikkinen de la trilogie de Radwa Ashour, « Grenade : The Complete Trilogy », publiée par Hoopoe Fiction, une marque éditoriale d'AUC Press, en 2024, a été nommée finaliste.
Le magazine Banipal consacre son nouveau numéro au poète palestinien Samer Abu Hawwash
Le jury, composé de quatre membres, était constitué de la professeure Tina Phillips (présidente), universitaire et traductrice de littérature arabe moderne, du Dr Susan F. Frenk, directrice du St Aidan's College de l'université de Durham, de Nashwa Nasreldin, écrivaine, éditrice et traductrice littéraire, et de Boyd Tonkin Hon. FRSL, journaliste, écrivain et ancien éditeur littéraire de The Independent.
Saif Ghobash Banipal Literary Prize
Rapport du jury
Parmi les six œuvres présélectionnées, les deux favorites étaient « Honey Hunger » de Zahran Alqasmi, traduit par Marilyn Booth, et « Granada: The Complete Trilogy » de Radwa Ashour, traduit par Kay Heikkinen. Ces deux romans sont très différents par leur nature et il a été difficile (mais amusant !) de les évaluer l'un par rapport à l'autre. « Honey Hunger » est un roman écologique et poétique qui se déroule dans le Golfe, tandis que « Granada: The Complete Trilogy » est une longue saga historique qui se déroule pendant la période de la Reconquista dans l'Espagne musulmane. En tant que tels, ils posaient tous deux des défis différents à leurs traducteurs : celui de Honey Hunger consistait à recréer le lyrisme de l'original et à rapprocher les paysages lointains d'Oman du lecteur anglophone, tandis que celui de Granada: The Complete Trilogy résidait davantage dans l'ampleur du projet et la multitude de langues, de voix et de registres du texte.
Marilyn Booth et Kay Heikkinen, deux traductrices très expérimentées, se sont montrées à la hauteur de la tâche et les travaux qui en ont résulté sont d'excellents exemples de fiction indépendante. En outre, ils témoignent non seulement du talent des traductrices et de l'art des textes originaux, mais aussi de la traduction littéraire arabe moderne en tant que domaine, qui est passé d'un spectacle secondaire à l'érudition académique sur la littérature arabe moderne pour devenir un domaine mature de production artistique, grâce en grande partie au travail de Banipal et au soutien et à la reconnaissance du prix Saif Ghobash Banipal au cours des vingt dernières années.
Au final, le jury a sélectionné « Honey Hunger » comme lauréat pour la beauté du langage et du style de la traduction, pour l'importance des thèmes explorés dans le roman (l'amour, la dépendance, l'environnement) et pour la nouvelle perspective que la voix et le décor omanais apportent à ces thèmes.
Nashwa Nasreldin a déclaré que Honey Hunger, traduit par Marilyn Booth, « est plus qu'une histoire ; c'est une chanson calme et évocatrice, une complainte lyrique — et une célébration — fruit de l'approche profondément attentive de l'auteure et de la traductrice envers leur travail ».
Boyd Tonkin a déclaré : « Lyrique et poétique, traduit avec un style et un soin à la hauteur de son art précis, Honey Hunger nous rapproche intimement de lieux reculés et de vies presque cachées ».
Susan Frenk a écrit : « Intensément poétique, mais profondément enraciné, Honey Hunger révèle les différentes facettes de l'Oman contemporain à travers des voix qui ne sont souvent pas entendues ».
Tina Phillips a ajouté : « La traduction de Marilyn Booth est un chef-d'œuvre de traduction poétique qui reste remarquablement fidèle à l'original et transporte le lecteur dans les paysages montagneux lointains d'Oman ».
"Honey Hunger"
À propos de la traductrice lauréate
Marilyn Booth est une traductrice américaine renommée de littérature arabe vers l'anglais. Elle a traduit « Celestial Bodies » de Jokha Alharthi, premier roman arabe à remporter le prix Booker international en 2019, ainsi que « Bitter Orange Tree » et « Silken Gazelles », également d'Alharthi ; « The Penguin's Song » et « No Road to Paradise » de Hassan Daoud, ainsi que « Voices of the Lost », « Disciples of Passion » et « The Tiller of Waters » de Hoda Barakat. Parmi ses autres traductions, on trouve « As Though She Were Sleeping » d'Elias Khoury, « Girls of Riyadh » de Rajaa Alsanea, « Thieves in Retirement » de Hamdi Abu Golayyel, « The Loved Ones » d'Alia Mamdouh, « Children of the Waters » d'Ibtihal Salem, « Leaves of Narcissus: A Modern Arabic Novel » de Somaya Ramadan, « The Circling Song » et « Memoirs from the Women's Prison » de Nawal El Saadawi, et « The Open Door » de Latifa al-Zayyat.
Elle est professeure émérite à la Faculté d'études asiatiques et moyen-orientales et au Magdalen College de l'Université d'Oxford, et a également enseigné à l'Université Brown, à l'Université américaine du Caire et à l'Université de l'Illinois à Urbana-Champaign. Ses publications de recherche portent sur la littérature des femmes arabophones et l'idéologie des débats sur le genre au XIXe siècle, la plus récente étant La carrière et les communautés de Zaynab Fawwaz : la pensée féministe dans l'Égypte fin-siècle.
Le magazine Banipal consacre son nouveau numéro à l'artiste irakien Hanoos Hanoos
À propos de l'auteur de l'œuvre primée
Zahran Alqasmi est un poète et romancier né dans la Sultanat d'Oman en 1974. Il est également médecin, spécialisé dans les maladies infectieuses, et se consacre à l'apiculture. « Honey Hunger » est le troisième de ses quatre romans publiés et le premier traduit en anglais. En 2023, il a remporté le Prix international de fiction arabe (IPAF) pour son roman « The Water Diviner ». Il a également publié dix recueils de poésie et un recueil de nouvelles.
Zahran Alqasmi
À propos de l'œuvre primée
« Honey Hunger », de Zahran Alqasmi, vous transporte dans les paysages montagneux reculés d'Oman et vous raconte l'histoire d'Azzan, un apiculteur qui se retire dans les montagnes pour reconstruire sa vie et ses ruches. Alors qu'Azzan s'immerge dans la nature et l'apiculture, il tisse des liens avec d'autres chasseurs de miel et une histoire lyrique se développe autour de la perte, de la dépendance, de la résilience, de la guérison et du fragile équilibre entre l'homme et la nature. Ce roman est exceptionnel non seulement par sa prose belle et évocatrice, mais aussi par son exploration du sujet tabou de la dépendance dans les zones rurales d'Oman et par son thème écologique essentiel."
Atalayar
14/01/26
https://www.atalayar.com/fr/articulo/culture/marilyn-booth-remporte-prix-saif-ghobash-banipal-2025-pour-traduction-litteraire-arabe/20260114170000222333.html
#Metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus
#métaglossie
"Admiré pendant des décennies, le célèbre ouvrage de Kornej Čukovskij sur la traduction, Высокое искусство (Un art élevé), a récemment fait l’objet de recherches novatrices à plusieurs égards. Ces travaux proposent ainsi de l’étudier non comme un texte unique, mais comme une succession de versions du texte, adaptées aux exigences et à l’idiome de chacune des époques successives que le texte traversa. De même, ces travaux récents ont-ils proposé d’étudier les versions successives de ce texte à la lumière des débats sur la traduction et des discours politique propres à chaque époque. Le présent article se concentre sur la version de 1936 du livre, publiée sous le titre Искусство перевода (l’Art de traduire) et l’examine à travers le prisme des métaphores de la traduction qui y sont convoquées, notamment les métaphores juridiques et biologiques ou médicales. Ceci permet d’offrir une analyse de l’ouvrage à la lumière du contexte politique des années 1930, de la méthode critique propre à Čukovskij et de l’évolution ultérieure du livre. L’autrice y soutient que ces métaphores interagissent pour conférer à l’ouvrage une structure spécifique, qui le fait résonner différemment selon les époques."
