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Charles Tiayon
January 21, 6:15 AM
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"For African enterprises navigating global business, the question has shifted from whether to use AI translation to which system to trust when accuracy affects contracts, compliance, and customer relationships. The global AI translation market is expanding from $1.20 billion in 2024 to $4.50 billion by 2033 at 16.5% CAGR. Despite 70% of global businesses integrating AI translation by 2025, a trust gap persists: advanced AI tools achieve only 60-85% accuracy versus professional human translation’s 95%+ accuracy. How Do You Trust AI Translation When You Don’t Speak the Target Language?
For African enterprises expanding across the continent’s 54 countries and 2,000+ languages, or engaging with international partners, this challenge is particularly acute. Decision-makers regularly need to approve critical translations, contracts, compliance documents, and product specifications in languages they don’t understand. The traditional approach has been frustratingly inefficient: copy text into Google Translate, then DeepL, then maybe ChatGPT, manually comparing outputs and hoping for the best. “The biggest issue isn’t that AI makes mistakes, it’s that you can’t easily tell when it’s wrong unless you speak the target language,” noted a user in the r/LanguageTechnology Reddit community, where translation professionals frequently discuss the challenges of trusting single AI engines. This sentiment echoes across enterprise technology discussions throughout 2024 and 2025, as businesses grapple with the practical reality of deploying AI translation at scale. MachineTranslation.com’s newly launched SMART (consensus translation) feature offers a fundamentally different approach: instead of asking which single AI engine is best, it answers which translation multiple independent engines agree is correct. SMART provides the most trusted translation by comparing the outputs of 22 AI models. It automatically selects the version that the majority of AIs agree on for each sentence. This drastically reduces risk and cuts AI translation errors by 90%. This verification-first methodology represents what industry experts are calling the most significant advancement in machine translation reliability since neural networks became mainstream. What Is AI Translation Hallucination and Why Does It Matter?
AI hallucinations in translation occur when systems generate fluent, grammatically correct content containing factual inaccuracies or fabricated information. A 2025 Scientific Reports study analyzing 3 million mobile app reviews found 1.75% of user complaints were about hallucination-like errors. In enterprise deployments, 47% of AI users in 2024 made at least one major decision based on hallucinated content, while 39% of AI-powered customer service bots were reworked due to hallucination errors. For translation, hallucinations manifest as dropped words, fabricated facts, and terminology drift—especially in low-resource African languages. MIT’s analysis shows hallucinations are particularly prevalent when translating out of English. OpenAI’s latest models demonstrate hallucination rates of 33-79% depending on complexity. How Does SMART’s 22-Model Consensus Actually Work?
SMART transforms the translation workflow by querying multiple independent AI engines, including Google, DeepL, Claude, Microsoft, and others from its platform of over 22 AI models, and automatically selecting the sentence-level translation that the majority of engines converge on. Crucially, this isn’t about adding a rewriting layer or stylistic polish on top. SMART picks the strongest consensus result without modifying meaning. “When you see independent AI systems lining up behind the same segments, you get one outcome that’s genuinely dependable,” explained Rachelle Garcia, AI Lead at Tomedes, the company behind MachineTranslation.com. “It turns the old routine of ‘compare every candidate output manually’ into simply ‘scan what actually matters.'” The consensus model delivers three key advantages that directly address enterprise pain points: Hallucination Mitigation: When one engine fabricates details, others typically don’t. SMART follows the majority rather than the outlier, significantly reducing the risk of invented content making it into final deliverables. Non-Linguist Confidence: Stakeholders who don’t speak the target language finally see “the translation where most AIs agree,” providing a practical safety net for approval processes. Review Efficiency: Editors and reviewers no longer need to scrutinize five separate versions of the same sentence, dramatically accelerating quality assurance workflows. What Results Has SMART Demonstrated in Real-World Testing?
Internal evaluations on mixed business and legal material revealed that consensus-driven choices reduced visible AI errors and stylistic drift by 18-22% compared to relying on a single engine. The largest gains came from fewer hallucinated facts, tighter terminology consistency, and fewer dropped words, all critical factors for professional content used in contracts, compliance documents, and stakeholder communications. Even more striking for enterprise decision-makers: in a focused review where professional linguists rated SMART output, 9 out of 10 described it as the safest entry point for stakeholders who don’t speak the target language at all. This directly addresses the fundamental pain point in global business operations, where executives regularly need to approve translations in languages outside their competency. According to Ofer Tirosh, CEO of Tomedes: “MachineTranslation.com is no longer just a scoring and benchmarking layer for AI outputs; it now builds a single, trustworthy translation from those outputs, end to end. We’ve evolved beyond pure comparison into active composition, and SMART surfaces the most robust translation, not merely the highest-ranked candidate.” These improvements arrive at a critical moment for African enterprises. As AI adoption accelerates across the continent, with industries from finance to healthcare increasingly relying on automated translation for cost efficiency, the need for verifiable accuracy has never been greater. Where Does Consensus Translation Provide Maximum Value?
SMART offers benefits across all scenarios, but certain use cases show particularly strong ROI: Contracts and Legal Policies: Less scrutiny required; reviewers focus on sensitive clauses, trusting consensus for standard language. Legal AI translation achieves 90% compliance with jurisdiction-specific terminology. Product Pages and UI Content: Consistent phrasing across SKUs and interfaces enables faster localization. Critical for African e-commerce – 76% of online buyers prefer products with information in their local language. Compliance and Regulatory Documents: Fewer wording slips enable enterprises to align terminology once and distribute confidently across jurisdictions. Technical and Medical Content: Healthcare AI localization reduced medical translation errors by 35%, but stakes remain high. Consensus provides a “safety net” when multiple engines converge on medical terminology. The African context makes these improvements timely. Digital transformation initiatives are driving AI adoption, while Africa’s projected AI market growth to $16.5 billion by 2030 signals increasing enterprise investment. When Should Enterprises Still Use Human Translation?
SMART’s consensus approach significantly improves AI translation reliability, but it doesn’t eliminate the need for human expertise in all scenarios. The platform explicitly acknowledges this through its optional Human Verification feature for mission-critical content. Industry data suggests a tiered approach delivers optimal results: High-Stakes Content (legal documents, marketing campaigns, public-facing materials): Requires human expertise and review. Professional translation delivers 95-100% accuracy versus AI’s 70-85%, and the reputational and legal risks of errors justify the investment. Cost: $0.10-$0.25 per word for common language pairs. Medium-Stakes Content (help articles, internal policies, onboarding materials): Works well with AI translation plus light human review, especially when using consensus approaches like SMART. Hybrid workflows combining AI draft translation with certified linguist review deliver savings of up to 45% compared to pure human translation while maintaining 97% accuracy. Cost: approximately $0.08 per word including post-editing. Low-Stakes Content (internal communications, routine emails, preliminary drafts): SMART consensus translation without human review provides a reliable, cost-effective baseline. Free to use for basic implementations, with API options for enterprise integration. For African SMEs with limited resources, this tiered approach offers a practical pathway. As businesses across the continent seek to transform operations with AI, understanding where to allocate human expertise versus AI automation becomes a crucial competitive advantage. How Does SMART Fit Into Secure Enterprise Workflows?
Enterprise adoption requires robust data governance. MachineTranslation.com addresses this through: Secure Mode: SOC 2-compliant AI processing meeting enterprise security standards Automatic Anonymization: Sensitive fields anonymized before processing Temporary Sharing: Expiring guest links for controlled collaboration Format Preservation: Maintains layouts for PDFs, Word docs, and PowerPoints No Long-Term Storage: Content isn’t retained, addressing data sovereignty concerns These features align with African regulatory frameworks including South Africa’s POPIA, Nigeria’s Data Protection Regulation, and the emerging AU Data Protection Framework. What Does the Reddit Translation Community Say About This Approach?
The value of comparing multiple AI outputs resonates in translation technology discussions. In r/LanguageTechnology communities, users frequently discuss challenges of trusting single AI engines, with consensus emerging that comparing multiple outputs reduces error risk. Reddit invested substantially in AI translation, expanding to over 35 countries in 2024. According to Slator, Reddit’s translation cost per language was under $1 million in Q3 2024. CEO Steve Huffman called machine translation “one of the best opportunities we’ve ever seen to rapidly grow the content base outside of English.” How Should African Enterprises Implement Consensus Translation?
For technology leaders considering SMART: Identify High-Volume Content:
Start with reliable but not mission-critical translations – product descriptions, support docs, routine correspondence. Measure Baseline Metrics:
Document current error rates and review time before implementation. Run Parallel Testing:
Process content through both existing workflow and SMART for 2-4 weeks. Define Review Triggers:
Establish when consensus translations need human verification. Scale Gradually:
Begin with one department, validate results, then expand. This measured approach allows African enterprises embracing AI to validate results before full adoption. What Are the Broader Implications for African Business?
SMART’s consensus approach signals a shift: rather than seeking the “best” single AI system, orchestrate multiple specialized systems and leverage agreement as reliability proxy. For Africa’s language diversity, consensus-based approaches offer value for: Intra-African Trade: Reliable contract and specification translation as AfCFTA drives cross-border commerce Regulatory Compliance: Consistent documentation across multiple African jurisdictions Digital Public Services: Verifiable accuracy for e-government initiatives in multiple official languages Healthcare and Education: Safety mechanisms where translation errors have direct human impact The translation market’s projected growth to $27.46 billion by 2030 (from $6.93 billion in 2024) at 25.79% annual growth reflects recognition that language barriers represent genuine economic obstacles. What Comes Next in Translation Verification?
