Metaglossia: The Translation World

Réfléchir au rôle essentiel des professionnels dans les métiers de la traduction et de l’interprétation

"CIUTI: concours vidéo et séminaires
Participez au concours vidéo CIUTI
🗣️Vous étudiez à la FTI et souhaitez prendre part à une initiative créative ? Alors, n'hésitez plus et participer à l'édition 2026 du concours CIUTI sur le thème: "What would happen if translators and interpreters disappeared?"

Ce concours est l'occasion de réfléchir au rôle essentiel des professionnels dans les métiers de la traduction et de l’interprétation.

Pour participer, vous devez soumettre une courte vidéo avant le 20 janvier 2027.

📌 Pour plus d’informations, veuillez consulter les modalités de participation.

 

Assistez aux conférences en ligne
🗓️D'octobre 2026 à mai 2027, vous pouvez assister gratuitement à une série de conférences en ligne sur la traduction et l'interprétation. Découvrez-en plus en consultant le programme des interventions prévues durant cette période.

⚠️La participation est gratuite, mais l'inscription est obligatoire.

5 oct. 2026"
https://www.unige.ch/fti/a-la-une/concours-video-ciuti-2026
#metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus

"Un jeune Corse lance un appel pour traduire le jeu vidéo "Minecraft" en langue corse
Par Pierre-Manuel Pescetti

Publié le 05/10/26 à 10:00

 

Pierre François Marchiani a commencé à traduire Minecraft en langue corse.

José Martinetti

Corte - Corti

Joueur passionné, Pierre-François Marchiani a déjà traduit plusieurs termes du jeu plébiscité par 170 millions de joueurs chaque mois. Il lance un appel au travail collectif pour y faire rentrer la langue corse.
L'idée lui est venue presque par hasard, en relançant Minecraft après plusieurs mois loin de ce jeu vidéo. "Je me suis promené dans les options et j'ai vu qu'ils proposaient le jeu en basque, en breton, en catalan. Je me suis dit : Pourquoi pas en corse ?" Pierre-François Marchiani en est convaincu, la langue corse a toute sa place dans l'univers de Minecraft. Il a commencé à "traduire" le jeu grâce à Crowdin, une plateforme de traduction collaborative sur internet. Le principe : des communautés de contributeurs proposent les traductions, qui peuvent ensuite être intégrées au jeu par ses éditeurs. "Il y a plus de 30 000 mots à traduire. C'est un sacré chantier", lance le doctorant en "cultures et langues régionales" à l'université de Corse. Et si cinq à six personnes participent déjà à la traduction sur la plateforme, Pierre-François Marchiani voit plus grand. Il a lancé un appel sur les réseaux sociaux : "Seul, cela me prendrait énormément de temps. Et puis, un travail collaboratif permet d'inclure les gens dans le projet, de le faire connaître."

Immersion dans un quotidien ludique
Pour Pierre-François, l’enjeu va au-delà du simple clin d’œil linguistique : "On parle de plus en plus d’immersion. Quand on sait qu’un enfant peut passer une dizaine d’heures par semaine devant les jeux vidéo, ce serait autant d’heures supplémentaires passées en lisant la langue corse.""
https://www.corsematin.com/article/societe/17100935144896/un-jeune-corse-lance-un-appel-pour-traduire-le-jeu-video-minecraft-en-langue-corse

"Publishers say using AI to translate classics is ethically wrong

Publishers Krista Kaer and Piret Lemetti warn that AI-assisted re-translations of literary classics appearing on the market are unethical, unfair to readers, and devalue the work of human translators.

Varrak Editor-in-Chief Kaer said that the overall situation for translated literature in Estonia has not improved from the viewpoint of publishers.

"Print runs of books have dropped sharply, and translated literature is expensive to publish. In addition to purchasing rights, there is the translation cost, which is very significant for larger books. Overall, the amount of valuable translated literature has decreased. With the classics, everything is fine — the Hieronymus series publishes books very nicely, and what should have appeared long ago is well covered. However, the situation is bad with contemporary quality literature," Kaer admitted.

"Books are published that are more or less a sure bet. There is nothing to be done; a large part of the world is still uncovered for Estonians, and this situation will not change in the near future either. The Cultural Endowment helps, thank God," Kaer laughed.

"I look with great envy at the French and Germans, where very important works published all over the world appear very quickly and continuously. In Estonia, books that appear quickly tend to belong to the field of entertainment and crime fiction," she noted.

Eesti Raamat Editor-in-Chief Piret Lemetti agreed.

"Often you look at a book that you would very much like to publish, but you know that publishing it would be a very big risk. Especially if it is English-language literature, because people read a lot in English. If you cannot publish the book at the same time it appears in English, then you have already missed the train," Lemetti admitted.

Publisher: AI will come for translators and illustrators first
"The share of translations from English is decreasing in other European countries as well because many people read in English. For Estonia, translating literature published in the Nordic countries is becoming more important, as is Central Europe. Of course, Asia is still half-undiscovered for us. South Korean literature is currently making a huge breakthrough, but we simply do not have enough translators," Kaer added.

"It is also very difficult to introduce unfamiliar foreign names to Estonian readers because there is a deep distrust — people prefer to take a book by a well-known author or at least someone who can be associated with something," Kaer noted.

Lemetti added that a point of comparison is crucial for readers. "If readers cannot associate authors with someone or something, they are not very inclined to buy the book," she said.

"If print runs drop by another couple hundred, there will actually be no point in publishing these books anymore," Kaer said, expressing hope that books people hesitate to buy will still be borrowed from libraries, provided libraries have enough money to purchase them.

"At the same time, all agents are gradually raising author fees and translation-rights fees. One can fight this and negotiate down, but these costs are becoming higher and higher. For some reason, there is an opinion that books are being bought more and more and publishers are doing better and better, which of course is not true," Kaer laughed.

The publishers added that exciting niche works remain untranslated because, in Estonia, their target audience would only be 300 to 400 people.

At the same time, older translations are also being updated. Varrak has published Dostoevsky texts, and Kaer herself has retranslated Yeats.

"These are probably needed, but new mystical translations have appeared — for example, of Conan Doyle — that are clearly made with artificial assistance and are completely terrible. Such things are very bad: taking classics to which copyright no longer applies and for which one does not have to pay, and then simply throwing them onto the market in a way that they cannot even be called translations or books," Kaer warned.

Lemetti added that she has encountered such books herself. "It is actually written on the title page that artificial intelligence assistance has been used in translation. I do not understand why this has been done," she noted.

Kaer believes the driver is a quick cash grab.

"This is unfair toward the author, and it is unfair toward buyers and readers. Doing such things is simply ethically wrong," Kaer said.

"This is also the devaluation of the translator's work. Essentially, the translator is reduced to a glorified editor. I do not understand what the point of this is," Lemetti added."
03.10.2026 10:50
Krista Kaer. Source: Siim Lõvi /ERR
https://news.err.ee/1610153521/publishers-say-using-ai-to-translate-classics-is-ethically-wrong
#metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus

Dana White apologizes after UFC 332 presser runs out of translators

Ateba Gautier answered in French, the language of his hometown of Douala. No one in the room translated the exchange...

"The UFC 332 pre-fight press conference in Salt Lake City was meant to frame a middleweight main-card opener. It became a language mix-up instead.

Cameroon’s Ateba Gautier, who trains with Manchester Top Team, meets Roman Kopylov on Saturday at the Delta Center. Gautier is 11-1, riding a 10-fight winning streak and tied for the longest active run in the UFC middleweight division.

A reporter opened by addressing him in French, the language of his hometown of Douala. Gautier answered in French. No one in the room translated the exchange.

A later question came in English, about whether Kopylov, a veteran with far more UFC experience, represented a sterner test. Gautier answered in English, and the reply was difficult to miss.

He asked whether Kopylov was human, noted the two legs and two hands, then corrected himself on the size of those legs, and said the two of them would find out in the cage. He added that he takes the Russian seriously and acknowledged the gap in professional experience.

Dana White still went looking for help. The UFC CEO told the room the promotion had been caught short.

“We got f—-d out of that one,” White said. “We don’t have a translator for him. Sorry.”

The clip spread quickly. Fans noted that Gautier had just spoken English, that he has done so in other recent interviews, and that Cameroon lists both English and French as official languages. Others asked how the largest promotion in the sport could fly a fighter in for a main-card bout and not have a French speaker on hand.

A few compared it to an earlier press conference, when White requested a translator after Mexico’s Diego Lopes answered in English with an accent that was mistaken for Spanish.

Gautier smiled through the exchange. The awkward part belonged to the people running the microphone."
https://larrybrownsports.com/mma/dana-white-apologizes-ufc-332-presser-runs-out-translators/772746
#metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus

‘Ghost Town’ translator wins Italian book award
Staff writer, with CNA
Add TT as Preferred Source

Italian translator Silvia Pozzi has won a Pisa Book Translation Award for her translation of Ghost Town (鬼地方), a novel by Taiwanese author Kevin Chen (陳思宏).

The Italian edition, titled Citta fantasma, was recognized at a ceremony held Friday at the Palazzo della Sapienza in Rome as part of the Pisa Book Festival, an annual literary event that brings together authors, publishers and readers.

The novel is set in Yongjing, a town in Changhua County, and follows a man who returns home after serving a prison sentence in Germany for killing his boyfriend. Through his return and interactions with his family, the novel explores family trauma, hometown ties and the impact of Taiwan’s past.

The cover of the Italian edition of Ghost Town, a novel by Taiwanese author Kevin Chen, is pictured in an undated photograph.
Photo courtesy of the Ministry of Culture

In a news release, Minister of Culture Li Yuan (李遠) said Chen’s distinctive writing style gives local history a magical, dark and melancholic character, making his work appealing to international publishers.

Pozzi is a professor of Chinese and Southeast Asian languages and literature at the University of Milano-Bicocca. Besides Ghost Town, she has translated Chiu Miao-chin’s (邱妙津) Last Words from Montmartre (蒙馬特遺書) and Wu Ming-yi’s (吳明益) The Man with the Compound Eyes (複眼人) into Italian. She has also been commissioned by an Italian publisher to translate Yang Shuang-tzu’s Taiwan Travelogue (台灣漫遊錄), which won the International Booker Prize earlier this year.

Ghost Town has received international recognition, including multiple mentions in The New York Times Book Review in 2022 and a place on the 2023 PEN Translation Prize longlist. Its translation rights have been sold in more than 10 languages."
https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2026/10/04/2003865366
#metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus

A short response that made interpreter chuckle before translating it

"Munetaka Murakami leaves translator laughing with comment about his home run
Originally posted on Larry Brown Sports  |  By Rex Villas  |  Last updated Oct 3, 2026 7:35 PM ET

Munetaka Murakami turned heads during and after the Chicago White Sox’s 3-0 victory over the Cleveland Guardians on Saturday at Progressive Field in Cleveland, Ohio.

Murakami played a key role in the White Sox’s win in Game 1 of this American League Division Series, as  he hit a huge two-run home run off Cleveland starter Parker Messick to put Chicago on the board first in the fourth inning.

