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"‘Weird, delightful, refreshing’: Anupama Raju on translating writer Paul Zacharia’s ‘imagination’
‘I had to ensure readers around the world got a peek into his bizarre, but entertaining, universe.’
Anupama Raju Discovering Paul Zacharia’s writing, thanks to the Katha translation series that was very popular in the 1990s, was like being thrown into an alternate universe. Gods, biblical characters, supernatural beings, politicians, drunkards, lustful men and women, co-existed without complaint in this universe. It was immensely educational as it was entertaining. I found Zacharia’s imagination weird, delightful and refreshing. And very different from that of his contemporaries. As a Malayalee growing up in Chennai, I started reading Malayalam literature in English translation. The brilliance of writers like Ayyappa Paniker, Lalithambika Antharjanam, Paul Zacharia, OV Vijayan, MT Vasudevan Nair and Mukundan held me spellbound. Years passed, and I moved away from Zacharia’s universe, only to be thrown back into it when I moved to Thiruvananthapuram, the city he lives in. I was already writing and publishing poetry in English by then. And perhaps because of my unfamiliarity with the Keralite imagination and culture, I felt like an outsider in Kerala. That I’d not studied Malayalam, the language of my parents, fanned this awkwardness. I was fluent only in spoken Malayalam. Hence, translating literature from Malayalam into English appeared as a lifeline to Malayalam, Kerala, and my roots. A matter of trust
When I got an opportunity to translate Zacharia’s short fiction, I was thrilled. Though he was approachable and down-to-earth, I was always conscious of his stature in Indian literature. The first of Zacharia’s stories I translated was “The Sixty-Watt Sun”, first published in Malayalam in 2009. He was brave to let me – a novice who hadn’t studied Malayalam – translate it. There were trusted translators like Gita Krishnankutty and AJ Thomas who were already translating his stories. Yet, he chose to have faith in me. For that, I shall remain grateful to him: Zacharia to the Malayalam world. Paul to the Anglophone literary world. And “sir” to me. “The Sixty Watt Sun” was an exercise in hard work, patience and resilience. It was a story that had many surreal elements. Zacharia’s characteristic dark humour, the manner in which he exposed human nature and its absurdities and the brilliance with which he depicted contemporary trends made the story special. I would spend weeks reading each sentence aloud, piecing words together and referring to the Shabdatharavali, the imposing Malayalam thesaurus. I would also discuss meanings and nuances with a grand-aunt or an uncle, who tolerated my ignorance. Over countless drafts and discussions with Zacharia, the translation was finally done. The story went on to be published in 2011 in Pratilipi, a bilingual journal that featured literature from Indian languages. More stories followed: “The Death and Funeral of Sister Alphonsa”, an endearing look at Kerala’s venerated saint, and “The Bar”, whose smoke-filled, absurd interiors were strange and characteristically Zacharia. Spending more time in his universe, I slowly grew confident in my skills as a translator. As I have noted elsewhere, translation is always a collaboration when one has access to the writer. I could not imagine translating in isolation. Zacharia and I would review the drafts, sometimes over a simple lunch of rice, moru curry and vegetables in his home. He would chip in with suggestions, some of which I was bold enough to turn down with time. A freedom he afforded me as our partnership evolved into friendship. Loyalty to imagination
And then 2020 came into our lives. The pandemic struck. Life was unreal. It was around the same time that I started translating more stories of his, such as “Rani”, “Kanyakumari”, “By the Water Lily Pond”, “Black Magic”, and others. They offered much-needed respite from the anxiety of what was happening around. I would break into giggles and loud laughter at my desk, as I worked with his wacky protagonists. We would discuss the drafts over video calls. Our conversations also veered into other favourite topics like old Hindi film songs or cats. But luckily, the translations were done. All along, I was writing too. I was invested in my poetry and in my first experimental novel. But whenever I translated Zacharia, I was always aware of the boundaries and the profound responsibility I shouldered. I was a translator first and a writer second. Can one separate the two, you ask? I think I did. My loyalty as a translator was to Zacharia’s imagination. I had to ensure readers around the world got a peek into his bizarre, but entertaining, universe. More than 15 years have passed since I translated “The Sixty Watt Sun”. Now there is 50 Stories, a collection that brings together some of his best stories in translation. And I’m proud to have contributed to it. Zacharia and I speak from time to time. There may be no moru curry and rice. But there’s always laughter and respect. Anupama Raju is a poet, novelist, literary translator and communications professional." https://amp.scroll.in/article/1092614/weird-delightful-refreshing-anupama-raju-on-translating-writer-paul-zacharias-imagination
#metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus
Are humans the only beings on the planet that use language to communicate?
"Burg Giebichenstein
Kunsthochschule Halle
“Language can only deal meaningfully with a special, restricted segment of reality. The rest, and it is presumably the much larger part, is silence.” George Steiner
Are humans the only beings on the planet that use language to communicate? Can we decipher the nonhuman world around us without harnessing it to our own socialization, syntax, and lexicon? Is interspecies communication even possible? Translation has been described as a precondition that underlies all (human) cultural transactions upon which communication is based. It also is inherently political and stands at the forefront of so many of today’s questions around identity, gender, post-colonial criticism, feminist critique, machine translation and canon creation, yet its connection within the context of the nonhuman turn, interspecies communication, and eco-criticism has not yet been fully explored.
Whether we are talking about classic linguistic and literary translation, or any number of related fields including: language and literature, cultural studies, performance, visual and media arts—the core question that translators and theorists of translation have been debating about for centuries remains the same: is it possible to translate without interpreting? Is linguistic and cultural equivalence even possible? These questions become all the more urgent in the limit-case of interspecies communication. Can we apply empathic modes of translation to nonhuman articulations, wherein translation involves a form of metamorphosis, not of text, but of the translator. As such, translators are something of a hybrid species with one foot in each culture and language, and whose very existence revolves around traveling between worlds. Translators have something of a mythical being about them, akin to a chameleon or centaur. In this course, we will not be engaging in a scientific exploration of interspecies communication, but examining theories around empathic translation-- a process that sees translation not merely as the transformation of a text, but of the translator themself.
Emerging and classical theories of translation can offer a paradigm for engaging with plant and animal articulation, not language as such, but different forms of articulation perceived through the senses, one in which our hearing and seeing,“once intertwined and attentive to the calls and cries of animals, all but disappeared with the invention of the alphabet, retreating into a kind of silence.”
In David Abram's words: “By giving primacy to perception we can see the natural world, not as inert and passive, but as dynamic and participatory. The winds, rivers and birds speak in their own way (if we listen), the sounds of nature not only have informed indigenous languages, but language in general--humans are but one being intertwined with other beings and ‘presences.’ This perspective sees the landscape as a sensuous field, and human perception as but one point of view that is in reciprocity, in expressive communication, with other points of view and ways of being.”
How can theories of translation help us make sense of this new view of a world teeming with language and sentience? What theories abound in reference to multiplicity of “language,” even as Walter Benjamin would argue for a “universal (human) language.” What practical tools does translation studies offer, and what bridges can it forge between the disciplines? The first half of the seminar focuses on key theoretical concepts relevant to the history and practice of translation. In the second half, students will engage in translation experiments that intersect with their own artistic/design practice. A final project should be considered a first draft of something that could develop later into a larger project.
The course will be taught in English and German.
This seminar is ideally suited to students interested in: Literature, Translation Theory / Translation / Cultural Studies / Critical Theory, Creative Writing/ Post-humanism, Trans-humanism, Eco-criticism, the More-than-Human Turn.
Teachers
Dr. Zaia Alexander"
https://www.burg-halle.de/en/course/l/talk-with-the-animals-translation-in-a-more-than-human-world
#Metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus
#métaglossie
"Cameroon’s sacred and royal animals: could literature and futures thinking help save them?
In the grasslands and highlands of western Cameroon, some animals are believed to be sacred. Within the region’s indigenous kingdoms (fondoms), many of these animals are also considered to be royal. They include wild cats (like cheetahs, leopards, lions), buffaloes, elephants, porcupines, cowries (sea snails), and a brightly coloured bird called the Bannerman’s turaco.
These species carry deep cultural and spiritual significance. They are, for example, often used to decorate royals (kings, queens and queen mothers) or to award royal distinctions to deserving individuals. Their body parts can be used to make crowns, bedding, footstools, bangles or necklaces for royalty. Red feathers from the Bannerman’s turaco are used to distinguish warriors and hunters.
Here, indigenous cultural practices can both sustain and decimate biodiversity. The names of some of these animals, especially wild cats, are used as praise names for kings. But custom dictates that when these animals are found, they must be killed and taken to the palace as a tribute.
Most are either locally extinct or critically endangered. Except for cowries and porcupines, all these animals are included on the red list of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature.
Biodiversity loss caused by humans is accelerating at alarming rates around the world. This includes biodiversity hotspots like the Congo Basin in central Africa, which Cameroon is part of. Thousands of species have been identified in the basin, 30% of which are endemic (native).
Read more: Nuer people have a sacred connection to birds – it can guide conservation in Ethiopia and South Sudan
I am a scholar who works across disciplines. These include the arts, literature and cultural studies; environmental humanities; sustainability science; anticipatory governance and future generations; strategic foresight and futures studies.
In a recent study, I explored how literary creativity combined with foresight workshops might help change how people view these animals. Could they offer more hopeful futures for these unique species?
The role of literature
Literary texts like plays, poems and novels offer insights into dealing with climate and ecological challenges in the Congo Basin. (Even in the case of less popular but highly important species such as insects.)
This is the case in many works by anglophone Cameroonian authors, like Athanasius Nsahlai, Kenjo Jumbam, J.K. Bannavti, and John Nkengasong.
Read more: ‘A healthy earth may be ugly’: How literary art can help us value insect conservation
Their stories have the potential to warn against the destruction of royal and sacred animals. They can also help shape new visions for the future of biodiversity conservation.
I draw on postcolonial ecocriticism (the relationship between literature, culture, the environment and history) and narrative foresight (what stories can reveal about the future) in my study. I analyse how these books engage with royal and sacred animals in ways that challenge environmentally unfriendly cultural practices, and how they propose new forms of relations between humans and other animals.
Jumbam’s novella, Lukong and the Leopard, for instance, tells the story of a young man called Lukong. The son of an outcast from the Nso kingdom, he helps capture a lion. Surprisingly the king demands it be brought to his palace alive. Just as Lukong is to be decorated by the king, his father sneaks in. Fearing for his son’s life, he sets the lion free.
In a sense, the story challenges the old cultural practice of killing royal animals. It invites readers to change how they see and relate with these animals in order to protect them.