SMART is live on MachineTranslation.com, free for basic use with enterprise API options. The platform supports 270+ languages via web, Android, iOS, and API. As AI reshapes enterprise operations, consensus approaches suggest a principle: when single AI systems struggle with reliability, orchestrating multiple systems and extracting consensus offers a practical path forward. For African technology leaders, the question isn’t which AI translator is best – it’s how organizations verify translation accuracy when decisions depend on it. SMART’s 22-model consensus provides one answer, reducing errors by up to 90% and giving non-linguists a practical safety net. In a continent where linguistic diversity is simultaneously cultural asset and business challenge, tools making multilingual communication trustworthy aren’t just convenient – they’re an infrastructure for economic integration and growth."
https://www.itnewsafrica.com/2026/01/stop-asking-which-ai-translator-is-best-start-asking-how-translation-gets-verified-inside-smarts-22-model-consensus/
#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
"Publié avec le soutien du Conseil scientifique de la faculté des Lettres de Sorbonne Université, de l’UMR 8224 Eur’ORBEM (CNRS - Sorbonne Université) et du GDR 3607 Connaissance de l’Europe médiane (CNRS).
Éditeur : Presses universitaires de Rennes
Lieu d’édition : Rennes
Publication sur OpenEdition Books : 17 février 2026
ISBN numérique : 979-10-413-1119-4
DOI : 10.4000/15ppn
Collection : Interférences
Année d’édition : 2026
ISBN (Édition imprimée) : 979-10-413-0823-1
Nombre de pages : 658
Sommaire
Résumé
Auteurs
Quelles sont les destinées de la littérature de langue française au xxe siècle dans quatre espaces linguistiques de l’Europe centrale : hongrois, polonais, slovaque et tchèque ? Pour répondre, l’ouvrage mobilise historiens, sociologues de la littérature, comparatistes, historiens littéraires et traducteurs afin d’élucider le contexte et les flux de traduction vers ces langues. Il présente les trajectoires de passeuses et passeurs centre-européens et il se penche sur des cas emblématiques de transferts littéraires (de Baudelaire à Romain Rolland en passant par Jules Verne). Au centre des antagonismes qui traversent la littérature mondiale, la traduction a pu être une pratique consolatoire, lançant un pont par-delà les conflits les plus sombres. Son étude contribue à la compréhension des relations entre l’Europe centrale et l’espace occidental à travers les crises, les conflits et les affrontements idéologiques qui ont marqué l’Europe de la fin du xixe siècle à nos jours..."
Auteurs
Antoine Marès (dir.)
Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne.
IdRef : 027008878
Antoine Marès, historien de l’Europe médiane, professeur émérite des universités (Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne) a réuni avec Clara Royer de grands spécialistes centre-européens et français de la question qui proposent ici des synthèses et des analyses inédites sur les facettes de la circulation des belles-lettres d’expression française au cœur de l’Europe.
Clara Royer (dir.)
Sorbonne Université.
IdRef : 134043162
Clara Royer, spécialiste de littérature hongroise et professeure à Sorbonne Université, a réuni avec Antoine Marès de grands spécialistes centre-européens et français de la question qui proposent ici des synthèses et des analyses inédites sur les facettes de la circulation des belles-lettres d’expression française au cœur de l’Europe.
https://lnkd.in/eTTgAUza
#Metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus
#métaglossie
https://lnkd.in/eTTgAUza
"« La diversité linguistique est la source même de la capacité d’innovation de l’Inde »
Nicolas Idier
Ecrivain et historien
Sindhuja Veeraragavan
Traductrice littéraire originaire du Tamil Nadu et diplômée de l’université Jawaharlal Nehru, à Delhi, et de l’université de Stirling, en Ecosse.
Publié le 17 février 2026
À l’occasion du quatrième voyage officiel d’Emmanuel Macron en Inde, et alors que le pays accueille le sommet international sur l’intelligence artificielle du 19 au 20 février 2026 à Delhi, une traductrice et un écrivain alertent sur les dangers de l’IA comme outil de traduction et sur l’importance du plurilinguisme.
À l’heure où l’Inde prend une place croissante dans le nouvel équilibre d’un monde marqué par une accélération technologique sans précédent, nous affirmons que la source même de sa capacité d’innovation est la diversité linguistique, terreau de son pluralisme culturel et de l’histoire de la pensée démocratique décrite par Amartya Sen, lauréat du prix Nobel d’économie en 1998.
Cette diversité – 22 langues officielles, plus de 270 langues qualifiées de maternelles selon le recensement de 2011 –, a fait naître une manière de réfléchir et de travailler ensemble, que résume une autre grande voix de l’Inde – la romancière Arundhati Roy – en réponse à la question poème de Pablo Neruda, « dans quelle langue tombe la pluie sur les villes tourmentées ? » : la langue de la traduction.
Un filtre prescripteur
En Inde comme partout dans le monde, traduire est un acte profondément politique, non seulement dans le choix des œuvres que l’on transporte d’une langue à l’autre, mais aussi dans celui du mot pour transmettre le sens. En laissant l’intelligence artificielle procéder à ce choix, ce n’est pas seulement la diversité des langues que l’on met en péril, mais toute une longue histoire vers l’Indépendance – un concept qui devrait nous faire collectivement réfléchir – que l’on interromprait.
L’acte de traduire a le pouvoir de créer et de briser les chaînes. Et pendant un certain temps, les chaînes semblaient bien se briser. Après la traduction de Thaïs d’Anatole France par l’écrivain hindi Munshi Premchand (1880-1936) ou de La Marseillaise par Subramanya Bharati (1882-1921), poète tamoul révolutionnaire, la seconde moitié du XXe siècle a vu circuler en Inde et dans le monde (car l’Inde est un monde) des auteurs comme Perumal Murugan, banni en tamoul mais traduit en anglais, ou encore Arundhati Roy, passant de l’anglais à l’hindi (et à quarante autres langues).
Dans la longue et chaotique histoire des langues et du savoir, l’IA n’est pas neutre. Derrière son apparente omnipotence linguistique se cache le risque d’une régression sociale majeure. La traduction est un filtre prescripteur, capable d’inverser certaines positions de pouvoir. Or, dans l’entraînement des modèles d’IA, les langues non anglaises (et en particulier non occidentales) ne représentent qu’une petite fraction.
Un potentiel émancipateur
L’utilisation de l’IA conduira à une nouvelle recentralisation du pouvoir narratif, en réimposant des catégories grossières d’altérité que les traducteurs postcoloniaux et féministes ont passé des décennies à remettre en question. Ce qui serait alors perdu, ce n’est pas seulement l’élégance ou le style – ce que dès 1946 George Orwell avait pressenti dans son clairvoyant manifeste La politique et la langue –, mais le potentiel émancipateur de la diversité linguistique.
Plus fondamentalement, quand bien même il serait possible de former l’IA à écrire et à traduire, l’espace silencieux entre deux mots lui échappera toujours. C’est pourtant dans cet espace vide, ce silence que se déploie la liberté d’interprétation, premier et seul gage de l’innovation véritable.
Le maintien de la diversité des langues repose sur chacun de nos actes. En Inde, où nous refusons le monopole d’une langue hindi épurée de sa composante ourdoue et sanskritisée au détriment de la profondeur historique et agnostique du sanskrit. Et partout ailleurs, en nous inscrivant à des cours de langue vivante, plutôt que de télécharger un logiciel de traduction automatique, en lisant des œuvres garanties « sans IA », en encourageant les enfants dans cette voie royale du plurilinguisme.
« Une certaine lecture du monde »
Car l’IA traduit peut-être, mais elle traduit sans humanité. Si l’on n’y prend pas garde, elle nous entraînera dans un balbutiement mécanique, qui finira par rétrécir le monde des idées et lever de nouvelles frontières entre des communautés étanches les unes aux autres – une définition du système des castes malheureusement encore prégnant dans l’Inde de 2026.
Dans son discours tenu à la conférence des Ambassadeurs, Emmanuel Macron reliait le « grand partenariat géographique » de l’Indo-Pacifique à « une certaine lecture du monde ». Pour répondre aux inquiétudes légitimes de toute langue menacée, que ce soit par le suprématisme politique ou technologique, et véritablement installer l’Inde comme contrepoids d’un déséquilibre qui menace la grammaire de notre humanité, faisons de cette lecture du monde une défense et illustration de la diversité linguistique et inscrivons en son cœur l’art très humain de la traduction."
https://www.la-croix.com/a-vif/la-diversite-linguistique-est-la-source-meme-de-la-capacite-d-innovation-de-linde-20260217
#Metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus
#métaglossie
"L'Albertine Translation Prize pour David Broder et sa traduction d'Algérie 1962
La Villa Albertine, établissement culturel du ministère de l’Europe et des Affaires étrangères basé aux États-Unis, a décerné son Albertine Translation Prize, à David Broder, pour sa traduction, à paraitre chez Verso Books, du livre Algérie 1962, de Malika Rahal (paru en janvier 2022 chez La Découverte).
Le 16/02/2026 à 12:36 par Dépêche
Chaque année, la Villa Albertine décerne son Albertine Translation Prize, destiné à encourager la traduction et la diffusion d'œuvres françaises outre-Atlantique. Il est doté à hauteur de 5000 $, une somme qui revient au traducteur.
Le lauréat de cette année, David Broder, est un écrivain, journaliste et traducteur installé à Rome. Il apparait régulièrement dans l'hebdomadaire italien Internazionale.
En Algérie, l'année 1962 est à la fois la fin d'une guerre et la difficile transition vers la paix. Mettant fin à une longue colonisation française marquée par une combinaison rare de violence et d'acculturation, elle voit l'émergence d'un État algérien d'abord soucieux d'assurer sa propre stabilité et la survie de sa population. Si, dans les pays du Sud, cette date est devenue le symbole de l'ensemble des indépendances des peuples colonisés, en France, 1962 est connue surtout par les expériences des pieds-noirs et des harkis.
En Algérie, l'historiographie de l'année 1962 se réduit pour l'essentiel à la crise politique du FLN et aux luttes fratricides qui l'ont accompagnée. Mais on connaît encore très mal l'expérience des habitants du pays qui y restent alors. D'où l'importance de ce livre, qui entend restituer la façon dont la période a été vécue par cette majorité. L'année 1962 est scandée par trois moments : cessez-le-feu d'Evian du 19 mars, Indépendance de juillet, proclamation de la République algérienne le 25 septembre.