Murakami pounced on the very first pitch he saw from Messick, a 93 mph sinker he took deep for 440 feet.

At the postgame press conference, reporters asked Murakami how he felt after hitting the home run. The Japanese slugger gave a short response that made his interpreter chuckle before translating it.

Munetaka Murakami was asked what he felt when he turned toward the dugout after homering…

"I can't really explain it in words right now, but it was something a little bit dirty." pic.twitter.com/5gQodbr9IN

— Foul Territory (@FoulTerritoryTV) October 3, 2026
The 26-year-old Murakami is proving to be one of the best characters in the MLB postseason with his bat and personality.

It was also Murakami’s first career home run in the playoffs, a pivotal one at that, as the White Sox held on and kept the Guardians scoreless the rest of the way for a 1-0 series lead.

Still undefeated through three playoff games, the White Sox, who swept the Houston Astros in the AL Wild Card Round, will look to keep it that way in Game 2 of the Guardians series on Sunday."
https://www.yardbarker.com/mlb/articles/munetaka_murakami_leaves_translator_laughing_with_comment_about_his_home_run/s1_127_44384091
#metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus

"Italian translator wins Pisa award for translation of Taiwan novel

The Italian edition of "Ghost Town," a novel by Taiwanese author Kevin Chen. Photo courtesy of the Ministry of Culture
Taipei, Oct. 3 (CNA) Italian translator Silvia Pozzi has won a Pisa Book Translation Award for her translation of "Ghost Town" (鬼地方), a novel by Taiwanese author Kevin Chen (陳思宏).

The Italian edition, titled "Città fantasma," was recognized at a ceremony held Friday at the Palazzo della Sapienza in Rome as part of the Pisa Book Festival, an annual literary event that brings together authors, publishers and readers.

The novel is set in Yongjing, a small town in Changhua County, and follows a man who returns home after serving a prison sentence in Germany for killing his boyfriend. Through his return and interactions with his family, the novel explores family trauma, hometown ties and the lingering impact of Taiwan's past.

In a news release, Culture Minister Li Yuan (李遠) said Chen's distinctive writing style gives local history a magical, dark and melancholic character, making his work appealing to international publishers.

Without elaborating, Li said the ministry aims to further support the translation of Taiwanese literature by developing translators and improving translation quality, so more Taiwanese works can reach international audiences.

Pozzi is a professor of Chinese and Southeast Asian languages and literature at the University of Milano-Bicocca. Besides "Ghost Town," she has translated Chiu Miao-chin's (邱妙津) "Last Words from Montmartre" (蒙馬特遺書) and Wu Ming-yi's (吳明益) "The Man with the Compound Eyes" (複眼人) into Italian. She has also been commissioned by an Italian publisher to translate Yang Shuang-tzu's (楊双子) "Taiwan Travelogue" (台灣漫遊錄), which won the International Booker Prize earlier this year.

"Ghost Town" has received international recognition, including multiple mentions in The New York Times Book Review in 2022 and a place on the 2023 PEN Translation Prize longlist. Its translation rights have been sold in more than 10 languages, including English, French, German, Italian, Japanese and Thai.

(By Chiu Tsu-yin and Ko Lin)
10/03/2026 02:43 PM
Enditem/KL"
https://focustaiwan.tw/culture/202610030009
#metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus

For prospective students of the M.A. Program in Translation Studies at Kent State University

"M.A. in Translation at Kent State University - Information Session
Friday, Nov. 13, 2026 4 p.m. to 5:30 p.m.

This information session is for prospective students of the M.A. Program in Translation Studies at Kent State University. There will be brief presentations by current faculty and students, and plenty of time to answer your questions..."

https://www.kent.edu/mcls/event/ma-translation-kent-state-university-information-session-0
#metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus

Translating character names in works of fiction is a messy business – should a German translation of Die Hard call John McClane “Johannes Merkel”?

"The tale behind the Irish translation of Dracula is something to really get your teeth into

The scholar who carried out the translation was so respected that he was approached by the government and asked to take his pick of novels..."

4 Oct 2026
Darach Ó Séaghdha
Author and linguist

https://www.thejournal.ie/dracula-translation-irish-calling-353-7180942-Oct2026/
#metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus

This year marks the 500th anniversary of the appearance in England of William Tyndale’s translation of the Greek New Testament into English. It was one of the first such translations into the vernacular making the New Testament accessible to the general population.

Originally from Gloucester in southwest England, Tyndale studied at Oxford as well as Cambridge and subsequently decided to set out on his translation of the scriptures.

His story is one of religious devotion, intellect and independence of mind, determination and, as recounted below, ultimate brutal tragedy.

In the Introduction to the History of Christianity, edited by Tim Dowley (London, Lion, 2014), it is explained that Tyndale’s self-appointed task arose because, while working as a tutor after his university years, he was struck by the lack of education of the parochial clergy, and is reputed to have told one cleric: “If God spare my life, ere many years pass, I will cause a boy that driveth the plough shall [sic] know more of the Scriptures than thou dost.”

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An immediate obstacle he met in his great project was the refusal of the then Bishop of London, Cuthbert Tunstall, later Prince-Bishop of Durham, to give his approval.

This was a decisive blow because Tunstall was immensely influential with the Tudor monarchs.

Indeed, in a popular account of the man, entitled The Calculating Bishop, Durham University has phrased it appealingly to the modern reader by observing that Tunstall’s name was to be found “in the address book of kings and queens, scholars and diplomats, heroes and traitors”.

Everyone apparently wanted, and many had, Tunstall’s ear.

This was of course before the English Church broke with Rome and the bishops did not favour the idea of the Bible in the vernacular, as the opening up of the Bible to ordinary people risked strengthening the Reformation process that was already under way.

[ ‘He was only 88’: There is a cosy familiarity to Irish funeralsOpens in new window ]

One might expect that Tyndale would have known of this immense difficulty as far as his plans were concerned, but he seems to have been the type of person who believes so much in a course of action that all such obstacles are deemed surmountable.

Alas, life is not quite as simple as that. There is always politics, in both state and church.

A late 14th century English text, the Wycliffe Bible, was a translation from the Latin Vulgate but, as a translation of a translation is a risky affair, it was not as dependable as a translation from the Greek.

The bishops had already effectively banned the Wycliffe Bible in 1407-08, not because of any unreliability but because of the danger of its fomenting ecclesiastical unrest encouraged by the Lollards, followers of Wycliffe.

The Lollards formed what is sometimes known as a “pre-Protestant” faction, were fiercely critical of Roman doctrine and practices and, perhaps needless to say, were much persecuted. Their nomenclature is not controversial today but at the time it was derogatory, being suggestive of mumbling.

Faced with the continued aversion to the Bible in the vernacular among the hierarchy, Tyndale fled to Germany in 1524. He completed his New Testament translation in 1525 but faced legal jeopardy over its printing. Nonetheless, it proceeded and Tyndale’s translation began circulation in England in the following year. Tragically he was martyred in 1536 by strangulation and burning at the stake, his final words having been recorded as, “Lord, open the King of England’s eyes.”

[ Is Ireland still a place ‘open to everything except for God’?Opens in new window ]

When it comes to the history of the text of the New Testament, there are many twists and turns.

The first unpalatable fact is that we do not have any of the original manuscripts, and nor did Tyndale or Erasmus (1466?-1536), on whose Greek text Tyndale relied. Erasmus had used a relatively small number of Greek manuscripts to compile his Greek text, but none of these is understood to have dated to before the 11th century.

The original texts of the New Testament were written in Greek because it was a common language used by officialdom and merchants across the region. Indeed, this assisted the spread of the Gospel beyond the Holy Land.

What happened was that the original texts were copied by scribes, often in a group setting in a scriptorium, with one person dictating. As a result of this, sometimes errors crept in or indeed changes were made because of doctrinal preferences.

The discipline of textual criticism, involving the assessing and comparing of many ancient manuscripts, has advanced remarkably since Tyndale’s time. As a result, we can be confident that our Bible today represents much more accurately what was originally written, although versions differ in style, and the number of books in the Protestant, Orthodox and Roman Catholic versions of the Old Testament differ.

The development of the canons of the Old and New Testaments is another story.

One of the earliest extant New Testament manuscripts, known as P45, dates from the mid-3rd century and is held at the Chester Beatty Library in Dublin.

Canon Ian Ellis was rector of Newcastle, Co Down, until retirement in 2020, and edited The Church of Ireland Gazette from 2001-2017.
https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/2026/10/04/todays-bible-accurately-represents-what-was-originally-written-despite-differences-in-style/
#metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus

"Microsoft lance une IA capable de transcrire la parole en temps réel dans 60 langues

Par
Chloé Claessens
Spécialiste cybersécurité
Publié le 02 octobre 2026 à 10h12

Microsoft étoffe sa gamme de modèles maison avec MAI-Transcribe-2-Streaming, une IA pensée pour retranscrire la parole au fil de la conversation. Elle prend en charge 60 langues et commence à produire du texte un peu plus de 100 ms après réception de l’audio.

Après MAI-Transcribe-2, destiné aux fichiers audio déjà enregistrés, Microsoft passe au direct. Son nouveau modèle MAI-Transcribe-2-Streaming analyse la parole en continu, détecte automatiquement la langue utilisée et révise sa transcription à mesure que la phrase progresse. Un fonctionnement taillé pour les usages qui supportent mal les temps morts, comme la dictée, le sous-titrage en direct ou les assistants vocaux.

Une transcription qui commence avant la fin de la phrase
Dans le détail, MAI-Transcribe-2-Streaming n’attend pas que la personne ait terminé de parler pour afficher du texte. Le modèle produit de premières hypothèses un peu plus de 100 ms après réception de l’audio, puis les affine au fil de la phrase. Si la suite lève une ambiguïté ou modifie le sens d’un mot déjà transcrit, il peut donc revenir sur les premiers résultats avant de les figer dans une version définitive.

Pour ce faire, le modèle traite le flux audio au fur et à mesure qu’il arrive, plutôt que d’attendre de disposer de l’enregistrement complet. Chaque nouvelle portion de parole vient enrichir le contexte déjà analysé et peut conduire l’IA à conserver, corriger ou compléter les mots affichés quelques instants plus tôt. La transcription peut ainsi suivre presque immédiatement la voix, tout en conservant assez de souplesse pour évoluer à mesure que le sens se précise.

Cette transcription en continu fonctionne dans 60 langues et détecte automatiquement celle utilisée au fil de la conversation. Sur le terrain de la précision, MAI-Transcribe-2-Streaming arrive actuellement en tête du benchmark AA-WER Streaming d’Artificial Analysis, aussi bien pour les transcriptions provisoires que définitives. À titre indicatif, ce classement repose sur le WER, ou taux d’erreur de mots, qui mesure la proportion de mots mal reconnus par rapport à une transcription de référence : plus ce taux est faible, plus le résultat est précis. Le benchmark repose toutefois sur environ huit heures d’audio issues de trois jeux de données et ne permet pas de comparer les performances du modèle dans chacune des 60 langues prises en charge.