Elena Ostrovskaïa
Перевод Domenico Scagliusi
p. 343-359
https://doi.org/10.4000/15hpp
https://journals.openedition.org/res/7689?lang=ru
#Metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus
#métaglossie
"Rask AI, a provider of AI-powered content localization technology, announced continued expansion of its platform as organizations increasingly seek scalable solutions to adapt video and audio content for global audiences. The company's integrated toolset enables businesses, media organizations, and educators to translate, dub, subtitle, and localize content across more than 130 languages using automation.
As demand grows for multilingual content distribution without the cost of re-production, Rask AI reports rising adoption of its modular localization tools designed to support video, audio, and text workflows within a single platform.
Integrated Tools Supporting Global Content Strategies
Rask AI's platform brings together six core tools that address the full lifecycle of content localization, allowing organizations to repurpose existing assets for international markets.
The Rask AI Video Translator enables automated transcription, translation, dubbing, and subtitle generation for video content. The tool supports multi-speaker detection, optional voice cloning, and lip synchronization to preserve consistency across translated versions.
The Rask AI Audio Translator extends these capabilities to audio-only formats such as podcasts, webinars, and recorded briefings. It supports long-form audio translation, editable transcripts, and export options for downstream publishing and archiving workflows.
For creators and brands managing content libraries on YouTube, Rask AI's YouTube Transcription Tool allows direct URL-based transcription and translation, enabling captions and scripts to be generated without manual file handling.
Preserving Voice Identity and Visual Alignment
Rask AI also offers Voice Cloning technology, allowing speakers to retain their vocal identity across multiple languages. This capability is designed for executives, educators, and on-camera hosts whose voice is closely associated with brand recognition.
To enhance realism in translated video content, Rask AI Lip Sync adjusts mouth movements to align with translated audio. This feature is intended for interviews, educational content, and long-form video where visual credibility is essential.
The platform's Subtitle Generation Tool supports automated captioning, translation, and styling across formats and platforms. Subtitles can be exported in standard formats or embedded directly into video files, supporting accessibility and discoverability requirements.
Modular Platform Designed for Scale
According to Rask AI, the platform is increasingly used as part of broader content, marketing, and education technology stacks. The tools are accessible through a web-based interface and APIs, allowing organizations to automate recurring localization tasks and integrate translation workflows into existing systems.
By enabling a single source asset to be converted into multiple localized formats, Rask AI positions its technology as infrastructure for global content distribution rather than a standalone translation utility.
About Rask AI
Rask AI is a U.S.-based technology company providing AI-driven localization tools for video, audio, and text content. The platform supports transcription, translation, dubbing, voice cloning, lip synchronization, and subtitle generation across more than 130 languages.
SOURCE: Rask AI"
DOVER, DE / ACCESS Newswire / January 14, 2026 /
https://www.morningstar.com/news/accesswire/1127080msn/rask-ai-expands-global-content-localization-capabilities-with-integrated-ai-tool-suite-for-2026
#Metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus
#métaglossie
OpenAI introduces Google Translate-like ChatGPT Translate: How it works
ChatGPT Translate is a new standalone tool from OpenAI that supports over 50 languages, translating text, voice, and images while letting users refine tone, context, and wording in one chat
"OpenAI has launched ChatGPT Translate as a standalone tool that allows users to translate content across more than 50 languages. According to OpenAI, the tool can translate text, voice, and images while taking tone, idioms, and context into account. The interface is familiar to Google Translate with two text boxes – one for input and the other for output – along with automatic language detection. Users can ask follow-up questions, request rephrasing or switch languages within the same chat.
ChatGPT Translate: How it works
When you open the ChatGPT Translate tool, you see two main sections on the screen. One box is for the content you want to translate, and the other shows the translated result. The tool automatically detects the language you type in, so you usually do not need to select the source language yourself.
Users can type or paste text directly into the input box. The translated text appears almost instantly in the output box. From the same screen, users can continue the conversation by asking follow-up questions, changing the wording, or switching to another language without starting over.
The interface feels familiar to anyone who has used online translation tools, but it also allows more interaction and flexibility by letting users refine translations within the same chat. There are also a few handy prompts, such as “Translate this and make it sound more fluent” or “Translate this and make it more business-formal.” Selecting any of these takes you to the ChatGPT page, where it provides a more detailed and refined response to your prompt.
ChatGPT Translate still has a few limitations. For now, it only supports plain text on desktop. Although image and document, audio translations are mentioned, there is no option to upload images, support documents, handwriting, websites, or live conversations.
Steps to use ChatGPT Translate:
Go to the ChatGPT Translate page or tool.
Type or paste the text you want to translate into the input box.
The tool will automatically detect the source language and show the translation.
Ask for refinements like tone or rephrasing in the same chat.
Switch the target language or continue with follow-up questions without resetting."
Sweta Kumari
Jan 15 2026
https://www.business-standard.com/technology/tech-news/openai-introduces-google-translate-like-chatgpt-translate-how-it-works-126011500695_1.html
#Metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus
#métaglossie
The availability of free translation software clinched the decision for the new policy. To some researchers, it’s anathema.
"Effective 11 February, the arXiv preprint server is requiring authors to submit papers in English or with a full English translation. Within several weeks of publication, the November arXiv blog post announcing the change received more than 45 comments opposing the new rule. The administrators of the server say that is record pushback from the science community. “It was not a 100% comfortable decision,” says Ralph Wijers, an astrophysicist at the University of Amsterdam and chair of the arXiv Editorial Advisory Council. Two issues, he says, held sway: Moderators can’t judge the appropriateness of submissions in languages they can’t read, and papers in English can reach a broader audience.
Researchers in physics, astronomy, quantitative biology, economics, and other fields use arXiv. The server hosts nearly 3 million preprints and receives, on average, roughly 24 000 submissions and tens of millions of downloads per month. (To read about the origins of the server, see the 2021 PT story “Joanne Cohn and the email list that led to arXiv .”) The number of submissions per month is growing, in part because of AI-written papers. Non-English papers make up about 1% of the submissions, according to arXiv administrators. A 2005 French-language algebraic geometry paper with, according to Google Scholar, 1212 citations is an example of an influential one.
The numbers of preprints submitted monthly to arXiv has steadily grown in the past three decades. (Graph data from arXiv.org monthly submissions page .) View larger
Until now, authors had to include an English abstract, but their papers could be in any language. Under the new policy, authors can still submit in other languages, but they have to include an English translation of the full paper.
The arXiv editorial board had been talking for several years about requiring that papers be submitted in English, Wijers says. The triggers were the growth in submissions and the availability of free, adequate translation software, he says. “We want to be fair to moderators and give the papers the widest reach.”
Although preprints published on arXiv are not peer reviewed, moderators look them over to make sure they are suitable. Some 300 experts around the world volunteer to make sure submissions are “not AI slop, not all false, and are in fact scientific papers,” says Licia Verde, a Catalan Institution for Research and Advanced Studies professor of theoretical physics at the University of Barcelona and the chair of the arXiv Science Advisory Council. “It needs to be something that an editor of a journal would send to a referee.”
Having authors submit translations reduces the burden on the moderators, notes Wijers. When he previously moderated submissions in high-energy astrophysics, he says, he spent about 30 seconds on each paper. “I couldn’t afford to spend more than half an hour per day.”