– Le résumé de l'éditeur pour Algérie 1962
Malika Rahal, historienne, chargée de recherche au CNRS, est spécialiste de l'histoire contemporaine de l'Algérie. Elle dirige, depuis 2022, l'Institut d'histoire du temps présent (IHTP).
Parallèlement à cette récompense, la Villa Albertine apporte un soutien financier à plusieurs projets de traduction, au nombre de 17 en 2025. L'Albertine Translation Prize est sponsorisé par Van Cleef and Arpels, la Florence Gould Foundation, l'Albertine Foundation et l'Institut français.
À LIRE - En dessous du volcan de Malcolm Lowry : une nouvelle traduction signée Claro en 2028
L'année dernière, deux prix de traduction avaient été décernés à Ève Hill-Agnus et Gregory Elliot, pour leur travail respectif sur Ultramarins, de Mariette Navarro (Quidam) et Pourquoi la guerre ? de Frédéric Gros (Albin Michel)."
https://actualitte.com/article/129317/prix-litteraires/l-albertine-translation-prize-pour-david-broder-et-sa-traduction-d-algerie-1962
#Metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus
#métaglossie
"Zoomers, we have bad news: your six or seven minutes in the vanguard of the cultural zeitgeist are officially over. The New York Times has published a fresh guide to Gen Z slang. It’s all downhill from here.
The NYT’s guide is particularly notable for its insistence that a significant amount of today’s slang isn’t new at all. The paper is clearly wedded to this idea; in December last year, they insisted that the term “brain rot” should be attributed to Henry David Thoreau, who used it in his 1854 glamping memoir Walden. They’ve doubled down on this approach, reporting that the hot new slang among zoomers includes archaic words like “yap,” “skedaddle,” and (deep breath) “goon.”
Critics might argue that the NYT’s grasp of some cutting-edge slang isn’t quite as solid as it might like to believe: take, for example, its assertion that “Calling someone a ‘goon’ is no longer just a 1920s habit.” It feels somehow dirty to direct someone as venerable and respectable as the Gray Lady to the less salubrious parts of the internet, but… that ain’t how “goon” is being used in 2026, ma’am. (The paper of record doesn’t have an entirely flawless record on this front.)
The whole everything-old-is-new-again angle feels a little dubious, too. The article interviews one Brianne Hughes, a historical linguist: “Old terms often return subconsciously amid a sort of inventory-taking whenever a significant milestone arrives—like the turn of a decade or the anniversary of a cultural event. ‘It’s just a reason to go back through the old photos of the language, and being like, Oh yeah, I remember, that was pretty fun,’ Hughes said.”
It’d be interesting to know whether there are studies and research that support this view—none are cited—because intuitively, it seems perfectly feasible for a term as generic as “brain rot” to be coined in 2026 as it was in 1854, and that more generally, words and phrases are just as likely to be created anew over and over again as they are to re-emerge from some sort of linguistic deep freeze.
Does it even matter? Well, for our money, the process by which slang emerges, spreads, and is eventually re-subsumed into the blob of “proper” language is one of the most fascinating parts of linguistics. It’s a process one can track via Green’s Dictionary of Slang, an exhaustive dictionary of argot that, while not quite as venerable as the NYT, is pretty much the definitive source on its subject. As it happens, the entire dictionary has recently been made available in its entirety online for free, which is excellent news for anyone given to researching etymology for shits and giggles.
And what does Green’s have to say about “brain rot”? Nothing. The term is yet to appear in the slang dictionary of record, which suggests that Thoreau’s usage never quite made it out of the 19th-century skibidi toilet."
Green's Dictionary of Slang © Jonathon Green / Amazon
https://gizmodo.com/largest-dictionary-of-english-slang-is-now-free-online-to-help-you-talk-like-a-zoomer-2000720203
#Metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus
#métaglossie
"A group of 52 biblical “specialists” have released a new version of the Bible in which inclusive language and “political correctness” have replaced some “divisive” teachings of Christianity in order to present a “more just language” for groups such as feminists and homosexuals.
According to the AFP news agency, the new version of the Sacred Scriptures was presented at a book fair in Frankfurt. Entitled, “The Bible in a More Just Language,” the translation has Jesus no longer referring to God as “Father,” but as “our Mother and Father who are in heaven.”
Likewise, Jesus is no longer referred to as the “Son” but rather as the “child” of God. The title “Lord” is replaced with “God” or “the Eternal One.” The devil, however, is still referred to with masculine pronouns.
“One of the great ideas of the Bible is justice. We have made a translation that does justice to women, Jews, and those who are disregarded,” said Pastor Hanne Koehler, who led the team of translators.
Last December, Matin Dreyer, pastor and founder of the sect “Jesus Freaks,” published the “Volksbibel” (The People’s Bible), in a supposed attempt to make the message of Christianity more “accessible.” Jesus “returns” instead of resurrects, and multiplies “hamburgers” instead of the fish and loaves. In the parable of the prodigal son, the younger son squanders his inheritance at dance clubs and ends up “cleaning bathrooms at McDonald’s.”"
https://www.ewtnnews.com/world/europe/controversial-politically-correct-version-of-the-bible-published-in-germany?redirectedfrom=cna
#Metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus
#métaglossie
"Portuguese-English Translator - Remote
Watching America
Remote, Volunteer can be anywhere in the world
Details
Start Date:
March 1, 2026
End Date:
July 7, 2026
Available Times:
Weekdays (daytime, evenings), Weekends (daytime, evenings)
Time Commitment:
A few hours per month
Recurrence:
Recurring
Benefits:
Training Provided
Good For:
Age 55+, International Volunteers
Participation Requirements:
Attend Orientation
Description
Watching America (www.watchingamerica.com) is currently seeking volunteer translators (at least 18 years old) to translate foreign news stories in Portuguese about the United States into English. You do not need prior translating experience to do this. You must be available to find and translate at least one article every two weeks (a minimum of 26 articles per year). Applicants will be asked to translate a test article. While this is a volunteer position, it allows for flexibility in regards to how much or how little you would like to work above the minimum, helps build your resume, comes with an offer of a solid letter of recommendation from Robin Koerner, president and publisher of Watching America, and gets your name on an internationally acclaimed website. All languages are needed and any new ideas you may have for the project are welcome!
Watching America (WatchingAmerica.com) is an internationally renowned website that translates foreign news about the U.S. from all over the world, to enable Americans to see how they and their policies are perceived globally. Over its thirteen years of existence, it has gained mainstream recognition in the U.S. and abroad and has been talked about, among others, by the BBC, NPR, Foreign Policy Magazine, The Guardian and The Village Voice. It depends on a team of volunteers who benefit from the prestige of the project in developing their careers elsewhere, and who have a passion for the idea of breaking down the final barrier among peoples of the world — the language barrier."
https://www.idealist.org/en/volunteer-opportunity/ea19f6e59f074d0ebe9f3d28171c0677-portuguese-english-translator-remote-watching-america-washington
#Metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus
#métaglossie
"Singing Grass and Paper Republic are delighted to announce a new prize for translated fiction from Chinese to English designed to showcase literary translators of contemporary voices. This exciting initiative will invite participants to translate a short extract from the acclaimed Mao Dun prize-winning author Liu Zhenyun whose new novel, Salty Jokes (咸的玩笑), has just taken China by storm. The winning translator will receive £1500 and 2 runners-up £500 each. The submissions will be judged by an international Jury of translation experts...
Nicky Harman <n.harmanic@gmail.com>"
https://u.osu.edu/mclc/2026/02/16/new-chinese-to-english-translation-prize/
#Metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus
#métaglossie
The Vatican has teamed up with Translated, a language service provider, to create live translations in 60 languages
"The Vatican is leaning into AI. AI-assisted live translations are being introduced for Holy Mass attendees — the holy masses if you will. The Papal Basilica of Saint Peter in the Vatican has teamed up with Translated, a language service provider, to create live translations in 60 languages.
"Saint Peter’s Basilica has, for centuries, welcomed the faithful from every nation and tongue. In making available a tool that helps many to understand the words of the liturgy, we wish to serve the mission that defines the centre of the Catholic Church, universal by its very vocation," Cardinal Mauro Gambetti, O.F.M. Conv., Archpriest of the Papal Basilica of Saint Peter in the Vatican, said in a statement. "I am very happy with the collaboration with Translated. In this centenary year, we look to the future with prudence and discernment, confident that human ingenuity, when guided by faith, may become an instrument of communion."
Visitors to the Vatican will have the option to scan a QR code. They will then have access to live audio and text translations of the liturgy. It doesn't require an app and should work right on a web page.
The technology stems from Lara, a translation AI tool Translated launched in 2024. Translated claims that Lara works with the "sensitivity of over 500,000 native-speaking professional translators.""
https://www.engadget.com/ai/the-vatican-introduces-an-ai-assisted-live-translation-service-163014907.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAFpq9f8Z0g7iNreJNLxLfc8MqR0g4I4bNKXzInJhEnuvGiC7laPUept1zQTNlxIFHGqlSBFF5ihbeauHeDL8xcPOtVrYDiQ4WSlDCWAy6GD07P3lzY8wIqswh5OXOzYAkbmZnAR3pni3SVamnb2cTEU341ojKbXqmjNSvSmPSLA0
#Metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus
#métaglossie
"Interpreters from across Canada work daily to preserve Indigenous languages.
As February marks Indigenous Languages Month, NNSL Media spoke with six interpreters at the NWT Legislative Assembly who make politics understandable in Inuinnaqtun, Inuktitut, Dene Suline, Sahtuot’ine and Dene Zhatie.
Necessity
Many found themselves interpreting out of necessity.
Tuppittia Qitsualik, a speaker of Inuinnaqtun, said that without her mother, she felt compelled to rise to the responsibility of interpreting for her unilingual father.