Workshops
Stories like this can then be taken into foresight workshop sessions. Narrative foresight meets group participation to create what is called participatory foresight. Participants and stakeholders from diverse backgrounds are brought together to explore future scenarios, the challenges that shape them and what can drive change.
As part of my research, I organised a day of participatory foresight workshops on #CongoBasinFutures and #RoyalAnimalsFutures in Yaoundé, Cameroon.
Over 30 participants across a range of ages, genders and interests were brought together. They included teachers, researchers, environmentalists, farmers, nurses, writers, filmmakers, musicians, journalists, students, civil society workers, policymakers, and indigenous kings (fons).
Using foresight tools, participants were asked to discuss motivations as well as historical barriers while envisioning more hopeful futures for royal and sacred animals. The workshops were designed to include literary narratives on the plight of these animals.
They drew on current trends and signals of change, like climate change, biodiversity loss and indigenous cultural practices. They imagined new futures and then collectively proposed several policy interventions that could be practical solutions.
Shaping better policies
Cameroon does have environmental laws aimed at protecting biodiversity, but they are not effectively implemented. My study – and our workshop – seeks to complement these laws and contribute to their effective use in practice. Ideas coming out of the workshop include:
Creative arts and education should be used to help raise awareness about protecting royal animals and biodiversity. This could include programmes like our workshop, creative competitions and updating educational curricula.
Instead of decorating those who kill, local hunters should be rewarded when they spot and report the presence of royal animals for monitoring and preservation. The use of artificial animal parts for traditional ceremonies should be encouraged.
Policy should encourage research into the controlled breeding of endangered royal and sacred animals and the promotion of ecotourism around these animals. Special parks and reserves could combine arts and royal animals to attract tourists. Revenue could improve livelihoods, sustain cultures, and promote environmental conservation.
Environmental regulation should be strengthened through collaboration with all stakeholders, including indigenous authorities and local communities. Hunting of certain animals could be regulated. Hunting seasons and quotas for certain species could be in place. Indigenous leaders and communities could be engaged to adapt and modernise cultural practices in an era of environmental collapse.
Read more: Literature from the Congo Basin offers ways to address the climate crisis
But we must move from recommendations into action. Otherwise, ideas from studies like this will remain good on paper only, like most environmental laws in Cameroon. If so, royal animals and other species will continue to be threatened by extinction."
Published: May 10, 2026 9.41am SAST
https://theconversation.com/cameroons-sacred-and-royal-animals-could-literature-and-futures-thinking-help-save-them-281160
#metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus
...Exploring how Scripture has been translated, transmitted, and treasured throughout history.
"with Tim Wildsmith
Sep 12, 2026. 1:00 PM - 5:00 PM EDT
Join author and content creator Tim Wildsmith for this year's Bible Craftsmanship event at Museum of the Bible exploring how Scripture has been translated, transmitted, and treasured throughout history. Through two engaging sessions, Tim will guide guests through the story behind the English Bibles we read today, helping demystify translation philosophies, textual traditions, and what makes each version unique.
The event also includes a curated tour of the museum’s History of the Bible Floor—an experience full of significant artifacts and rare Bibles, offering attendees a rich, immersive encounter with the history of the Bible. Whether you're a pastor, student, or simply curious about how the Bible came to us, this is a one-of-a-kind opportunity to learn from one of today’s most exciting voices on modern Bible craftsmanship and translation.
Directions
CONTACT
400 4th St. SW
Washington, DC 20024
United States
General Admission in Person: $39.99
Members in Person: $22.99
Students in Person: $29.99
General Admission Virtual: $19.99
Member & Students Virtual: $14.99
https://washington.org/event/engaging-history-bible-translations
#metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus
‘Being human helps’: despite rise of AI is there still hope for Europe’s translators?
Philip Oltermann European culture editor
9 May 2026
In February 2022, while he was plugging away at rendering the US writer Dana Spiotta’s novel Wayward into French, the literary translator Yoann Gentric decided he needed a bit of light relief. He would test whether AI could put him out of work.
Gentric had been grappling with a short non-verbal sentence that described the book’s protagonist’s feelings upon opening a window: “Bright, sharp night air, bracing.” He put the prompt into DeepL, a neuralnetwork-powered machine translation engine that regularly outperforms Google Translate in accuracy assessments.
The proposed translation was reassuring, with his job security in mind: L’air de la nuit, vif et vif, était vivifiant (The night air, lively and lively, was enlivening.) AI had translated the sentence’s meaning but was seemingly unaware that the repetitions rendered the line absurd. It was far inferior to his own translation that would be published in the book a year later: L’air pur et piquant de la nuit, vivifiant.
When Gentric repeated his experiment this spring, however, the outcome made him feel less at ease: L’air nocturne était vif, pur et vivifiant, DeepL suggested this time. The online translator still lost the sentence’s stylistic trait by adding a verb, but it had learned to use three different words that even had a musical ring to them. “I don’t know if it’s just chance or a fine-tuned algorithm at work, but nocturne and pur is not bad,” said Gentric.
Chatbots running on large language models (LLMs) - neural networks trained on vast amounts of text to generate naturalsounding language - are rapidly infiltrating every aspect of our work and leisure lives. But few professional sectors are being disrupted by the technology as rapidly as the translation industry in Europe, home to more than 200 languages and a booming tech sector.
According to a recent joint survey by the French authors’ societies ADAGP and the Société des Gens de Lettres, 79% of translators believe the rise of AI “poses a threat of replacing all or part of their work”. In Britain, a 2025 survey found that 84% of translators questioned expected lower demand for human translation, resulting in lower pay.
Those fears concern the future, but for many translators the nature of their work has already changed. Laura Radosh, a Berlinbased German-to-English
translator, used to get about four job requests per month from clients including universities, professors and museums. Last year, the number of offers dropped to one each month.
Many of them were “postediting” jobs, which required her to correct texts that had already been run through a machinetranslation engine. “Post-editing took me as much time as translating from scratch,” said Radosh.
Far less creatively fulfilling than translating from scratch, post-editing is also less well-paid:
usually compensated by the hour rather than by the page or by the book, it is paid “at unacceptable rates considering the work involved”, according to the French translators’ association. In Germany, publishers have been found to offer typical rates of two to eight euros per page - a quarter of the average pay for translating a page from scratch.
But rates for regular technical translations have tumbled too. “I got offered a job at 60 cent[s] a line,” said Radosh. “Before then, 80 cent[s] was the lowest rate I had ever come across.”
Even before the advent of LLMs, translation was a precarious profession: a recent survey by the German translators association VdÜ found that the average income for literary translators - traditionally at the lower-paid end of the sector - was as little as €20,363 euros per annum before tax. But the latest changes in the industry mean that for many translators, the numbers no longer stack up - Radosh recently took a part-time job doing book-keeping for an NGO.
Marco Trombetti, the cofounder and CEO of the machine translation company Translated, said: “Without help, the human brain basically is able to produce about 3,000 words a day of translation. Beginners will manage about 1,500, the best translator in the world may manage 6,000, but the variation is not that big.”
The cost of human translation, he argued, had until now been defined by the number of neurons we have in the brain. “That’s around 100bn,” Trombetti said. “But if we change that, then we change the unit economics of translation.”
Yet the speed of technological change is also revealing what human translators still do best.
For one, many machine translators still struggle with context. The German-British academic publisher Springer Nature offers its authors the option to have their books autotranslated into other languages for free, but in spite of assurances of subsequent “human checks”, this process has in the past led to comical results.
In 2024, Springer Nature machine-translated into German an English-language book by a group of Indian academics called ‘Capital’ in the East: Reflections on Marx. In the chapter headings, however, the machine translator DeepL had rendered “capital” not as Kapital in the intended sense, but Hauptstadt, meaning “capital city”.
A spokesperson for Springer Nature said in a statement: “Our AI-supported translation is human-led and reviewed by professional editors. Errors like this are rare and regrettable, and this instance relates to a limited pilot that has since ended.”
Jörn Cambreleng, the director of Atlas, a French organisation promoting literary translation, said: “Machine translation is not creative. These systems are built to produce sentences that are generic, sentences that have been said before or sound like they have been said before. Whereas good human translators strive to put into words something that has never been said before.”
One of the ironies of the upheaval is that literary translation now appears to be a comparatively safer career choice than its technical counterpart.
The HarperCollins-owned imprint Harlequin France has confirmed that it is working with a French communications agency, Fluent Planet, to produce translations that are generated by AI software and then post-edited by humans, although for now such trial runs are confined to the pulpier reaches of the market:
Harlequin’s titles include A Mistress’s Confession and The Embrace of a Prince.
In Germany, where the total number of new published books has been gradually declining year on year, literature in translation has held up remarkably well, with 8,765 books in translation published in 2024 making up a historically high 15% of the overall output. Increasingly, authors are also contractually obliging their publishers not to use AI in the translation process, said Marieke Heimburger, a Danish-to-German translator who chairs VdÜ.
“AI really cannot do dialogue,” said Katy Derbyshire, a Berlinbased translator who has rendered into English novels by Clemens Meyer, Christa Wolf and others. “When you are translating from scratch, you learn to understand the characters and their motivations, and you’re constantly adjusting them in your head - to individual situations, but also to genre. The dialogue that AI came up with just didn’t suit the character description at all.”
Being human helped the translation process, she added. “My body has experienced all the pain and the joy that literature strives to convey. I understand what someone might scream when they hit their toe on the bed frame - an algorithm doesn’t.”
Fernando Prieto Ramos, of the University of Geneva’s faculty of translation and interpreting, said his centre had noticed a drop in applications to translation courses three years ago, when the rise of generative AI fuelled the hype around machine translation. “But the trend is gradually reverting again with a more diversified training offer,” he said.
Even people who develop machine translation software concede there are tasks that remain beyond their product’s reach. “If in Italian I say Solo tre parole: non sei solo, then a literal translation into English would be ‘Just three words: you are not alone,’” said Trombetti, who founded Translated in 1999. “But you’ve ended up with four words, not three. That’s something that machine translation still struggles with.”
Heimburger said: “I am not really scared of AI, because I know it cannot do what I can do. What I am afraid of is the people who think that AI can do my job.”
https://www.pressreader.com/usa/the-guardian-usa/20260509/282501485254320
#metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus
"It can all go horribly wrong. Or the translation can be spot-on — or even better than the original! It all depends on the film, the culture, the actual words themselves, the complexity of meaning and the nuance. The World’s Gerry Hadden takes a global look at funny, brilliant and sometimes terrible film translations, and why it can be so hard to get it right.