Much of the online opposition to the new policy comes from French mathematicians. Among the objections they and others raise (not all of which were posted in English) are that “putting English first as this policy does treats the hundreds of non-English human languages as second-class participants in the global conversation” and the policy “raises further barriers to participation in science and mathematics.” Another poster wrote that “important articles will be read in any language.” Several people posted that they might or would stop using arXiv because of the policy, and others offered their services as moderators in various languages.
Jean-Pierre Bourguignon is a former president of the European Research Council who is now an honorary professor at the IHES (Institut des Hautes Études Scientifiques) outside of Paris. He notes that arXiv plays a “key role” for mathematicians, physicists, and computer scientists worldwide. The move, he says, caught him by surprise and “is certainly not going to be a solution” that contributes to making arXiv more international.
Several posters noted that the moderators could translate submissions as needed. But, says Verde, it’s better for authors to retain control over their own work and how it is presented. Wijers notes that leading scientists worldwide must have decent passive knowledge of English.
Steinn Sigurðsson, an astrophysicist at the Pennsylvania State University and arXiv’s scientific director, says that “the intent is to encourage more foreign-language papers,” rather than to squeeze out submissions in other languages. The server will be able to accept a lot more foreign-language papers under the new policy, he says, because the moderators “will be able to curate the content from the translated version.”
Wijers says that arXiv will revisit the issue in a couple of years. “I don’t expect this to be permanent,” he says. In five or so years, he says, translation software may be good enough that arXiv could include an option on its website to translate on the spot."
Toni Feder
https://physicstoday.aip.org/news/the-arxiv-server-to-require-english-version-with-submissions
#Metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus
#métaglossie
"In Canada, ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) performance is increasingly intertwined with a crucial topic: Indigenous language inclusion. There are more than 70 Indigenous languages spoken by First Nations, Métis, and Inuit peoples, each carrying unique knowledge systems and worldviews. In mining regions from Nunavut to northern Québec, languages such as Inuktitut, Cree, and Dene remain vital for Elders, hunters, and knowledge keepers, whose insights shape environmental stewardship and community well-being.
ESG and Indigenous language translation
When engagement with Indigenous communities happens only in English or French, critical knowledge risks being excluded. As a result, accuracy and depth of impact assessments are limited, and relationships are strained, thus undermining a company’s social license to operate.
Recognizing this, Canada passed the Indigenous Languages Act in 2019. The aim is to preserve, promote, and revitalize Indigenous languages, while supporting Indigenous peoples in their efforts to reclaim, maintain, and strengthen them. For businesses, this legislation signals that language inclusion has moved beyond cultural respect to be a strategic responsibility.
Environmental (E): Shared understanding and stewardship
Environmental initiatives succeed when companies and communities work together. Translation helps align perspectives on environmental values, which may differ across cultural and linguistic lines.
Clarity in environmental reports
Transparent communication of environmental impact assessments (EIAs) and monitoring reports are paramount for fostering trust and ensuring the well-being of communities. By translating these complex documents into accessible language, residents can gain a comprehensive understanding of potential environmental risks associated with mining operations. This includes direct impacts on air, water, and land, as well as the socio-economic effects and long-term ecological consequences.
Integrating Indigenous knowledge
Indigenous ecological knowledge (often expressed in local languages) becomes accessible to regulators and engineers, enriching project planning.
For example, in the Eeyou Istchee territory of northern Québec, Cree land-users identified key factors influencing moose habitat quality, including climate, habitat features, and hunting activities. Their insights led to the development of fuzzy cognitive maps that informed forestry practices and wildlife-habitat models, ensuring that Indigenous knowledge was integrated into environmental planning and management.
Transparency through multilingual communication
Clear bilingual or trilingual updates, whether in English, French, and an Indigenous language, build transparency and reinforce shared stewardship of land, water, and wildlife. This kind of communication also prevents misinformation and fosters collective accountability for environmental protection.
Social (S): Building trust and safety
Language is central to cultural identity and social connection. By investing in translation and interpretation, companies create opportunities for genuine dialogue with communities. This is particularly important in Indigenous engagement, where trust is built through both actions and respect for language.
Worker health and safety
Translating health and safety materials ensures that Indigenous workers clearly understand procedures and reduces risks in emergency situations. Clear, culturally appropriate communication saves lives.
Social license
Respecting language rights demonstrates cultural awareness and fosters trust. Translating training materials and job postings can help reach out and retain staff who might otherwise have felt excluded, while also showing the community that the company was serious about reconciliation.
Participation in consultations
Language inclusion makes consultations genuinely participatory, allowing Elders, hunters, and knowledge keepers to engage on equal footing.
Proponents and their consultants must consider whether knowledge holders will be speaking in their Indigenous language and, if so, arrange for qualified interpretation and translation. Some Indigenous words cannot be easily translated into English or French, as they carry cultural and contextual meanings essential for transmitting knowledge. Translation should therefore go beyond one-word equivalents, including descriptions of terms and context provided by interpreters or translators chosen by the Indigenous community.
These practices not only preserve knowledge but also apply to regulatory hearings, where Indigenous participants may wish to speak in their own language.
Governance (G): Compliance and accountability
Clear communication is at the heart of good governance. Translation ensures that key information is accessible and transparent, supporting ethical business practices.
Evidence of consultation
Translation provides documented evidence of meaningful consultation, helping companies comply with legal and regulatory requirements. Regulators are increasingly seeking evidence that communities have had the opportunity to review materials in their own languages before decisions are made.
Accessible reporting
ESG reports, project updates, and consultation results translated into local languages demonstrate accountability and openness.
Informed decision-making
Stakeholders can fully understand and respond to corporate plans, making governance processes more democratic when information is effectively translated.
Risk management
Translations reduce misunderstandings, thus helping to prevent conflicts, legal challenges, and reputational harm.
Accountability to investors
Publishing reports and commitments in Indigenous languages signals accountability and boosts credibility with ESG-focused investors. This transparency shows that a company’s ESG claims are backed by genuine community engagement.
Case study: Agnico Eagle’s Meliadine Gold Project
Agnico Eagle’s Meliadine gold project in Nunavut faced scrutiny over its EIS, particularly concerning the integration of Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit (IQ) and the adequacy of Inuktitut translations. The Kivalliq Inuit Association and Nunavut Tunngavik Inc. criticized the draft EIS for its insufficient incorporation of traditional knowledge and the limited scope of Inuktitut translation. They argued that the translated sections were overly summarized, thereby hindering community members’ ability to engage thoroughly with the content.
This feedback highlights the importance of comprehensive and culturally sensitive translations in ensuring that communities can fully understand and participate in environmental assessments.
Why language inclusion and translation matter in mining now
Language inclusion transforms abstract ESG goals into the following tangible practices:
A meeting where an Elder feels heard.
A worker who can follow a procedure safely.
An environmental plan enriched by Indigenous knowledge.
Each of these moments builds trust and resilience, while reducing risks for the company.
Language is more than words. In mining, it serves as a foundation for responsibility, respect, and resilience — and is one of the most effective tools for advancing ESG goals.
In the era of ESG-driven accountability, businesses have an opportunity to recognize that language is not a barrier. It is a bridge. By investing in translation and language inclusion, ESG performance can be enhanced, and a deeper respect for the voices and worldviews of the communities they impact can be demonstrated.
Felicia Bratu is the operations manager of Wintranslation, in charge of quality delivery and client satisfaction. As a veteran who has worked in many roles at the company since 2003, Felicia oversees almost every aspect of the company’s operations, from recruitment to project management to localization engineering."
https://www.canadianminingjournal.com/featured-article/language-inclusion-and-translation-as-strategic-esg-tools/
#Metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus
#métaglossie
"An Iranian went on trial in France Tuesday accused of promoting "terrorism" on social media in a case linked to a possible prisoner swap with two French citizens held by the Islamic Republic for more than three and a half years.