Dennis Drygeese, a speaker of Dene Suline Yatie, recalls that while growing up, his mother, a teacher, would travel often. As a result, he often stayed with his grandparents, who “didn’t speak a word of English.” If ever they needed help speaking to the Co-op manager, or to social services, Drygeese would be there to translate on their behalf.
Sarah Cleary, who is fluent in Sahtuot’ine Yati, began her translation in a similar way, saying, “When I was young, the Elders in my community always asked me to interpret, and I’d do my best. Sometimes I’d have to use sign language.”
Suzie Napayok-Short, an Inuktitut speaker, said, “As I was growing up, the Qallunaat — that’s the white man — had authority in pretty much everything our parents had to do, and as I grew I realized they really need to know exactly what is being said here.”
Preservation
Preservation of identity and culture are at the heart of many of the interpreters’ work.
Mary Jane Cazon, a speaker of Dene Zhatie, recalls her parents telling her that retaining her language and her culture would lead her into the future.
Drygeese shared a similar sentiment, stating: “My grandmother told me, ‘Hang on to your words, my boy, because one day it’s going to be really useful to you,’ so here I am.”
Regarding the importance of preserving one’s language, Joe Ototkiak, a speaker of Inuinnaqtun, said, “Language is a cornerstone. Without language, there’s really no identity.” He added, “I just hope and pray that Inuinnaqtun keeps thriving, it’s a language that was at the brink of disappearing.”
Information
Some translators the value that their work has in ensuring unilingual Elders fully understand the ways of western politics.
Otokiak said, “It’s about making sure our Elders have some idea of what’s going on around them, and informing them of new things on the horizon.”
Cleary recalled a time when her father, being a seasonal worker, was denied ration money. Sarah went to the local church with the goal of calling Yellowknife for assistance, but the church’s priest, on Sarah’s behalf, went and spoke with the agent that had denied her father the money for food. Sarah’s interpreting was able to help feed her family that winter.
Napayok-Short recalls that as a child, many of her community members didn’t fully understand the settler-imposed rules. She saw that as her opportunity to help her people and decided to take up the task of interpreting.
“I thought, ‘I can get really good at these languages if I keep listening and learning, so that’s what I’m gonna do — that’s going to be my way of helping my family.’”
Revitalization
Many interpreters remain hopeful and optimistic that their languages will be preserved, and even adopted more widely.
Cazon noted that she and her husband are both fluent in their mother tongue. They make an effort to speak the language in their home and around their grandchildren.
“One day, hopefully, they’ll really be able to pick it up and be able to be fluent, just like us,” she said.
Cleary envisions a future where, due to the officialization of so many Indigenous languages within the NWT, youth in Indigenous communities will be able to be educated in their mother tongue. “If they wanted to go south and enter a university, because our language is official, they would have their entrance requirement,” she said.
NWT News/North"
https://www.pentictonherald.ca/spare_news/article_30c6349e-06bb-5a33-8c56-c52e27823a6f.html
#Metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus
#métaglossie
Rozenn Milin, historienne, sociologue et journaliste, parle de sa thèse intitulée : « La honte et le châtiment, ou l’interdiction de parler sa langue maternelle à l’école. L’exemple du breton et des langues africaines ».
"À Morlaix, l’historienne Rozenn Milin a présenté sa thèse sur l’interdiction des langues maternelles, notamment le breton, à l’école. Une politique linguistique née sous la Terreur et visant à imposer le français.
Rozenn Milin a présenté sa thèse sur les interdictions des langues maternelles, dont le breton.
Les enseignants de la filière bilingue (breton-français) du lycée Tristan-Corbière ont invité, jeudi 12 février, Rozenn Milin, historienne, sociologue et journaliste, à venir parler de sa thèse intitulée : « La honte et le châtiment, ou l’interdiction de parler sa langue maternelle à l’école. L’exemple du breton et des langues africaines ». Un sujet qui, comme l’a rappelé Jean Roualec-Quéré, enseignant, s’inscrit dans le thème étudié cette année par les élèves, sur l’appropriation et la transmission de l’identité bretonne. La conférence s’est tenue en français, car elle s’adressait également aux élèves et aux enseignants hors filière bilingue..."
https://www.letelegramme.fr/finistere/morlaix-29600/la-honte-et-le-chatiment-quand-lecole-interdisait-le-breton-et-les-langues-africaines-6983224.php
#Metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus
#métaglossie
"Robbie Meredith
Education and arts correspondent, BBC News NI
Ellie-May is one of only three deaf pupils at her post-primary school
New sign language laws in Northern Ireland will have a "huge impact", a deaf teenager has said.
Ellie-May, 14, gave evidence at Stormont to assembly members on the Communities Committee as they scrutinised the Sign Languages Bill.
The bill's aim is to make information and services, including from government departments and public bodies, accessible to people from the deaf community.
The committee's scrutiny of the bill is now completed which means that it can now have its final stages in the assembly before becoming law.
Plans for a sign language bill for Northern Ireland have been in the pipeline for a number of years.
The Sign Language Bill (Northern Ireland) 2025 was subsequently introduced in the Assembly by Communities Minister Gordon Lyons in February 2025.
The Sign Language Bill (Northern Ireland) 2025 was introduced in the assembly by Communities Minister Gordon Lyons in February 2025
The bill would give official and equal recognition of British Sign Language (BSL) and Irish Sign Language (ISL) as languages of Northern Ireland and promote the use and understanding of sign languages.
It means that public bodies will have to, by law, "take reasonable steps to ensure that the sorts of information and services provided by it are as accessible to individuals in the deaf community as to those individuals who are not in the deaf community".
The Department for Communities estimated that at least 5000 people in Northern Ireland use either British Sign Language (BSL) or Irish Sign Language (ISL) as their preferred way to communicate.
'Very tough'
Ellie-May is one of only three deaf pupils at her post-primary school.
"It is very tough because you're deaf and you're surrounded by hearing people at a mainstream school, and you have a lot to concentrate on," she said.
"When you're lip reading you're absorbing information and your brain is processing differently from a hearing person."
Ellie-May would like to see more young people in school learn to sign.
"Sign language is very good because obviously you can communicate to people better and you can just sign," she said.
Gemma McMullan's two-year-old son George is deaf
Gemma McMullan, whose two-year old son George is deaf, said deaf children will "be recognised as part of the community" due to the new laws.
George was first identified as deaf at only eight weeks old and has been attending sign language classes at Action Deaf Youth.
"Sign language isn't just a communication tool, it's going to be recognised as an official language and that's really important," she said.
"Our deaf children are going to be seen and they're going to be recognised as part of the community and they're going to have more access to education, healthcare, things like that so it's really important that our children are recognised and using their own language as part of their identity."
Julie Graham from Action Deaf Youth, an organisation for deaf children and young people, said it is a "massive, a massive movement forward".
"What's crucial is particularly to look at deaf children and young people because this will transform their futures."
Julie Graham from Action Deaf Youth said it is a "massive" move forward
The British Deaf Association's Majella McAteer told BBC News NI that the finger spelling differs between the two sign languages.
"We spell out words with two hands in British Sign Language and with one hand in Irish Sign Language, but our numbers as well in BSL use one hand, but our numbers in ISL use two hands. So there are big differences," she said.
"Here in Northern Ireland it's something that's very unique to have two sign languages that are used and the majority of our deaf community will know both languages.
"Some will use British sign language, some will predominantly use ISL, it depends where you were educated."
"But we're really proud of it because it just shows the rich culture that we have here."
The committee chair, Sinn Fein MLA Colm Gildernew, said the bill was a landmark one.
"In practical terms it's going to mean that all public bodies will have to provide services to people in their first languages," he said.
"It gives official recognition to both BSL and ISL and it recognises that those languages are the first language of people when they're using services.""
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c20l6l9d4gwo
#Metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus
#métaglossie
"Avant que le français ne prenne l’importance qu’on lui connaît aujourd’hui, les langues de l’écrit restent, au sortir de l’Antiquité, le latin et le grec. Les parlers vernaculaires, de racine romane, sont quant à eux multiples et complexes. Mais un tournant majeur s’opère à partir du XIIIe siècle. Le français devient alors l’une des langues les plus parlées de l’Occident, acquérant une forte valeur symbolique d’union à un moment de consolidation du pouvoir royal. C’est à cette période qu’émerge un nouveau genre littéraire, celui du roman arthurien, dont l’essor est remarquable dès son apparition. Cet attrait nouveau pour la fiction est illustré dans l’exposition par un précieux vestige répertoriant des extraits de romans du poète champenois Chrétien de Troyes. Réutilisés au XVIIIe comme reliures de dossiers d’un notaire, ces Fragments d’Annonay, datés de la fin du XIIe-début du XIIIe, constituent un témoignage émouvant de l’émergence du français à l’écrit.
L’usage de la langue continue d’évoluer au gré des goûts et des transformations sociales. Au XIVe siècle, le style courtois connaît un succès considérable, en lien avec le développement des milieux urbains et de cour. Les thèmes amoureux et légers investissent fables et poésies, jusque dans la forme même des manuscrits, comme l’illustre l’élégant Chansonnier cordiforme de Montchenu (vers 1475) dont les enluminures colorées et chantantes représentent un couple, vêtu à la mode de l’époque, absorbé dans une conversation galante.
L’écrit comme laboratoire de la créativité et de la connaissance
La Renaissance et les Temps modernes marquent un moment de stabilisation et d’institutionnalisation de la langue française. Le traité de Villers-Cotterêts, signé en 1539 dans l’ancien château de François Ier, impose par exemple l’usage du français dans les textes juridiques et administratifs. La langue devient alors un outil central pour penser le monde et diffuser les connaissances. Les philosophes des Lumières incarnent pleinement cette ambition, par leur volonté de passer la société au crible de la raison. On remarque avec plaisir les manuscrits autographes de Diderot et de Montesquieu, rares témoins matériels d’idéaux cherchant à éradiquer l’obscurantisme au profit de la vérité.