May 8, 2026
Gerry Hadden
https://theworld.org/segments/2026/05/08/translating-a-films-title-is-harder-than-it-seems
#metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus
AI will make language barriers disappear – and diminish our understanding of other cultures
Diego Marani
Machines may soon translate every conversation flawlessly. But language is more than information – it is curiosity, intimacy and cultural discovery
Sat 9 May 2026 05.00 BST
One of my earliest assignments as a young interpreter was to provide simultaneous interpretation for the proceedings of an ecumenical council that brought together all Christian denominations. As my homework, I dutifully read scripture, the gospels, papal encyclicals and the conclusion of the first council of Nicaea.
There was, however, one thing I had not foreseen. Mass was held not in the conference hall, but in the church itself, where there were no booths and the interpreter was required to stand discreetly at the altar. Here, translation alone would not suffice – the interpreter had to perform the part of the priest, with his unmistakable clerical timbre, the arms outstretched then folded in prayer, the gaze repeatedly lifted towards heaven.
My childhood experience as an altar boy helped, as did that innate instinct for the theatrical that seems always to come naturally to Italians. My performance was so flawless that when a telegram arrived from Pope John Paul II wishing the council well, I was entrusted with translating his Latin. The temptation to give it a Polish accent was strong, but I restrained myself.
With AI, the process of conquest through knowledge will be lost
Whether the latest developments in artificial intelligence and voice-to-voice interpretation will include a “priestly voice” setting and the whimsical option of a specific accent, I cannot say. Should they do so, future participants in ecumenical councils will be spared a most curious spectacle – and, I venture to think, deprived of a certain charm.
Live voice-to-voice interpretation, which the Cologne-based AI translation company DeepL unveiled earlier this month, marks the crossing of a frontier in artificial intelligence and in the realm of language from which there will be no turning back. The age of the interpreter is over: that ambiguous figure poised between the shrewd mediator who averts conflict and the scapegoat, who made communication possible not only between speakers of different tongues, but between different worlds and different ways of apprehending reality.
The machine will perform this task far better – cleanly, without siding with one party or another – and the economic savings will undoubtedly be considerable. The transformation in human communication will be profound. But are we certain it will be progress? Will the crossing of this frontier truly enhance communication and mutual understanding among people of different cultures and languages?
The first effect of the AI translation revolution will be to render the study and learning of languages superfluous for individuals. It will be enough to turn to our phones to understand whoever speaks to us and to translate our own speech into any language. Eventually, we shall be able to read information in every language, to write texts that can be read from one end of the world to the other. Yet knowledge – true understanding of others, of their cultures and customs, of the cast of mind of another country – will not thereby become ours. This body of knowledge will reside in AI systems, not in us.
If no one studies other languages and cultures any longer, we shall know nothing about the person to whom we are speaking. Until now, to study a language was also to enter its culture. And to learn language and culture one must love them, become passionate about them, feel a kind of infatuation with that country and its world. One always learns something because one loves it; only thus does one truly learn it. With AI, this process of conquest through knowledge will be lost. The passion for knowing and discovering another people will disappear. Languages will become for us mere codes to be deciphered, and we risk knowing nothing at all about the people who speak them.
Nor is it certain that AI systems will prove infallible in translation. However thoroughly they may be supplied with every possible piece of information about a country and its culture, they will always lack the capacity to judge the situation – the moment in which an encounter takes place and translation becomes necessary.
After my brilliant debut at the ecumenical council, my career as an interpreter continued with more prosaic assignments. I was once hired to provide simultaneous interpretation of lectures delivered by a group of Neapolitan engineers to a group of technicians from several French-speaking Arab countries, on site at a production facility in southern Italy. But my work did not end in the classroom. It continued in the evenings, over dinner and in conversations between the engineers on both sides.
The Neapolitan engineers were very curious to know how many wives their Arab colleagues had. Clearly, their knowledge of the Arab world went no further than a distorted vision drawn from the Arabian Nights, tinged with a rather backward attitude towards women that was then still common among southern Italian men. It was obvious that I could not ask such a question. So instead I asked the north African technicians how many children they had. Out came figures that satisfied the Neapolitans: at least two, but often three, even five. The Neapolitans widened their eyes, offered congratulations, slapped their colleagues on the back; the north Africans, in turn, basked in what they took to be praise of their reproductive prowess. Everyone was pleased, and my false translation served the good cause of understanding and conviviality.
It may be that the AI of the future will learn to master the particular fixations of future Neapolitan engineers. But there is a poetry, and even a certain nobility, in attempting to speak – however imperfectly – another language, even at the cost of provoking laughter through an error or a misunderstanding. It is, in the end, a form of courtesy to try to learn another’s language, a sign of interest and regard, a tribute to their culture. With AI translation, the humanity, the sense of wonder, and the emotional reshaping that comes with discovering people different from ourselves risk being lost for ever.
Diego Marani is an Italian novelist and former interpreter at the European Commission and the Council of the European Union
https://www.theguardian.com/world/commentisfree/2026/may/09/ai-interpretation-diego-marani?CMP=share_btn_url
#metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus
Le paysage éducatif camerounais s’enrichit d’un nouvel outil numérique. La plateforme digitale andjeun.com a été officiellement lancée ce 6 mai 2026 à Douala, avec l’ambition de démocratiser l’accès au savoir grâce au digital.
" une bibliothèque numérique de 4 000 ouvrages
Raphaël Cheugeu Mai 07
Le paysage éducatif camerounais s’enrichit d’un nouvel outil numérique. La plateforme digitale andjeun.com a été officiellement lancée ce 6 mai 2026 à Douala, avec l’ambition de démocratiser l’accès au savoir grâce au digital.
La plateforme andjeun.com, développée par ITGstore, est une bibliothèque numérique qui donne accès à plus de 4 000 ouvrages consultables en ligne, sans contrainte géographique. Pour son promoteur, Gabriel Fopa, cette initiative répond à une nécessité celle de reconnecter la jeunesse africaine à la connaissance et valoriser les solutions locales à travers le digital. «C’est une plateforme digitale qui porte plus de 4000 livres aujourd’hui. En réalité cette bibliothèque participe de ce que nous devons poser comme action pour défaire toutes choses qui font que la jeunesse croit que c’est à l’extérieur que la solution existe », explique-t-il.
Savoir-être et savoir-faire
Cette bibliothèque numérique s’articule autour de deux grands volets. Le premier, consacré au savoir-être, regroupe des contenus liés à l’histoire, la littérature, la philosophie, la spiritualité ou encore la science. Le second est orienté vers le savoir-faire, avec des formations pratiques portant notamment sur l’apiculture, la pisciculture, la culture du champignon et plusieurs autres activités génératrices de revenus. Selon Gabriel Fopa, l’objectif est de créer un équilibre entre développement intellectuel et acquisition de compétences pratiques.
À travers cette plateforme, les concepteurs entendent également inscrire l’Afrique dans la dynamique des révolutions technologiques actuelles. «Nous avons juste profité du digital qui articule la 3e et la 4e révolution pour dire que ce récit ne doit pas appartenir aux autres. Alors, Andjeun est cette révolution-là», affirme Gabriel Fopa.
Sur le plan technique, les développeurs ont misé sur une accessibilité simplifiée. La plateforme fonctionne directement via un navigateur web et propose plusieurs formules d’abonnement adaptées aux moyens des utilisateurs.
Le lancement a réuni plusieurs personnalités du monde intellectuel et scientifique, parmi lesquelles Dr Essoh Ngome Hilaire, Dr Yves Ekoué ainsi qu’Olga Patricia Ndinga, intervenue depuis l’Europe par visioconférence.
«Andjeun.com est une plateforme web accessible à travers un navigateur google chrome ou internet explorer, il suffit de taper simplement le lien du site. Il y’a une partie gratuite et une payante. l’utilisateur peut prendre un abonnement en fonction de ses moyens», précise AYEE Ronald, développeur de la plateforme.
Déjà intégrée à la carte biométrique jeune au Cameroun, la bibliothèque numérique prévoit une extension progressive à Yaoundé dès le 28 mai prochain, avant un déploiement à plus grande échelle sur le continent africain..."
Raphaël Cheugeu 07 mai 2026
https://teleasu.tv/digitalisation-andjeun-com-une-bibliotheque-numerique-de-4-000-ouvrages/
#metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus
"Les modèles gèrent le raisonnement en direct, la traduction vocale dans plus de 70 langues et la transcription en temps réel via l'API Realtime.
By Colleen Cabili
OpenAI ajoute trois modèles vocaux à son API en temps réel, offrant aux développeurs des outils pour le raisonnement en direct, la traduction vocale et la transcription en streaming, a déclaré la société.
Le premier modèle, GPT-Realtime-2, apporte un raisonnement de classe GPT-5 aux interactions vocales en direct. OpenAI affirme que le modèle est conçu pour que les conversations vocales restent fluides même lorsqu'il traite des demandes complexes, gère les appels d'outils et s'adapte aux interruptions sur le moment. Il est tarifé à 32 $ pour 1 million de jetons d'entrée audio — ou 0,40 $ pour les jetons d'entrée mis en cache — et 64 $ pour 1 million de jetons de sortie audio.
La traduction vocale en direct est au cœur du deuxième modèle, GPT-Realtime-Translate, qui prend en charge l'entrée de plus de 70 langues et fournit une sortie dans 13, sans ralentir le rythme naturel d'une conversation. Il est tarifé à 0,034 $ par minute.
Complétant le trio, GPT-Realtime-Whisper est un modèle qui convertit l'audio parlé en texte en temps réel, en privilégiant une faible latence pour que la transcription suive les locuteurs pendant qu'ils parlent. OpenAI a cité des cas d'utilisation tels que les sous-titres à l'écran et les notes de réunion générées automatiquement comme exemples d'utilisation du modèle. Il est tarifé à 0,017 $ par minute.
Les trois modèles sont disponibles via l'API en temps réel d'OpenAI. Les développeurs peuvent les tester dans le Playground d'OpenAI."
https://fr.qz.com/modles-de-voix-en-temps-rel-openai-dveloppeurs-050726
#metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus
"Avec l'essor de la traduction automatique par IA, des milliers de langues risquent de disparaître.
La technologie de traduction automatique facilite la communication, mais elle soulève des inquiétudes quant à la disparition de nombreuses langues, l'UNESCO avertissant que des milliers de voix pourraient disparaître.
Selon le correspondant de l'agence de presse vietnamienne en France, le développement rapide de la technologie de traduction automatique basée sur l'IA suscite des inquiétudes quant à la tendance à l'« homogénéisation » des langues mondiales, dans le contexte du renforcement des initiatives de l'Organisation des Nations Unies pour l'éducation , la science et la culture (UNESCO) visant à protéger la diversité culturelle et linguistique.