Au 2 octobre 2026, MAI-Transcribe-2-Streaming affiche le taux d’erreur sur les mots le plus faible du benchmark Artificial Analysis pour la transcription finale, à 2,5 %. Plus le WER est bas, plus la transcription est précise. © Artificial Analysis
Microsoft veut réduire les blancs des assistants vocaux
En marge de ce nouveau modèle de transcription, Microsoft lance aussi MAI-Voice-2.1 et MAI-Voice-2.1-Flash, deux modèles capables de transformer du texte en voix. La variante Flash privilégie la rapidité et peut générer 45 secondes d’audio, pour une latence de bout en bout annoncée autour de 150 ms.

Dans l’idée, Microsoft veut faire travailler MAI-Transcribe-2-Streaming et ses modèles Voice au sein d’une même chaîne pour rendre les échanges avec les assistants vocaux plus naturels. Pendant que le premier transcrit la parole, l’agent peut déjà commencer à traiter la demande, raisonner ou appeler des outils. Une fois la réponse prête, MAI-Voice se charge de la restituer à l’oral. Microsoft espère ainsi réduire le silence qui sépare encore souvent la fin d’une question de la réponse de l’assistant.

Le même principe pourrait servir aux assistants multilingues, au service client ou à la traduction vocale, l’agent prenant alors en charge le passage d’une langue à l’autre entre la transcription et la synthèse.

Les trois modèles sont disponibles dès maintenant via Microsoft Foundry, MAI Playground, Vercel et Azure Voice Live. MAI-Transcribe-2-Streaming est proposé au tarif de lancement de 0,54 dollar par heure d’audio jusqu’à la fin de 2026. Côté synthèse vocale, MAI-Voice-2.1 coûte 22 dollars par million de caractères, contre 15 dollars pour la variante Flash. Les deux modèles Voice sont également accessibles via OpenRouter, tandis qu’une intégration à LiveKit est annoncée prochainement.

Chloé Claessens
Par Chloé Claessens

Microsoft lance une IA capable de transcrire la parole en temps réel dans 60 langues
https://www.clubic.com/actualite-632266-microsoft-lance-une-ia-capable-de-transcrire-la-parole-en-temps-reel-dans-60-langues.html
#metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus

"Ce 30 septembre, la Journée mondiale de la traduction met à l'honneur les professionnels des langues. L'occasion d'en savoir sur une profession en pleine mutation avec Philippe Bouquet de Jolinière, directeur de l'agence de traduction Glim.

En 2026, difficile de parler de traduction sans évoquer l'intelligence artificielle. Pourtant, malgré ChatGPT et les progrès de la traduction automatique, les étudiants poussent toujours la porte des formations. "Il y a beaucoup de Masters en traduction sur l'ensemble du territoire. Les jeunes veulent toujours se lancer dans le métier car il y a encore besoin de traducteurs et d'interprètes", constate Philippe Bouquet de Jolinière. Cofondateur de Glim avec Nicolas Cantatore, l'Azuréen cite ainsi l'Institut National des Langues et Civilisations Orientales (INALCO) parmi les écoles reconnues. Car, la révolution technologique n'a rien de totalement nouveau pour ce métier depuis longtemps très informatisé. "Quand j'ai commencé il y a vingt ans, on disait déjà : dans deux ou trois ans, il n'y aura plus de traducteurs", se souvient l'entrepreneur. Si l'IA ne condamne pas le traducteur, elle déplace néanmoins les lignes. Elle permet désormais de proposer différents niveaux de service, avec des traductions automatisées beaucoup moins chères. "Elle pousse tout le monde à mettre beaucoup plus de valeur ajoutée dans le travail". Mais, selon Philippe Bouquet de Jolinière, l'intelligence artificielle reste moins performante hors de l'anglais, faute d'un volume comparable de données disponibles dans les autres langues. "Une étude a montré qu'aucune traduction réalisée par une IA ne peut passer au travers d'une relecture et d'une correction humaine", ajoute le directeur. L'humain reste ainsi plébiscité sur les prestations les plus exigeantes. Les conséquences ? Le marché se polarise. D'un côté, les offres automatisées à bas coût se développent, tandis que de l'autre, les prestations à forte valeur ajoutée conservent leur part de marché. Entre les deux, la place se réduit.

Nicolas Cantatore et Philippe Bouquet de Jolinière.

Depuis plusieurs années, l'entrepreneur a ainsi vu disparaître des concurrents dont les clients, sensibles au prix, se sont tournés vers la traduction automatique. Mais la menace numéro un n'est pas forcément l'IA décrite comme "un outil supplémentaire". "Les métiers de la traduction sont des sismographes de l'activité économique. La conjoncture économique reste notre principale menace". Moins d'exportations, d'investissements ou de projets internationaux entraînent mécaniquement moins de contrats, de documents et d'échanges à traduire. "Le plus grand péril, c'est vraiment ça", insiste Philippe Bouquet de Jolinière à propos de la dégradation de la conjoncture économique et géopolitique. À l'échelle internationale, le chef d'entreprise constate d'ailleurs une contraction du marché en valeur en 2025 et 2026, qu'il attribue à la fois aux gains de productivité permis par l'IA et à la situation économique. "Après, certaines grandes entreprises sont en croissance, tout comme celles qui ont développé des services annexes comme le doublage ou le sous-titrage".

Un service premium
À Sophia, Glim donne une traduction assez concrète de ces mouvements de fond. L'agence de traduction et de services linguistiques premium et humains, qui a fêté ses dix ans en 2025, avait réalisé environ 965.000€ de chiffre d'affaires cette année-là, sa deuxième meilleure année. En 2026, la courbe s'est retournée avec un recul d'environ 10%. "La traduction, c'est un métier qui fonctionne lorsqu'il y a des échanges internationaux, lorsqu'il y a du commerce international, lorsqu'il y a des investissements, des nouveaux projets", rappelle Philippe Bouquet de Jolinière. Le phénomène touche particulièrement son pôle juridique et financier, qui représente près de la moitié de l'activité. Moins d'investissements signifie moins de créations de filiales, de contrats ou de procédures à traduire. L'industrie recule également, tandis que le marketing et le tourisme se maintiennent. À rebours, le médical et le pharmaceutique, environ un quart de l'activité, progressent fortement. "C'est un premier semestre qui n'est pas catastrophique, ni fantastique. Il est mitigé".

C'est sur ces marchés, qui répondent à des demandes très pointues, avec des combinaisons linguistiques rares, que se positionne. L'agence travaille avec un réseau d'environ 785 traducteurs indépendants, recrutés et testés selon leurs spécialités, et revendique une offre humaine haut de gamme encadrée par la norme ISO 17100 (norme internationale de référence qui définit les exigences pour les processus, les ressources et la qualité des services de traduction professionnelle). L'anglais reste de très loin la première langue traitée, avec un tiers de l'activité. Dans ce paysage mouvant, Glim, qui compte bien "rattraper" sa baisse de CA sur le deuxième semestre, conserve son projet d'implantation à Paris. Il se concrétisera soit par l'ouverture d'un bureau, soit par le rachat d'une entreprise. L'entreprise envisage aussi de participer à nouveau à un grand salon international en 2027.

A Nice, la traduction défend le droit de se faire comprendre
Traducteurs, professionnels des langues et experts se donnent rendez-vous à Nice, ce mercredi 30 septembre, à l'occasion de la Journée mondiale de la traduction. Drivée par la Fédération Internationale des Traducteurs (FIT), cette édition 2026 s'intéressera à la diversité des langues et aux droits linguistiques, autour de la problématique suivante : "diversité des langues et des droits linguistiques : le pouvoir de se faire comprendre". Un panel croisera les expériences de plusieurs métiers avant un temps d'échange avec le public.
Rendez-vous de 17h30 à 20h30 au MiTWiT Gare Thiers, à Nice. Le panel débutera à 18h, suivi d'une session de questions-réponses à 19h et d'un cocktail à 19h30."

https://tribuca.net/traduction-pourquoi-lia-nest-pas-la-premiere-menace-pour-le-marche/
#metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus

"The U.K. National Centre for Writing Announces Translators Selected for International Mentorship Program
In Feature Articles by Andrew AlbaneseSeptember 30, 2026Leave a Comment

Founded in 2010 by translator, writer, and editor Daniel Hahn, the Emerging Translator Mentorships program pairs early-career translators with experienced mentors for six months of focused development.

By Andrew Richard Albanese, Editor-in-Chief

The U.K. National Centre for Writing (NCW) today announced the nine early-career literary translators selected for its Emerging Translator Mentorships Program for 2026/27. The new class—whose work spans a diverse range of languages, including Dutch, Mandarin and Malayalam—was revealed today with the translators set to introducing themselves at a special event marking International Translation Day.
Now in its 17th year, the program champions “outstanding new voices in literary translation into English” with a focus on literatures underrepresented in translation. An emerging translator is someone who has published no more than one full-length work of literary translation.

The 2026/27 Emerging Translators Are:

Sheila Nyholm DSouza (credit: Daniel Linaric).

Sheila Nyholm D’Souza (Danish, mentored by Paul Russell Garrett): “D’Souza is a Danish-to-English literary translator based in Vancouver, Canada. She is particularly interested in contemporary Danish literature, social realism, and historical fiction, and is drawn to work that centers women and marginalized voices and explores questions of identity and belonging. In 2025, she was awarded the American-Scandinavian Foundation’s Leif and Inger Sjöberg Prize, which recognizes an emerging translator of Nordic literature.”

Hanna Wheeler (Dutch, mentored by Jonathan Reeder): “Wheeler is a Belgian Canadian who lives and works in Toronto as a copywriter and Dutch-to-English translator.  She has attended an array of specialized workshops, translated a few romance novels, and most recently worked on the nonfiction title The Six: The Untold Story of the Antwerp Six by novelist Oscar van den Boogaard.”

Lil Boyce (Italian, mentored by Elena Pala): “Boyce is an emerging literary translator, working from Italian into English. She shares her time between Sassari, Sardinia, and Coventry in the U.K. In 2026, Lil completed a Masters in Translation at the Open University and participated in the British Centre for Literary Translation (BCLT) Summer School. Her first publication is forthcoming in the Massachusetts Review.”

Tiffany Chang (credit: Hannah Lin).

Tiffany Chang (Korean, mentored by Clare Richards): “Chang is a Korean-English literary translator from Los Angeles and is currently based in Wisconsin. She is interested in translating lesbian, feminist, and diaspora literature and expanding the global literary landscape for contemporary Korean women writers. Tiffany is also a translation submissions reader for ANMLY, an international journal of experimental literature and the arts.”

Cheryl Schmitz (Literature from Taiwan, mentored by Jeremy Tiang): “Cheryl Schmitz is a literary translator working from Chinese and Portuguese into English. An anthropologist by training, she is especially interested in fiction by women and queer authors. Schmitz is originally from the United States and has lived in Brazil, China, Angola, and Germany. She currently resides in Taipei.”

Aparna Thomas (Languages of India, mentored by Mohini Gupta): “Aparna Thomas is a literary translator working from Malayalam into English, with a particular interest in sound, rhythm, and performance. Her translations of the poet Anvar Ali have appeared in Muse India, Weavers Literary Review, and the international anthology 127 Poetry Voices. She is currently working on a full-length collection of Anvar Ali’s poetry in translation. She is based in Ernakulam, Kerala.”