Si le XVIIIe siècle est celui des Lumières, le XIXe s’impose comme le siècle du roman. Les écrivains conservent davantage les traces de leurs travaux préparatoires, faisant du manuscrit un espace de réflexion et d’expérimentation. Graphie, mise en page, ratures ou reprises deviennent autant d’indices de la psyché de l’auteur et de sa manière de concevoir l’œuvre, de jouer avec les mots. Il est ainsi amusant de comparer l’écriture fluide et appliquée d’Alexandre Dumas ou de Colette au tâtonnement presque chaotique de Gustave Flaubert. Le théâtre n’est pas en reste et révèle lui aussi des pratiques d’écriture spécifiques. La langue s’y déploie sous la plume des dramaturges et l’on ne peut être qu’intrigué par la technique astucieuse et ingénieuse mise en œuvre par l’auteur libanais Wajdi Mouawad, dont les notes, présentées sous la forme d’un schéma, témoignent d’un rapport très fort entre écriture, intrigue et mise en scène.
L’écriture comme miroir de l’âme
Le manuscrit peut également se faire le témoin de réflexions plus personnelles, d’une quête de soi et du désir de coucher sur le papier des sentiments intimes, destinés à soi-même ou à des proches. L’exposition revient ainsi sur la pratique très codifiée de la correspondance au Moyen Âge, qui relève alors davantage d’un jeu intellectuel impersonnel, souvent dicté et retranscrit par un tiers. C’est au XVIIe siècle, dans le sillon de l’essor des salons littéraires, que la correspondance devient plus spontanée, plus personnelle. Les lettres écrites par Madame de Sévigné à sa fille, la comtesse de Grignan, conservent encore aujourd’hui le souvenir ému de leur séparation, ainsi que la trace sensible de la main de l’épistolière, quatre siècles plus tard, 2026 marquant les 400 ans de sa naissance...
Il a fallu attendre une période relativement récente pour que l’ego et l’intime deviennent de véritables sujets d’écriture et d’introspection. Les exemples les plus marquants dans l’exposition datent des XIXe et XXe siècles, à l’image du Journal de deuil de Roland Barthes (1977-1978), qui consigne, en 330 fiches, le cheminement intérieur d’un fils confronté à la perte de sa mère. Qu’ils soient le fait de grandes figures ou d’auteurs anonymes, tous ces écrits tissent un lien d’intimité puissant, presque familier, avec celles et ceux qui ont fait vivre et évoluer la langue de Molière.
« Trésors et secrets d’écriture. Manuscrits de la Bibliothèque nationale de France, du Moyen Âge à nos jours »
Cité internationale de la langue française, 1 Pl. Aristide Briand, 02600 Villers-Cotterêts
Jusqu’au 1er mars
https://www.connaissancedesarts.com/arts-expositions/tresors-de-la-bnf-plus-de-100-manuscrits-racontent-lhistoire-de-la-langue-francaise-au-chateau-de-villers-cotterets-11209938/
#Metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus
#métaglossie
"
By Lindy-Ann Edwards-Alleyne, Public Information Assistant, UNIC Caribbean
Colonialism is often the starting point to explain the linguistic makeup of the wider Caribbean, but the true language landscape is much more diverse. According to the University of the West Indies (UWI) St. Augustine Department of Modern Languages and Linguistics, while European languages dominate the linguistic grouping of ‘official languages’, there is a plethora of others, including Amerindian, African, Creole, and Asian languages, which also contribute to the region’s linguistic diversity and heritage.
A multilingual Caribbean space relies heavily on translation services to facilitate written communication among speakers of different languages and transfers of knowledge within the public, private and academic sectors. At the University of the West Indies, there are Translation Bureaus at the St. Augustine, Mona and Cave Hill campuses, and post-graduate programmes that contribute to the sustained growth of a highly qualified cadre of professional translators. At the same time, online translation tools and applications, especially those powered by artificial intelligence, offer an alternative for accessing translation services. Tools like Google Translate or Chat GPT have become modern-day quick references for the translation of words, paragraphs and in some cases complete documents from one language into another. For our observance of International Translation Day earlier this year, UNIC Caribbean explored the impact of artificial intelligence translation tools on the practice of translation in the Caribbean.
We spoke with Dr. Rossana Herrero-Martín, Coordinator of the UWI Cave Hill Translation Bureau, Mr. Eric Maitrejean, Coordinator of the UWI St. Augustine Caribbean Interpreting and Translation Bureau and Mrs. Lyndell Logan-Salina, retired translator and interpreter about the world of professional translation and the impact of AI-powered tools on its relevance and sustainability.
Translation: the process and product
Herrero-Martín describes the process of translation as not merely the swapping of words from one language into another but rather a “purposeful, ethical act of intercultural communication: rendering meaning, intent, tone and function of a source text into a target language so it works for its new audience.” The skill set of a professional translator is underpinned by a perfect command of the target language, including an advanced-level understanding of style and register, as well as cultural nuance and contexts. The process of translation also includes background research, revision and proofreading so that the translated product adheres to international standards. According to Maitrejean and Logan-Salina, exposure to and familiarity with a broad range of topics and issues - including historical and current events - are assets for students of translation, enhancing their capacity to recognise and appropriately replicate topic-related or contextual nuance and references. Logan-Salina says the translator’s ability to weave together these various linguistic, cultural and contextual threads, is directly linked to the quality of the translated product.
The professional translator’s fluency also extends to the use of translation tools and technology, including machine and computer aides and software designed to support their work. Artificial intelligence within the context of translation studies, refers to the ability of computer systems to translate text from one language to another. Tools powered by this technology can potentially enhance the efficiency of the professional translator’s workflow, from drafting to revision, and even the inclusion of terminology options to convey appropriate nuance and context.
“But machines doing that now!”
Before she entered the profession, says Logan-Salina, many outside the field anticipated the imminent takeover of the translation process by computers. Since the turn of the century, artificial intelligence has enhanced the capacity and output of translation tools and applications. These tools have become widely available and accessible via online and mobile applications, making translating from one language into another not just easily available, but also cost effective for those purchasing this service.
So, does the availability of AI portend the demise of translation as a human endeavour? For Maitrejean and Herrero-Martín, as Coordinators of Caribbean Translation Bureaus, reinvention and evolution is what comes next for the profession of translation. According to Maitrejean, it is the responsibility of language professionals to upskill and improve their capacity to utilise AI tools as part of their professional toolkit, in order to add value in sectors where “a very simple phone app” can replace their services.
Herrero-Martín envisions translators as not merely remaining relevant but also leading the modern-day process and workflows that utilise these tools to ensure adherence to international standards of quality and compliance. Output that is rapidly (and often very cheaply) churned out by online translation tools still requires professional review and editing for linguistic, cultural or contextual nuance. This is where Herrero-Martín predicts a sustained and even increased demand for professional translators. She believes that despite the advances made by AI translation tools, core human skills – “judgement, ethics, cultural intelligence, writing craft” – will remain irreplaceable.
Translators and AI – preserving the multilingualism of the Caribbean
The linguistic landscape of the wider Caribbean includes many of what Herrero-Martín refers to as “under resourced” languages; that is, languages for which there are few or no resources that can be accessed by translators globally. Within the context of the 21st century, this lack of data available to train AI translation algorithms and models severely reduces the options for translation from and into these languages, potentially undermining the value of these languages as vehicles of knowledge and culture for their respective communities.
For Herrero-Martín, Logan-Salina and Maitrejean, professional translators possess a unique skillset as builders of corpora including, dictionaries, glossaries and other language resources. For them, this skillset is critical for curating the resources required to ensure these languages become potentially more visible to AI-powered algorithms, and therefore more accessible globally. Herrero-Martín says it is imperative that this resource-building and curation prioritize community language sovereignty and the safeguarding of this intangible heritage:
When carried out responsibly and in close collaboration with language communities, translation can be a powerful instrument of preservation, revitalization, and visibility for Caribbean languages, including indigenous languages.” The unique role of professional translators as community partners, language curators and potential facilitators of resource access to AI-powered algorithms and models should be considered “not just a technical act but an act of cultural justice.
The expert contributions of qualified translators working in the Caribbean facilitates communication while preserving the region’s multilingual identity. Artificial intelligence technology has transformed the process of translation and offers translators tools to enhance their professional experience while continuing to practice the art of translation. By keeping pace with the advantages offered by AI and adopting and adapting its tools to address the linguistic needs of the region, Caribbean translators strengthen their roles as protectors of the region’s multiple language identities and linguistic diversity.
https://www.un.org/ht/node/239755
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"Quand la traduction scientifique réveille l’arabe comme langue de savoir
Rabat a accueilli un colloque international mettant en lumière le rôle central de la langue arabe dans la traduction scientifique et, plus largement, dans l’acquisition et la transmission du savoir. Organisée sur 2 jours par l’instance académique supérieure de traduction relevant de l’Académie du Royaume du Maroc, cette rencontre s’est tenue sous le thème « Acquérir et transmettre les savoirs : le rôle de l’arabe dans la traduction scientifique ».
Les intervenants ont insisté sur l’importance de s’approprier les méthodologies scientifiques pour garantir une traduction de qualité vers l’arabe. Dans ce cadre, Abdelfattah Lahjomri, coordinateur de l’instance académique supérieure de traduction, a souligné que l’accès au savoir suppose un cheminement complet, allant de la donnée brute à l’innovation. Il a également rappelé que la traduction scientifique appréhende la science comme un « acte civilisationnel », permettant aux sociétés de passer de la consommation à la production, et de la science apprise à celle enseignée, développée et innovante.
Le programme de cette rencontre prévoit plusieurs séances consacrées, notamment, à l’histoire de la traduction scientifique au Maghreb arabe, à l’analyse du transfert de la technologie et de la traduction aux XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles, ainsi qu’aux traductions scientifiques rédactionnelles au Maroc au XIXe siècle.