Les dispositifs de traduction en temps réel, tels que les casques intelligents dotés d'intelligence artificielle, permettent aux utilisateurs de communiquer directement dans leur langue maternelle sans avoir à apprendre une langue étrangère, grâce à leur capacité à convertir instantanément le langage parlé et écrit.
Cette technologie associe le traitement des données embarqué à un système de capture audio directionnelle, séparant la parole du bruit ambiant pour une traduction quasi simultanée. Certains appareils prennent désormais en charge plusieurs langues courantes telles que l'anglais, l'espagnol, le français, l'allemand et l'italien, et la prise en charge des langues asiatiques s'étend progressivement.
Cependant, les experts avertissent que cette caractéristique pourrait nuire à la motivation à apprendre les langues étrangères, accélérant ainsi la simplification de la grammaire et la réduction du vocabulaire dans de nombreuses langues.
Le linguiste américain John McWhorter affirme qu'à l'ère de la communication de masse, les langues capables de relier un grand nombre de personnes, comme l'anglais et l'espagnol, domineront. Il prédit que d'ici 2100, le nombre de langues encore parlées pourrait diminuer pour atteindre environ 600, contre plus de 7 000 aujourd'hui.
Selon l'UNESCO, près de 3 000 langues dans le monde sont menacées de disparition, tandis que plus de 200 langues ne sont plus parlées depuis 1950 faute de locuteurs.
Colette Grinevald, spécialiste des langues moins étudiées, affirme que le rythme de leur déclin est très rapide. En Amérique du Nord, le nombre de langues autochtones a chuté de façon dramatique en quelques décennies seulement, et nombre d'entre elles ne sont plus parlées que par un nombre très restreint de personnes.
Les prévisions indiquent également que, dans les prochaines décennies, les langues qui se prêtent bien au commerce, à la science et à la diplomatie continueront de se développer.
Selon la plateforme d'apprentissage des langues Preply, le chinois (mandarin) pourrait compter environ 1,2 milliard de locuteurs natifs d'ici 2050, suivi par l'espagnol, l'anglais et l'hindi. Parallèlement, le français devrait conserver son influence territoriale et diplomatique, notamment en Afrique."
Báo Tuổi Trẻ
06/05/2026
https://www.vietnam.vn/fr/ai-dich-thuat-bung-no-hang-ngan-ngon-ngu-doi-mat-nguy-co-bien-mat
#metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus
"Le 1er mai 2026, au stand de Pop Libris, l’écrivain Yamen Manaï dédicaçait la traduction arabe de L’Amas ardent, son roman paru en 2017 aux éditions Elyzad, désormais publié en arabe par Pop Libris. Derrière ce passage d’une langue à l’autre, une traductrice : Sonya Ben Béhi, membre du comité de lecture de la maison d’édition et créatrice de contenu culturel, qui a porté ce projet avec une conviction rare. Présente à la Foire internationale du livre de Tunis, elle revient sur un choix délibéré et sans concession : celui de rendre ce roman profondément tunisien au public arabophone qui, trop longtemps, n’a pas pu le lire. Dans une déclaration accordée à L’Économiste Maghrébin, elle interpelle, au passage, les déséquilibres qui structurent encore le monde de l’édition mondiale.
Ce choix était tout sauf fortuit, affirme Sonya Ben Béhi. Découvert en 2018 avec un coup de cœur immédiat, L’Amas ardent lui avait semblé, dès cette première lecture, injustement inaccessible au public arabophone tunisien. Le beau succès de l’œuvre dans l’espace francophone, notamment le Prix des cinq continents en 2017, n’avait fait que renforcer cette conviction. Dès sa première traduction achevée, ce roman s’est donc imposé comme le choix suivant. Œuvre ancrée dans l’identité tunisienne, roman de la mémoire et contre l’oubli, hommage à une nature locale, satire sociale chargée de « tunisialité » jusque dans ses mots, ses proverbes et son lexique, il se devait, selon la traductrice, d’être lu en arabe, et ce par le plus grand nombre possible.
L’auteur, partenaire inédit de sa propre traduction
La traductrice espère que cette version arabe saura plaire et que le public en saisira toutes les nuances d’une œuvre qu’elle juge particulièrement nuancée. Pour ce quatrième travail, Sonya Ben Béhi a bénéficié d’un privilège rare : échanger directement avec Yamen Manaï, auteur accessible dont la maîtrise de l’arabe littéraire, autant que du français, l’a d’ailleurs quelque peu surprise. Cette collaboration a fait de l’auteur un participant actif au processus traductif. Un dialogue de co-construction dont Sonya Ben Béhi espère qu’il se ressentira à la lecture, offrant au public une œuvre aussi riche que le texte original.
La formule « traduire, c’est trahir » est devenue si galvaudée que Sonya Ben Béhi y a renoncé. Pour la traductrice, traduire, c’est avant tout aimer. Traduire une œuvre qu’on n’aurait pas aimée lui semble inconcevable, même si certains pourraient peut-être le faire. Sa propre pratique est profondément émotionnelle : imprégnée du roman tout au long du travail, vivant l’œuvre de l’intérieur, Sonya Ben Béhi sent qu’elle laisse une part d’elle-même dans chaque texte. Le résultat est, à ses yeux, une œuvre composite, portant à la fois la substance du texte original et une empreinte personnelle. L’Amas ardent occupe une place particulière dans son cœur, précisément parce qu’il est un roman tunisien.
La littérature arabe traduite : une volonté qui doit venir de l’autre
Sur ce point, Sonya Ben Béhi est directe. Un principe fondamental s’impose : la volonté de traduire vers une langue doit venir des locuteurs de cette langue. Rendre un roman arabe accessible au public français relève ainsi de la responsabilité des éditeurs français, et non de celle des maisons d’édition arabes. Or, le monde éditorial européen et américain commence à peine à traduire des romans arabes, en ne retenant que les noms les plus établis. Les initiatives restent marginales, à l’exception de quelques acteurs engagés comme Actes Sud en France, dont c’est précisément la vocation. Par ailleurs, une traduction de l’arabe vers l’anglais portée du côté arabe ne toucherait, en réalité, que quelques lecteurs anglophones locaux, tandis qu’une traduction initiée par les éditeurs anglophones ouvrirait de véritables horizons à l’œuvre. La créatrice de contenu culturel exprime l’espoir que le monde éditorial occidental porte un regard croissant et plus attentif sur la littérature arabe et africaine dans son ensemble."
https://www.leconomistemaghrebin.com/2026/05/03/lamas-ardent-en-arabe-sonya-ben-behi-ouvre-la-tunisie-a-ceux-qui-la-lisent-autrement/
#metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus
"A new program is helping Deaf leaders become Bible translation consultants faster.
DOOR International’s Rob Myers says sign language Scripture is severely lacking worldwide.
“Out of over 300 sign languages, a vast number of them don’t even have a Bible translation started,” he explains.
Groups like DOOR recruit and train Deaf Christians to translate God’s Word. Learn more here. However, the lack of Scripture creates a significant challenge.
“In most Deaf communities, Deaf leaders lack a background in the Bible because they haven’t been able to access it. These Deaf communities have been lacking the Gospel for millennia,” Myers says.
“You may have a few Christians, but because they don’t have access to the Bible, they struggle in having a deep walk with Christ.”
Why consultants matter
Translation consultants help Bible translation teams understand Scripture’s original meaning and context and determine how “to translate it in a way that’s natural for their communities,” Myers says.
“It’s a very specialized field, but it’s critically important to help make sure that Bible translation is done in an accurate way,” he continues.
“Translation consultants [ensure] communities get God’s Word in totality, in an accurate format, so churches can then take it and use it for everything they need, including sharing the Gospel, making disciples, and planting churches.”
The lengthy training process means Deaf consultants are rare.
Equipping a Deaf leader to serve as a translation consultant can take seven years or more. “One of the critical bottleneck pieces [in sign language Bible translation] is a lack of access to translation consultants,” Myers says.
CEDAR sets new pace
DOOR’s CEDAR Institute – Consultant Empowerment Development And Resources – expedites the training process for Deaf leaders. “The approach that we’re taking is called competency-based training,” Myers says.
“Typically, when a person is recruited as a translation consultant, they’ve already had a lot of experience in Bible translation. So, rather than coming in cold, they come in with a lot of background,” he continues.
“That extensive background allows this program to target areas that are critical for a translation consultant. [This approach] has allowed us to reduce that (training) time from 7+ years to a three-year process.”
DOOR needs your help to keep the CEDAR Institute going. Connect with DOOR International here.
“The very first step is to pray. Pray that God would raise up (Deaf) men and women to fill these roles so that more Bible translation can happen,” Myers asks.
“We would also ask that you consider coming alongside us financially to see more Deaf translation consultants trained and deployed into the field.”"
By Katey HearthMay 6, 2026
International (MNN)
#metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus
"Deadline: 15-Jun-2026
The PEN/Heim Translation Fund Grants, administered by PEN America, provide financial support to literary translators working on book-length translations into English. The programme is designed to promote global literary exchange by helping translators complete unpublished works of fiction, creative nonfiction, poetry, and drama originally written by a single author.
The grants focus on high-quality literary translation projects that expand access to international literature in English.
Key Objectives of the Programme
Support completion of book-length literary translations into English
Promote international literary exchange and cultural understanding
Encourage translation of fiction, poetry, drama, and creative nonfiction
Increase visibility of underrepresented global authors in English literature
Provide financial assistance to translators working on unpublished projects
Funding Details
Ten grants awarded annually
Each grant is $4,000
Funding supports completion of translation projects
Intended for book-length literary works
Eligible Works and Projects
Fiction, including novels and short story collections
Creative nonfiction
Poetry
Drama
Works must be written by a single original author
Only unpublished translations are eligible
Works that have not appeared in English or only exist in outdated or flawed translations are eligible
Ineligible Works
Anthologies with multiple authors
Literary criticism
Scholarly or academic texts
Technical or scientific works
Previously published English translations (unless significantly outdated or flawed versions exist)
Who Is Eligible?