Mahdieh Esfandiari, a 39-year-old Iranian working as a translator in the French city of Lyon, was arrested in France in February on charges of promoting and inciting "terrorism" on social media over comments she is said to have made, including on the Hamas-led October 7, 2023 attacks on Israel, according to French authorities.
Esfandiari was released in October pending her trial, whose date was scheduled long before the current protests erupted in Iran against the Iranian authorities.
"I'm here today to finally speak about the facts, as there have been a lot of wrong stories about me in the media, and a lot of lies," she said as she entered the courtroom for the four-day trial, in which several groups battling anti-Semitism are plaintiffs.
French citizens Cecile Kohler and Jacques Paris were arrested in Iran in May 2022, but they were freed in November after more than three years in prison on espionage charges their families vehemently denied.
They were immediately taken by French diplomats to France's mission in Tehran, but are still waiting to leave Iran.
Tehran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said in November that Iran would allow Kohler and Paris to return home in "exchange" for France freeing Esfandiari.
France has neither confirmed nor denied the existence of such an exchange deal.
But it has downsized its staff at its embassy in Tehran after mass protests erupted nationwide last week, in one of the biggest challenges to the clerical leadership since the 1979 Islamic revolution that ousted the shah.
Relatives of Paris and Kohler said that they were in good health and being well looked after by the remaining embassy staff.
The demonstrations have triggered a deadly crackdown by authorities and an internet blackout.
The death toll from the protests and brutal government crackdown has risen to at least 2,000 people killed, including more than 130 people affiliated with the government, the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency said Tuesday.
France has described Kohler and Paris as "state hostages" taken by Tehran in a bid to extract concessions. They were convicted on espionage charges their families have always condemned as fabricated.
Dozens of Europeans, North Americans and other Western citizens have been arrested in the last few years in similar circumstances.
Iran has previously carried out exchanges of Westerners for Iranians held by the West, but insists foreigners are convicted fully in line with the law.
(FRANCE 24 with AFP)"
https://www.france24.com/en/france/20260113-iranian-translator-stands-trial-in-france-over-social-media-posts-ahead-of-possible-prisoner-swap
#Metaglossia
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#métaglossie
"... Mendelsohn was interviewed about his translation process by the Epoch Times, discussing what it was like to translate a well-known poem with over 60 previous translations. He says that Homer’s works are “fundamental to our understanding of what it means to be human and understanding our own cultural traditions.” His translation, which matches the meter of the original poem, treats the story as “universal but [...] also the reflection of a particular moment, a particular language, a particular mindset.”
Mendelsohn’s previous book An Odyssey: A Father, a Son, and an Epic, a memoir of teaching The Odyssey to his father, was named a Best Book of the Year by NPR, Newsday, Library Journal, and others. He teaches in Bard’s Literature program.
The Literature Program at Bard emphasizes cultural, linguistic, and geographic diversity, challenging national, cultural, and disciplinary boundaries"
https://www.bard.edu/news/daniel-mendelsohn-speaks-to-the-epoch-times-about-his-translation-of-the-odyssey-2026-01-12
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#métaglossie
"Translator hopes to turn Cherokee speakers into readers, writers
BY CHAD HUNTER Senior Reporter
TAHLEQUAH – Cherokee is Dennis Sixkiller’s first spoken language, but it wasn’t until the early 2000s that he learned to read and write it.
Now, the 72-year-old translation specialist is determined to teach that rare and time-consuming skill to fellow first-language speakers.
“I’ve got my syllabary, and we’re working on it,” said fluent speaker Charles Levi, 77, of Coweta, Oklahoma. “It’s a long, long, you might say, event, to be a speaker and a writer. It hasn’t been that prevalent in our near past. It’s because they think maybe there’s no use for it. So, many people just swing right on over to English. We’re all guilty of that.”
Cherokee speakers began routinely gathering in 2007 to simply visit and talk in their ancestral language. But as the monthly “speakers’ bureau meetings” evolved, Sixkiller saw a need to include the written word via the Cherokee syllabary.
“Now, I try to teach them how to read and write Cherokee because the majority of them that are speakers, they don’t read and write,” he said. “I was in that category for many years, but I learned it. Actually, I think a lot of them were like I was at one time – there’s 86 characters in Cherokee, and they thought it might be too hard to learn. A lot of them do want to but sometimes it takes a little time.”
Fluent Cherokee speakers share a meal Jan. 8 at the Durbin Feeling Language Center during a monthly get-together.
Sixkiller, from Jay, grew up with Cherokee as his first spoken language and wasn’t exposed to English until grade school. He later learned to read and write the Cherokee syllabary in 2001 through classes with Cherokee linguist Durbin Feeling.
Named after Feeling, who died in 2020, the largest language investment in Cherokee history began six years ago with passage of the Durbin Feeling Language Act. Since then, nearly $70 million has been invested in language-related capital projects.
Children are taught Cherokee at the Immersion School inside the language center; a middle school for grades four through eight is being constructed nearby. And through the tribe’s 10-year-old Master Apprentice Program, a steady stream of second-language Cherokee learners has been flowing.
“There are some that really want to learn,” Sixkiller said. “I want people to learn. I really do.”
For his fellow first-language speakers, Sixkiller, a Cherokee National Treasure, is intent on teaching them to also read and write in Cherokee.
“That’s my goal. I’ve been teaching off and on throughout the years … but starting today, I’m really going to teach them how to read and write,” he said. “I’m going to take it real slow and make sure they’re learning. They’d be amazed what they can do with the language if they learn how to read and write.”
The latest Cherokee Language Speakers Bureau, held Jan. 8 at the Cherokee Nation Durbin Feeling Language Center in Tahlequah, saw speakers – mostly elders – singing and chatting in their language.
“We get together once a month and just share and talk so we won’t forget our language,” said Tribal Councilor Melvina Shotpouch, a first-language Cherokee speaker. “It’s so good to be able to converse with those that are still first speakers. There’s not many of them left.”
The Cherokee Nation Language Department estimates there are fewer than 1,500 first-language, fluent Cherokee speakers. Sixkiller, a Cherokee Nation translation specialist, has moderated the monthly meetings since 2007, noting that “there are many, many” Cherokee speakers who have passed on since then.
In August, CN Deputy Secretary of State Canaan Duncan called the Cherokee Language Speakers Bureau “a powerful bridge connecting our ancestral culture to the future of our people.”
“The work the group does is more than just preservation,” he added. “It’s also about fostering fellowship among our elders, exchanging ideas and nurturing connections when many speakers are separated by time and distance.”
Fluent speakers also meet routinely with language custodians from the other two federally-recognized Cherokee tribes to compose words for objects and concepts historically unknown to Cherokees.
“We probably have about 3,000, 4,000 words that we’ve translated to modern terms,” Sixkiller said. “Some of the words we don’t have. We didn’t have one for pizza in Cherokee, so we put it ga-du as-ti-tla-nv-i, like bread with something on it or mixed within bread, if you want to literally say it in Cherokee. That’s the way we do a lot of other words – computer, that sort of stuff.”
In addition to teaching the language, Sixkiller has promoted it over the airwaves for more than two decades on the tribe’s weekly radio show called “Cherokee Voices, Cherokee Sounds.” Primarily broadcast in the Cherokee language, the weekly program features songs, language lessons, news, traditional stories and one-on-one interviews with Cherokee elders."
https://www.cherokeephoenix.org/culture/translator-hopes-to-turn-cherokee-speakers-into-readers-writers/article_3f25395b-5ee1-40a6-9d0a-a14d4502867d.html
#Metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus
#métaglossie
"“Is It Good?”: AI Tools, the Practice of Translating, and Intercultural Communication.