Une autre séance porte sur la traduction médicale et pharmaceutique, à travers l’évolution de la terminologie médicale et la confrontation de travaux de Constantin l’Africain (XIIIe siècle) et de Lucien Leclerc (XIXe siècle). Au-delà de la précision lexicale, les échanges ont mis en avant la traduction scientifique de et vers l’arabe comme un levier majeur pour reconstituer et réécrire l’histoire des sciences.
Un panel est également prévu mercredi autour des approches historiques et dialogiques entre l’arabe et d’autres langues, des enjeux de la traduction arabe d’œuvres astronomiques de Ptolémée, ainsi que de l’apprentissage des mathématiques en arabe et en turc à l’époque ottomane.
Ce colloque réunit des chercheurs venus du Maroc, de Tunisie, de France, des États-Unis, de Turquie et d’Égypte, appelés à mettre en exergue le rôle structurant de la traduction et de la langue arabe dans l’enrichissement des connaissances scientifiques et leur circulation à travers l’histoire."
11 février 2026
https://www.infomediaire.net/traduction-scientifique-arabe-colloque-international-rabat/
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"Translating Cultural Landscapes: From the World of UNESCO to the Reality of China
Dr Su Yin will give the ICCHA China Night seminar on 26 Feb, exploring how the UNESCO concept of cultural landscapes is translated into Chinese heritage practice, from West Lake to Longjing Village.
Translating Cultural Landscapes: From the World of UNESCO to the Reality of China
26 Feb 2026, 18:00 – 19:30
612
31-34 Gordon Square
London
WC1H 0PY
United Kingdom
Information alert banner.
China Night Seminar Series – Term 2
This event is part of the International Centre for Chinese Heritage and Archaeology (ICCHA) China Night Seminar Series.
We are delighted to continue Term Two with a talk by Dr Su Yin, whose research explores how cultural landscapes are understood and managed in China.
In Translating Cultural Landscapes: From the World of UNESCO to the Reality of China, Dr Yin examines the concept of cultural landscape, introduced as a heritage category by the World Heritage Committee in 1992, and its translation within Chinese heritage policy and practice. Using West Lake and Longjing Village as case studies, she considers how cultural landscapes are addressed at different scales and how approaches to heritage can move beyond simply managing sites to engaging with their social, ecological, and more-than-human dimensions.
Drawing on her doctoral research at the UCL Institute of Archaeology, Dr Yin reflects on Traditional Villages as living archives of community knowledge and cultural interaction, highlighting the potential of cultural landscape approaches to support conservation that is dynamic, inclusive, and attuned to both human and non-human perspectives.
Su Yin
Teaching Assistant
UCL Institute of Archaeology
Su Yin is a heritage researcher with a PhD from UCL, specialising in traditional villages, cultural landscapes, and more-than-human heritage in China. Based in London, she has taught and guest lectured at UCL. Her research examines how heritage policy translates cultural landscapes into practice, with particular attention to community knowledge, conservation, and more-than-human perspectives."
https://www.ucl.ac.uk/social-historical-sciences/events/2026/feb/translating-cultural-landscapes-world-unesco-reality-china
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"This study examines the influence mechanism of cover design in English translations of Chinese children’s picture books on cultural transmission from a multimodal metaphor perspective. By analyzing representative picture books, such as The Water Dragon, and Reunion, it becomes clear that a complex interplay exists among visual symbols, color metaphors, and typography, collectively constructing a metaphorical system for cross-cultural communication. Research indicates that successful cover designs often achieve a creative translation of multimodal metaphors, preserving Chinese cultural characteristics while adapting to the cognitive habits of international readers. From the ideological perspective, such designs skillfully integrate translation strategies of domestication and foreignization. This paper proposes that cover designs for English translations of Chinese children’s picture books should emphasize the modern reconfiguration of symbols, the cross-cultural adaptation of colors, the visual treatment of text, and the distillation of universal themes. This approach maximizes cultural transmission during the initial visual impression stage"
A Multimodal Metaphor Perspective on the Globalization of English Translations of Chinese Children’s Picture Books: A Case Study of Book Covers
Chen Yang
School of Culture and Education, Shaanxi University of Science and Technology, Xi’an, China.
DOI: 10.4236/oalib.1114867 PDF HTML XML 2 Downloads 74 Views
Abstract
Open Access Library Journal > Vol.13 No.2, February 2026
https://www.scirp.org/journal/paperinformation?paperid=149575
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"Formulating segments or strings of text of varying length flanked by pauses of different durations is integral to the writing and translation processes. In recent years, these strings of texts produced within pauses, thereafter referred to as bursts of written language, have become the object of detailed analysis in both writing and translation, two sub-categories of text production. Although the linguistic units contained within these bursts have been the subject of extensive research, to date, their analysis has mostly built on traditional grammatical categories, and their linguistic properties remain only partially defined. This paper suggests a new analytical framework that can be deployed for the analysis of pause placement in bursts of writing in translation at the product-process interface. The study builds on a corpus of product and process data of English-to-French translations of a biotechnology text by L1 French translation students. It focuses on coding and analyzing keylogging data corresponding to similar translation renditions to explore patterns in pause placement. The new analytical framework contributes to a better understanding of how meaning unfolds in translation and how pause placement patterns can indicate translation difficulty.
Data availability
The raw anonymized data used in this study is drawn from the "The Pro-TEXT French Translation Sub-corpus of keystroke logs and final texts" (Vandaele et al., 2017), the translation sub-corpus of the Pro-TEXT project (Cislaru & Sfeir, in press; Miletic et al., 2022). The datasets generated and/or analysed during the current study are available upon reasonable request by contacting the authors."
Article
Open access
Published: 13 February 2026
An analysis of pause placement in bursts of writing in translation: a product- and process-oriented approach
Maya Sfeir, Sylvie Vandaele & Georgeta Cislaru
Humanities and Social Sciences Communications , Article number: (2026)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41599-026-06683-5
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21 Chinese postgraduate students majoring in translation, many with strong technical backgrounds, translate color words in technical, promotional, and literary contexts, and what cognitive and cultural considerations drive their strategy choices. Participants, recruited from
"Color words present a persistent translation challenge because they function as both perceptual descriptors and carriers of conceptual meaning, and translators must decide which dimension to foreground across genres. Grounded in conceptual metaphor theory, this study investigates how 21 Chinese postgraduate students majoring in translation, many with strong technical backgrounds, translate color words in technical, promotional, and literary contexts, and what cognitive and cultural considerations drive their strategy choices. Participants, recruited from six universities in Shaanxi Province with strong technical profiles, were all experienced in translating technical texts. The findings reveal that students’ treatment of color words varies according to the text type: in technical texts, they predominantly draw on the metaphorical schema of COLOR AS PHYSICAL ATTRIBUTE, prioritizing visual precision and literal meaning. In contrast, in literary or promotional texts, they tend to activate the schema of COLOR AS CONCEPTUAL ATTRIBUTE, focusing on cultural and symbolic meanings. Their translation strategies, ranging from literal rendering to free translation and selective annotation, are shaped by the communicative function and symbolic significance of color words. This study demonstrates that color words serve both as perceptual phenomena and carriers of culturally embedded conceptual meanings, and that translators must actively navigate these dimensions to produce functional and culturally appropriate translations. These results contribute a schema-based explanation of genre-sensitive metaphor regulation in color-word translation and inform translator education by recommending differentiated training that balances precision with cultural resonance.
Citation: Wang H, Lv G, Tian X (2026) Color as physical/conceptual attribute: Color word translation by Chinese postgraduate students. PLoS One 21(2): e0342447. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0342447
Editor: Wei Lun Wong, National University of Malaysia Faculty of Education: Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia Fakulti Pendidikan, MALAYSIA
Received: June 27, 2025; Accepted: January 22, 2026; Published: February 10, 2026
Copyright: © 2026 Wang et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited..."
Hui Wang, Guangsheng Lv, Xiaoming Tian
Abstract
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0342447
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...translates live phone calls into more than 50 languages.
"T-Mobile is preparing to test a new AI feature that translates live phone calls into more than 50 languages. Live Translation is launching in beta “this Spring,” according to a press release, with registration for eligible T-Mobile customers available starting today.
“Some of the biggest barriers wireless customers face are the simplest ones — like being able to understand each other,” said T-Mobile CEO Srini Gopalan. “By bringing real-time AI directly into our network, we’re delivering more than connectivity — turning conversations into community, starting with Live Translation.”
Enabling it at the network level means users don’t need specific apps or devices to use the service. The only requirement is that translation must be initiated by a T-Mobile network user. The feature will be available on the carrier’s 5G Advanced network, but T-Mobile President of Technology and CTO John Saw told The Verge that Live Translation works over both 4G LTE and 5G:
“The key requirement is a Voice over LTE (VoLTE) connection, which allows the service to operate reliably across a wide range of devices and network conditions,” said Saw. “That flexibility is important because it ensures Live Translation works for customers wherever they are, not just when they’re on the latest network technology. Live Translation works over VoLTE, VoNR, and VoWiFi.”
T-Mobile says that beta participants can activate Live Translation “for as long as they need” by dialing 87, at no additional cost during the beta period. T-Mobile has not mentioned if Live Translation will be paywalled when it launches to the general public this year. Beta participants will also be able to activate Live Translation by saying “Hey T-Mobile” later this spring.
It’s worth flagging that the feature only works during an active call, and that T-Mobile won’t save call recordings or transcripts. “The service is designed to translate conversations in real time and then move on, without storing the content of those calls,” Saw said."
https://www.theverge.com/tech/877008/t-mobile-live-translation-languages-ai-network
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"Despite the common misconception that Buddhism neglects emotion, the four noble truths—the very foundation of the Buddha’s teaching—centers around emotion: that we feel and that we can affect how we feel.
On February 26, professor Maria Heim will join us to discuss the emphasis on emotion in early Buddhist teachings, evident in her new translations of sections of the Connected Discourses (Samyutta Nikaya) in the Pali Canon. Using contemporary research in psychology and neuroscience to reinforce the value of mindfulness, Heim shows us the enduring, subtle, and also playful quality of these texts, and the practices and teachings within. The Buddha showed us that with mindful attention we can interpret and work with our emotions, instead of being controlled by them.
Join us to learn more about the way these early teachings were presented, the art of translation, and the often-overlooked significance of emotion in Buddhism.
Speakers
Maria Heim
Maria Heim is the George Lyman Crosby 1896 & Stanley Warfield Crosby Professor in Religion at Amherst College and a Guggenheim fellow. Her books include The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Emotions in Classical Indian Philosophy and The Forerunner of All Things: Buddhaghosa on Mind, Intention, and Agency. She lives in Amherst, Massachusetts.
DETAILS
Date: February 26, 2026
Time: 11 a.m.–12 p.m. ET
Format: Zoom webinar
Price: Premium subscribers: Free // General admission: $10"
https://tricycle.org/events/emotions-in-translation/
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"Countries at the UN rights body protested a decision to suspend accessibility and limit interpretation services for meetings as the UN struggles with a liquidity crunch.
The United Nations’ financial troubles look set to continue wreaking havoc in Geneva this year. Meeting times are being sliced, speakers' time cut short, while travel restrictions and the hiring freeze remain in place.
Weeks away from its first regular session of the year, the Human Rights Council approved on Monday another round of cost-cutting measures – the third year in a row. The move is driven by a widening financial gap caused mainly by the US, but also by other states failing to pay their dues on time.
Measures include cutting back meeting time by 10 per cent, including by placing a cap on speakers’ interventions of one and a half minutes. But one decision taken by the UN secretariat drew particular outcry.
‘This is exclusion’
Monica Varela García, chief of the interpretation service at the UN Geneva Office’s division of conference management, told member states at the meeting that the UN would not be providing accessibility services and would scale back interpretation and translation until further notice.
The UN typically offers interpretation for international sign language and live captioning for videos, which allow people with disabilities to follow and take part in the council’s discussions.
The measures prompted pushback from a range of states, including Mexico, New Zealand, Canada, Spain, Japan and Thailand.
“If there is no accessibility for interactive dialogues and panels on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities here in the Human Rights Council, this is exclusion,” said Spanish ambassador to the UN, Marcos Gómez Martínez. “A lack of accessibility for an important segment of the population is entirely unacceptable.”
Mexico’s ambassador, Francisca Méndez Escobar, also called for multilingualism and the six official languages – a foundational principle of the United Nations – to be upheld.
Calling it an “unprecedented situation”, Varela García said her office had received no funds at all for non-post costs, which total $27 million*. That includes sign language interpretation, which relies entirely on external hires, and backup for translation and interpretation during intense periods.
“Staff capacity in the division of conference management is insufficient to meet mandated activities,” she said, noting that her division was already struggling after losing 90 posts during last year’s budget cut.
Asked if technology alternatives had been considered, Varela García replied that the human-centred communication remained key in such settings where “trustworthiness, understanding and clarity are crucial”.
The council president, Indonesia’s ambassador, Sidharto Reza Suryodipuro, said he would send a letter to UN chief António Guterres, “requesting that accessibility services be provided”.
Investigations hampered
The human rights work that underpins the diplomatic agenda is also taking a hit this year. Nada Al-Nashif, deputy high commissioner for human rights, whose office is in charge of overseeing tasks of the council, painted a bleak picture. “The liquidity crisis has affected every aspect of our work. All mandated activities, both thematic and country-specific, have been and will continue to be delivered in a significantly reduced form,” she said at the meeting.
The UN Human Rights Office has only received 20 per cent of its UN budget allocation from New York to last until April, she added. This year’s budget was already $25m less than last year’s, following a 16 per cent cut proposed by Guterres and taken up by states late last year.
Al-Nashif also said a technical advisory body to the UN’s budget committee, comprised of member states in New York, had recommended further cuts, bringing the number of abolished posts to 117. The committee also rejected seven of the 11 new posts requested to carry out mandates assigned by member states themselves. The body has been accused of blocking human rights work by refusing to grant the necessary resources.
Among the initiatives affected, according to Al-Nashif, are a working group set up to craft a new treaty on the rights of older people, work on the human rights impact of sea level rise and another one aimed at fighting inequality through the promotion of economic, social and cultural rights.
Budget cuts have also meant most temporary staff – on whom the office relies heavily – have seen their contracts expire, further straining the workforce.
“The UN’s already meagre budget for human rights has been further slashed while human rights crises continue to grow globally,” Raphael Viana David, programme manager at the International Service for Human Rights, said reacting to the budget cuts in a statement last month.
The financial crunch continues to strain experts mandated by the council to monitor and report back on rights abuses across countries and thematic topics. Investigative bodies, according to Al-Nashif, are operating at staffing levels of 60 per cent or lower.
Some of the bodies have seen a tangible impact on their work. The Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territories was unable to deliver three reports over the last year whose mandates have now expired and would require new resolutions for them to carry over, she said.
A commission requested by the Democratic Republic of the Congo to investigate violations in the war-torn east of the country is also still having trouble getting off the ground despite initial steps to begin operations.
Al-Nashif also noted that the new investigative mechanism on Afghanistan, established last summer with a voluntary trust fund, had yet to receive any donations.
Special rapporteurs will be limited to one country visit per year, as last year, though without translation services, which Varela García said are needed in the majority of countries.
Last week, UN rights chief Volker Türk said his office was “in survival mode”. He launched a $400m appeal for voluntary donations for 2026 – $100m less than the previous year.
*This article has been updated with the correct figures regarding the amount allocated for non-post funds cited by the Division of Conference Management
Published on February 09, 2026 17:58. / Updated on February 10, 2026 12:25.
Cuts to sign language and interpretation spark pushback at UN rights council
By Michelle Langrand
https://genevasolutions.news/human-rights/cuts-to-sign-language-and-interpretation-spark-pushback-at-un-rights-council
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"PARIS, Feb 9 - Migrants deported from Britain to France under a new "one-in one-out" scheme did not have enough access to translators, legal advice or information about what would happen to them next, inspectors said in a report published on Monday.
Twenty people removed on a flight in November were offered a translator who spoke Arabic and French, but hardly any of them knew those languages, the UK prison inspectorate said in its first report on the scheme that was launched in July.
The deportees knew they were being taken to France but did not know what would happen to them there, "which increased anxiety for some," it said.
They were given law firms' phone numbers, but many said the solicitors did not want to take their cases, it added.
Under the agreement, a person who comes to Britain on a small boat can be detained and returned to France, and an equal number of migrants are then authorised to travel from France to Britain via a new legal route.
The stated aim is to persuade migrants not to risk the dangerous and illegal crossing from France.
In response to the report, a spokesperson for Britain's Home Office (interior ministry), said: "The welfare of people detained is of the utmost importance and we are committed to ensuring that detention and removal are carried out with dignity.
Detainees are offered information leaflets in 26 languages, they added.
Rights groups have said the "one-in one-out" scheme is arbitrary, lacks due process and disregards migrants' wellbeing.
A group of UN experts, including seven Special Rapporteurs, called for the end of the programme last year in a letter to the British and French governments, saying it "may result in serious violations of international human rights law".
The French Ministry of the Interior did not immediately reply to requests for comment.
British interior minister Shabana Mahmood said last week that 305 people have been removed from the UK and 367 brought in under the scheme. REUTERS"
https://www.straitstimes.com/world/europe/migrants-deported-under-uk-france-scheme-lacked-translators-and-advice-report-says
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"What is Public Writing? The Humanities in Translation
Ragini Tharoor Srinivasan, Rice University
Feb 12 | HG1010 | 1:30-2:30 PM
“Public writing” has long been an aspiration in the academic humanities. But to what public does the phrase refer, and what transformations must our writing undergo in order to reach it? How can practices of public writing extend and amplify the work we do in classrooms, research, and institutional life? And what role might public writing play for graduate students and early-career scholars navigating uncertain academic futures?
This presentation offers a practical framework for understanding hybrid genres that sit between academic, public, and semi-public writing. Drawing on her background in ethnic media, freelance journalism, academic and trade publishing, memoir writing, and editorial work, Ragini Tharoor Srinivasan will dispel common myths about public writing and focus instead on the work of translation: translating humanistic scholarship across audiences, genres, and platforms. Participants will leave with tools to identify appropriate venues and occasions for the circulation of their own academic work.
Ragini Tharoor Srinivasan is Assistant Professor of English at Rice University, where she teaches Asian American and South Asian Anglophone literature and cultural studies. A former ethnic media editor and freelance essayist, she writes widely on contemporary literature, media, and politics. She is co-editor of the award-winning Thinking with an Accent (2023), co-author of the epistolary memoir The End Doesn’t Happen All at Once (2025), and author of Overdetermined: How Indian English Literature Becomes Ethnic, Postcolonial, and Anglophone (2025) and What is We? (2025). Her editorial work spans volumes on the legacies of 1990s theory, the fate of the postcolonial, the Asian Century, and pandemic fiction.
This event is part of the Applied & Translational Humanities Initiative and is co-sponsored by the International Center for Writing and Translation and Graduate Futures."
https://www.humanities.uci.edu/events/what-public-writing-humanities-translation
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"For African enterprises navigating global business, the question has shifted from whether to use AI translation to which system to trust when accuracy affects contracts, compliance, and customer relationships.
The global AI translation market is expanding from $1.20 billion in 2024 to $4.50 billion by 2033 at 16.5% CAGR. Despite 70% of global businesses integrating AI translation by 2025, a trust gap persists: advanced AI tools achieve only 60-85% accuracy versus professional human translation’s 95%+ accuracy.
How Do You Trust AI Translation When You Don’t Speak the Target Language?
For African enterprises expanding across the continent’s 54 countries and 2,000+ languages, or engaging with international partners, this challenge is particularly acute. Decision-makers regularly need to approve critical translations, contracts, compliance documents, and product specifications in languages they don’t understand. The traditional approach has been frustratingly inefficient: copy text into Google Translate, then DeepL, then maybe ChatGPT, manually comparing outputs and hoping for the best.
“The biggest issue isn’t that AI makes mistakes, it’s that you can’t easily tell when it’s wrong unless you speak the target language,” noted a user in the r/LanguageTechnology Reddit community, where translation professionals frequently discuss the challenges of trusting single AI engines. This sentiment echoes across enterprise technology discussions throughout 2024 and 2025, as businesses grapple with the practical reality of deploying AI translation at scale.
MachineTranslation.com’s newly launched SMART (consensus translation) feature offers a fundamentally different approach: instead of asking which single AI engine is best, it answers which translation multiple independent engines agree is correct. SMART provides the most trusted translation by comparing the outputs of 22 AI models. It automatically selects the version that the majority of AIs agree on for each sentence. This drastically reduces risk and cuts AI translation errors by 90%. This verification-first methodology represents what industry experts are calling the most significant advancement in machine translation reliability since neural networks became mainstream.
What Is AI Translation Hallucination and Why Does It Matter?
AI hallucinations in translation occur when systems generate fluent, grammatically correct content containing factual inaccuracies or fabricated information.
A 2025 Scientific Reports study analyzing 3 million mobile app reviews found 1.75% of user complaints were about hallucination-like errors. In enterprise deployments, 47% of AI users in 2024 made at least one major decision based on hallucinated content, while 39% of AI-powered customer service bots were reworked due to hallucination errors.
For translation, hallucinations manifest as dropped words, fabricated facts, and terminology drift—especially in low-resource African languages. MIT’s analysis shows hallucinations are particularly prevalent when translating out of English. OpenAI’s latest models demonstrate hallucination rates of 33-79% depending on complexity.
How Does SMART’s 22-Model Consensus Actually Work?
SMART transforms the translation workflow by querying multiple independent AI engines, including Google, DeepL, Claude, Microsoft, and others from its platform of over 22 AI models, and automatically selecting the sentence-level translation that the majority of engines converge on. Crucially, this isn’t about adding a rewriting layer or stylistic polish on top. SMART picks the strongest consensus result without modifying meaning.
“When you see independent AI systems lining up behind the same segments, you get one outcome that’s genuinely dependable,” explained Rachelle Garcia, AI Lead at Tomedes, the company behind MachineTranslation.com. “It turns the old routine of ‘compare every candidate output manually’ into simply ‘scan what actually matters.'”
The consensus model delivers three key advantages that directly address enterprise pain points:
Hallucination Mitigation:
When one engine fabricates details, others typically don’t. SMART follows the majority rather than the outlier, significantly reducing the risk of invented content making it into final deliverables.
Non-Linguist Confidence:
Stakeholders who don’t speak the target language finally see “the translation where most AIs agree,” providing a practical safety net for approval processes.
Review Efficiency:
Editors and reviewers no longer need to scrutinize five separate versions of the same sentence, dramatically accelerating quality assurance workflows.
What Results Has SMART Demonstrated in Real-World Testing?
Internal evaluations on mixed business and legal material revealed that consensus-driven choices reduced visible AI errors and stylistic drift by 18-22% compared to relying on a single engine. The largest gains came from fewer hallucinated facts, tighter terminology consistency, and fewer dropped words, all critical factors for professional content used in contracts, compliance documents, and stakeholder communications.
Even more striking for enterprise decision-makers: in a focused review where professional linguists rated SMART output, 9 out of 10 described it as the safest entry point for stakeholders who don’t speak the target language at all. This directly addresses the fundamental pain point in global business operations, where executives regularly need to approve translations in languages outside their competency.
According to Ofer Tirosh, CEO of Tomedes: “MachineTranslation.com is no longer just a scoring and benchmarking layer for AI outputs; it now builds a single, trustworthy translation from those outputs, end to end. We’ve evolved beyond pure comparison into active composition, and SMART surfaces the most robust translation, not merely the highest-ranked candidate.”
These improvements arrive at a critical moment for African enterprises. As AI adoption accelerates across the continent, with industries from finance to healthcare increasingly relying on automated translation for cost efficiency, the need for verifiable accuracy has never been greater.
Where Does Consensus Translation Provide Maximum Value?
SMART offers benefits across all scenarios, but certain use cases show particularly strong ROI:
Contracts and Legal Policies:
Less scrutiny required; reviewers focus on sensitive clauses, trusting consensus for standard language. Legal AI translation achieves 90% compliance with jurisdiction-specific terminology.
Product Pages and UI Content:
Consistent phrasing across SKUs and interfaces enables faster localization. Critical for African e-commerce – 76% of online buyers prefer products with information in their local language.
Compliance and Regulatory Documents:
Fewer wording slips enable enterprises to align terminology once and distribute confidently across jurisdictions.
Technical and Medical Content:
Healthcare AI localization reduced medical translation errors by 35%, but stakes remain high. Consensus provides a “safety net” when multiple engines converge on medical terminology.
The African context makes these improvements timely. Digital transformation initiatives are driving AI adoption, while Africa’s projected AI market growth to $16.5 billion by 2030 signals increasing enterprise investment.
When Should Enterprises Still Use Human Translation?
SMART’s consensus approach significantly improves AI translation reliability, but it doesn’t eliminate the need for human expertise in all scenarios. The platform explicitly acknowledges this through its optional Human Verification feature for mission-critical content.
Industry data suggests a tiered approach delivers optimal results:
High-Stakes Content (legal documents, marketing campaigns, public-facing materials): Requires human expertise and review. Professional translation delivers 95-100% accuracy versus AI’s 70-85%, and the reputational and legal risks of errors justify the investment. Cost: $0.10-$0.25 per word for common language pairs.
Medium-Stakes Content (help articles, internal policies, onboarding materials): Works well with AI translation plus light human review, especially when using consensus approaches like SMART. Hybrid workflows combining AI draft translation with certified linguist review deliver savings of up to 45% compared to pure human translation while maintaining 97% accuracy. Cost: approximately $0.08 per word including post-editing.
Low-Stakes Content (internal communications, routine emails, preliminary drafts): SMART consensus translation without human review provides a reliable, cost-effective baseline. Free to use for basic implementations, with API options for enterprise integration.
For African SMEs with limited resources, this tiered approach offers a practical pathway. As businesses across the continent seek to transform operations with AI, understanding where to allocate human expertise versus AI automation becomes a crucial competitive advantage.
How Does SMART Fit Into Secure Enterprise Workflows?
Enterprise adoption requires robust data governance. MachineTranslation.com addresses this through:
Secure Mode:
SOC 2-compliant AI processing meeting enterprise security standards
Automatic Anonymization:
Sensitive fields anonymized before processing
Temporary Sharing:
Expiring guest links for controlled collaboration
Format Preservation:
Maintains layouts for PDFs, Word docs, and PowerPoints
No Long-Term Storage:
Content isn’t retained, addressing data sovereignty concerns
These features align with African regulatory frameworks including South Africa’s POPIA, Nigeria’s Data Protection Regulation, and the emerging AU Data Protection Framework.
What Does the Reddit Translation Community Say About This Approach?
The value of comparing multiple AI outputs resonates in translation technology discussions. In r/LanguageTechnology communities, users frequently discuss challenges of trusting single AI engines, with consensus emerging that comparing multiple outputs reduces error risk.
Reddit invested substantially in AI translation, expanding to over 35 countries in 2024. According to Slator, Reddit’s translation cost per language was under $1 million in Q3 2024. CEO Steve Huffman called machine translation “one of the best opportunities we’ve ever seen to rapidly grow the content base outside of English.”
How Should African Enterprises Implement Consensus Translation?
For technology leaders considering SMART:
Identify High-Volume Content:
Start with reliable but not mission-critical translations – product descriptions, support docs, routine correspondence.
Measure Baseline Metrics:
Document current error rates and review time before implementation.
Run Parallel Testing:
Process content through both existing workflow and SMART for 2-4 weeks.
Define Review Triggers:
Establish when consensus translations need human verification.
Scale Gradually:
Begin with one department, validate results, then expand.
This measured approach allows African enterprises embracing AI to validate results before full adoption.
What Are the Broader Implications for African Business?
SMART’s consensus approach signals a shift: rather than seeking the “best” single AI system, orchestrate multiple specialized systems and leverage agreement as reliability proxy.
For Africa’s language diversity, consensus-based approaches offer value for:
Intra-African Trade:
Reliable contract and specification translation as AfCFTA drives cross-border commerce
Regulatory Compliance:
Consistent documentation across multiple African jurisdictions
Digital Public Services:
Verifiable accuracy for e-government initiatives in multiple official languages
Healthcare and Education:
Safety mechanisms where translation errors have direct human impact
The translation market’s projected growth to $27.46 billion by 2030 (from $6.93 billion in 2024) at 25.79% annual growth reflects recognition that language barriers represent genuine economic obstacles.
What Comes Next in Translation Verification?
SMART is live on MachineTranslation.com, free for basic use with enterprise API options. The platform supports 270+ languages via web, Android, iOS, and API.
As AI reshapes enterprise operations, consensus approaches suggest a principle: when single AI systems struggle with reliability, orchestrating multiple systems and extracting consensus offers a practical path forward.
For African technology leaders, the question isn’t which AI translator is best – it’s how organizations verify translation accuracy when decisions depend on it. SMART’s 22-model consensus provides one answer, reducing errors by up to 90% and giving non-linguists a practical safety net.
In a continent where linguistic diversity is simultaneously cultural asset and business challenge, tools making multilingual communication trustworthy aren’t just convenient – they’re an infrastructure for economic integration and growth."
https://www.itnewsafrica.com/2026/01/stop-asking-which-ai-translator-is-best-start-asking-how-translation-gets-verified-inside-smarts-22-model-consensus/
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