Translators of any nationality or citizenship
Individuals translating into English
Projects may involve up to two translators
Must involve only one original author per project
Application Restrictions
Each translator may submit only one project per year
Translators previously awarded a PEN/Heim grant must wait three years before reapplying
Projects must remain unpublished before April 15, 2027
Past unsuccessful applicants are unlikely to be reconsidered automatically
Special Considerations
Translations from Italian are automatically considered for the PEN Grant for the English Translation of Italian Literature
Priority is given to unpublished, full-length literary works in progress
How the Grant Works: Step-by-Step
Select a qualifying unpublished literary translation project
Ensure the original work meets eligibility criteria (single author, literary genre)
Prepare application materials including translation samples and project details
Submit application through PEN America’s official process
Wait for evaluation by selection committee
If awarded, use grant funds to complete the translation
Evaluation Criteria
Literary quality of the original work
Skill and experience of the translator
Importance of the work in its original cultural context
Contribution to English-language literary diversity
Feasibility of completing the translation project
Why This Programme Matters
Expands access to global literature in English
Supports translators as key cultural mediators
Promotes cross-cultural understanding through literature
Helps preserve and disseminate important international literary works
Encourages diversity in the English-language publishing landscape
Common Mistakes to Avoid
Submitting already published translations
Applying with anthologies or multi-author works
Including ineligible genres like academic or technical writing
Submitting more than one project per year
Ignoring eligibility restrictions for previous award recipients
Pro Tips
Choose a strong, internationally significant literary work
Highlight cultural importance and translation challenges
Provide clear evidence of translation quality and skill
Ensure the project is realistically completable within scope
Demonstrate originality and literary value of the source text
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
What is the PEN/Heim Translation Fund? It is a grant programme supporting literary translation into English
How much funding is provided? $4,000 per selected project
How many grants are awarded? Ten grants annually
Who can apply? Translators of any nationality working on English translations
What types of works are eligible? Fiction, poetry, drama, and creative nonfiction
Are anthologies allowed? No, only single-author works are eligible
Can previously published translations be funded? No, unless they are outdated or flawed versions requiring a new translation
Conclusion
The PEN/Heim Translation Fund Grants play a vital role in bringing global literary voices into English by supporting translators working on significant unpublished works. By funding high-quality literary translation, the programme strengthens cultural exchange, enriches English-language literature, and ensures that important international stories reach wider audiences.
For more information, visit PEN America."
https://www2.fundsforngos.org/individuals/pen-heim-translation-fund-grants-for-literary-translators/amp/
#metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus
"The majority of England’s ambulance services do not provide British Sign Language (BSL) interpretation via a video relay service (VRS) at incidents, the deaf health charity SignHealth has said, following a written question in parliament on the issue last month.
Juliet Campbell, the Labour MP for Broxtowe, tabled the question to the Department of Health and Social Care asking “what steps [it] is taking to help ensure that ambulance services are able to communicate effectively with Deaf people who use British Sign Language (BSL)”.
In response, secondary care minister Karin Smyth MP said: “To facilitate clear and effective communication in emergency situations, individuals who are deaf, hard of hearing, or speech impaired can utilise tools such as the 999BSL video relay platform, which is app and web-based, to contact 999 via a BSL interpreter as well as access via emergency SMS messaging.
...
BSL is a recognised language in the UK and therefore the NHS must be able to ensure healthcare is accessible for Deaf individuals, including pre-hospitably in urgent and emergency care.
“I am pleased that the Government has confirmed that UK ambulance staff carry iPads that have video relay apps and the ability to video call with a remote BSL interpreter 24/7.
“This will ensure real-time communication is possible for Deaf individuals who need it, so they can communicate and be treated by paramedics when they need it.”
However, SignHealth said it has been told by deaf people that they are asked to hang up on 999 BSL once an ambulance has arrived, which it said leaves deaf people “without a video relay service [VRS] and no communication during treatment”.
Lucy Warnes, the charity’s chief executive, said on Tuesday: “Apart from the North East of England, most ambulance services do not provide a VRS. We want services across England to follow the North East model so that deaf people can communicate safely and confidently in an emergency.
“VRS relies on investment in infrastructure and in some areas, there is lack of 4G and 5G connectivity.
“Beyond technology, we want paramedics and first responders to have basic BSL skills. At SignHealth we run workshops to support and empower deaf people to use these lifesaving digital tools themselves, but technology alone is not the solution.”
https://liamodell.com/2026/05/05/ambulance-services-999-bsl-british-sign-language-interpreter-deaf-access-health-signhealth-juliet-campbell-karin-smyth/
#metaglossia #metaglossia_mundus
"Minnesota Supreme Court Chief Justice Natalie Hudson has declared Wednesday, May 6, Minnesota Court Interpreter Day.
“National Interpreter Appreciation Day provides an opportunity to honor the skills, integrity, linguistic diversity, and dedication to public service of court interpreters across our state,” Chief Justice Hudson said in her official proclamation. “It is fitting and proper to set aside this annual day of recognition affirming our collective commitment to language access as a cornerstone of a fair, inclusive, and equal justice system.”
Court interpreters allow every person to stand before the law with the same voice, understanding, and opportunity to be heard. The Minnesota Judicial Branch has 14 staff interpreters, and works with hundreds of independent interpreters, who provide interpreting services during court proceedings. Since 2019, court interpreters have rendered interpretation into 194 languages, including sign language, for people throughout Minnesota.
“Minnesota is home to a richly diverse population whose residents speak dozens of languages and represent communities from across the globe, and whose deaf and hard of hearing residents communicate through non-spoken languages and other means of expression with equal richness and cultural tradition, reflecting our state's long and proud history as a place of welcome to all who seek to be fully heard and understood,” the Chief Justice writes in the proclamation.
The right to a court interpreter is grounded in the 5th, 6th, and 14th Amendments of the U.S. Constitution and is guaranteed under Minnesota law to qualifying parties in court proceedings where such a right has been established.
“Court interpreters are invaluable to our commitment to equal access to justice,” said Rosalina Sanchez, the Court Interpreter Program coordinator for the Minnesota Judicial Branch. “They are an essential conduit between individuals and the justice system, bridging language and communication barriers for those participating in court proceedings.”
ST PAUL, Minn. (May 5, 2026)
https://mncourts.gov/about-the-courts/newsandannouncements/minnesota-court-interpreter-day-to-be-celebrated-may-6
#metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus
"American Sign Language interpreters are exiting Clovis Unified due to a lack of competitive pay, leaving deaf and hard of hearing students without needed support, the interpreters say. (GV Wire Composite)
Clovis Unified ASL interpreters claim the district is experiencing an “exodus” of interpreters due to a lack of competitive pay.
The district pushes back against these claims, reporting lower levels of turnover and undergoing a third-party compensation analysis to ensure competitiveness.
The Deaf and Hard of Hearing Service Center sent a letter to district administration, raising concerns about interpretation services.
Share
Clovis Unified is experiencing an “exodus” of American Sign Language interpreters, leaving deaf and hard of hearing students in the lurch, according to district interpreters.
The Deaf and Hard of Hearing Service Center raised concerns about student access to interpretation services and encouraged Clovis Unified to take immediate steps to bolster the workforce in a letter to district leadership.
“Access to qualified interpreters is not optional; it is essential for ensuring equitable education and full participation in the classroom,” the letter states.
In the past two years, 16 ASL interpreters have left the district, according to the Association of Clovis Educators. And new interpreters aren’t filling these positions.
“This isn’t about turnover – that would require new people coming in. We’re talking about an exodus. We tried to warn them, but they chose not to believe us,” said ASL interpreter Peter Moreno.
However, only three educational interpreters and six deaf and hard of hearing instructional assistants left Clovis Unified in 2024-25 and 2025-26, district spokesperson Kelly Avants told GV Wire.
In that same time period, the district hired two educational interpreters and seven deaf and hard of hearing instructional assistants, she said.
Meanwhile, the district is rapidly growing, adding 382 students in the 2025–26 school year. The 0.9% increase has caused the district to reach a record high of 43,254 pupils. It is now the 11th largest school district in California.
Now, it’s a question of how many — not if — students will go without an interpreter, ACE says.
But Clovis Unified is actively recruiting folks for these roles amidst what Avants labeled a “shortage of interpreter candidates” in the “region and the nation.”
In the meantime, the district has plans in place to ensure students have continued support, including substitutes and schedule adjustments, Avants said.
Clovis Unified ASL Interpreters Demand Better Pay
The ACE ASL bargaining team, unionizing in August 2024, have been negotiating their first contract with Clovis Unified for about 18 months.
District administration and trustees have refused to address the growing staffing crisis, which primarily stems from the lack of competitive pay, ACE says.
“The prestige of working in Clovis doesn’t pay the bills, and the bills have gone up. This is about supply and demand, pure and simple,” said Buchanan High School ASL interpreter Shonda Harrar. “The supply of interpreters is limited, and the demand remains high, so the price goes up. Neighboring districts understand this, which is why our colleagues have moved.”
Clovis Unified offers ASL interpreters an hourly wage ranging from $34.11 to $41.41.
Comparatively, larger neighboring school district, Fresno Unified, provides an hourly wage ranging from $40.59 to $51.86. And Central Unified, which serves less than half the number of students as Clovis, offers a pay scale ranging from $23.76 to $28.95.
In the past five years, Clovis Unified has undergone two third-party analyses of its compensation structure and salary schedules, Avants said. One ensured competitiveness and the other reviewed job descriptions to appropriately place them.
DHHSC extended a helping hand in its letter, welcoming the opportunity to collaborate with the district to help recruit and retain staff.
“This may include reviewing compensation structures, strengthening recruitment efforts, providing professional development opportunities, and offering interpreters and signing aides a fair contract that supports long-term retention,” the letter states.
District Contracted Outside Interpreters
Last year, ACE discovered at the bargaining table that Clovis Unified contracted an outside agency, Soliant Health, to provide video remote interpreting services to pupils.
The union filed charges against the district, claiming it violated interpreters’ bargaining rights by not notifying them of its use of contractors.
Clovis Unified trustees unanimously approved a semester-long contract with Soliant Health for up to $332,000 in early February 2025.
“We strongly encourage Clovis Unified to avoid revisiting (video remote interpreting) as a cost-saving measure in the future,” DHHSC stated in its letter. “In classroom settings, particularly when multiple students are involved, VRI often limits access to communication and does not provide the same level of support as in-person interpreters.”
The district does not currently use any digital translation devices, Avants said"
By Anya Ellis
Published 1 day ago on
May 5, 2026
https://gvwire.com/2026/05/05/clovis-unified-asl-interpreters-claim-exodus-over-pay-district-disputes-their-numbers/
#metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus
Translation vs localization services: learn the real difference, when each is needed, and how to reduce risk in legal, medical, and business content.