January 26 @ 6:30 pm - 8:00 pm
Free
Dr. Russell Valentino explores translation as a distinct practice that provides key insights into uses of generative AI. As a mode of writing at the interstices of analysis and “pure” creativity, translation combines research and invention with the need to convey messages across linguistic, historical, and cultural boundaries in a manner that is not just accurate but also effective. How do we recognize when we’ve failed or succeeded? How do we predict that one strategy is more or less likely to move our intended audience? The answers to such questions help to provide a limit case for the use of generative AI not just in translating but in other areas of inquiry as well.
Dr. Valentino’s talk will be followed by Q&A with the audience. Co-sponsored by the First Year Seminar Program, the Institute for Global Engagement, and the Global Languages & Cultures Program at Saint Michael’s College."
https://www.smcvt.edu/event/is-it-good-ai-tools-the-practice-of-translating-and-intercultural-communication/
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AMES, Iowa – Think, know, understand, remember.These are just a few of the mental verbs we use every day to describe what happens in a person’s mind. But when using these same words to talk about artificial intelligence, we can unintentionally make AI sound human.
"Iowa State researchers are studying how we use anthropomorphizing language – or words that give human traits to non-human things – when writing about artificial intelligence. Their findings, the researchers report, can help technical and professional communication practitioners reflect on how they think about AI technologies, both as tools in their writing process and in how they write about AI.
These are just a few of the mental verbs we use every day to describe what happens in a person’s mind. But when using these same words to talk about artificial intelligence, we can unintentionally make AI sound human.
“We use mental verbs all the time in our daily lives, so it makes sense that we might also use them when we talk about machines – it helps us relate to them,” said Jo Mackiewicz, professor of English at Iowa State. “But at the same time, when we apply mental verbs to machines, there’s also a risk of blurring the line between what humans and AI can do.”
Mackiewicz and Jeanine Aune, teaching professor of English and director of the advanced communication program at Iowa State, are members of a research team that recently examined how writers use anthropomorphizing language – or words that give human traits to non-human things – when writing about AI systems. The findings of their new study, “Anthropomorphizing Artificial Intelligence: A Corpus Study of Mental Verbs Used with AI and ChatGPT,” were published in Technical Communication Quarterly.
The research team also included Matthew J. Baker, associate professor of linguistics at Brigham Young University, and Jordan Smith, assistant professor of English at the University of Northern Colorado. Both Baker and Smith are graduates of Iowa State University.
How mental verbs can be misleading
Anthropomorphizing mental verbs can be misleading when used to describe AI because it suggests that machines have human‑like inner lives, Mackiewicz and Aune said. Words like “think,” “know,” “understand” and “want” suggest beliefs, desires or consciousness. But AI systems don’t have any of these; they generate outputs based on patterns, not feelings or intentions.
Mackiewicz and Aune also noted that mental verbs can inadvertently exaggerate AI’s abilities. For example, writing “AI decided” or “ChatGPT knows” may make the system sound more autonomous or intelligent than it is and distort expectations of what it can safely or reliably do. And if we talk about AI as if it has intentions, the two ISU researchers added, it can become easier to overlook the real decision-makers: the people who design, train, deploy and oversee AI systems.
“Certain anthropomorphic phrases may even stick in readers’ minds and can potentially shape public perception of AI in unhelpful ways,” Aune said.
Words on words
In their research, Mackiewicz, Aune and team used the News on the Web (NOW) corpus, a 20-billion-word-plus dataset that features a constantly updated collection of English-language news articles from 20 countries, to study how often news writers pair anthropomorphizing mental verbs – like learns, means and knows – with the terms AI and ChatGPT.
Jo Mackiewicz, professor of English at Iowa State University. Photo by Christopher Gannon/Iowa State University.
The results, Mackiewicz and Aune said, surprised the research team.
In their analysis, the team identified three key findings:
1. The terms AI and ChatGPT are infrequently paired with mental verbs in news articles.
While there isn’t a single definitive study of overall anthropomorphism in spoken vs. written language, the research we do have offers us some clues, Mackiewicz said. “Anthropomorphism has been shown to be common in everyday speech, but we found there’s far less usage in news writing,” she said.
In the research team’s analysis, “needs” was identified as the mental verb most frequently paired with the term AI, occurring a total of 661 times, while “knows” was the mental verb most frequently paired with the term ChatGPT, occurring just 32 times.
Mackiewicz and Aune also noted that Associated Press guidelines to avoid attaching human emotions to capabilities to AI models may have impacted how often news writers used mental verbs with the terms AI and Chat GPT in recent years.
2. When the terms AI and ChatGPT were paired with mental verbs, they weren’t necessarily anthropomorphized.
The research team’s analysis found that writers used the mental verb “needs,” for example, in two main ways when discussing AI. In many instances, “needs” simply described what AI requires to function, such as “AI needs large amounts of data” or “AI needs some human assistance.” These uses weren’t anthropomorphic because they treated AI the same way we talk about other non‑human systems – “the car needs gas” or “the soup needs salt.”
Second, writers sometimes used “needs” in a way that suggested an obligation to do or be something – “AI needs to be trained” or “AI needs to be implemented.” Aune said many of these instances were written in passive voice, which shifted responsibility back to humans, not AI.
3. Anthropomorphization with mental verbs exists on a spectrum.
Mackiewicz and Aune said the research team also discovered there were times the usage of “needs” edged into more human‑like territory. Some sentences – “AI needs to understand the real world,” for example – implied expectations or qualities associated with people, such as fairness, ethics or a personal understanding of the world we live in.
“These instances showed that anthropomorphizing isn’t all‑or‑nothing and instead exists on a spectrum,” Aune said.
Jeanine Aune, teaching professor of English and director of the advanced communication program at Iowa State University. Photo courtesy of Jeanine Aune.
Writing the future
“Overall, our analysis shows that anthropomorphization of AI in news writing is far less common – and far more nuanced – than we might think,” Mackiewicz said. “Even the instances that did anthropomorphize AI varied widely in strength.”
The study’s findings, Mackiewicz and Aune said, underscore the importance of looking beyond surface-level verb counts and considering how meaning comes from context.
“For writers, this nuance matters: the language we choose shapes how readers understand AI systems, their capabilities and the humans responsible for them,” Mackiewicz said.
“Our findings can help technical and professional communication practitioners reflect on how they think about AI technologies as tools in their writing process and how they write about AI,” the research team wrote in the published study.
And as AI technologies continue to evolve, writers will continually need to consider how word choices may frame those technologies, Mackiewicz and Aune said.
Future research, the team concluded, “could examine the anthropomorphizing impact of different words and their senses” and “look at whether or not infrequent usage has an outsized effect on how people, including news writers and other professional communicators, think about AI.”