Jordan Barger (credit: Nynorsk Kultursentrum.)

Jordan Barger (Norwegian, mentored by Rosie Hedger): “Jordan Barger is a translator of Norwegian literature based in Philadelphia with a keen interest in Nynorsk poetry. His translations have been featured in Poetry Magazine, Poetry Review, FENCE, Circumference and beyond. His translation of Leander Djønne’s Eat All is forthcoming with Daunt Books in 2028.”

Azja Kulpińska (Polish, mentored by Sean Gasper Bye): “Azja Kulpińska born, raised and educated in Poznań (Poland), currently based on unceded Wurundjeri land of the Kulin Nations (aka Melbourne, Australia). A language-lover, an emerging literary translator between Polish and English, a zine-maker, a queer community worker, a parent, a member of a grassroots collective Incendium Radical Library. Azja attended the BCLT Summer School in Polish prose taught by Antonia Lloyd-Jones in 2026.”

Gemma Craig-Sharples (Swiss German, mentored by Jamie Lee Searle): Gemma Craig-Sharples is a translator from London currently living in Berlin. She has previously worked for New Books in German and the German Translation Fund and is currently an assistant poetry editor at Asymptote. A participant in the German strand of the 2026 BCLT Summer School, her co-translations of poetry and prose have appeared as part of the project Que(e)ry Points. At the moment, she’s working on a proposal for a creative-critical PhD exploring translation’s negative spaces.

‘Over 150 Emerging Translators’

Daniel Hahn (credit: Camila França Photography).

“This year’s cohort is our most wide-reaching yet, as our nine wonderful mentees are spread across the globe from Vancouver to Melbourne, helping us to mark a milestone: since its inception, the Emerging Translator Mentorships Program has now supported over 150 emerging translators,” said Rebecca DeWald, Emerging Translator Mentorships Program Manager said, in a release. “With our very first Australian mentee and the introduction of our new Literature from Taiwan strand, we are continuing to break new ground—and looking at the mentees’ diverse proposals, I know their work will do the same and add a host of new and previously unheard voices to the canon of books available to English-language readers.”

Founded in 2010 by translator, writer, and editor Daniel Hahn, the Emerging Translator Mentorships program pairs early-career translators with experienced mentors for six months of focused development. Mentees work on a practical translation project, receive a £800 stipend, and one year’s membership to The Society of Authors/Translators Association, and participate in training weekends, publishing industry events (including International Translation Day and London Book Fair), and a final digital showcase.

According to a release, the program has supported 150 translators working from 37 different languages. Alumni of the program have gone on to win several major awards, including Nichola Smalley, who was twice longlisted for the International Booker Prize and whose translation of Wretchedness by Andrzej Tichý won the 2021 Oxford-Weidenfeld Prize; Reuben Woolley, whose translation of Jimi Hendrix Live in Lviv by Andrey Kurkov was also longlisted for the International Booker Prize; and Sophie Hughes, shortlisted for the International Booker Prize in both 2019 and 2020 for her translations of The Remainder by Alia Trabucco Zerán and Hurricane Season by Fernanda Melchor.

About the Author
Andrew Albanese
Andrew Richard Albanese is the editor-in-chief of 'Publishing Perspectives' and founder and editor of 'Words & Money,' a media site that centers the role of libraries in the 21st Century publishing business. A veteran library and publishing industry reporter, he has previously worked for 'Publishers Weekly' and 'Library Journal,' where he was widely known for his in-depth coverage of the Google Books and Apple E-book price-fixing cases, developments in the digital library market, book bans and freedom to read issues, the open access movement, and copyright issues. He is a former associate editor at Oxford University Press, and the author of 'The Battle of $9.99: How Apple, Amazon, and the Big Six Publishers Changed the E-Book Business Overnight.'"
https://publishingperspectives.com/2026/09/the-u-k-national-centre-for-writing-announces-translators-selected-for-international-mentorship-program/
#metaglossia #metaglossia_mundus

For the integration of guideline-based PE training into translator education

"Training Enhances Post-Editing Speed in Iranian BA Translation Students: A Case of Google-Translated Financial Texts

Abstract

The increasing adoption of machine translation post-editing (PE) in the language industry underscores the need for effective training to improve PE speed. However, empirical evidence on the effectiveness of PE training remains limited, particularly for the English–Persian language pair. This study investigated the effect of a guideline-based training program on PE speed among undergraduate English Translation students in Iran. Participants were randomly assigned to either an experimental group (n = 10), which received a structured 16-session PE training program based on the TAUS (2017) PE guidelines, or a control group (n = 10), which received no formal PE instruction. Before the intervention, participants completed a 15-item Likert-scale questionnaire assessing their perceptions of PE speed and efficiency. Following the training period, partici-pants post-edited the same 400-word English–Persian financial text, pre-translated using Google Translate, on the MateCat platform. PE speed was measured using actual task completion time and words per minute (WPM), calculated from the MateCat editing log. The experimental group completed the task significantly faster than the control group (M = 44.20 vs. 68.90 min), Welch's t(15.61) = −7.28, p < .001, d = 3.25, and achieved a significantly higher WPM rate (9.20 vs. 5.89), Welch's t(14.97) = 7.13, p < .001, d = 3.19. Participants in the experimental group also reported significantly more positiveperceptions of PE speed and efficiency, controlling for pre-test scores (ANCOVA, p = .002). These findings support the integration of guideline-based PE training into translator education.

Keywords
Financial Text; Google Translate; Machine Translation; Post-Editing

https://tidsskrift.dk/her/article/view/156454/212197
#metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus

The politics of translation: A two-way conspiracy
Intercepting high-stakes messages before their recipients can understand them and passing them along on frequencies only certain listeners can pick up. All translators are also interpreters, charged with plotting a route from the original words...

"Claremont Review of Books

Fall 2026 Essays
Fightin’ Words
The politics of translation.

by Spencer A. Klavan

Shortly after leaving the White House, President Jimmy Carter traveled to give a commencement address at a college near Osaka, Japan. He told a short joke to open the speech and waited anxiously while the interpreter translated it into Japanese. To Carter’s surprise, the audience roared with laughter. Later, when he asked the translator how he had reproduced the punch line so effectively, the man kept dodging the question. “He was very evasive,” Carter recalled on David Letterman’s Late Show. But at last the translator broke down and explained: “I told the audience, President Carter told a funny story. Everyone must laugh.”

Translators are in an odd position. People sometimes think of them as humble messengers who ferry meaning between the main parties in an exchange—President Carter and his Japanese audience, a Chinese investor and a Silicon Valley CEO, the author of an international novel and his readers. But like trusted courtiers or highly-placed assistants, translators wield serious power in their apparently subordinate role. They are basically engaged at all times in a two-way conspiracy, intercepting high-stakes messages before their recipients can understand them and passing them along on frequencies only certain listeners can pick up. All translators are also interpreters, charged with plotting a route from the original words..."
 
https://claremontreviewofbooks.com/fightin-words/
#metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus

Dissent in translation
The View From Here and Hyphen represent an irrepressible impulse in India’s literary cultures to give voice to the human imagination, and reject the silence imposed by authoritarian states.

There are at least two excellent reasons to look at The View From Here: Stories and Poems of Many Indias edited by Githa Hariharan and K. Satchidanandan, and the first issue of the journal Hyphen: Connecting Literatures, founded and published by Vivek Shanbhag and edited by Deepa Ganesh, alongside one another.

The first is that both volumes bring together a feast of fiction, poetry, non-fiction, drama and interviews, all of which are either written in Indian languages (translated into English), or about literature in Indian languages, and celebrate the linguistic, literary, and cultural diversity of India. The View From Here selects and compiles short stories and poems published in what used to be the online quarterly journal of the Indian Writers’ Forum, called Guftugu, of which 22 issues appeared between October 2015 and September 2022. Hyphen is a new venture, launched in the monsoon of 2026, and it admits not just words, but also images (Guftugu did too, but The View From Here carries only text). Both books include familiar figures as well as hitherto undiscovered writers; both collect their riches from all parts of India.

The second feature that these two books share is their concern with translation—making works from a multiplicity of Indian languages accessible via English. English is a two-edged sword. On the one hand, it provides a common language for speakers of distinct Indian languages to be able to understand one another. On the other, the temptation to default to English means that we are not making an effort to learn other Indian languages except the one or two we might already know because of our upbringing.

Summary
This article reviews two literary ventures, "The View From Here" and "Hyphen," highlighting their shared commitment to showcasing diverse Indian literatures through translation into English. "The View From Here" compiles works from the former online journal "Guftugu," known for its dissent against authoritarianism. "Hyphen," a newer initiative, aims to connect languages and literatures, emphasizing translation and fostering dialogue across India's linguistic and cultural landscape. Both projects celebrate multilingualism, freedom of expression, and aim to counter homogenizing narratives, drawing inspiration from figures like A.K. Ramanujan and Rabindranath Tagore.

https://frontline.thehindu.com/books/indian-literature-in-translation-view-from-here-hyphen/article71523669.ece
#metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus

Language rights, Arabic content as technology and artificial intelligence rapidly reshape the translation profession

"Friday, October 02, 2026
Translation in the age of AI
On International Translation Day, experts discuss language rights, Arabic content as technology and artificial intelligence rapidly reshape the translation profession
QNA Doha
Published on September 30, 2026 | 12:00 AM

The right to be understood is at the heart of this year’s International Translation Day, as the global observance spotlights linguistic diversity and language rights and the vital role of translation, interpreting and terminology in ensuring access to essential services, information and knowledge.

Observed annually on September 30, International Translation Day 2026 is being marked by the International Federation of Translators (FIT) under the theme Linguistic Diversity and Language Rights, centered on ‘The Power of Being Understood’. As technology and artificial intelligence rapidly reshape the translation profession, experts told Qatar News Agency (QNA) that the future of the sector will depend not only on embracing new technologies but also on protecting language rights, strengthening knowledge production and ensuring that translators retain the skills and judgment needed to navigate an increasingly digital landscape. They stressed that AI can enhance the translator’s work but cannot replace the human judgment, cultural understanding and linguistic expertise that give translation its depth and precision.

Dr Khalifa Abdullah al-Hazzaa, a translator and academic at Qatar University, said language rights begin with the freedom to preserve and use one’s mother tongue, while linguistic diversity requires creating environments in which languages remain active in education, media and public life.

Translation and interpreting, he explained, do more than transfer meaning between languages; they also drive linguistic development by introducing equivalents for emerging foreign terms and helping new expressions enter common usage and evolve. Al-Hazzaa warned that war-driven displacement poses a serious threat to less widely spoken languages, as communities forced into new linguistic environments can gradually lose their mother tongues.

Digital content

The decline of written-language use amid the rise of fast-moving digital content presents another challenge to the survival and development of some languages. He also highlighted the role of educational and cultural institutions and translation initiatives such as the Sheikh Hamad Award for Translation and International Understanding in sustaining linguistic diversity by supporting translators, facilitating intellectual and literary exchange and encouraging speakers of less widely represented languages to continue producing work in their own languages.