A product launch stalls in Germany because the copy is technically correct but culturally off. A consent form is translated word for word, yet patients still misunderstand key instructions. A software interface fits the language, but not the way local users read dates, currencies, or warnings. This is where translation vs localization services becomes a business decision, not a wording preference. For organizations working in legal, medical, technical, financial, and public-facing environments, the difference affects compliance, user trust, and speed to market. If the wrong service is chosen, the content may be accurate on paper and still fail in practice. If the right service is chosen from the start, communication works the way it is supposed to work – clearly, appropriately, and with less risk. What translation vs localization services actually meansTranslation is the process of converting text from one language into another while preserving the original meaning. In many cases, that is exactly what is needed. Contracts, medical records, employee handbooks, court documents, and certified submissions often require precise, faithful translation with controlled terminology and a strong quality review process. Localization goes further. It adapts content for the expectations, conventions, and cultural context of a specific market. That can include changing date formats, units of measure, currencies, tone, examples, button text, imagery, legal disclaimers, and even layout. The goal is not only to say the same thing in another language, but to make the content feel correct and usable for the intended audience. The distinction sounds simple until teams face real-world content. A birth certificate for immigration typically needs certified translation, not localization. A mobile app entering Mexico or Japan usually needs localization because the user experience depends on more than direct language transfer. A global HR policy may need both – accurate translation for policy terms and localized adaptation for country-specific references or benefits language. When translation is the right choiceTranslation is usually the right fit when fidelity matters more than market adaptation. Legal filings, certified documents, medical histories, insurance records, patents, financial statements, and technical manuals often fall into this category. The core requirement is accuracy, consistency, and terminology control. In these settings, changing tone or examples too freely can create problems. A legal administrator does not want a contract “reimagined” for style. A healthcare coordinator does not need a patient discharge instruction rewritten so heavily that original meaning becomes debatable. Procurement teams sourcing regulated content want dependable output that can stand up to review. This is why expert subject knowledge matters. A document translated by someone fluent in the language but unfamiliar with legal procedure, medical terminology, or engineering vocabulary can introduce serious risk. In high-stakes work, a translator should understand the field, the purpose of the document, and the standard terminology used by professionals in that domain. When localization is the better investmentLocalization is the better choice when audience response, usability, and market fit matter. Websites, software, e-learning modules, product packaging, marketing campaigns, video subtitles, and customer support content often need more than direct translation. A localized website does not just convert English words into Spanish, French, or Arabic. It adjusts forms of address, shopping expectations, navigation patterns, local regulations, and formatting details that affect trust. A localized app does not merely swap labels. It accounts for text expansion, local payment language, decimal conventions, and whether a phrase sounds natural on a small screen. This is where many teams underestimate the scope. They assume a translated interface is market-ready, then find out that character spacing breaks the design, the call-to-action sounds unnatural, or a compliance notice does not match local expectations. Localization prevents these issues earlier, when fixes are less expensive. Translation vs localization services in regulated industriesIn regulated environments, the answer is rarely all one or all the other. It depends on the content, the audience, and the consequences of error. In healthcare, a medical record or informed consent document may require highly accurate translation, while a patient portal or outreach campaign may need localization to improve comprehension and engagement. Both matter, but they solve different problems. In legal settings, certified and official-use documents typically call for strict translation protocols. At the same time, a law firm’s multilingual website or intake materials may benefit from localization so prospective clients understand next steps without confusion. In technology, user manuals and safety documentation may require precise translation with terminology consistency, while the software interface, onboarding emails, and help center content often perform better with localization. The same company may need both services running in parallel. For financial institutions, accuracy is non-negotiable, but customer-facing content still has to feel native and clear. If disclosures are translated correctly but the surrounding content feels foreign or unclear, trust drops fast. The hidden cost of choosing the wrong serviceThe most common mistake is buying translation when localization is needed. The second most common is paying for localization when the job actually calls for controlled, literal accuracy. If a marketing team launches translated campaign copy without localization, conversion can suffer even when the grammar is correct. If a legal team localizes a sworn statement too aggressively, it can create review issues or raise questions about fidelity. If a medical provider uses generic translation for patient education materials without considering cultural context, comprehension may still fall short. These are not just editorial issues. They affect timelines, revision cycles, internal approvals, and risk exposure. Rework slows launches. Miscommunication creates frustration. In some sectors, it can lead to compliance concerns, rejected submissions, or damaged credibility with clients, patients, employees, or regulators. How to decide what your project needsStart with purpose. Ask what the content must do once it is delivered. If it needs to match the source closely for official, legal, medical, or technical use, translation is likely the primary service. If it needs to persuade, guide, convert, or feel native in-market, localization may be the better fit. Then consider audience. Are you communicating with a court, agency, hospital, engineer, or auditor? Or are you speaking to app users, employees, customers, or event attendees in a local market? The more user experience and cultural response matter, the stronger the case for localization. Next, look at risk. What happens if the wording is technically accurate but contextually wrong? What happens if adaptation goes too far? High-risk content benefits from a language partner that can separate these requirements clearly and build the workflow around them. Finally, think operationally. Many organizations do not need a philosophical answer. They need a fast, reliable process that identifies which assets require certified translation, which need localization, and which need both. That is especially true under tight deadlines or multilingual rollout schedules. What a dependable language partner should handleA serious provider should not force every project into one bucket. They should review the content type, intended use, and market requirements before recommending a workflow. That may include translation, localization, editing, proofreading, terminology management, formatting, desktop publishing, certification, or multilingual QA. Speed matters, but speed without control is expensive. The right partner should be able to move quickly while protecting confidentiality, assigning domain-expert linguists, and maintaining consistency across languages and deadlines. For organizations managing multiple departments or high-volume requests, scalability also matters. A vendor may handle a single brochure well and still struggle with a nationwide interpreter rollout, a regulated document queue, or a software release across multiple markets. This is where experience shows. Translators USA supports high-stakes language projects with subject-matter linguists, fast turnaround, and coverage across 150+ languages and dialects. For clients facing strict timelines, official-use requirements, or multilingual operational demands, that kind of execution capacity is often the difference between a solved problem and a recurring one. The smarter question to askInstead of asking whether translation or localization is better, ask what success looks like for this specific content. Does it need to be exact, market-ready, or both? That question leads to better scoping, fewer revisions, and stronger outcomes. Good language work is not just about converting words. It is about making sure the message performs correctly in the setting where it will be used. When accuracy, trust, and deadlines all matter at once, choosing the right service at the outset saves more than time. It protects the result. https://translators-usa.com/translation-vs-localization-services/ #metaglossia #metaglossia_mundus
"...Back translation works best when your main fear is hidden meaning shift. If your main fear is awkward local phrasing, user confusion, or weak market resonance, another method may be the better primary control.
Best Practices for Managing the Back Translation Process
The projects that run smoothly usually share one trait. The client gives the language team enough context to make good decisions before reconciliation begins.
For maximum ROI, experts advise reserving back translation for regulated sectors where inaccuracy penalties exceed 2-3 times the project cost, and they recommend providing full context such as glossaries and using a TMS for efficiency, as noted in these back translation best practices from Lokalise.
What clients should prepare before the project starts
If the document is high stakes, send more than the source file.
A glossary of approved terms. This is mandatory for product names, legal defined terms, clinical language, device parts, and recurring technical phrases.
Reference material. Prior filings, approved labels, source screenshots, and parallel documents help the translators preserve function.
A risk map. Mark the sections where wording carries the greatest exposure. Don’t force the same QA depth on every paragraph if only part of the document is critical.
Decision owners. Someone on your side must be available to answer terminology and intent questions during reconciliation.
A Translation Management System such as Smartling, Transifex, or another structured workflow platform can help keep terminology, comments, and revision history under control. That matters when multiple linguists are involved and every edit needs a reason.
What a well-run process looks like
A good process is disciplined and documented:
Separate linguists handle forward and back translation. No shortcuts.
The back translator remains blind to the source. That preserves the value of the test.
Reviewers compare for function, not only wording. Legal force, clinical meaning, and procedural sequence matter most.
Reconciliation decisions are logged. This protects consistency and gives you an audit trail.
Only critical content gets the full treatment. That keeps cost aligned with risk..."
https://translators-usa.com/translation-back-translation/
#metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus
"Twenty years ago, Google Translate began with a profound mission to help people understand one another, regardless of the language they speak. In the two decades since, we’ve worked to turn the science of language into the magic of connection. What started as a small experiment is now a global tool that helps people every day, from connecting with new people while traveling to learning a new language to support their career....
1. Translate now has the pronunciation tool you’ve been asking for.
To celebrate our 20th anniversary of Translate, today we’re launching one of our most requested features: pronunciation practice, so you can master your delivery on the Translate app for Android. You can already tap "ask" and "understand" to provide additional context and receive alternatives, and now you can use the new “pronunciation practice” tool, which uses AI to analyze your speech and provide instant feedback — helping you nail the right pronunciation before you start a real-world conversation. This is now available in the U.S. and India in English, Spanish and Hindi.
2. We’ve been using AI and machine learning in Translate since the beginning.
Translate was one of the initial experiments that kickstarted Google’s machine learning work decades ago within Google Research. In 2006, Translate relied on statistical machine learning, and a key part of making more fluent and natural translations was our research into how to maintain much larger-scale and more accurate language models (which capture how often words and short phrases occur) across trillions of words of data...
3. Translate supports 95% of the world’s population.
Translate works for almost 250 languages and more than 60,000 potential language pairs, including endangered and indigenous languages, ensuring more voices are heard as the world becomes more connected.
4. More than 1 billion users ask Google for translation help each month.
Translation is no longer a standalone task; it is now a fundamental part of how people discover and understand information across the web, and communicate with the world around them.
5. People translate around 1 trillion words every month.
There’s enough text translated across Translate, Search, Lens and Circle to Search every month to keep someone reading out loud 24/7 for the next 12,000 years.
6. Your headphones can be your personal translator.
With Live experiences, Translate can now be your personal translator on any headphones. By preserving the original tone and cadence of the person speaking, the technology stays out of the way so you can focus on the human connection. Live translate helps you get a quick translation when traveling, like better understanding a local speaking to you or listening to a tour guide.
...
16. The most translated language pairs might surprise you.
English to Spanish remains the most common go-to language pair in Translate but other common language pairs include English to Indonesian, Portuguese, Arabic and Turkish. English to three distinct Indian languages — Hindi, Bengali and Malayalam — round out the list, reflecting a big increase in connectivity across the globe..."
https://share.google/4aTdf63cf2jofl0eR
#metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus
"As the International Booker Prize celebrates its 10th anniversary, new research compiled for the Booker Prize Foundation by NielsenIQ BookData shows that buyers of translated fiction in the UK skew significantly younger, more male and more diverse than buyers of general fiction. They are also younger, more male and more diverse than a decade ago.
In 2016 – the year of the Brexit referendum and Donald Trump’s first presidential election victory – the International Booker Prize was established in its current form. The prize had begun life in 2005 as the Man Booker International Prize and was initially a biennial literary award for a body of work, with no stipulation that the work should be written in a language other than English. In 2015, after the rules of the original Booker Prize expanded to allow writers of any nationality to enter, the International Booker Prize evolved to become the mirror image of the English-language prize, but for a single work of fiction translated from another language into English.
Over the past decade, the prize has grown in prominence, and is now firmly established as the world’s most influential award for translated fiction. At the same time, translated fiction has undergone a boom in the United Kingdom: in 2016, 2.9 million works of translated fiction were sold in the UK; by 2025 (the latest year for which data is available) that figure had risen to 3.8 million works, while the value of the market rose from £23.2m to £40.7m in that period.
Tastes appear to have changed over the years, too. In 2016, books translated into English from Swedish, French and Italian were the most popular among UK readers; in 2025, it was books translated from Japanese, French and Russian (driven partly by an increase in sales of classic Russian literature).
But perhaps most interesting is the demographic profile of readers of translated fiction, and how it has changed over the past decade, as well as how it compares to the profile of readers of general fiction.
Buyers of translated fiction are relatively young – and appear to be getting younger. In 2025, 72.8% of translated fiction books were bought in the UK by those under the age of 45 (versus 67.6% in 2016). By comparison, 54.4% of 2025’s general fiction was purchased by those under 45 (versus 51.3% in 2016).
The largest share of translated fiction purchases in 2025 was made by those aged 25-34 (compared with the 45-59 age group in 2016), while the largest share of general fiction purchases came from buyers aged 60-84 (also 45-59 in 2016). In 2025, buyers under the age of 35 accounted for 52.0% of all translated fiction books bought, compared with just 36.8% of general fiction books bought."
Written by
Paul Davies
Publication date and time:Published May 4, 2026
https://thebookerprizes.com/the-booker-library/features/young-urban-and-male-who-is-reading-translated-fiction-in-the-uk-now
#metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus
"Le lancement de la Bibliothèque numérique Andjeun réunira du beau monde ce mercredi 6 mai 2026 dans la salle Menoua de l’immeuble Elite Offices à Akwa-Douala. Cette plateforme digitale portée par l’artiste-musicien-chanteur et homme d’affaires Gabriel Fopa, est conçue et développée par ITGStore.
Cette plateforme Andjeun met à la disposition du public à travers les quatre coins du monde, plus de 3500 ouvrages subdivisés en deux domaines : le Savoir-être (une immersion dans l’histoire, la littérature, la philosophie et les sciences pour mieux comprendre le monde), et le Savoir-faire (des formations ultra-pratiques, apiculture, pisciculture, héliciculture…). Il s’agit pour le promoteur, de valoriser l’autonomisation économique. « Nous espérons tisser l’interrelation fertile entre le Soi, l’inter-communauté et l’espace précieux du Tout-Monde », souligne Gabriel Fopa."
https://lavoixdukoat.com/bibliotheque-andjeun-la-revolution-numerique-en-marche/
#metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus
"This book investigates the methods and strategies of how translation and interpreting are taught in Africa, and it identifies the subject matters studied in several African universities, namely the five corners: north, south, west, east, and central Africa. The book goes through its different chapters to measure the efficiency of those translation and interpretation programs, departments, faculties, and schools via a comparison with the rate of employability of the graduates and their reputation in different local and continental organisms. This book reveals the teaching translation and interpretation in Africa which is still adopting the traditional classical methods or adopting new methodologies in this age of AI and recommends methods to face positively the increasing integration of AI at all life levels including in translation and interpretations to highlight the pros and cons of it and prospect or recommend adaptive measures, methods, strategies, or likely methodologies for better outcomes and performance. This book also presents the mapping of major schools, faculties, institutes, and departments of translation and interpreting in Africa. It can serve as a useful academic guide for academic scholars and professional readers on African instructions of translation and interpreting teaching."
https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-981-95-8461-1
#metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus
"Quebec’s language laws face a new reality online: automatic translation
Tech companies moving toward automatic translation may have profound implications on Quebec's linguistic landscape.
By Harry North
April 26, 2026 at 6:00 a.m.
Quebec’s new premier Christine Fréchette meant to post on X about a very Montreal kind of evening.
Her first appearance as premier on Tout le monde en parle, Radio-Canada’s flagship talk show? Check.
The Canadiens’ 4-3 win? Check.
“Une très belle soirée!” (a great evening), she concluded.
...
In Quebec, French by law is required in workplaces, commerce and public signage, and must be no harder to access than any other language. The responsibility rests with those who post it.
So, what happens when language online is available but sometimes inaccurate? What risks do businesses face in relying on platforms to translate? And what does that mean for connection across communities that speak different languages?
OQLF opens door to auto-translation
Quebec’s language watchdog, the Office québécois de la langue française, told The Gazette that commercial social media posts by companies about products or services intended for the Quebec market must be available in French, and that machine translation can be one way of doing that.
“The OQLF believes that using innovative means based on information and communication technologies can help ensure a greater presence of French,” it said in a statement. “If the automatic translation module allows users to access commercial publications in French, without any changes to the settings, regardless of the device used to view them, then these publications would be considered available in French.”
The office added that compliance must be assessed case by case.
“To assess the compliance of commercial publications on a company’s website, for example, a text is considered not to be in French if, to understand it, one must refer to its version in another language.”
Asked whether the OQLF has analyzed the quality of translations, it said: “The OQLF’s mandate does not include analyzing the language quality of content generated by automatic translation tools.”
A review by The Gazette of X posts translated between both English and French found most translations were accurate. Some, however, did not provide the intended meaning. Others were not translated at all.
Automatic translation settings on TikTok (left), X (right) and YouTube (bottom)
/Montreal Gazette
The OQLF’s current framework was not designed with automatic translation in mind, said Julianne Chu, a lawyer and translator for Éducaloi, and it also does not distinguish between how French is produced, and whether it has been human translated, machine translated or even done automatically.
“It really focuses on whether the French translation is available and meets legal requirements, notably in terms of quality and accessibility.”
For businesses, she said, it presents a confusing picture and carries risks, particularly when relying on a platform to handle translation.
How do machines translate language?
Grok’s translations are powered by what are known as large language models, the same kind of system behind tools like ChatGPT, Google’s Gemini and Anthropic’s Claude. Most operate as what researchers call “black boxes”: they generate an output, but offer little insight into how it was produced. They are trained on vast amounts of text to learn how language works. In 2025, nearly six in 10 Canadians used an AI tool like Grok or ChatGPT, according to a Léger survey.
For translation specifically, that training typically happens in two stages, according to Jackie Cheung, a computer science professor at McGill University who researches how AI understands and generates human language.
First, he said, the systems are exposed to enormous volumes of text in English, French and other languages, allowing them to see how words tend to appear together, how sentences are structured and how meaning is usually conveyed.
Then comes a second stage, more specific to translation. The models are trained on pairs of text, and learn how to map one onto the other.
At a basic level, the systems are learning patterns. However, whether these systems truly understand what they are translating, Cheung said, remains a “thorny” question in the field of AI research.
Still, they can be effective at translating the surface of language, he said, especially in more standard or formal contexts.
“What’s kind of missing is the context necessary to understand the intentions of the original poster fully,” Cheung said.
That is particularly true online. Language often depends on shared references — memes, in-jokes and tone — that exist within a community. Outside that context, a translation can feel off or misleading, even if it is technically accurate.
I don’t think (automatic translation) will help that much in terms of increasing connection or inter-community understanding.
Jackie Cheung
McGill professor
Montreal, Cheung noted, has its own version of that, too, where sometimes it may not even be pure French or English spoken or written, but a mix of both.
“The choice of language that you use itself contains information,” he said. “And this would, by definition, be lost if you have auto-translate on.”
The result is a risk that regional expressions, dialects or ways of speaking are smoothed into something more standardized, more aligned to what the generalized models were trained on.
Why AI models may overlook Quebec
Eeham Khan, a PhD researcher at Concordia University, is building a Quebec-first language model to counter that.
“It’s not always just about language,” he said in an interview with The Gazette. “The data that we have is not just the language of Quebec, but it also represents the terms, the cultures, things that maybe other models or larger models might not know about too well.”
When he began working on the project last year, he recalls asking ChatGPT to translate something into Quebec French. The chatbot’s reply was like “it’s forcing itself to be the most ‘redneck Quebecer’ imaginable.”
“It’ll use eight different slang terms in two sentences,” Khan said. “You read it and think: No one talks like this. No one writes like this.
“It knows what the idea of Quebec is, but it takes it to the extreme.”
The biggest problem, he said, is data availability.
Khan is trying to build that foundation, working with partners including Radio-Canada to gather data with consent.
“Even with all of that, we can’t really hope to compare to the big models,” he said, pointing to the time and resources required to collect data ethically. And as those larger systems become more widely used, he said, they begin to shape how language is expressed.
According to Cheung, Indigenous languages raise even more sensitive questions. Some communities may not want their languages fed into translation systems, especially if the result is more access for outsiders than benefit for the community itself.
“The other issue is that it’s not clear that the same pipeline that works for English and French actually works for other languages where there’s not so much data available,” he said, adding that the copious amounts of data that the models heavily rely on may not exist for many other languages.
This month, draft regulations tabled by Marc Miller, minister of Canadian identity and culture and minister responsible for official languages, set out how federally regulated businesses must provide services in French, targeting sectors that have historically slipped through the cracks of Quebec’s Charter of the French Language because they fall under federal jurisdiction.
The Department of Canadian Heritage told The Gazette: “Language compliance requirements remain the same, but the means to fulfil them are evolving. This was taken into account in the analysis leading to the draft regulations that pertain to the private sector.”
It added: “The obligations for federally regulated private businesses that would fall under the jurisdiction of the draft regulations would be to provide communications and services to consumers in French, regardless of the means used. The use of French would need to be at least equivalent to the use of any other language.”
Governments elsewhere in the world are already starting to respond to X’s move. This month, the U.K. Embassy in Japan posted that it was not responsible for Japanese translations automatically generated on X.
Ultimately, Cheung says he remains cautious about auto-translation’s potential to bridge connection.
“You can even see it within English,” he said. “There are so many sub-communities, and there are still massive misunderstandings and polarization.
“I don’t think it will help that much in terms of increasing connection or inter-community understanding,” he said. “Language is an important part of it. But it’s not the whole thing.”
As for Khan, he says he understands “the benefits of having these translation services,” and that “they’re good in promoting accessibility.”
“But on the other hand, this only works really if the translation service works correctly. If you’re mistranslating information from politicians or CEOs coming from these smaller countries, smaller provinces, etc., who are tweeting in their native languages or native dialects, it could potentially be very damaging for those people or for those cultures.