Contact
Jo Mackiewicz, English, jomack@iastate.edu, 515-294-8273
Jeanine Aune, English, jeaune@iastate.edu, 515-294-3606
Lisa Schmitz, News Service, lisaschm@iastate.edu, 515-294-0704"
https://www.news.iastate.edu/news/are-we-giving-ai-pulse-through-language
#Metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus
Margarita Savchenkova•University of Salamanca, Research Group TRADICTranslating Indigenous knowledges: Toward a sensuous translation,Mª Carmen África Vidal Claramonte, London and New York: Routledge, 2024, 222 pp., €43.99 (paperback) ISBN 9781032866987, €35.19 (ebook) ISBN 9781003528630.The field of Translation Studies is currently witnessing a growing interdisciplinary and epistemological openness. This shift is encouraging many researchers to reflect more deeply on how the core concept of our discipline can be applied beyond the interlinguistic—and even beyond the linguistic—realm. Such is the case with África Vidal Claramonte’s book, Translating Indigenous Knowledges: Toward a Sensuous Translation, which explores the notion of ‘sensuous translation’as a framework for engaging with indigenous worldviews. Through this work, Vidal Claramontechallenges traditional Western epistemologiesand examines how translation can illuminate new ways of knowing, particularly withinindigenous contexts. The resultis arigorously argued, interdisciplinarymonographthat will undoubtedly be of interest not only to translation scholars but also to researchersin anthropology and sensory studies.1In the introduction, Vidal Claramonte outlines the overall trajectory of her monograph, which unfolds across four chapters. The author situates her studywithin a broad range of theoretical frameworks that have been instrumental in shaping the aforementioned EPISTRAN project, such as Piotr Blumczynski’s(2023) and Douglas Robinson’s (2017)‘translationality’, Michael Cronin’s (2017) ‘eco-translation’, and Kobus Marais’s (2019) ‘(bio)semiotic translation’.Her focus, she explains, is on indigenous knowledges, cosmovisions, and worldviews, as well as on forms of translation that extend beyond the strictly linguistic. In doing so, she seeks to move past reductionist dichotomies such as the body/mind divide, emphasizing instead the central role of the body, objects, experiences, senses, and emotions, elements that become the principal agents in the translations she examines.Translation, in Vidal Claramonte’s approach, is never static or definitive; it is rhizomatic in the sense of Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari (1980[1987]), and recalls the medieval notion of translatioas movement. She conceives translation as a weaving of“knots, threads, colors, and bodies in movement” (p. 3), as ‘shamanic translation’, •margsav@usal.es1Notably, the reviewed book appears on the website https://www.sensorystudies.org/books-of-note/, which features works of interest in the field.
Savchenkova, M. -Translating sensuouslyTranslation Matters, 7(2), 2025, pp. 192-195, DOI: https://doi.org/10.21747/21844585/tm7_2r3193‘translation as equivocation’,and ‘total translation’. These modes are explored in depth across the book’s chapters, each illuminated through carefully selected case studies.The openingchapter, titled ‘A knowledge of many knowledges’, immerses readersin the world of shamanic translations, practices that are creative, fluid, and perpetually in motion. Long marginalizedby what has beentermed ‘epistemicide’(Bennett,2007, 2023, 2024; Santos,2014, 2016; Price,2023), these translations are particularly compelling because they allow us to apprehend the world—or rather, worlds—beyond binary oppositions, the so-called ‘one-world world’(Law,2015), and Eurocentric globalization.Within this context, Gloria Anzaldúa’s(2002)notion of conocimiento—“a theory of knowledge from intuition” (p. 27)—becomes especially significant. Translation, in her view, operatesthrough the body, emotions, and senses, directly challenging rational, scientific Western conceptions of knowledge. Vidal Claramonte underscores how, for Anzaldúa, connecting with nature positions translation as an experiential, embodied practice. Building on this perspective, she turns to Carlos Castaneda’s (1968[1985]) The Teachings of Don Juanand to the shamanic narratives of Davi Kopenawa(Kopenawa and Albert, 2013), guiding readers into the world of shamans and their epistemic translations of the universe, in which “feeling is the most complete way of accessing knowledge” (p. 38).Through these examples, Vidal Claramonte highlights the centrality of the senses and affirmsthe relevance of the sensory turn and sensory studies (see Howes,2022) for contemporary translation theory.The second chapter, ‘Expanding translation’, opens with the idea that the sensuous knowledges introduced in the first chaptercannot be translated through traditional Western methods. Translation, the author argues,must go beyond words, beyond the search for equivalenceand mere reproduction; it shouldbe conceived as difference, as equivocation, and as a form of communication that can extend between human and non-human beings. Suchapproaches are essential for conveying knowledges grounded in sensory experience.As the authorexplains, in the context ofindigenous knowledges, a range of anthropological theories can further enrich our transdisciplinary understanding of translation. Among these areAnne Taylor’s (2015) concept of ‘shamanic translation’between humans and nature; Eduardo Viveiros de Castro’s (2004) idea of ‘translation as equivocation’, which challenges univocality and equivalence; Boaventura de Sousa Santos’s (2014, 2016) notion of ‘intercultural translation’, framedas a “way of avoiding the epistemicide of non-Western knowledge” (p. 88); and Jerome Rothenberg’s (1962[1981]) ‘total translation’, which involves performing ethnopoetrybeyond language, engaging all the senses.Building on the theoretical discussions and examples presented in the previous chapters, the third chapter, titled ‘Translating through the senses: Cecilia Vicuña’, turns its focus exclusively onto the Chilean artist Cecilia Vicuña. Through her works, deeply influenced by indigenous practices, Vicuña demonstrates the central role of the senses and the body in translation processes. Her artworks themselves function as translations,
Savchenkova, M.-Translating sensuouslyTranslation Matters, 7(2), 2025, pp. 192-195, DOI: https://doi.org/10.21747/21844585/tm7_2r3194transforming ideas and stories from one materiality into another. Among these, quipus—threads or cords—stand out as tangible translations of narratives, allowing viewers to engage directly with indigenous knowledges and Andean cosmovisions. Vidal Claramonte carefully shows how Vicuña’sart embodiestactile modes of translating‘reality’, fostering connectionswith the ancestral and the natural, and enabling communication beyond language.In the final chapter, ‘Toward a sensuous translation’, the authoronce again underscores the extensive work of translating indigenous knowledges highlighted throughout the book, emphasizing that knowledge is acquired through the senses, the body, and in connection with the natural world. Withinthis perspective, translation emerges as a “sensuous journey between worlds inhabited by humans, non-humans, and extrahumans” (p. 168). To capture this dimension, Vidal Claramontecoins the concept of ‘sensuous translation’: a mode of translation enacted through the senses, through the sensory expressions of experience, always dynamic and operating on multiple levels. This form of translation, inherently creative and unique to each person, offers a means of engaging with knowledge beyond the universalizingandcolonial frameworks that seek to dominate and homogenize.Overall, as in Vidal Claramonte’s other recent monographs—Translation and Contemporary Art: Transdisciplinary Encounters(2022) and Translation and Objects: Rewriting Migrancy and Displacement through the Materiality of Art(2025)—this book offers a wealth of material for reflection. In line with the expanding interdisciplinary scope of Translation Studies, it invites a deeper appreciation of translation’s relevance across diverse academic fields, thereby enhancingour understanding of the concept itself. In Translating Indigenous Knowledges, Vidal Claramonte opens a profoundly emotional worldby presenting the work of various indigenous sensuous translators, united by a common aim: to free translation from binary thinking and to reveal the beauty and richness of translating not merely difference, but through difference, translating with the senses.REFERENCESAnzaldúa, G. (2002) ‘Now let us shift ... the path of conocimiento ... inner work, public acts’in Anzaldúa, G.and Keatin, A.(eds.) This bridge we call home: Radical visions for social transformation. New York: Routledge, pp. 540–578.Bennett, K. (2007) ‘Epistemicide!: The tale of a predatory discourse’, The Translator, 13(2), pp. 151–169. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/13556509.2007.10799236.Bennett, K. (2023) ‘Translating knowledge in the multilingual paradigm: beyond epistemicide’, Social Science Information, 62(4), pp. 514–532. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1177/05390184231222807.Bennett, K. (2024) ‘Epistemic translation: towards an ecology of knowledges’, Perspectives[in press], pp. 1–16. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/0907676X.2023.2294123.Blumczynski, P. (2023) Experiencing translationality: material and metaphorical journeys. New York: Routledge.Castaneda, C. (1968[1981]) The teachings of don Juan. New York: Simon & Schuster.
https://ojs.letras.up.pt/index.php/tm/article/view/15736/13756
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#metaglossia_mundus
Imagining ourselves in the shoes of the other affords necessary perspective for effective verbal, written, or physical communication exchange.
"E. Paul Zehr Ph.D.
Updated January 10, 2026
Reviewed by Monica Vilhauer Ph.D.
Key points
Communication spans everything from words to physical actions.
Effective communication requires understanding the perspective and intention of those we interact with.
Translation of words, concepts, and actions requires functional interpretation, not literal representation.
Putting ourselves in the shoes of the other affords necessary perspective for effective communication.
Led Zeppelin warned us about the perils of misunderstood communications in relationships. Failing to translate what we are trying to say or do so that someone else gets it is the root of so many problems. But translation is a fantastic find when it goes right. Here are some things I've learned about translating meaning from a lifetime of speaking numerous languages, practicing a wide array of martial arts, and communicating science.
Meaning or intention?
"Das ist nicht mein Bier" is an expression I learned while taking German 101 in 1988 as an undergraduate. We were taught it was a Bavarian colloquialism meaning "that's not my problem." Literally, the words say, "That is not my beer." This trivial expression was something I have kept in mind ever since. It was a game-changer for how I thought about communication and translation. It's about meaning and context and understanding culture, not just about words. Keeping this in mind has served me very well when trying to communicate and navigate cultures, especially during interactions with Japanese colleagues and martial artists. It's always about what the intention is, not just what was said, asked, or stated.
Translating intention
I have studied a variety of martial arts in my lifetime, dabbling in about 9 traditions and diving more deeply into 6 martial arts from Japan, Okinawa, and China. I am fascinated by how similar concepts are expressed in different martial arts. It's about movement, not words, but it really is an issue of translation and communication. It's just that instead of translating a question like "what train are you trying to catch" it becomes one of "how are you going to defend against this punch coming at your face"? It is all about functional representation and how this is maintained in different forms across cultures and traditions.
Also the language used to describe physical actions needs nuance. Martial arts (Kung Fu) spread from China to strongly influence Okinawan (Toudi) and Japanese (Karate) traditions. But key core concepts seem to have been dropped along the way. For instance, total body power is a critical variable in the mastery of martial arts. In Japanese Karate, and subsequently most North American and European representations, there is a fixation on "the hips," which at first glance seems to hark back to recommendations from Chinese martial arts. Yet as I tried to reconcile teachings in Okinawan and Japanese Karate with my more recent experiences with Chinese Bagua Zhang, Xing Yi Chuan and Wing Chun Kuen, I discovered a disconnect. We blithely say "hips" which is actually meant to be "waist". And in many Chinese writings and teachings, "waist" means from just below the ribs to just above the knees. This hugely alters teaching and training and renders them much more functional. It comes down to shifting from asking "what was said" to the more useful "what was meant".
It's a matter of perspective
An interpretation of simultaneous attack and defense in Wing Chun Kung Fu.Source: Courtesy of Mike Goldsworthy
Over the years I have done a pretty extensive amount of science communication in blog posts, podcasts, interviews, and books. Science communication at its core is about taking concepts many find difficult to understand and rephrasing them in such a way that they are engaging and accessible. I think the key to that is making sure people are interested in a bridging metaphor, which is why so much of my writing has focused on using superheroes as vehicles for transfer and science translation. But a key thing I had to learn when I wrote a young adult book was to avoid the trap of just simplifing language instead of trying to understand a very different perspective. When I give talks about science communication, I illustrate this point by literally walking into the audience seating area, turning around and sitting there. This is the perspective you have to adopt if you want to be on the other side effectively sharing knowledge.
If we really want to be understood, we have to authentically appreciate and engage with the perspective of those we are trying to reach. This is why simple language translation like that found in "Google Translate" and the like fail so often. They provide literal translations that miss the subtlety of context and functional meaning.
The main take away here is that if we truly want people to understand us, we must try to understand them and communicate in a way that they respect, appreciate, and understand. If we do that, our meaning truly won't get lost in translation and we will gain a deeper understanding of ourselves and those we are hoping to reach."
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/black-belt-brain/202510/dont-get-lost-in-translation
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"The Israel Translators Association is pleased to invite its members and the wider community of translators to participate in its annual conference. This year, the conference will be held under the theme The Future of the Translation Profession in the Age of Artificial Intelligence...
The 2026 ITA hybrid translation conference will focus on one of the most urgent needs of today’s language professionals: practical, applicable knowledge for working effectively - and responsibly - with artificial intelligence in real-world translation environments.
While public discussion about AI often remains theoretical or speculative, the conference places its emphasis squarely on practice. The program will introduce participants to concrete methods, case studies, and professional tools designed to support quality, security, and strategic decision-making in everyday translation work.
Conference sessions will explore a range of hands-on topics, including prompt engineering for translation and editing tasks, smarter and more structured approaches to post-editing, quality-control methodologies, workflow optimization, secure information handling, and professional risk assessment when using automated systems.
Alongside the technical dimension, the program will address the business and professional aspects of working in an AI-supported environment. Participants will be exposed to new perspectives on freelance business management, marketing and positioning strategies, translator training and skill development, and models of human–AI collaboration that enhance - rather than replace - professional expertise.
Speakers will present real case studies drawn from ongoing translation and localization projects, providing participants with tangible examples of how AI tools can be integrated into professional workflows in a thoughtful and controlled manner. The goal is not to encourage blind adoption of technology, but to support informed, critical decision-making.
A key theme of the conference is the idea that technology becomes valuable only when paired with professional judgment. Through discussions and practical demonstrations, the event will highlight situations where automation can streamline work — as well as those where human expertise remains essential for accuracy, context, and ethical responsibility.
For translators and interpreters seeking to enhance their capabilities, improve efficiency, and strengthen their professional toolkit, the conference offers a rare opportunity to acquire tools and insights that can be implemented immediately.
By the end of the day, participants are expected to leave with a clearer strategic framework for working with AI — transforming technology into a meaningful asset rather than an external force of disruption.
Media Contact
Company Name: Israel Translators Association
Contact Person: Uri Bruck
Email: Send Email
Country: Israel
Website: https://ita.org.il/en/ita-2026-conference-the-future-of-the-translation-profession-in-the-age-of-artificial-intelligence-speakers-and-talks/
https://markets.financialcontent.com/stocks/article/abnewswire-2026-1-11-ai-and-the-future-of-the-translation-profession-translation-conference-to-deliver-practical-ai-workflows-case-studies-and-real-world-professional-tools
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A newly-developed cipher could finally shine light on how the strange text of the Voynich manuscript was devised.
"The Voynich manuscript—a mysterious medieval book that has defied translation for centuries—may have been created using a special code developed with the help of cards and dice, a new study suggests.
Named for Wilfrid Voynich, the Polish book dealer who purchased it in 1912, the manuscript's bizarre text is now thought to have been made using a cipher involving randomized elements.
Dating back to the 15th century, the manuscript contains about 38,000 words written in its unknown language, as well as unusual images including depictions of unknown plants, astrological symbols and even naked women bathing, in what some believe to be a representation of biological themes. The work is now housed in the collections at Yale University.
In the study, published in the journal Cryptologia, science journalist Michael Greshko suggests that a cipher which he calls "Naibbe," inspired by a 14th-century Italian card game, could shine a light on how the manuscript's text was made.
The Naibbe cipher uses a combination of dice rolls and playing cards to turn normal language into symbols that resemble those featured in the manuscript’s glyphs.
While the cipher doesn’t decode the Voynichese text, it provides a possible method to understand how it may have been created.
Naibbe works by rolling a die to break up the word into smaller parts. Then it draws a card to determine which of six different tables is used to encrypt the letters into Voynichese.
Over the years many theories have been made about the Voynich manuscript's meaning, with some believing it to be a medieval hoax.
Recent efforts to decode the manuscript have included using advanced machine learning techniques and other computerized artificial intelligence, which have failed to crack the code.