Turning to Arabic’s place in the modern knowledge and technology landscape, Prof Shokry Megahed, a translator and professor of literature and translation at Ain Shams University, said the language’s position must be assessed against stark disparities in investment, economic weight and institutional infrastructure among the world’s languages.

Major languages benefit from substantial investment and sophisticated ecosystems of companies and institutions developing language technologies and digital solutions, while Arabic has yet to receive comparable resources, he told QNA. Megahed stressed that a language’s strength is measured not only by the number of its speakers, but also by its economic, institutional and cultural reach and its capacity to produce knowledge and develop the tools to disseminate it. With Arabic spanning multiple countries and institutions, greater coordination is needed to develop the language and strengthen its presence in the global knowledge economy, he said.

He linked Arabic’s standing in scientific research directly to the language in which knowledge is taught and produced, noting that most Arab researchers study and publish their work in English or other foreign languages. For the translation profession, Megahed called for stronger economic and institutional foundations. While freelancing remains the dominant model for many translators, he said sustainable translation institutions need to provide training, professional development, technological tools and employment opportunities alongside viable economic models.

He advocated a two-track approach: identifying and nurturing new translation talent while helping self-trained translators strengthen their skills and harness new technologies. Such efforts, he said, are essential to expanding Arabic’s presence in the digital sphere. Yet technology cannot substitute for the translator’s professional and intellectual foundation, Megahed stressed.

Mastery of language and culture, continuous reading and critical judgment remain indispensable. The translator, he said, is a “special kind of reader,” making translation one of the highest forms of critical reading. As artificial intelligence rapidly reshapes the profession, Mowaffaq Faiq Tawfiq, a translation and interpreting expert at Al Jazeera Media Network, said the technology has brought a major transformation to both written translation and interpreting, making engagement with it inevitable. But he stressed that AI should remain a tool for enhancing human work rather than an end in itself.

Concerns over technology displacing human roles are not new, Tawfiq noted, having accompanied the emergence of writing, the printing press, computers and the internet without eliminating the need for human expertise. The greater challenge, he said, is developing the awareness and skills required to use technology responsibly. Tawfiq also pointed to a broader knowledge challenge in the Arab world, citing declining systematic reading and growing reliance on ready-made solutions.

Translation, he stressed, is far more than proficiency in two languages; it requires deep knowledge of both languages and cultures, together with an understanding of the contexts in which texts and meanings are produced. The limited volume of Arabic knowledge content available online compared with global output is another constraint, he said, making greater Arabic knowledge production essential to strengthening the language’s presence in AI technologies.

Human knowledge
AI models do not generate knowledge independently, but draw on human knowledge used in their training, with their principal strengths lying in their ability to rapidly search, retrieve, process and synthesize information. Tawfiq acknowledged AI’s growing usefulness in gathering, reviewing and summarizing information, particularly in scientific research and legal work. But he cautioned against leaving judgments or final decisions to machines, which lack essential human capabilities such as interpreting intent, body language and facial expressions.

AI is currently more effective in written translation than in interpreting, he said, where performance can be complicated by dialects, accents, pronunciation, pauses and other vocal and expressive cues. Its effectiveness also varies by text: technical and scientific material tends to be more straightforward, while philosophical, religious, emotional and literary texts require a far more nuanced understanding.

For Tawfiq, abandoning AI is neither realistic nor desirable. The priority, he said, is to learn how to use the technology effectively while keeping humans responsible for final judgments and rigorously reviewing its output for accuracy and quality. The International Translation Day is observed on September 30 to recognize the contribution of translators, interpreters and other language professionals to communication and understanding among peoples. The International Federation of Translators has marked the occasion since 1991, while the United Nations General Assembly formally proclaimed September 30 International Translation Day in 2017 through Resolution 71/288, recognizing the role of professional translation in promoting international understanding, communication and cooperation. The draft resolution was backed by 11 countries, including Qatar."
https://www.gulf-times.com/article/734468/opinion/translation-in-the-age-of-ai
#metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus

"Artificial intelligence doesn't eliminate the translator, it transforms their expertise!

On the occasion of September 30 International Translation Day, Asst. Prof. Sabri Gürses, Head of the Translation and Interpreting Department, evaluating the effects of artificial intelligence and translation technologies on the translation and interpreting profession, stated that technology does not eliminate the need for translators, but rather moves the profession to new areas of expertise.

Gürses, expressing that the fundamental difference between humans and machines is experience, said, “This is the human translator's superiority over machines; machines can provide quick solutions by synthesizing the data they have recorded, but humans provide a real experience.”

Asst. Prof. Sabri Gürses, Head of the English Translation and Interpreting Department at Üsküdar University, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, evaluated the effects of artificial intelligence-based translation tools on the translation and interpreting profession on the occasion of September 30 International Translation Day.

“The need for humans will never disappear”
Asst. Prof. Sabri Gürses stated that despite Google Translate and AI-based tools being able to translate in seconds, the need for human translators will continue, adding that professions, rather than disappearing with technology, transform and gain new areas of expertise.

Dr. Gürses said, “Throughout human history, professions don't actually disappear; new professions and specializations are always added to them. The need for human existence will never disappear just because machines have arrived, because we live in a human world. Technology exists to facilitate people's lives and work, not to eliminate them.”

A translator is no longer just someone who knows a language
Gürses emphasized that in contemporary translation and interpreting education, merely knowing a foreign language is not enough; translators must also specialize in culture, methods, history, and social needs.

“In our era, translators and interpreters are trained not just as people who know languages, but as specialists who understand the methods and history of translation, cultural differences, and social needs,” said Gürses, noting that Türkiye's translation tradition continues today in university translation and interpreting departments with new technologies.

“A machine can pretend to know, a human provides a real experience”
Dr. Gürses also touched upon artificial intelligence's capacity to comprehend culture, humor, irony, and social context, stating that AI can learn human behavior and culture through the human-generated data it is fed.

Dr. Gürses said, “Artificial intelligence or machines only know social context as much as they learn from human texts and films they read and copy. Machines do not recognize, experience, or live humanity's unpredictability, soul, psychology, or creativity. They can only pretend to know by looking at the data they have collected.”

Gürses, stating that the fundamental difference between humans and machines is experience, continued:

“This is the human translator's superiority over machines; machines can provide quick solutions by synthesizing the data they have recorded, but humans provide a real experience.”

“AI translation can be fast, but its disasters can also be fast”
Dr. Gürses pointed out that AI translations must be supervised in fields like law, health, diplomacy, and international relations, where even a single wrong word can lead to serious consequences, and stated that control mechanisms are indispensable in professional production processes.

Emphasizing that directly using a translation generated solely by a machine is risky, Dr. Gürses said, “It is always risky to simply take and use a translation made by a machine alone. We know that incorrect, uncontrolled human translations have brought us to the brink of wars. AI translation can be fast, but its disasters can also be fast.”

“We are now in the post-AI era”
Gürses stated that translation and interpreting education has also changed in parallel with technological transformation, adding that artificial intelligence is not a new technology in the field of translation.

“I now believe that we are not in the age of artificial intelligence, but in the post-artificial intelligence era,” said Gürses, continuing his words:

“The age of artificial intelligence began in the 1950s, when the first computers were built, and was almost completed when the entire world connected to the internet. Translation and interpreting education developed similarly. Translators have been using computers, translation memories, and online dictionaries for a long time. In this post-AI era, translation is not about living alongside machines, but living intertwined with them.”

The translator of the future must also understand technology
Gürses stated that technology accelerates translators' access to information and multiplies their resources, expressing that translation fields will diversify even further in the future.

Dr. Gürses said, “Thanks to the easing of their work, faster access to information, and the proliferation of resources, the translator's cultural power and skills have increased. Humans and machines are gradually spreading into space; as colonies are established on the Moon and nearby planets, we will see much more unexpected translation problems and fields emerge.”

Pointing out that many countries are developing their own artificial intelligence systems, Gürses emphasized that future translators must understand not only the subtleties of languages but also technological systems, concluding his words by saying, “Even now, many countries have their own artificial intelligence systems. These ostensibly speak human language, but there is even a need for translators to facilitate communication between them. In this new environment, translators must learn and be able to use the new technologies that shape languages, along with the intricacies of those languages.”

Üsküdar News Agency (ÜHA)
PK:34662 Üsküdar / İstanbul / TÜRKİYE

bilgi@uskudar.edu.tr

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https://uskudar.edu.tr/en/new/artificial-intelligence-does-not-eliminate-translators-it-transforms-their-expertise/92435
#metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus

‘Bimpert,’ ‘douen’ and ‘canboulay’ are the newest adds to the Oxford English Dictionary

The Oxford English Dictionary has added more than a dozen words from Bermuda and the Caribbean.
New entries include “bimpert” for a foolish person, “hornerman” for an unfaithful man.
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — More than a dozen words long used in Bermuda and across the Caribbean have the official nod from the Oxford English Dictionary.

First in line is “bimpert,” a Bermudian word of unknown origin that is used to describe a stupid or foolish person. People on the tiny island in the north Atlantic often use it in this traditional phrase: “A bimpert is justah wuffless bye,” which roughly translates to: an idiot is just a worthless boy.

Another colorful addition is “hornerman,” a word used in the eastern Caribbean island of Trinidad and Tobago since 1975 to describe an unfaithful man or a man having a relationship with someone else’s partner.

Leonard Alexander, a grocery store owner in Trinidad, chuckled at the inclusion of the word “hornerman.” He explained that to “horn” means being unfaithful, and now the world would know the term for a man who commits such an act.

“That’s our heritage, that’s what we grew up with,” Alexander said.

Among other dark words that made the list is “jablesse,” defined as “a malevolent shape-shifting female spirit with one cloven hoof, which at night is said to assume the form of a beautiful woman to lure men to their deaths.” It is derived from “diablesse,” the French word for female demon.

Another supernatural entry is “douen.” It is “typically depicted as short in stature, with backward-pointing feet, and wearing a large hat, said to be the spirit of a child who died before it could be baptized, and believed to lure children into the forest by calling their names,” according to the dictionary. It is a variation of the Spanish word “duende,” which means elf.

Several food-related words were included this year: “shadeesh,” the Bermudian word for chorizo; “sugar cake,” made of grated coconut boiled with sugar, water and spices; and “peanut punch,” a wildly popular rich and frothy beverage made with peanuts or peanut butter, milk, sugar and several spices.

The final Caribbean English words added this year are “Trinbagonian,” which refers to people from both the islands of Trinidad and Tobago, and “canboulay,” which refers to Carnival festivities in Trinidad in the 1800s that celebrated the emancipation of slaves.

There are some 500,000 words and phrases in the Oxford English Dictionary, which details the history of words, some of which go back to the 11th century.