“So, like everything, it has to be done right. It has to be done responsibly. It has to be done carefully.”
Quebec's language laws face a new reality online: automatic translation - Montreal Gazette https://montrealgazette.com/news/quebecs-language-laws-face-a-new-reality-online-automatic-translation/
#metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus
Poetry translator serves as cross-cultural ambassador for latest project, ‘Last Stops of the Night Journey’
"LAWRENCE — After more than a decade translating leading North American poets – such as Anne Carson and Michael Ondaatje — into Italian, as well as prominent Italian poets into English, Patrizio Ceccagnoli regards literary translation as central to his professional identity, calling himself “an ambassador of my original language and culture, a bridge between the two literatures embodied in the languages I know best.”
A dual citizen, Ceccagnoli translates in both directions, from Italian into English and vice versa, with a particular specialization in poetry. An associate professor in the University of Kansas Department of French, Francophone & Italian Studies, he continues this work with his latest project: Milo De Angelis’ “Last Stops of the Night Journey.”
Ceccagnoli and local poet Megan Kaminski, a professor of environmental studies at KU, will read from their books April 28 at The Raven Book Store.
“I translate only authors I consider significant, for the sake of being close to their work and understanding their oeuvre more deeply,” Ceccagnoli said. “Everything is driven by my love for literature. I find great fulfillment in literary translation, which exists somewhere between scholarly interpretation and creative writing.”
Ceccagnoli said he shares credit with his longtime collaborator and friend, Susan Stewart, a MacArthur Foundation “Genius” award recipient. Together, they previously translated De Angelis’ “Theme of Farewell and After-Poems: A Bilingual Edition” (University of Chicago Press, 2013), a work Ceccagnoli said helped establish the poet’s reputation among American readers.
Their collaborative process is iterative and meticulous.
“I begin with the Italian text and produce a rough English translation, identifying passages that may present cultural challenges — references that require explanation or place names that may not resonate with an American audience,” he said. “When Susan reviews the draft, she identifies additional issues. We then revise collaboratively until we reach a version that satisfies us both after several back-and-forth exchanges.”
The translators also consulted directly with De Angelis while working on “Last Stops of the Night Journey,” occasionally making independent editorial decisions.
“Of course, the publisher also plays a crucial role,” Ceccagnoli said. “When you’re fortunate to work with a strong editor, they offer valuable suggestions and request revisions. This book benefited from particularly attentive editing.”
That editor, Archipelago Books publisher Jill Schoolman, will attend the Lawrence reading.
Like “Theme of Farewell and After-Poems,” “Last Stops of the Night Journey” brings together two separate poetry collections in one volume: “Encounters and Ambushes” (“Incontri e agguati”), released in Milan in 2015, and “Solid Line, Broken Line” (“Linea intera, linea spezzata”), originally published in 2021. These works reflect themes drawn from De Angelis’ experiences teaching poetry in a high-security prison near Milan, the loss of his wife — the poet Giovanna Sicari — and his growing awareness of mortality.
“This is clearly a late work,” Ceccagnoli said. “Every poetic corpus reflects a life lived; it becomes, in a sense, a biography. A writer can only speak to what they have witnessed and understood, and over time, that accumulates into the story of a lifetime.”
He noted that De Angelis’ poetry demands careful, attentive reading.
“A poet like Milo does not necessarily strive for easy accessibility,” Ceccagnoli said. “He has sometimes been described as ‘orphic’ or hermetic – not out of elitism, but because he is committed to a rigorous poetic tradition shaped by earlier models and governed by a highly disciplined literary code.”
At the same time, Ceccagnoli said he finds the collection deeply moving.
“Here is a man who understands that his time is finite,” he said. “In his 70s, he may see this as his final book — a series of farewell messages to the people who shaped his life. That gives the work a powerful sense of authenticity and emotional depth.”
While the collection does not attempt to resolve life’s fundamental questions — about meaning, mortality or what lies beyond — Ceccagnoli said it offers something equally valuable.
“It provides an honest and, at times, dramatic portrait of the people the poet encountered,” he said. “Through his writing, their lives endure — and, in a way, become part of our own.”
Media Contacts
Rick Hellman
KU News Service
785-864-8852
rick_hellman@ku.edu"
Fri, 04/24/2026
Rick Hellman
https://news.ku.edu/news/article/poetry-translator-serves-as-cross-cultural-ambassador-ARTICLE-KHRJWD-ARTICLE-KHRJWD-ARTICLE-KHRJWD-ARTICLE-KHRJWD-ARTICLE-KHRJWD-ARTICLE-KHRJWD
#metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus
"Luotuo Xiangzi, a landmark work of modern Chinese literature, has been retranslated into English multiple times since its initial success in the United States. This study investigates the translators’ voices in the characterization of Huniu, one of the novel’s most memorable female figures, across four English versions by Evan King, Jean James, Shi Xiaojing, and Howard Goldblatt. Drawing on a self-constructed bilingual parallel corpus, it applies a modified characterization framework together with a three-dimensional model of the translator’s voice appraisal—loudness, pitch, and timbre—by qualitative content analysis and Python-assisted quantitative methods. The findings show that King amplified Huniu’s shamelessness and assertiveness, James softened her portrayal with fewer interventions, Shi preserved her emotional depth while favoring domestication, and Goldblatt significantly softened her vulgar traits through heavy tonal modifications. Variations in lexical choices, sentence length, and syntactic patterns corresponded closely to the dimensions of loudness, pitch, and timbre, demonstrating that translators’ voices actively reframe Huniu’s personality traits, emotional expressiveness, and cultural positioning. This study thus highlights the translator’s voice as a formative force in literary characterization and offers a replicable translator’s voice appraisal model for future translation research."
Jing Cao & Tianli Zhou
Humanities and Social Sciences Communications , Article number: (2026)
providing an unedited version of this manuscript to give early access to its findings. Before final publication, the manuscript will undergo further editing. Please note there may be errors present which affect the content, and all legal disclaimers apply.
Article
Open access
Published: 25 April 2026
Abstract
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41599-026-07326-5
#metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus
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"‘Weird, delightful, refreshing’: Anupama Raju on translating writer Paul Zacharia’s ‘imagination’
‘I had to ensure readers around the world got a peek into his bizarre, but entertaining, universe.’
Anupama Raju
Discovering Paul Zacharia’s writing, thanks to the Katha translation series that was very popular in the 1990s, was like being thrown into an alternate universe. Gods, biblical characters, supernatural beings, politicians, drunkards, lustful men and women, co-existed without complaint in this universe. It was immensely educational as it was entertaining. I found Zacharia’s imagination weird, delightful and refreshing. And very different from that of his contemporaries.
As a Malayalee growing up in Chennai, I started reading Malayalam literature in English translation. The brilliance of writers like Ayyappa Paniker, Lalithambika Antharjanam, Paul Zacharia, OV Vijayan, MT Vasudevan Nair and Mukundan held me spellbound.
Years passed, and I moved away from Zacharia’s universe, only to be thrown back into it when I moved to Thiruvananthapuram, the city he lives in. I was already writing and publishing poetry in English by then. And perhaps because of my unfamiliarity with the Keralite imagination and culture, I felt like an outsider in Kerala. That I’d not studied Malayalam, the language of my parents, fanned this awkwardness. I was fluent only in spoken Malayalam. Hence, translating literature from Malayalam into English appeared as a lifeline to Malayalam, Kerala, and my roots.
A matter of trust
When I got an opportunity to translate Zacharia’s short fiction, I was thrilled. Though he was approachable and down-to-earth, I was always conscious of his stature in Indian literature.
The first of Zacharia’s stories I translated was “The Sixty-Watt Sun”, first published in Malayalam in 2009. He was brave to let me – a novice who hadn’t studied Malayalam – translate it. There were trusted translators like Gita Krishnankutty and AJ Thomas who were already translating his stories. Yet, he chose to have faith in me. For that, I shall remain grateful to him: Zacharia to the Malayalam world. Paul to the Anglophone literary world. And “sir” to me.
“The Sixty Watt Sun” was an exercise in hard work, patience and resilience. It was a story that had many surreal elements. Zacharia’s characteristic dark humour, the manner in which he exposed human nature and its absurdities and the brilliance with which he depicted contemporary trends made the story special. I would spend weeks reading each sentence aloud, piecing words together and referring to the Shabdatharavali, the imposing Malayalam thesaurus. I would also discuss meanings and nuances with a grand-aunt or an uncle, who tolerated my ignorance. Over countless drafts and discussions with Zacharia, the translation was finally done. The story went on to be published in 2011 in Pratilipi, a bilingual journal that featured literature from Indian languages.
More stories followed: “The Death and Funeral of Sister Alphonsa”, an endearing look at Kerala’s venerated saint, and “The Bar”, whose smoke-filled, absurd interiors were strange and characteristically Zacharia. Spending more time in his universe, I slowly grew confident in my skills as a translator. As I have noted elsewhere, translation is always a collaboration when one has access to the writer. I could not imagine translating in isolation. Zacharia and I would review the drafts, sometimes over a simple lunch of rice, moru curry and vegetables in his home. He would chip in with suggestions, some of which I was bold enough to turn down with time. A freedom he afforded me as our partnership evolved into friendship.
Loyalty to imagination
And then 2020 came into our lives. The pandemic struck. Life was unreal. It was around the same time that I started translating more stories of his, such as “Rani”, “Kanyakumari”, “By the Water Lily Pond”, “Black Magic”, and others. They offered much-needed respite from the anxiety of what was happening around. I would break into giggles and loud laughter at my desk, as I worked with his wacky protagonists. We would discuss the drafts over video calls. Our conversations also veered into other favourite topics like old Hindi film songs or cats. But luckily, the translations were done.
All along, I was writing too. I was invested in my poetry and in my first experimental novel. But whenever I translated Zacharia, I was always aware of the boundaries and the profound responsibility I shouldered. I was a translator first and a writer second. Can one separate the two, you ask? I think I did. My loyalty as a translator was to Zacharia’s imagination. I had to ensure readers around the world got a peek into his bizarre, but entertaining, universe.
More than 15 years have passed since I translated “The Sixty Watt Sun”. Now there is 50 Stories, a collection that brings together some of his best stories in translation. And I’m proud to have contributed to it. Zacharia and I speak from time to time. There may be no moru curry and rice. But there’s always laughter and respect.
Anupama Raju is a poet, novelist, literary translator and communications professional."
https://amp.scroll.in/article/1092614/weird-delightful-refreshing-anupama-raju-on-translating-writer-paul-zacharias-imagination
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