Greshko's Naibbe cipher is one of the closest attempts yet. Speaking to Live Science, he said that the Naibbe cipher is almost certainly not the way that the manuscript was constructed, but it provides a fully documented way to reliably go between Latin and "something that behaves kind of like the Voynich manuscript."
René Zandbergen, a renowned Voynich expert who was not directly involved in Greshko's study, cautioned that we should not assume it is the exact method used to make it, adding that he’s still unsure about whether the text has an actual meaning or it is indeed a hoax.
Do you have a tip on a science story that Newsweek should be covering? Do you have a question about Voynich manuscript? Let us know via science@newsweek.com.
Reference
Greshko, M. A. (2025). The Naibbe cipher: A substitution cipher that encrypts Latin and Italian as Voynich Manuscript-like ciphertext. Cryptologia. https://doi.org/10.1080/01611194.2025.2566408";
January 07, 2026
Maria Azzurra Volpe
https://www.newsweek.com/voynich-manuscript-15th-century-book-cards-dice-cipher-naibbe-11316017
#Metaglossia
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"‘This week, there were two stories featuring artificial intelligence (AI) and the work of translators that illustrate how the technology is changing the publishing ecosystem, perhaps both negatively and positively.
As Talita Facchini noted in her year-end piece, “Amid rapid technological change, 2025 also brought renewed attention to one of publishing’s most essential — and often under-supported — communities: translators.”
“Debates around AI, language dominance, and geopolitical polarization raised fundamental questions about whose stories travel, who enables that movement, and under what conditions. Translation increasingly emerged not as a technical step, but as a form of cultural stewardship, trust-building, and long-term international exchange.”
The first is a story which many media outlets* covered earlier this week prompted by a letter sent by the ATLF (French Association of Literary Translators) and the Collective “In Flesh and Bone: For Human Translation” noting that Harlequin/HarperCollins France has hired Fluent Planet, a communications company which specializes in translation, that will be using machine translation software for their books. According to the letter, the “stated objective is to increase profitability by reducing working time.”
“These practices are a betrayal of book workers, but also a betrayal of readers. They completely devalue the translation industry, showing contempt for both translators and readers,” the letter notes.
“They set in motion a downward spiral of publishing quality, driven by a harmful ‘good enough’ mentality that robs book workers of their expertise and creativity, and deprives readers of access to vibrant and humane literature.”
The letter goes on to note that this decision comes with immediate implementation, so translators, many of whom have had decades-long contracts for this work, are suddenly left without an income or ability to claim unemployment benefits. This decision could cause great impact not only on the quality of the books being published, but also on an entire community of publishing professionals who rely on this work.
Alternately, the other story this week that may draw some raised eyebrows is the use of AI translation to battle another challenge in the industry—piracy. This piece on Nikkai Asia, highlights the growing problem of piracy in manga and what Japan’s Agency for Cultural Affairs is doing to prevent it.
Authorized Books of Japan (ABJ), a publishers’ association that works to protect copyright and fight piracy, released a report noting that they identified 900 piracy sites featuring Japanese publications which received 2.8 billion visits from 123 countries and regions in June 2025 alone. These pirated copies of popular manga titles are costing publishers $55 billion a year.
What prompts this piracy does not appear to be purely because fans do not want to pay for the work, it is that manga translation has not kept up with demand from this eager and engaged audience.
To combat this problem, the Agency for Cultural Affairs has created a program that will use AI to help with the translation – not only will they teach specialized translation techniques and how to leverage AI for translation, they are supporting the creation of AI tools for translating manga. They are working with universities, vocational schools and industry groups to develop this program.
Mantra, a startup at the University of Tokyo which is supported by publishers Shueisha and Shogakukan, offers a tool that can translate entire works, including characters’ speech style and story setting. According to the story, “Mantra supports 18 languages and can cut translation times in half compared with conventional methods. It is already translating 200,000 pages per month.”
Both with the Fluent Planet and Mantra, human intervention is required to check the accuracy, tone, and fluency of the AI translation.
These two situations are not unique. More publishing companies are turning to AI not only for translation but also audio production, writing, and more creative work. As the industry continues testing ways to implement this technology, many roles that currently exist in the industry will grow, change, and, perhaps, decline. What both of these stories highlight is that there must be consideration of the reader. Quality should not be sacrificed and, as Facchini notes, the industry must consider the role of translators in “cultural stewardship, trust-building, and long-term international exchange.”
*For more coverage of the Harlequin/HarperCollins France story, visit Bookbrunch, The Bookseller, Jane Friedman, LitHub, Livres Hebdo, Publishers Lunch, and Publishers Weekly.
By Erin L. Cox, Publisher | @erinlcox
https://publishingperspectives.com/2026/01/the-future-of-translation-ai-and-the-greater-good/
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Justice Prabha Sridevan discusses the emotional intricacies and challenges of translating Imayam's works at The Hindu Lit for Life 2026.
"Translator has to be functionally true to the author, says Justice Prabha Sridevan
January 17, 2026
B. Kolappan
Translating the works of Imayam is an emotional experience and a form of catharsis, said Justice Prabha Sridevan, who has translated four books by the Sahitya Akademi Award–winning writer.
“He asked me whether I would go through the same pain that he had experienced. I said yes,” Ms. Sridevan said in conversation with journalist Kavitha Muralidharan on the Joys and Challenges of Translating Imayam at The Hindu Lit for Life 2026.
She said she had to remain functionally true to the author and ensure that the reader experienced a significant degree of the pain and anguish she herself felt during the process of translation.
When Kavitha Muralidharan asked about the challenges faced by a translator — particularly since the English reader enters the work during the act of translation — Ms. Sridevan said, “I hear the words in Tamil when I read, and I hear them in English when I translate them into English.” She reiterated that she translated the works not as Justice Prabha Sridevan, but as Ms. Prabha Sridevan.
Describing her collaboration with Mr. Imayam during the translation process as a “lovely journey”, she said her chief concern was the possibility of misunderstanding elements related to tradition and custom, which are not easily translated. She pointed out that neither Begetter in English nor Le Père in French could fully capture the meaning of the Tamil word Pethavan (father).
No area of the Constitution should be immune from judicial review, says former CJI D.Y. Chandrachud
She added that Mr. Imayam himself was unhappy with the English title Salt Seller for Uppu Vandikaran, as it suggests a stationary shopkeeper. By contrast, a salt vendor conveys movement — someone who pulls a cart and travels from place to place. “Vendor alone gives mobility to the word Uppu Vandikaran,” she said.
Responding to a question on whether her familiarity with the author and the text made her prone to overlooking details, Ms. Sridevan said she did not read the text as a reader. “I do not overlook even a comma. Every word is an adventure. If I overlook anything, I fail as a translator,” she said.
Ms. Sridevan also clarified that the objective of translation was not to make the work read better. “Something is always lost in translation. It is like carrying water in your hands — however careful you are, some water will spill,” she said.
Kavitha Muralidharan observed that retaining the author’s voice was essential and that the translator could not afford to intrude upon the text.
Ms. Muralidharan opened the session by quoting Mr. Imayam’s social media post: “I understand life as I write, and as I write, life itself becomes writing.”
Mr. Imayam said that words overheard often became the origin for his stories. He recalled how, at a recent funeral, a father’s cry at the graveyard — “How will I go home alone without you? (his son)” — had become an obsession.
He said that once he began writing a story, he lost himself in the process and became the characters he created. “I become the Arokyam of Koverukazhuthaikal. I become Sedal. But once the book goes to print, the story and the characters leave me. Then, like a beggar, I begin searching for new stories,” he said.
His advice to aspiring writers was simple: “Follow writing as though your parents begot you for that purpose.”"
https://www.thehindu.com/lit-for-life/imayam-and-prabha-sridevan-convo-with-kavitha-muralidharan-lfl/article70481852.ece
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#métaglossie