Coto writes for the Associated Press. AP correspondent Anselm Gibbs in Port-of-Spain, Trinidad, contributed to this report."
By Dánica Coto
Sept. 29, 2026 3 AM PT
https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2026-09-29/caribbean-words-added-to-official-dictionary
#metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus

"International Translation Day 2026
Beyond equivalence: Translation and the politics of being understood
Updated : 30 September 2026, 00:05

Faridul Alam
Linguistic diversity and language rights

Linguistic Diversity and Language Rights is the theme of International Translation Day, September 30, 2026, with “The Power of Being Understood” as its subtitle. The International Federation of Translators places translation, interpreting, and terminology at the centre of linguistic inclusion, emphasising their role in education, healthcare, justice, public services, and civic life.

The theme is timely because linguistic diversity exists under profoundly unequal conditions. Languages may be spoken by millions or by a small community; they may flourish in schools, government, publishing, media, and digital platforms, or remain marginalised, under-resourced, and increasingly vulnerable. Linguistic diversity is therefore not simply a celebration of the number of languages spoken in the world. It is a question of which languages have institutional recognition, technological resources, educational support, and the power to survive across generations.

This linguistic disparity is particularly evident in education. UNESCO notes that more than 7,000 languages are spoken or signed around the world today, yet only 351 are used as languages of instruction. It estimates that up to 1,500 languages may disappear by the end of this century, with the loss extending beyond vocabulary to cultural and historical knowledge.

Image
More than 7,000 languages are spoken worldwide, yet linguistic diversity exists under profoundly unequal conditions. Visual: Collected.
Language rights consequently mean more than the formal right to speak one's language. They include access to information, justice, education, healthcare, and public services in a language one understands, but also the right to preserve and transmit linguistic and cultural heritage. Fédération Internationale des Traducteurs (FIT) rightly emphasises translation and interpreting as practical mechanisms through which such rights can become meaningful.

Yet this creates an important paradox. Translation can make linguistic differences communicable. But can it preserve the linguistic difference itself? In other words, can we understand another language without reducing its distinctive ways of seeing, remembering, and expressing the world to our own?

When a language disappears, therefore, what disappears is not simply a collection of words. A way of wording, and thereby of worlding, the world may disappear with it.
The question matters because a language is not merely a container for information. It carries historical memory, cultural associations, social relationships, ecological knowledge, metaphors, conceptual distinctions, and particular ways of making experience intelligible. When a language disappears, therefore, what disappears is not simply a collection of words. A way of wording, and thereby of worlding, the world may disappear with it.

This is where the political significance of translation becomes more complicated. Translation can carry stories, knowledge, memories, and ideas across linguistic boundaries. But it cannot by itself preserve a language as a living medium. Translation can preserve communicability, but only linguistic survival can preserve the world from which that communicability arises.

The problem also has a transnational dimension. Languages do not remain neatly contained within nation-states. They cross borders through migration, displacement, colonialism, trade, education, and increasingly digital communication. A language carried by migrants may acquire new forms of life in another country; a diaspora can preserve a language while simultaneously exposing it to pressures of linguistic erosion. Linguistic rights, therefore, cannot be reduced to national language policy. They also concern the right of communities to sustain a living linguistic world within and beyond national boundaries.

We learn English for years, but learn too little. Why?
The phrase The Power of Being Understood consequently invites a question more difficult than it initially appears: What does it mean to be understood?

To be understood is among the most fundamental of human needs. Yet understanding is never simply a matter of hearing words or converting them from one language into another. To understand another person is to encounter a world of meanings shaped by history, culture, memory, identity, experience, and circumstance. Translation begins where linguistic difference becomes an obstacle to that encounter, but it does not end with the substitution of one set of words for another.

This is where the conventional ideal of equivalence begins to falter.

The trouble with equivalence

Equivalence suggests that something said in one language can be matched by something that means essentially the same thing in another. At one level, this is indispensable. Without some correspondence between languages, translation would be impossible. Yet the closer we look, the more elusive equivalence becomes.

Words do not carry meanings as self-contained objects that can simply be removed from one linguistic container and deposited into another. They carry histories, associations, tonalities, cultural memories, social positions, and worlds of reference.

Equivalence concerns words. Understanding concerns worlds.

This distinction extends an argument I explored in my earlier essay, “Wording the word and worlding the world: Poetics and politics of translation,” published in The Daily Star on International Translation Day 2025. Language does not merely describe a world that exists independently of it; it participates in making experience intelligible—indeed, in worlding the world. The word is never entirely detached from the world it helps constitute.

Translation, therefore, cannot be understood simply as the transportation of words between already completed worlds. It is an encounter in which different ways of wording and worlding are brought into relation. Questions of representation, power, and intelligibility inevitably arise.

And that encounter is never politically innocent.

The dream of perfect equivalence has always been haunted by the irreducible differences between languages. A word may have a dictionary counterpart in another language and yet fail to carry the same emotional, historical, cultural, or philosophical resonance. An idiom may be translated literally and become unintelligible; translated freely, it may become intelligible at the cost of its strangeness. A metaphor may survive grammatically while losing the cultural memory that gave it force.

Translation, therefore, inhabits an uncomfortable space between sameness and difference. It must make something recognisable without pretending that the two languages are identical.
The paradox is that fidelity may sometimes require non-equivalence.

A translation that reproduces the words of an original with mechanical precision may betray its meaning, while a translation that departs from the original wording may preserve something more important: its irony, rhythm, emotional force, cultural implication, or pragmatic effect.

Translation, therefore, inhabits an uncomfortable space between sameness and difference. It must make something recognisable without pretending that the two languages are identical. It must cross a distance without claiming that the distance has disappeared.

The difficulty deepens when we move from translating words to translating human experience.

Image
Equivalence concerns words. Understanding concerns world. Photo: Collected.
A culturally specific concept may have no exact counterpart in another language. A community's historical memory may resist reduction to the vocabulary available in the receiving culture. A speaker's identity may be inseparable from linguistic forms that cannot be reproduced elsewhere without modification. Even silence can carry meaning: what is left unsaid, what need not be explained to members of one linguistic community, may become invisible when translated into another.

I encountered the intricate interplay of such silence much earlier, as an undergraduate, when I attempted to translate Ernest Hemingway's “Hills Like White Elephants” into Bangla. The story's central conflict is never named: the word abortion does not appear, and its meaning emerges through euphemism, repetition, hesitation, and what the characters leave unsaid. I found myself listening not only to what the characters said but to what their words could not say. In trying to carry that silence across languages, all I could hear was Harold Pinter's paradoxical—and to me particularly daunting—formulation from The Homecoming: “You never heard such silence.”

Translation consequently confronts an enduring ambivalence that cannot be resolved merely by greater lexical accuracy:

How can the other be made intelligible without making the other identical to oneself?

That is the deeper problem of translation—and, ultimately, of being understood.

The politics of being understood

The politics of translation does not begin only when someone deliberately mistranslates, censors, distorts, or manipulates a text. It is already present in the act of interpretation itself.

Every translation involves choices. What should be retained? What can be omitted? What should be explained? Which cultural reference should be preserved in its foreignness, and which should be rendered through an approximate equivalent familiar to the target audience? When ambiguity exists, should the translator preserve the ambiguity or resolve it?

These are linguistic decisions, but they are also decisions about whose categories of meaning will govern the encounter.

Who is being translated?

Who is doing the translating?

For whom?

And according to whose understanding of what counts as intelligible?

The questions become especially consequential when languages meet under conditions of unequal power. Colonial histories provide stark examples. A colonised people could be rendered linguistically intelligible through the vocabulary of the coloniser while remaining profoundly misunderstood. Indigenous concepts could be translated into European categories that made them legible to colonial administration precisely by stripping away the conceptual systems from which those concepts emerged.

The problem also persists in less dramatic forms. A migrant's experience may be translated into bureaucratic language and thereby become administratively legible while losing the complexity of the life behind the documentation. A patient's words may be interpreted into the clinical vocabulary of medicine and become medically intelligible, while the cultural meaning of illness remains inadequately conveyed. A person's testimony may be translated into the formal language of law and thereby enter the institutional record, while something of the speaker's lived experience disappears in the process.

A person can be made linguistically intelligible without being fully understood, let alone authentically represented.
Here, a crucial distinction emerges:

A person can be made linguistically intelligible without being fully understood, let alone authentically represented.

Indeed, intelligibility itself can become a form of power. To render another person understandable is not always to encounter that person on their own terms. It can also mean fitting their experience into categories that the receiving culture already possesses. What appears to be successful translation may therefore sometimes become an act of assimilation: difference becomes intelligible because it has been reduced to what the listener already knows how to recognise.

The right to be understood, then, cannot mean the right to be made equivalent to the dominant language. It must include the right to remain different while still being heard. Yet inclusion alone does not dissolve hierarchy. Translation may bring a marginalised language into the field of recognition while leaving intact the terms by which recognition is granted. It can bridge linguistic distance while leaving linguistic hierarchy untouched. Linguistic justice, therefore, requires reciprocity over asymmetry: translation must become a two-way encounter in which neither language is simply the measure of the other, and each remains open to being altered by the encounter.

Image
The power of being understood lies in the willingness to remain in conversation across irreducible difference. Visual: Collected.
The impossible task

Translation is therefore a daunting, if not impossible, task—not because nothing can ever be translated, but because nothing can be translated without remainder.

Something always exceeds the translation: a connotation, a historical association, a rhythm, a cultural memory, a conceptual distinction, an ambiguity, an emotional register, or simply the fact that the original expression belongs to another linguistic world.

But the impossibility of translation is not an argument against translating. Quite the opposite.

Human beings translate precisely because complete equivalence is unavailable.

Translation is an activity of negotiating the distance that cannot finally be eliminated. Its achievement lies not in abolishing difference but in making communication possible without pretending that difference has ceased to exist.

The translator, therefore, works within a field of approximation, judgement, interpretation, and responsibility. Too little difference indicates that the translation has domesticated the other. Conversely, too much difference suggests that the target language may remain inaccessible.

The translator works within an unstable interval between intelligibility and alterity.

That is why translation has never been merely a technical activity. It is an interpretive practice in which the limits of understanding itself become visible, revealing an underlying incommensurability: some meanings cannot be fully rendered within the conceptual terms of another language without being altered in the process.

Being understood and the right to be heard

The political implications of translation become particularly clear when we consider language rights.

The right to speak one's language is not fully realised if no one is able—or willing—to listen to it. Likewise, access to healthcare, education, justice, government services, and civic participation cannot depend upon a person's ability to abandon their linguistic world at the institutional threshold.

But there is a difference between having one's words translated and having one's meaning recognised.

A person may receive an interpreter and still encounter an institution whose conceptual framework leaves little room for the experience being expressed. A language may be formally accommodated while the worldview embedded within that language remains marginalised.

Language rights consequently involve more than access to words. They involve recognition.

The deeper promise of translation is not simply that I can understand what you have said. It is that I might become capable of recognising that your way of saying it—and perhaps your way of seeing the world—is not reducible to mine.

Language death, translation, and transnational belonging

This distinction becomes even more urgent when a language itself is endangered.

Language death is sometimes described as the disappearance of vocabulary or grammar. But the loss is deeper. Languages encode relationships between people and place, memory and identity, generations and ancestors. They may preserve ecological knowledge, social distinctions, oral histories, metaphors, and concepts for which another language has no ready equivalent.

Translation can document and circulate some of these meanings. It can introduce a disappearing language's literature, stories, and knowledge to speakers of other languages. But translation cannot substitute for the continued life of the language itself.

This is where the translational and the transnational converge.

A language carried across borders can become a site of belonging for migrants and their descendants. It can survive in households, religious and cultural associations, literature, music, and digital communities, even when it occupies a marginal position in the surrounding society. Yet migration can also accelerate linguistic erosion as younger generations move towards the dominant language of education and public life.

The challenge, therefore, is not simply to translate minority languages into dominant ones. It is to ensure that linguistic inclusion does not become another name for linguistic assimilation.

A genuinely plural understanding of language rights must allow communities to participate in the dominant institutions of a society without requiring them to surrender the linguistic world through which they remember, relate, and imagine.

Translation can preserve communicability, but only linguistic survival can preserve the world from which that communicability arises.

Translation in the age of artificial intelligence

The problem becomes newly urgent in an age of machine translation and artificial intelligence.

AI can now translate enormous quantities of language at extraordinary speed. Large language models (LLMs) extend this capacity beyond conventional machine translation by generating translations that can account for context, idiom, tone, and stylistic variation with remarkable fluency. Such systems can significantly expand access, especially where professional translation is unavailable.

But contextual fluency should not be confused with situated understanding.

A model can infer patterns across vast multilingual corpora without inhabiting the historical, cultural, or experiential world from which an utterance emerges. It can produce a fluent rendering while missing the significance of what cannot be reduced to correspondence. It may translate an idiom smoothly while erasing the strangeness that matters, or resolve an ambiguity whose unresolved quality is part of the meaning.

The danger, then, is not simply that machines will mistranslate.

It is that fluency may be mistaken for understanding.

The problem is especially significant for languages with fewer digital resources. FIT notes that technological development has highlighted disparities between high-resource and low-resource languages and stresses the continuing importance of human language professionals in safeguarding quality, ethics, and inclusion.

The technological question is therefore not whether machines can translate more languages. They plainly can. The deeper question is what conception of language is being embedded in the systems that increasingly mediate communication.

Read more
End of reading? A post-literate society in the making
If language is treated primarily as translatable data, what happens to the aspects of language that resist datafication: cultural memory, situated knowledge, ambiguity, irony, silence, embodied experience, and historical meanings carried by particular forms of expression?

The machine may translate the sentence.

But who—or what—translates the world behind the sentence?

The human remainder

This is where the continuing importance of the human translator becomes clearer.

The human translator does not simply possess information unavailable to the machine. More fundamentally, the translator occupies a position between worlds. Translation requires judgement precisely because languages are not closed systems of equivalent signs. The translator must decide what the text is doing, not merely what its words denote.

This does not make human translation infallible. Human translators can misunderstand, distort, impose assumptions, and reproduce cultural biases. Nor does it mean that machine translation has no interpretive value. Rather, it means that translation remains a domain in which judgement cannot be separated from meaning.

The translator's task is therefore not to eliminate uncertainty but to negotiate it responsibly.

Perhaps this is why translation remains an art even when it becomes increasingly technological. The ultimate challenge is not to make language perfectly transparent. It is to preserve enough opacity for differences to remain differences while making enough meaning available for communication to occur.

That balance can never be permanently achieved.

It must be negotiated again and again.

Beyond equivalence

The politics of being understood is thus perpetually fraught because understanding itself is never innocent. To understand another person is not simply to receive information from them. It is to interpret them through categories that are themselves historically and culturally situated.

Translation exposes this problem because it places two linguistic worlds in direct relation.

It reminds us that meaning is neither entirely inside words nor entirely outside them. Meaning emerges through relations among words, speakers, histories, contexts, and worlds. To translate is therefore to enter that relational space.

This is why translation cannot finally be reduced to equivalence.

Equivalence asks whether two expressions correspond. Translation asks what becomes possible when two worlds encounter one another.

Image
Translation begins where linguistic difference becomes an obstacle to the encounter. Visual: Adrin Sarwar.
The distinction matters. If we imagine translation as the perfect transfer of meaning, every difference becomes an error to be eliminated. If, instead, we understand translation as an encounter with difference, the inevitable remainder is not simply a failure. It is evidence that another linguistic world has not been completely absorbed into our own.

In this sense, the failure of perfect translation may be part of its achievement.

For what would it mean to understand another completely? Would complete understanding finally erase the distance between self and other—or would it erase the very otherness that made understanding necessary?

Perhaps the goal of translation is therefore not to arrive at a point where nothing remains untranslated. It is to create a space in which what cannot be fully translated can nevertheless be encountered.

The power of being understood lies not in the fantasy of perfect equivalence, but in the willingness to remain in conversation across irreducible difference.

Translation does not eliminate linguistic diversity. At its best, it makes diversity communicable without making it disappear.

And if language participates in worlding the world, translation participates in bringing worlds into relation. It does not simply move words across boundaries. It negotiates the boundaries through which human beings recognise one another.

That negotiation is necessarily incomplete. Perhaps even necessarily impossible. But it is an impossibility we cannot afford to abandon. For without translation, differences can become isolation.

Without difference, understanding becomes mere recognition of ourselves. Between the two lies the difficult, perpetually unfinished work of being understood.

Dr Faridul Alam, a former academic, writes from New York City..."

https://www.thedailystar.net/slow-reads/wisdom/news/beyond-equivalence-translation-and-the-politics-being-understood-4286116
#metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus

"Between the Words Is Where Translation Happens
30 September 2026
United Nations Volunteers

On International Translation Day, we look beyond words. Translators and editors shaping volunteer stories across continents carry a greater responsibility: to ensure meaning survives the journey from one language to another.

Literal translation can preserve words while losing culture, emotion and intent. Artificial Intelligence (AI) can make translation faster, more accessible and far-reaching, but speed is not the same as understanding. Human oversight remains essential. The strongest approach is not AI replacing translators, but supporting them, while human judgment provides the context, cultural sensitivity and nuance technology may miss.

Ultimately, the craft lies in reshaping language without rewriting experience, because the most literal translation is not always the most faithful one.

 

In this video, voices from United Nations Volunteers (UNV) come together in 12 languages, celebrating the richness of language and all that it carries.

From utu and umoja in Kenya to ayni in Bolivia, and sewa in Nepal, to asar or ashar in Central Asia to servir in Latin America—acts of service, humanity, humility, care, duty—are deeply rooted in local traditions. These words can be translated, but what they carry cannot always be contained in another word. Perhaps that is where translation truly begins.

Languages in the video: Arabic, English, French, Luo, Nepali, Portuguese, Quechua, Russian, Spanish, Swahili, Ukrainian, and Urdu."
https://www.unv.org/story/between-words-where-translation-happens
#metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus

"The Iceberg of Translation
Tiffany Tsao
30 September 2026

Roughly 10% of an iceberg sits above the waterline, meaning the other 90% goes unseen (at least to us surface-dwellers). Literary translation is not unlike an iceberg: only a small part of the labour involved is visible in the finished copy. The rest is not so apparent – a submerged and hidden base, upon which sits the beautiful blue craggy structure bobbing along up top.

I feel this analogy to be acutely applicable to my experience translating Olenka – a novel by the Indonesian writer Budi Darma, originally published in 1983. My English translation has just come out with Penguin Classics. It is physically small: a mere 12.7 by 19.5 by 1.5 centimetres, weighing 228 grams (only 12 grams more than the apple I place afterwards on my kitchen scale for comparison).

Do not be deceived. This lightweight paperback is, as they say, merely the tip of the iceberg. To give you a sense of the loving, and admittedly obsessive, labour that went into its English-language rendering, I compile here, for your reading pleasure, a few of the pains I took to bring the Anglophone world this annotated edition of Budi Darma’s work.

Olenka itself encourages meticulousness. It keeps track of its copious literary, cinematic, and cultural allusions via 54 end notes. It includes an author’s afterword about the process of writing the novel. It enhances the factuality of its fictional narrative via clippings from real-life magazine and newspapers, captioned and interspersed throughout the text. In short, its author, Budi Darma, set a certain standard. As its translator, tasked not only with rendering it into English but also with furnishing relevant notes and an introduction, it seems only right to follow in his tracks.

My resolve begins with the first end note, which mentions Aldous Huxley, E.M. Forster, and most importantly, a story titled ‘Manu’ by a Marathi-language writer from India named P.S. Rege who also wrote under the pen name Roop Katthak (spelled also Kathak). The 2018 edition of Olenka I am translating from has misspelt Rege as Rage, which results in me finding nothing about him despite my Google Books and Google Scholar search prowess.

So I ask my agent, who is from – and based in – India. ‘It could be Rege,’ she texts. She’s right. From there, more sleuthing reveals that the story in question was included in an anthology titled Contemporary Indian Short Stories, published in New Delhi in 1959. Fortuitously, the State Library of New South Wales has a copy. I place a request and descend eagerly to the library’s bowels to peruse it.

I discover that the first few scenes of Olenka clearly take their tonal cue from Rege’s ‘Manu’ (which Rege himself translated into English). This is gold: I can, and should, use its prose to inflect my own.

From this point, there’s no turning back. I know I’ll follow every lead I can.

Olenka is set in the US’s Midwest, and one scene takes place in a bus station in Indianapolis. The narrator, stranded overnight, makes use of a kursi televisi – literally, a ‘television chair’. I’ve never seen or heard of such a thing, so I spend far too much time hunting for a picture online so I can get a sense of what it looks like. I finally discover this photo in the ‘r/nostalgia’ subreddit on Reddit, which results in me rendering it as ‘coin-operated TV’.

I read, for the first time, the short story ‘Young Goodman Brown’ by Nathaniel Hawthorne because one of Budi Darma’s characters recounts it to another. As with Rege’s ‘Manu’, I take my cues from its language in order to render its retelling.

Other literary works I read or revisit because they are alluded to or quoted include Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë, Women in Love by D.H. Lawrence, Nausea by Jean-Paul Sartre, and ‘The Darling’ by Anton Chekhov. One of the more obscure stories is ‘The Fish Trap’ by Peter Leach. As with ‘Manu’ I discover it housed in the State Library of NSW – in an anthology of O. Henry Memorial Award prize stories from 1974. The State Library: a treasure indeed.

The novel takes place partly on the Indiana University Bloomington campus, and I contact the Indiana University archives with queries on various matters – among them, what the approximate circulation numbers for the Indiana Daily Student newspaper were in the year 1979. (Answer, from a diligent grad student employee who went digging in ‘Collection 142’ of the School of Journalism records to answer my question: 14,000 during the school year.)

Because of a sustained reference in the novel to a scandalous Playgirl interview with Margaret Trudeau (ex-wife of Canadian prime minister Pierre Trudeau and mother to prime minister Justin Trudeau), and the inclusion of an Indonesian magazine clipping that provides a synopsis of said interview, I decide to track the original down. I can find back copies of the Australian edition of Playgirl in libraries here, but the interview appeared in the American one.

I ask a friend who is spending a year as a fellow at the Harvard-Yenching Institute in the US if she can request a digitised copy of the interview from the September 1979 issue of Playgirl. My friend kindly obliges. This takes a while and I get impatient, so I also ask my husband, who works at the University of Sydney, to request a digitised copy via interlibrary loan.

Both copies arrive by email at around the same time, and I use them to confirm some details that were a little unclear from the Indonesian rendering. I also derive great amusement from the ads – one of which is for a subscription to the Fredrick’s of Hollywood catalogue. There is a photo of a man’s underwear-clad torso, and a woman hugging his hips and looking at the camera. Her face is at groin level and she has an enthusiastic expression on her face. The man’s stomach and legs are carpeted in dark hair. The underwear is white, but has a drawing of an apple over the groin. The apple has a bite taken out of it and text superimposed across it. The text reads ‘Love at First Bite’.

Speaking of images, from the moment I embark on the project, I’m thinking about how to best render the included newspaper and magazine clippings if they can’t be reproduced for the English edition. My editor at Penguin Classics confirms: alas, we can’t include them. So I hit upon a solution, which she agrees is ingenious: boxes of descriptive text will appear where the images appear in the original version of the text (along the lines of my description of the ad, above).

I watch the movie Breaking Away, which is mentioned in the novel, and which is also set in Bloomington, Indiana, where most of the novel takes place. My husband and my oldest son watch with me. We enjoy it very much. My son especially loves the bicycle race scenes. I think that the name of the pizza restaurant mentioned in the novel, Pagliani, must be inspired by the real-life pizza place featured in the movie, called Pagliai’s. The internet tells me that it is now called Opie Taylor’s.

To write the introduction, I drive to the National Library of Australia in Canberra. I spend two and a half days in the library, scouring every issue of Horison and Basis – the premier Indonesian literary and culture magazines, respectively, of their day. I request all issues from 1970 to 1987, scanning for references to Olenka and pieces written by or mentioning Budi Darma. (I get distracted by many things, like authors feuding back and forth over multiple issues, and photos of famous authors in their prime who are either now old or with us no more.)

I discover in the July 1984 issue of Horison an essay by Budi Darma in which he mentions a review of Olenka by the writer and journalist Satyagraha Hoerip. This is not one of the reviews I already know about. There is no mention of the outlet in which it appeared, nor a date. Nothing but the title. As Indonesian newspapers from this era are generally not digitised, their text is not searchable. Once again, I deploy my detective skills: I know that Satyagraha Hoerip was an editor at Sinar Harapan, so I search there. The National Library, thankfully, holds copies from the period I need (most of 1983 through the first half of 1984).

The newspapers arrive in plastic-wrapped bundles, and I begin combing through, focusing on the literary and arts and culture sections. I hit pay dirt relatively quickly, in the issue published on 2 March 1983. I’m so proud of this achievement that I share the good news with the high-school students at the table with me, who are studying for a maths exam. I also reward myself with a walk outside.

I write my own set of translator’s end notes for the novel, to complement Budi Darma’s end notes. Some are notes on his end notes. This seems somehow eminently in the spirit of the work.

During my translation of Olenka, a writer friend checks in on me every now and then: ‘How goeth things, young Tiff?’ she asks. I, and she, are both 41 years old.

My replies are always the same. ‘I feel like my brain is steeped in Olenka.’ ‘I feel I am wandering the maze that is Olenka.’ ‘I feel I am submerged in water, and the water is Olenka.’ And so it goes, until I finally turn in the translation manuscript and accompanying introduction to my editor on 10 February 2025.

Again, these are just several, not all, of the rabbit holes I went down and the puzzles I encountered while translating Olenka. As mentioned, my English translation weighs only 228 grams. Extrapolating from the proportions above, if the finished copy of Olenka were the tip of a literal iceberg, then the remainder of its bulk – my herculean behind-the-scenes submarine labours – would amount to a little over two kilos: 2,052 grams, to be exact.

Objectively speaking, this is not much. More ice cube than -berg. Still, I console myself. The human brain weighs, on average, only 1.3 kilograms. But look at what it can do.

…

Tiffany Tsao is a translator of Indonesian literature and the author of the novel But Won’t I Miss Me. She holds a PhD in English from UC-Berkeley and is Deputy Editor at Sydney Review of Books.

The cover artwork featured from this Penguin Classic edition of Olenka is by Tom Gauld.

This new work is made possible by the Copyright Australia Cultural Fund; Meanjin is grateful for this support."
https://meanjin.com.au/latest/the-iceberg-of-translation/
#metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus

Traduire : l’universel en mouvement
Actualités, En librairie, Lecture, Page d'accueil, Publication

"L’ouvrage collectif Traduire : l’universel en mouvement, dirigé par Florence Zhang et Nicolas Froeligern, est paru aux éditions du Collège de France, en OpenEdition, dans la collection CAO (Civisilations de l’Asie orientale). Les contributions sont entièrement disponibles en ligne, à lire, à télécharger, à partager, à critiquer …

Cet ouvrage aborde la question de l’universel par le prisme des contacts entre Extrême-Orient (principalement Chine et Japon) et Occident, à travers douze chapitres étudiant des cas de traduction, mettant successivement l’accent sur les mouvements des idées, sur les singularités des écritures, et sur les décentrements des attentions, le tout dans une véritable danse des universels, décidément compliqué et complexe. Ouverte par l’écrivaine Yoko Tawada et l’historienne Anne Cheng, cette danse fait participer des chercheurs intéressés par divers aspects de la traduction ; elle brouille les frontières de langues, compose des va-et-vient incessants, touche la littérature, la philosophie, le manga, la science-fiction, révèle des manœuvres, des manipulations, des malentendus, des détournements, des initiatives créatives ou tentatives d’essentialisation. Les différents chapitres, en anglais ou en français, nous montrent que dans un univers mouvant, la traduction n’est pas un vecteur stable de l’universalisme, elle bouscule les idées et les langages, les rendant universalisables, partageables. C’est ainsi que nous rejoignons Souleymane Bachir Diagne pour en appeler un « universel de rencontre et de traduction ».

À retrouver ici : https://books.openedition.org/cdf-idc/18#anchor-resume

Titre : Traduire : l’universel en mouvement
Auteur : Florence Zhang et Nicolas Froeliger
Éditeur : Collège de France – Institut des Civilisations
Date de publication : 2026
Nombre de pages : 294
ISBN numérique : 978-2-488899-02-4
ISBN : 978-2-488899-01-7"
https://u-paris.fr/lcao/traduire-luniversel-en-mouvement/
#metaglossia #metaglossia_mundus

"Every patient deserves to be heard, understood and supported, especially when clear communication shapes their experience of care. In honor of International Translation Day, which celebrates the Feast of St. Jerome, the Bible translator considered the patron saint of translators, PeaceHealth Language Services is hosting “The Language of Belonging: Language Rights, Access & Inclusion,” from noon – 1 p.m. PT on Tuesday, Sept. 29.

PeaceHealth invites the community to join the virtual panel featuring professional interpreters and PeaceHealth caregivers who will share real stories about language diversity, language rights and everyday practices that build trust with patients and families from diverse linguistic, cultural and communication backgrounds.

Register to join the Zoom webinar.

About PeaceHealth: PeaceHealth, based in Vancouver, Wash., is a non-profit Catholic health system offering care to communities in Washington, Oregon and Alaska. PeaceHealth has approximately 16,000 caregivers, nearly 3,200 physicians and clinicians, more than 160 clinics and 9 medical centers serving both urban and rural communities throughout the Northwest. In 1890, the Sisters of St. Joseph of Peace founded what has become PeaceHealth. The Sisters shared expertise and transferred wisdom from one medical center to another, always finding the best way to serve the unmet need for healthcare in their communities. Today, PeaceHealth is the legacy of the founding Sisters and continues with a spirit of respect, stewardship, collaboration and social justice in fulfilling its Mission. Visit us online at peacehealth.org.

###

Media Contact
Jim Murez
458-205-6845
jmurez@PeaceHealth.org"
https://www.peacehealth.org/news/2026-09-24/peacehealth-invites-community-virtual-event-celebrating-international-translation
#metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus

As World Translation Day is being celebrated on September 30, events surrounding it will inevitably consist of discussions on the challenges faced by translation in the age of Artificial Intelligence and the increased use of digital technologies.
But translation has been around us since the beginning of time, or at least since the first time that different people or communities came together. Over time, scripts and languages have been lost and the windows to the past remained closed. We lacked the ability to understand past civilisations as we had no access to their languages.
From ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics, Mesopotamian cuneiforms and Maya Glyphs from the Mayan civilisation of South America, the 20th century invested much time and effort in deciphering and then translating ancient scripts by meticulously comparing them to later works in adjacent languages. The results were amazing. They opened doors and windows to civilisations which were tantalising but closed to us because of inaccessible language.
Subsequent translations allowed us to encounter myriad worlds of the past, their ideas, beliefs, and experiences which were separated from us by language, geography, and time.
Nor is this the end of the road. There are scripts from the past that remain inaccessible even now. The Indus script from Mohenjo-daro, for example, is yet to be deciphered. Its secrets remain one of the many cultural stories of ancient history which are still to be told.
Today, translation plays a significant role in preserving cultural memory. Without it, many works, and worlds, would have remained undiscovered and invisible. Translation gave these works another life and allowed them to enter new intellectual and cultural contexts.
In this sense, translation is not simply about transferring meaning; it is about creating access to the past while enabling conversations in the present.
Nowhere is this truer than in literary works. Literature translated from languages in any part of the world allows readers to encounter perspectives that may challenge the assumptions of their own cultural environments. A translated novel can make a distant society more intelligible; a poem can communicate an experience of exile or belonging; a historical narrative can reveal how a community understands its own past. Translation thus creates opportunities for dialogue rather than simply providing linguistic equivalence.
Literary language often depends on metaphor, rhythm, irony, cultural memory, and multiple meanings. A translation can therefore become an interpretation of the original text, changing from one translated language to another.
An important component of intercultural understanding, translation is almost inevitable today. As the world has famously shrunk into a global village, there is a tendency to erase all differences. But the resistance to that comes in the form of celebration of uniqueness in traditions, stories, and memories.
This uniqueness is shared through the stories of our ancestors. It is these stories that root us and give a sense of identity. As people are becoming increasingly monolingual, translation will become central to understanding our unique past and the stories that create a community memory.
The instinct to preserve a unique culture comes with a desire to disseminate it as well. Translation is central to this project.
Beyond being merely the transfer of words between languages, translation enables readers to encounter unfamiliar cultural values, histories, and ways of seeing the world.
In doing so, translation becomes a form of intercultural understanding, creating dialogue between cultures while also revealing the differences that shape how meaning is produced and understood.
The continuing significance of translation lies precisely in this capacity to connect worlds that would otherwise remain apart. To that extent, translation remains an exciting journey, unpacking our past in ways that help us to understand our future."

Published: 04:09 PM,Sep 27,2026 | EDITED : 08:09 PM,Sep 27,2026

https://www.omanobserver.om/ampArticle/1196878
#metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus