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"...The College of Arts and Sciences (CAS) Abu Dhabi University seeks a candidate for a full-time faculty position at the rank of Lecturer or Assistant Professor in Strategic Communication. The candidate should hold a PhD in a related area, be a bilingual who can teach in both our English and Arabic streams of the program and possess technical skills in web and visual design. The successful candidate should be able to teach undergraduate courses such as:
Principles of Strategic Public Relations - Communication Strategy in Advertising
Organizational Communication - Writing for PR
PR Protocol and Etiquette - Introduction to Graphic Design
Social Media Management - Integrated Communication Campaign
Public Relations Campaigns - Theories of Mass Communication
Mass Media Ethics and Responsibilities - Intercultural Communication
Web Design and Development - Advertising Design
Job Responsibilities:
Prepare and deliver lectures and seminars.
Consult and supervise student projects and research work.
Mark and assess student work, assignments, projects, tests and examinations.
Prepare, review and moderate examination questions and marking answer scripts.
Develop subject teaching materials for the subjects the academic teaches.
Conduct research and contribute to publications.
Participate in professional activities in the University/ community.
Be a member of various committees.
Carry out leadership roles in educational activities in their academic Department/ Centre.
Requirements:
A PhD or a Terminal Degree in Mass Communication specializing in Public Relations, Advertising, Strategic Communication or any other relevant field.
Demonstrated experience of working in the media industry.
Strong research and publication record.
Proficiency in using design software such as Indesign, Illustrator, Canva, as well as web design techniques.
Effective presentation skills, both theoretical and practical.
Excellent verbal and written communication skills in English and Arabic language.
Familiarity with the new media technologies.
To apply for this position, kindly submit your appication/CV to the below link:
https://apps.adu.ac.ae/jobposting/1737112739962x584910913342275600";
https://www.timeshighereducation.com/unijobs/listing/389479/-lecturer-or-assistant-professor-in-strategic-communication/
#metaglossia_mundus
"Robbie Meredith and Jayne McCormack
BBC News NI
...A failure by the executive to appoint commissioners for the Irish language and Ulster-Scots has been criticised by a United Nations (UN) committee.
The UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR) also criticised "inadequate funding" for cultural and language rights.
New language laws for Northern Ireland were passed in the Identity and Language (Northern Ireland) Act 2022.
But an Irish language commissioner and a commissioner for the Ulster-Scots and Ulster British tradition have not yet been appointed.
The roles, along with an Office of Identity and Cultural Expression, were originally promised in the New Decade, New Approach deal in 2020.
But the office has not been set up, and there are no commissioners yet in place.
New language laws for Northern Ireland were passed in the Identity and Language (Northern Ireland) Act 2022
The president of the Irish language and culture group Conradh na Gaeilge, Ciarán Mac Giolla Bhéin, welcomed the UN report.
He said he hoped commitments previously agreed by the Democratic Unionist Party and Sinn Féin to appoint an Irish language commissioner would soon be delivered.
"I hope we'll have them in place before the end of this [Stormont] mandate, I do not for the life of me understand what the delay is," he told BBC News NI.
Mr Mac Giolla Bhéin said Irish language campaigners were deeply disappointed that a timetable for the appointment was not spelled out in the executive's programme for government but insisted that organisations would continue to put pressure on politicians to appoint someone to the role.
The bill would provide "recognition and protection" of Irish language and the Ulster British tradition
The commissioners are meant to monitor the services public bodies deliver to Irish and Ulster-Scots speakers.
Proposals from the language commissioners have to be approved by the first minister and deputy first minister before taking effect.
CESCR is a body of 18 independent experts that monitors how states are implementing international agreements on social and cultural rights.
Its latest report, which has just been published, monitors the UK government's actions and those of the devolved governments, including Northern Ireland.
"The committee regrets that the institutions created to protect and promote the Irish language and to promote and develop the Ulster-Scot tradition have not yet been established," the committee's report said.
It recommends that the executive "expedite the establishment of the institutions and policies envisaged for the protection and promotion of the Irish language and Ulster-Scots culture and heritage."
PA Media
An Irish language strike took place in February in protest at cuts to cross-border language funding
A penal law dating from 1737, which prohibited the use of languages other than English in court, was recently repealed.
It cleared the way for Irish to be used in legal proceedings in Northern Ireland.
But there has been political disagreement over cuts to cross-border funding for the Irish language.
That led to a recent strike by some Irish language organisations and activists.
"The committee is concerned at the inadequate funding for culture and culture-related activities, which hampers the right of all to participate in cultural life, to express one's own identity, values and way of life without fear of discrimination," the UN report said.
Speaking at an event at Stormont, Mr Mac Giolla Bhéin said the demand for Irish language learning with the current funding "isn't sustainable"
Mr Mac Giolla Bhéin said the UN committee was "echoing what we have been saying, not just with recent announcements around cuts to Foras na Gaeilge, but this something that's been 20 years in the making."
"We have way more kids now enrolled in Irish medium education, we've much deeper demand for services across the whole strata of society, yet groups are expected to do more and more with less and less," he said.
"That isn't sustainable, groups are really staring into the abyss as things stand.
"We welcome that the report has highlighted this but more importantly it needs to be on the radar of Stormont to ensure a solution is found urgently to address this crisis."
The UN Committee also highlighted other rights in its report, including expressing concern about the controversial Troubles Legacy Act and recommending "access to safe abortion services".
It also called for more schemes to help women, people with disabilities, young people, ethnic minorities and migrants into employment.
While it cannot force the UK government or the Northern Ireland Executive to act, the governments will have to report to the UN committee on what steps they are taking to implement its recommendations."
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c8e7446e04ro
#metaglossia_mundus
University solidarity units will aid students with disabilities with funding, assistive devices and after case assessments.
"The Ministry of Social Solidarity announced support for students with hearing disabilities in education and employment as part of World Hearing Day.
A ministry report stated that deaf and hard-of-hearing students in public universities will have sign language interpreters in special education faculties, with the ministry covering their fees.
University-based solidarity units are identifying students with disabilities, offering financial aid, tuition coverage after case assessments, and assistive devices such as prosthetics, wheelchairs and hearing aids. Training programs and workshops are also provided.
The Taaheel network, launched with the Ministries of Communications and Labor, connects persons with disabilities to training, employment and vocational certification programs, supporting job placements and the 5% employment quota.
Economic support includes vocational training, handicraft exhibitions, and microloans in coordination with Nasser Social Bank.
The ministry, in collaboration with the National Council for Persons with Disabilities, is conducting sign language workshops for rehabilitation office staff and launched a training program to assist persons with hearing disabilities in accessing services."
https://cairoscene.com/Buzz/Sign-Language-Interpreters-to-Be-Supported-at-Egyptian-Universities
"The 10,000-word Science, Technical, and General English-Tamil Dictionary, compiled by Thiru. Perumal Thirumavalavan, was officially launched at a grand event attended by over 300 people at the Soma Auditorium, Malaysia. The dictionary is the result of more than a decade of meticulous work by the author, who compiled newly created Tamil terms into this comprehensive volume.
The event commenced with a traditional Nadaswaram performance by Isaikalaivani Selvi Anjali Kathiravan, founder of Agaram Tamil Isai Palli, accompanied by Thiru Yugarasan on the Thavil. A video speech by Dr. Sachithanandam, Director of Education and Founder of the International Institute of Higher Education, Tamil Studies, Paris, was screened, in which he shared insights on the importance of the dictionary and its role in Tamil linguistic development. Additionally, an awareness video featuring two students advocating for the importance of speaking in Tamil was also screened, emphasizing the need to preserve and promote the language.
The book launch was presided over by Dato Sri Saravanan, Member of Parliament for Tapah, who formally released the dictionary. As a special gesture, he personally handed copies to attendees who purchased the book. The book was brought to the stage in a palanquin procession, accompanied by children dressed as revered Tamil scholars Tolkappiyar, Thiruvalluvar, Paavanar, and Maraimalai Adigalar, symbolizing the rich heritage of the Tamil language.
Dato P. Sahadevan, former Deputy Minister of Health, and Dato Tan Sri Kumaran of the National Land Financial Co-operative Society Limited, delivered congratulatory addresses.
Dr. Mei Chitra, President of the Tamil Heritage Movement, Hong Kong, and a co-participant in the Tamil terminology workshop with the author, delivered an appreciation speech highlighting the significance of the dictionary. Tamil researcher Thiru Tamilmurasu recited a poem dedicated to the author's contributions, while Thirukkural researcher Thiru C. P. Annadurai presented a detailed book review.
The event also honored prominent figures in Tamil education in Malaysia, including Thiru Munuswamy, Thiru Mannar Mannan, Thiru Iniyan, and Dato Dr. N.S. Rajendran, for their invaluable contributions.
The author, Thiru R. Thirumavalavan, who also serves as the National Head of Malaysia Tamil Neri Kazhagam, delivered the acceptance speech and vote of thanks. Thiru Kanalveeran, General Secretary of Malaysia Tamil Neri Kazhagam, welcomed the gathering, while Thiru Maheswaran coordinated the event.
- Our Overseas Reporter Dr. Chitra"
#metaglossia_mundus
"Panel discussion on Literary Translation
12 March 2025, 14:30 - 16:30
The Centre for Multilingual Research is delighted to invite students and staff to a special panel discussion on Wednesday, 12th March at 2.30pm, Taylor A19.
This roundtable will bring together experts in literary translation to explore the creative and critical dimensions of translating literature across languages and cultures. The discussion will cover various aspects of literary translation, with a special focus on the challenges and nuances of translating poetry.
The session will open with a moderated discussion, providing insights into the complexities of literary translation, including the challenges of translating poetry. This will be followed by a series of short literary readings in French, Gaelic, Italian, and Spanish, accompanied by English translations. The event will conclude with a visit to the Library’s Special Collections at 4.15pm where Prof. Lumsden will deliver a talk on Walter Scott in Translation. Attendees will also have the opportunity to explore the exhibition.
This is a wonderful opportunity for students, researchers, and staff to engage with the art of translation and reflect on its role in shaping literary traditions across languages...
Invited Speakers:
Taylor Strickland
Adriana Uribe
Letizia Leonardi
Clara Defachel
Venue
Taylor A19"
https://www.abdn.ac.uk/events/22287/
#metaglossia_mundus
"Sign languages are essential for the Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing (DHH) community. Sign language generation systems have the potential to support communication by translating from written languages, such as English, into signed videos. However, current systems often fail to meet user needs due to poor translation of grammatical structures, the absence of facial cues and body language, and insufficient visual and motion fidelity. We address these challenges by building on recent advances in LLMs and video generation models to translate English sentences into natural-looking AI ASL signers. The text component of our model extracts information for manual and non-manual components of ASL, which are used to synthesize skeletal pose sequences and corresponding video frames. Our findings from a user study with 30 DHH participants and thorough technical evaluations demonstrate significant progress and identify critical areas necessary to meet user needs."
Authors: Han Zhang, Rotem Shalev-Arkushin, Vasileios Baltatzis, Connor Gillis, Gierad Laput, Raja Kushalnagar, Lorna Quandt, Leah Findlater, Abdelkareem Bedri, Colin Lea
https://machinelearning.apple.com/research/ai-sign-language-generation
#metaglossia_mundus
"COLOGNE: DeepL has announced a new feature for its AI-powered translation software that is designed to offer interactive editing suggestions for even more accurate translation results.
Named "Clarify", the feature actively involves users in the translation process and helps them to adapt unclear or ambiguous text passages according to their own preferences, the German tech start-up's chief executive and founder Jarek Kutylowski said.
With the update, DeepL is promising "groundbreaking interactivity" for a more personalised user experience with better and more nuanced translations.
DeepL explains the feature as follows: "Once text is entered into DeepL Translator, Clarify proactively seeks to clarify context, prompting users with questions on topics such as multiple meanings, gender references, names, numbers, idioms, cultural references, abbreviations, and specialised terms."
Once the user responds, Clarify then adapts the translations to ensure proper syntax, tense and grammar. "Clarify knows the right questions to ask because it is designed specifically for translation use-cases."
DeepL faces strong international competition, notably from the likes of Google and OpenAI whose platforms can handle complex translation requests.
Microsoft also offers live translations for its video conferencing application Teams. However, DeepL has still managed to compete with Google Translate and other offerings from large providers in the US in the past.
After a round of financing in May 2024, DeepL is now valued at $2bil (RM8.8bil). Germany's most valuable AI start-up recently expanded its product portfolio to include a feature for real-time translations and a writing assistant with AI (DeepL Write Pro).
DeepL previously launched a new generation of its language model (LLM) to measurably improve the quality of its machine translations.
AI is increasingly becoming an indispensable tool in professional life, said Kutylowski.
The Clarify function offers a personalised approach to interacting with the DeepL platform throughout the translation process, he said.
"Its role is similar to that of a colleague, proactively engaging with users and helping them fine-tune translations to achieve the high quality required for business communication."
According to DeepL, its services are used by around 200,000 companies and public authorities, as well as millions of private customers in 228 markets worldwide. Founded by Kutylowski in 2017, the company now has over 1,000 employees. – dpa"
https://www.thestar.com.my/tech/tech-news/2025/03/09/deepl-announces-interactive-translation-feature-to-039clarify039-context
#metaglossia_mundus
"The Certificate in Legal and Business Translation and Interpretation is a program with a strong emphasis on the theory and practice of the field of translation and interpretation for legal and business settings.
This certificate seeks to attract students who are fluent in English and Spanish (upper intermediate-advance proficiency of their second language) who are interested in pursuing a career as language professionals specializing in legal and business settings. It is perfect for bilingual individuals (Spanish/English) who are committed to easing communication barriers that exist when non-English speakers interact with institutions, private companies, and the legal system at large, whether they are Spanish heritage speakers or have a high intermediate-advanced level of Spanish as a second language.
What You Will Learn
Upon completing 16 credits of in-person coursework at USU main campus in Logan, the certificate prepares students for careers in business and legal translation as well as legal interpretation.
Students will develop competencies to provide accurate written translation and interpreting services in the business and legal fields, including court settings.
This certificate will prepare students to take the State and Federal legal/court interpreter certification exams, the American Translators Association (ATA) Certification test, and guide students towards the pursuit of careers as language professionals offering high-quality interpretation and translation services.
At a Glance
College: College of Humanities and Social Sciences
Department: World Languages and Cultures Department
USU Locations:
Logan campus
Statewide campuses
Program Requirements
Legal and Business Translation and Interpretation - Certificate"
https://www.usu.edu/degrees-majors/legal-and-business-translation-and-interpretation_cert
#metaglossia_mundus
"Interpreters Unlimited (IU) is proud to announce the appointment of Terry Quintero as the Director of Over-the-Phone Interpretation (OPI), Video Remote Interpretation (VRI), and Artificial Intelligence (AI) Language Services. Terry comes on board with a wealth of experience, having previously served as Director of Operations at a Top 20 Slator LSPI ranked Language Service Provider. This strategic move positions IU among the first Language Service Providers to establish a director level role dedicated to AI driven language solutions.
In an era where technology continually reshapes industries, IU recognizes the transformative potential of AI in language services. By creating this specialized director position, IU underscores its commitment to integrating cutting edge AI technologies with traditional interpretation and translation services, ensuring clients receive innovative, efficient, and accurate language solutions. At the same time, IU remains dedicated to ethical and responsible AI adoption, aligning with industry best practices identified by the Safe AI Taskforce (safeaitf.org). This initiative, which brings together key stakeholders in language services, promotes fair, safe, and compliant AI implementation to uphold the integrity of interpreted interactions. IU supports the establishment of industry-wide guidelines and performance benchmarks that ensure AI-driven language solutions enhance rather than compromise the quality, security, and accuracy of communication.
In his new role, Terry joins the team in a complimenting position to Laura Firenzi, Director of Client Relations, who oversees on site in person interpreting services for IU. Offering a full suite of language services, on site in person interpreting is one of the main fixtures of IU, and for over 13 years Laura has led that sector of IU with an expertise in vendor linguist management and industry best practices. Her leadership has also been instrumental in successfully integrating five acquisitions, ensuring a seamless transition that strengthened IU’s service capabilities and expanded its nationwide interpreter network.
With Terry at the helm of OPI, VRI, and AI Language Services, IU is poised to continue to expand its service offerings, incorporating AI to enhance real-time interpretation and translation capabilities. This initiative aims to provide clients across various industries, including healthcare, legal, education, and corporate sectors, with rapid, reliable, and cost-effective language solutions.
"We are thrilled to welcome Terry Quintero to our leadership team," said Shamus Sayed, Interpreters Unlimited COO. "... By embracing AI, we are not only staying ahead of industry trends but also setting new standards in language services."
Contact
Interpreters Unlimited
Marc Westray
800-726-9891
www.interpreters.com"
https://www.pr.com/press-release/932733
#metaglossia_mundus
"07 March 2025|Chloe Gunther
Tadjadine Mahamout Ahmat knows what it means to start over. At just four years old, he and his family fled Sudan, escaping the violence of the Second Sudanese Civil War. They found refuge in Chad, where Tadjadine grew up alongside the refugee community. From the moment he entered the formal education system, he was determined to build his future, one centered on education, entrepreneurship, and giving back.
Today, Tadjadine is pursuing a master’s degree in business administration while running a tutoring program for refugee students at the local university. Fluent in English, French, and Arabic, he also works as a translator for JRS and a local refugee resettlement agency. Despite his packed schedule, he made time to share his story with me.
For this month’s INSIDER, we travel to N’Djamena, Chad, to hear firsthand about Tadjadine’s generosity, determination, and journey.
Since 2006, JRS Chad has provided critical support to refugees through education programs, mental health and psychosocial support, livelihoods training, and protection programs against gender-based violence.
Tadjadine credits JRS Chad for helping him get to where he is today. “The efforts and services from JRS Chad are remarkable,” he said. “So many people have been served… I am so grateful for that.”
I have received a lot of opportunities. Most people in my community do not get these same chances, but they deserve to.
TADJADINE
While in high school, Tadjadine enrolled in JRS Chad’s language learning programs. Already a native Arabic speaker, he became fluent in English and French within just a few years.
“Learning English and French changed the way I look to the future,” he said, reflecting on the doors that opened for him as a result.
With his new language skills, Tadjadine began working with the United Nations World Food Program, using social media to share refugees’ stories, particularly on issues like hunger and climate change. But it was a leadership training course with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees that became the pivotal next step in his career. Over six months, Tadjadine and his cohort built a platform for refugees to connect, share insights, and support one another, laying the groundwork for the community center he would later co-found with a group of friends.
With support from JRS, Tadjadine earned the prestigious Institute of International Education’s Odyssey Scholarship, which provides funding, mentorship, and community support to refugee and displaced students. The scholarship has enabled him to continue his studies by covering tuition, housing, and living expenses.
“I have received a lot of opportunities,” Tadjadine said. “Most people in my community do not get these same chances, but they deserve to.”
In 2021, he officially co-founded the community center, which offers instruction in math, digital marketing, and computer literacy. Using a classroom at the local university, they ensure refugee students have the best chance to succeed in school.
In a full-circle moment, when JRS/USA Program Manager Rachael Davis traveled to Chad last November to visit JRS’s education programs, she met Tadjadine, not as a student, but as her interpreter.
Today, programs like those that have helped Tadjadine hang in the balance. Due to the US foreign assistance funding freeze, JRS Chad’s education programs, which have until recently been supported by the US State Department’s Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration, have been suspended. As Tadjadine reports, the impacts have been devastating.
In Djabal Refugee Camp, where Tadjadine and his family lived upon arriving to Chad, critical supplies like food and medicine have been delayed. JRS’s education program has come to a halt, leaving thousands of students without education and access to the opportunities it provides, particularly to get out of poverty and work in less dangerous fields than gold mining, a major source of jobs in Chad.
Through education, Tadjadine found his way forward. So now he is doing everything he can to ensure others have the same opportunities. He hopes his story will inspire young refugees to recognize their potential and pursue their dreams, no matter how difficult the road ahead may seem."
https://www.jrsusa.org/story/meet-tadjadine-an-interpreter-and-sudanese-refugee-giving-back-to-his-community/
"L’internationalisation représente un défi de taille pour les entreprises qui ont besoin d’une communication fluide et instantanée entre collaborateurs, clients et partenaires à travers le monde. La barrière linguistique peut être une véritable difficulté.
Pour relever ce défi, des outils de traduction instantanée se sont développés, et ne cessent d’évoluer. Ainsi, on estime que le marché mondial des services de traduction devrait atteindre 1,79 milliard de d'euros d'ici 2031. Prochaine étape majeure dans ce processus, la traduction vocale reposant sur l’IA. Cette technologie offre une solution efficace pour transformer les réunions à distance et les échanges en personne et les rendre productifs.
Une communication simplifiée pour une meilleure collaboration
Les outils de traduction vocale fluidifient les échanges multilingues en permettant à chacun de parler sa langue maternelle tout en étant compris instantanément via des sous-titres.
Ces avancées sont particulièrement bénéfiques aux entreprises internationales. Selon une étude du National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), 33,8 % du temps passé en réunion est perdu à cause des problèmes linguistiques. Grâce à l’IA vocale, ces pertes sont réduites, optimisant la prise de décision et la productivité. En effet, l’IA vocale permet d’organiser des réunions virtuelles dans plusieurs langues et de traduire en temps réel les conversations en personne. Résultat: des échanges efficaces et cordiaux et un cadre de travail plus engageant.
Un tremplin vers de nouvelles opportunités commerciales
L’IA vocale, au-delà de la communication en interne, peut aussi faciliter les interactions avec des clients et partenaires internationaux. C’est par exemple un atout pour le service client, le commerce et le tourisme, où une communication instantanée est essentielle. Les collaborateurs peuvent ainsi transmettre rapidement des informations précises et claires quand cela est nécessaire, renforçant la satisfaction, l’engagement et la fidélité des clients.
Un véritable atout alors qu’une étude d’Axios HQ révèle que les inefficacités de communication coûtent aux entreprises jusqu’à 53 096 euros par employé et par an. Ainsi, des entreprises utilisent déjà l’IA pour améliorer la relation client à l’échelle mondiale. Intégrer des outils de traduction vocale en temps réel permet donc de réduire ces coûts tout en facilitant l’expansion internationale.
Favoriser les compétences et prioriser la sécurité des employés
L’IA vocale joue un rôle clé dans l’inclusion de profils et parcours plus diversifiés. Il est maintenant plus facile d’améliorer l’accessibilité à l’emploi sur la base des compétences plutôt que du critère simple de la langue, qui n’est plus un bloqueur à l’embauche. Une solution gagnante pour les recruteurs qui pourront plus facilement avoir accès à des talents spécifiques, même si non natifs, et les candidats, pour qui le frein de la langue sera levé.
La sécurité des collaborateurs est aussi améliorée. Dans l’industrie et la santé par exemple, où les processus sont très stricts, une mauvaise compréhension des consignes peut avoir des conséquences graves. Les outils de traduction vocale peuvent alors fournir des instructions précises, réduisant ainsi les risques d’erreurs."
Par David Parry-Jones
Publié le 9 mars 2025 à 9h00
https://www.economiematin.fr/intelligence-artificielle-vocale-technologie-parry
#metaglossia_mundus: cqfd!
"Pour la première fois, l’association La Méridienne du monde rural publie un livre bilingue français-portugais. Un bel ouvrage.
Publié le 09 mars 2025 à 05h00
Un tableau de Dila Moniz illustre le livre bilingue français-portugais de Josette Fróis. Dila Moniz est une artiste qui a la double nationalité angolaise et portugaise. © Droits réservés La publication par La Méridienne du monde rural, une association de Bort-les-Orgues, du livre bilingue français-portugais Appoline et le pavot bleu - Appoline e a papoila azul de Josette Fróis est le fruit d’un parcours amical littéraire et artistique. L’association bortoise La Méridienne du monde rural, présidée par Anne de Tyssandier d’Escous, avait déjà publié des livres bilingues français-anglais et français-catalan, mais pas encore bilingue français-portugais. Lors d’un concours littéraire international organisé par cette association, Josette Fróis, habitant à Santarém au Portugal, eut son texte en français, Appoline , primé. À la suite, La Méridienne du monde rural lui proposa la publication d’un livre bilingue. C’est ainsi que le livre Appoline et le pavot bleu - Appoline e a papoila azul fut conçu et préparé dans le cadre d’échanges amicaux à partir du texte primé. Josette Fróis est elle-même bilingue. Elle a soutenu en 1996 une thèse de doctorat en linguistique et, dans le cadre de projets européens, le CNDP de Nantes a publié deux manuels de « portugais langue étrangère » dont elle est l’auteur. Cependant, pour la traduction de plus de 200 pages, Josette Fróis a fait appel à la traductrice Ernestina Neves. Quant à l’illustration de couverture du livre, elle a été réalisée d’après la photographie d’un tableau de son amie, Dila Moniz, artiste plasticienne contemporaine connue au Portugal."
"IQNA-Le grand mufti de Minsk a déclaré qu'une traduction biélorusse du Saint Coran avait été achevée et qu'elle devrait être publiée d'ici la fin de l'année.
Abubakar Shabanovich, Mufti de Biélorussie, lors de la réunion du « Conseil coranique du monde islamique » organisé dans le cadre des programmes de la section internationale de la 32ème Exposition internationale coranique de Téhéran, a déclaré dans un message : « Respectables participants du Parlement coranique international, chers frères et sœurs, je vous félicite sincèrement à l'occasion du début du mois sacré du Ramadan et vous souhaite, ainsi qu'à tous les musulmans du monde, la paix, la tranquillité, la vertu et toute la bonté dont chacun de nous a besoin. Je suis très heureux de vous adresser ce message, car vous faites beaucoup pour diffuser la connaissance du Coran parmi tous les peuples du monde.
Nous, dans le pays laïc de Biélorussie, suivons votre exemple. Nous n’étudions pas seulement le Coran nous-mêmes, mais nous faisons également beaucoup d’efforts pour enseigner le Coran aux enfants, aux jeunes et aux adultes. Après la période d’athéisme, nous avons cherché à faire revivre l’Islam et à mettre en œuvre ce livre sacré dans la vie de chaque musulman. Nous organisons des concours de récitation du Coran parmi les enfants, les jeunes et les adultes, au niveau national. Cela nous aide à améliorer la morale de notre peuple, comme le souhaitait notre bien-aimé Prophète, Hazrat Muhammad (as). Le Coran que je tiens entre mes mains, est un manuscrit car au Moyen Âge, il n'y avait pas de texte imprimé, et nos scribes l'écrivaient à la main. Ceci est le texte du Coran et sous chaque ligne se trouve sa traduction écrite en caractères arabes, mais en biélorusse, en polonais et en russe, car la Biélorussie était sous la domination de ces pays, à différentes époques.
En coopération avec des experts religieux du Tatarstan, nous avons traduit le Coran en russe et adapté son texte à la compréhension des musulmans biélorusses, et ce Coran qui est entre mes mains, a été traduit en biélorusse.
Cette traduction a récemment été revue et approuvée par le Conseil scientifique et si Dieu le veut, sera publiée d’ici la fin de cette année.
Au nom des musulmans de la République de Biélorussie, je vous remercie pour cette précieuse réunion. Je vous souhaite de réussir ! Nous suivrons votre exemple et vos activités. Que Dieu accepte vos intentions et ces saintes activités ».
4270115"
https://iqna.ir/fr/news/3491581/publication-du-coran-en-bi%C3%A9lorusse-dici-la-fin-de-lann%C3%A9e
#metaglossia_mundus
"Atelier traduction de l'espagnol au français
Le 03/04/2025
Bibliothèque Germaine Tillion, 6 rue du Commandant Schlœsing | Paris
Gratuit
Qu’est-ce que traduire ? Et si la meilleure façon de le comprendre, c’était de s’y mettre ? De goûter au plaisir de modeler une phrase, de faire se rencontrer sens, images, rythmes et sons des mots ? Rendez-vous à la bibliothèque Germaine Tillion le jeudi 3 avril.
© C
Atelier traduction de l'espagnol au français
La bibliothèque Octavio Paz de l'Instituto Cervantes de Paris et la bibliothèque Germaine Tillion de la Ville de Paris vous invitent à l'atelier de traduction proposé par ATLAS (association pour la promotion de la traduction littéraire) le jeudi 3 avril de 18h à 20h. Avec Hélène Serrano, les participants seront invités — à l’aide d’un mot-à-mot ou d’un lexique — à explorer un extrait de l’œuvre de Carlos Bardem. Pendant deux heures, le groupe des traducteurs d’un jour se mettra à l’écoute du texte original pour se l’approprier et aboutir à une ou plusieurs traductions.
L'atelier se clôturera par la lecture et des échanges des versions et trouvailles du groupe. Des personnes de tous niveaux d’espagnol, y compris débutants, peuvent participer. Au deuxième semestre 2025, une nouvelle séance se déroulera à la Biblioteca Octavio Paz de l'Instituto Cervantes, située au 11 avenue Marceau dans le 16e arrondissement. Uniquement sur réservation en écrivant à bibliotheque.germaine-tillion@paris.fr
Née à Paris de parents espagnols, Hélène Serrano est passée en 2009 du spectacle vivant à la traduction littéraire. Elle a à son actif une douzaine de romans, ainsi que des nouvelles, BDs, poèmes et divers textes en lien avec la scène. Les ateliers de traduction sont l’occasion pour elle de partager son amour de la langue et de vivre avec les lecteurs des expériences uniques de création collective.
Public adultes.
Accessible aux personnes à mobilité réduite.
Renseignements
Où :
Bibliothèque Germaine Tillion, 6 rue du Commandant Schlœsing
75116 Paris
Contacts :
www.paris.fr/evenements/atelier-traduction-de-l-espagnol-au-francais-76541
Dates et horaires :
Jeudi 3 Avril 2025 de 18h à 20h
Tarifs :
Gratuit
"
https://www.jds.fr/paris/manifestations/ateliers/atelier-traduction-de-l-espagnol-au-francais-858210_A
#metaglossia_mundus
"The Awadh Punch’s critique of Urdu dictionaries blurred the line between satire and ridicule
Not all criticism levelled by Awadh Punch against the two Urdu dictionaries – Noor-ul-Lughat and Jame’-ul-Lughat – was unfounded. In fact, the series of critical articles published in the Lucknow-based periodical offered valuable insights into the Urdu lexicon. However, the ad hominem attacks that pervade these pieces, ridiculing the lexicographers, ultimately undermine the very purpose of criticism, reducing the discourse to mere slander.
Those familiar with Urdu humour are likely aware of Awadh Punch, a satirical periodical published in Lucknow during the late 19th and early 20th Centuries. The publication was at the forefront of several literary controversies, leading campaigns against writers and books that conflicted with the ethos of Lucknavi literature – most notably, Maulana Hali and his Muqaddama.
Between 1933 and 1936, Awadh Punch published a series of scathing articles against two Urdu dictionaries released in the 1930s. One of those was Noor-ul-Lughat (hereafter referred to as Noor), compiled by Noor-ul Hasan Nayyar Kakorvi, a lawyer and linguist who was the son of the renowned na’at poet Mohsin Kakorvi. As his surname suggests, he hailed from Kakori, a town near Lucknow. However, since Kakori was not part of Lucknow, Awadh Punch was relentless in its criticism, frequently attributing what it perceived as faults in Noor to its compiler’s origins.
The second dictionary under attack was Jame’-ul-Lughat (hereafter referred to as Jame’), compiled by Khwaja Abdul Majeed. At the time, Jame’ was regarded as the largest Urdu dictionary. However, its heavy reliance on Noor – with numerous entries taken verbatim – became a major point of contention for Awadh Punch’s critic. Majeed’s Punjabi ethnicity was also a recurring target, with his background repeatedly blamed for perceived shortcomings in the dictionary.
When linguist and researcher Dr Rauf Parekh was appointed to the Urdu Lughat Board in 2003, he undertook the task of compiling all the articles published in Awadh Punch that criticised the two Urdu dictionaries. As he explained in the foreword to his work, this was no easy task, as there was no single location in either Pakistan or India where he could access all issues of Awadh Punch. He consulted multiple libraries and sources to gather as many issues as possible and was ultimately able to compile a majority of the critical articles. These were published by Idara Farogh-i-Qaumi Zabaan in 2018 as the sixth volume in the book series Kutub-i-Lughat Ka Tehqeeqi Aur Lisani Jaiza, which reviews Urdu dictionaries.
Dr Parekh’s research also dispelled a common misconception that Awadh Punch had ceased publication in 1936 as he was able to locate issues from 1937. Additionally, while it was previously believed that Awadh Punch had published around 40 articles criticising the two dictionaries, Dr Parekh was able to retrieve over 100 such articles.
Awadh Punch never revealed the name of the writer who critiqued the dictionaries. In the earlier articles, the author used the sobriquet Idbar-ul-Lughat (literally “downfall of dictionaries.”) In later articles, instead of a pseudonym, the writer signed off with a Persian couplet, presenting himself with humility, stating that he was neither a researcher nor a learned man.
However, based on various clues, Dr Rauf Parekh has made an informed guess that the writer behind Idbar-ul-Lughat was none other than Awadh Punch’s editor Hakeem Mumtaz Hussain Usmani. This inference is supported by a humorous piece published in Awadh Punch, in which a deceased literary scholar, writing from the heavens, mocks Noor while praising Usmani’s linguistic expertise. Furthermore, after Usmani’s death, the Idbar-ul-Lughat pseudonym disappeared. It was replaced by the Persian couplet and the critique began focusing more on Urdu words borrowed from the English language.
The use of Baraz-ul-Lughat further reflects Awadh Punch‘s tendency toward scatological and coarse humour, a trait evident in its interpretation of certain Urdu proverbs.
In his footnotes, Dr Rauf Parekh makes a meticulous assessment whether or not each criticism made by Awadh Punch was valid. In most cases, particularly in the earlier articles, he finds the periodical making baseless claims against the two dictionaries—such as asserting that certain words included in thsoe were not used by Urdu speakers.
Dr Parekh repeatedly points out instances where Noor and Jame’ recorded meanings that had already been documented in earlier dictionaries, including Syed Ahmed Dehlvi’s Farhang-i-Asifiya, John T Platts’s A Dictionary of Urdu, Classical Hindi and English, and SW Fallon’s A New Hindustani-English Dictionary. Yet, Awadh Punch confidently dismissed these words or their meanings as non-existent in Urdu, reflecting the critic’s overconfidence and failure to consult other lexicons before attacking Noor and Jame’.
What shocks Dr Parekh the most is that Awadh Punch did not even reference Ameer Minai’s Ameer-ul-Lughat, despite Minai being from Lucknow. Given that the periodical considered only the Lucknow and Delhi dialects as the standard registers of Urdu, its failure to consult a dictionary by a Lucknow-based scholar exposes a significant failure.
Dr Parekh strongly criticises the notion of excluding words from dictionaries simply because they are not commonly used in Lucknow or Delhi. He rightly argues that a dictionary should aim to document all words in a language, including those spoken by uneducated people or by residents of regions far from linguistic centres like Lucknow and Delhi in the case of Urdu.
In its attempt to discredit the two dictionaries, Awadh Punch frequently crossed the line of decency. Noor was mockingly referred to by derogatory names such as Zamzam-ul-Lughat and Phateechar-ul-Lughat. The most offensive title used repeatedly was Baraz-ul-Lughat (literally meaning “the stool of dictionaries.”) This not only highlights the extremes to which Awadh Punch would go in the name of humour but also reveals the periodical’s inclination towards crude and vulgar satire.
The use of Baraz-ul-Lughat further reflects Awadh Punch‘s tendency toward scatological and coarse humour, a trait evident in its interpretations of certain Urdu proverbs.
In its initial articles, Awadh Punch criticised Noor and Jame’ for including Urdu proverbs without explaining their origins. This criticism was largely unfounded, as dictionaries are not meant to provide anecdotal backgrounds for proverbs. However, Awadh Punch repeatedly raised this point and attempted to ‘correct’ the omission by offering explanations – often incorporating stories with sexual or scatological content.
Interestingly, the later critiques, particularly those concerning words of English origin, hold more validity. It appears that both Noor and Jame’ handled English loanwords rather carelessly, leading to vague, incomplete or incorrect definitions. For instance, in its entry for Sinkona (from the English Cinchona), Noor erroneously stated that it was a type of quinine. Awadh Punch rightly pointed out that cinchona is not a type of quinine but the plant from which quinine is extracted.
Similarly, in defining Roman or Roman Character, Noor inaccurately stated that it referred to writing Urdu using English alphabet. While this explanation might seem acceptable to a schoolchild unfamiliar with script and linguistic structure, a reputable dictionary should not present such imprecise definitions.
The meaning of ward as stated by Noor is a minor for whom a court appoints a guardian to manage their personal or financial affairs. While this definition is correct, the critic rightly pointed out that the English word ward is also widely used by Urdu speakers in other contexts, such as a hospital ward or a municipal ward, yet these meanings were not included.
By Bilal Ahmed LiteratiMarch 9, 2025
The reviewer may be reached at bilal89ahmed@gmail.com"
https://www.thenews.com.pk/tns/detail/1289585-how-not-to-critique-lexicography
"Bhubaneswar: Renowned Odia translator and journalist Suvash Satapathy has been awarded the prestigious Sahitya Akademi Prize for Translation for the year 2024.
The accolade recognizes his exceptional contribution to literature through the Odia translation of Ruskin Bond’s autobiography, Lone Fox Dancing, titled Kokishialira Ekaka Nrutya. The Sahitya Akademi announced the award on Friday.
According to a press release of the Sahitya Akademi, the prize includes a cash award of ₹50,000 and a copper plaque, which will be presented to Satapathy along with 20 other awardees later this year.
This year’s selection panel for the Odia translation category comprised poet Amaresh Pattnaik, along with distinguished literary figures Pravasini Mahakud and Monalisa Jena.
The Akademi also noted that awards for Nepali and Sanskrit languages will be announced at a later date, while no award will be given for the Urdu language this year.
Satapathy, who holds a postgraduate degree in English from Utkal University (1983), was previously honoured with the Odisha Sahitya Akademi Award in 2014.
His notable translations include Samsmar, Purnima Ratrira Abhisara and Anyanya Galpa, Samudra Kulara Gaon, short story collections by Khushwant Singh, M.T. Vasudevan Nair, and Ashoka Mitran, as well as Dosamali and Bibhajan.
He has also translated four volumes of Complete Works of B.R. Ambedkar. Additionally, Satapathy has authored biographies of prominent figures such as politician Harekrushna Mahtab, Nityananda Kanungo, and Lachit Barphukan."
#metaglossia_mundus
"...The Commission for Gender Equality (CGE) in Limpopo will launch three booklets that contain translated gender terminologies in Sepedi, Tshivenda and Xitsonga. The Gender Terminology project is CGE’s flagship initiative to provide official gender terminologies in all South Africa’s official languages. Language is a critical tool in protecting gender rights and people’s dignity. The Gender Terminology project will empower people, communities, civil society, the public service and private sector, media and the broader education sector in understanding appropriate sexuality and gender terminologies in all official languages.
The development and sourcing of gender terminologies is a result of extensive consultations and collaborations with Pan South African Language Board (PANSALB) and the Department of Sports, Arts, Culture and Recreation: Language Services (Dept. SACR). Members of the media are invited to attend the launch event, which will be held as follows:
Date: 07 March 2025
Time: 10h00
Venue: Park Inn Hotel, Polokwane
RSVP: Javu Baloyi
Email: Javu@cge.org.za
Cell: 083 579 3306"
https://lnkd.in/e84PzKjt
#metaglossia_mundus
University Lecturer of German, Specialised Communication and Translation Technology job in Helsinki, Finland with UNIVERSITY OF HELSINKI. Apply Today.
"University Lecturer of German, Specialised Communication and Translation Technology
Employer
UNIVERSITY OF HELSINKI
Location
Helsinki, Finland
Salary
€3,800 to €4,800
Closing date
23 Mar 2025
The Department of Languages at the University of Helsinki’s Faculty of Arts invites applications for the position of
UNIVERSITY LECTURER OF GERMAN, SPECIALISED COMMUNICATION AND TRANSLATION TECHNOLOGY
to be appointed on a permanent basis as of 1 August 2025 or as agreed.
The position is shared between the Master’s Programme in Translation and Interpreting and the Study Track in German within the bachelor’s and master’s programmes in languages. While the Master’s Programme in Translation and Interpreting offers seven languages in combination with Finnish, the bachelor’s and master’s programmes in languages provide studies in about 30 languages.
The university lecturer’s teaching duties include communication in German-language professional and specialised communication, multilingual vocabulary and terminology work, and machine translation and translation technology, including AI. The appointee may also be assigned other teaching duties. In addition, the university lecturer conducts independent scholarly research with other researchers, examines and supervises theses, handles administrative duties as agreed upon collaboratively and contributes to the acquisition of research funding. Additional duties include participating in teaching planning and development.
APPOINTMENT CRITERIA
According to the Regulations of the University of Helsinki, appointees to university lectureships must hold an applicable doctoral degree and have the ability to provide high-quality research-based teaching and supervise theses. When assessing the qualifications of applicants, attention will be paid to scholarly publications and other research results of scholarly value, teaching experience and pedagogical training, the ability to produce learning materials, other teaching merits and, if necessary, a teaching demonstration. Good cooperation and interaction skills are considered an advantage in the overall evaluation of applicants.
Appointees to teaching and research positions at Finnish universities must be proficient in the language in which they provide instruction. Further information on language skills and the demonstration of language proficiency is available on the University website. First-language proficiency in Finnish and excellent skills in German are required, with other language skills considered an asset. Familiarity with the translation sector will be an additional advantage.
SALARY
The salary will be based on levels 5 to 7 of the job requirement scheme for teaching and research personnel in the salary system of Finnish universities. In addition, the appointee will be paid a salary component based on personal performance. The appointee’s gross monthly salary will range from €3,800 to €4,800, depending on their qualifications and experience. The position will include a trial period of six months.
HOW TO APPLY
Applications, together with the required attachments, must be submitted through the University of Helsinki electronic recruitment system by clicking on the link below. Internal applicants (i.e., current employees of the University of Helsinki) must submit their applications through the SAP Fiori portal.
Applicants are requested to enclose the following documents with their applications as a single PDF file. See instructions.
A curriculum vitae
A report (max. 5 pages) on the applicant’s teaching expertise
A report (max. 3 pages) describing the applicant’s research activities (incl. success in obtaining research funding)
A numbered list of publications
The top candidates will be asked to attend an interview and give a demonstration of teaching skills.
The application period ends 23 March, 2025.
FURTHER INFORMATION
Further information about the position is available from Mari Pakkala-Weckström, mari.pakkala-weckstrom@helsinki.fi, and about the recruitment process, from HR Specialist Jenni Syväoja, hr-humtdk@helsinki.fi.
https://www.timeshighereducation.com/unijobs/listing/389249/university-lecturer-of-german-specialised-communication-and-translation-technology/
A notable poet in his own right, he was best known for rendering into English the words of a poet who reacted to the Holocaust by inventing a new version of German.
"Pierre Joris, Translator of the ‘Impossible’ Paul Celan, Dies at 78....
The poet and translator Pierre Joris in 2022. He devoted much of his life to grappling with the complex poetry of Paul Celan...
By Adam Nossiter
Published March 5, 2025
Updated March 6, 2025, 9:38 a.m. ET
Pierre Joris, a poet and translator who tackled some of the 20th century’s most difficult verse, rendering into English the complex work of the German-Romanian poet Paul Celan, died on Feb. 27 at his home in Brooklyn. He was 78.
His wife, Nicole Peyrafitte, said the cause was complications of cancer.
Mr. Joris was the author of dozens of volumes of his own poetry and prose. But much of his life’s work was spent grappling with the poetry of Celan, whom many critics considered, in the words of one scholar, “arguably the greatest European poet in the postwar period.”
That greatness comes with a hitch for readers, though: the fiendish difficulty of a writer whose lyrics were formed and deformed by the crucible of the Holocaust — “that which happened,” as Celan termed it. Both his parents were murdered by the Nazis in what is now Romania. Less than 30 years later, Celan put an end to his own life in France, jumping into the Seine river in 1970 at the age of 49.
In between, he felt he had to invent a new version of German, the cultured language he was brought up in as a member of the Jewish bourgeoisie in Czernowitz (now part of Ukraine). But it had to be cleansed of Nazi barbarism.
The result would be “truly an invented German,” as Mr. Joris (pronounced JOR-iss) wrote in the introduction to “Breathturn Into Timestead” (2014), his translations of Celan’s later works.
A public reading of Celan’s best-known work, the hypnotic “Death Fugue,” was “an epiphany” for Mr. Joris as a 15-year-old high school student in his native Luxembourg, he told the New York State Writers Institute in 2014. The poem was inspired by the murder of Celan’s mother in 1942...
But “Death Fugue” was an early work, later partly disavowed by Celan. It is the enigmatic poetry of his final years that Mr. Joris was determined to take on.
The “untranslatability” of late Celan “is a truism in critical discussion,” the poet and critic Adam Kirsch wrote in The New York Review of Books in 2016, in a largely favorable review of Mr. Joris’s work.
Mr. Joris took on the challenge. “He did the impossible, because it is impossible to translate Celan,” the Romanian-American poet Andrei Codrescu said in an interview.
In eight books of translations published over more than 50 years, beginning when he was an undergraduate at Bard College in 1967, Mr. Joris sought to render in English Celan’s experiment with language: to transmit what can’t be rendered in words — the Holocaust and its many aftermaths, physical and psychological — by creating an open-ended poetry of multiple possible meanings.
Celan’s poetry “is the work that came out of the mid-20th century that most directly addresses the disaster, if you want, of Western culture,” Mr. Joris told the Los Angeles Review of Books in 2021.
“The absolute poem — no, it certainly does not, cannot, exist,” Celan said in a famous speech in Germany in 1960, when he was awarded a literary prize. And so the translator of Celan has latitude, which Mr. Joris took advantage of — to mostly good effect, in the eyes of critics.
Celan’s “view is bound to destabilize any concept of the poem as some fixed and absolute artifact,” Mr. Joris commented in his introduction to “Breathturn.”
“Memory Rose Into Threshold Speech” (2020) collected Celan’s first four books, as translated by Mr. Joris. It featured an etching by Celan’s wife, the artist Gisèle Celan-Lestrange, on the cover.Credit...Farrar, Straus & Giroux
At the level of the words themselves, a translator might thus opt for what Mr. Joris termed “elegant, easily readable and accessible American versions of German.” He rejected that approach.
Instead, he tried to recreate Celan’s many startling neologisms in English, as the Princeton critic Michael Wood noted, citing, among many other examples, “starred-over,” “ensummered,” “night-cradled,” “day-removed,” “worlddownward" and “more heartnear.”
“There are some words that I’m still looking for, that I haven’t found yet,” Mr. Joris told the writer Paul Auster in a public dialogue at Deutsches Haus in New York in 2020. “Fearful polysemy.”
While some critics found this approach heavy-handed, Mr. Wood praised Mr. Joris’s adventurousness. “A poet himself, he is not afraid of strangeness in diction,” Mr. Wood wrote in the London Review of Books in 2021. “He doesn’t seek it out, but he knows when it sounds good. He brings us very close to Celan at work, shows him leading the words along and being led by them, as Celan himself describes the process.”
In an interview with the poet Charles Bernstein in 2023, Mr. Joris referred to Celan as “the bruised, weary, suspicious survivor who prefers to communicate through his poems, poems meant to ‘witness for the witness.’”
Mr. Joris, raised in Luxembourg, the tiny duchy caught between the French- and German-speaking worlds, identified with the linguistic confusion of Celan’s own upbringing in German and Romanian. Mr. Joris grew up speaking the local Germanic dialect, Luxembourgish, as well as German and French. (He called French the “language of the bourgeoisie.”)
Luxembourg, he told Mr. Auster, “has the same complexities of language that Celan grew up in.”
“That polyglot nature of Celan’s upbringing, we share that,” he added.
Pierre Joseph Joris was born on July 14, 1946, in Strasbourg, France, to Roger Joris, a surgeon, and Nora Joris-Schintgen, who assisted her husband’s practice as an administrator. He graduated from the Lycée Classique in Diekirch, Luxembourg, in 1964, briefly studied medicine in Paris to fulfill the wishes of his parents, and then moved to the United States, where he earned a B.A. from Bard in 1969.
In 1975, he received a master’s degree from the University of Essex in England in the theory and practice of literary translation. From 1976 to 1979, he taught in the English department of Université Constantine 1 in Algeria. He earned a Ph.D. in comparative literature from the State University of New York at Binghamton in 1990 and taught at SUNY Albany from 1992 to 2013.
Mr. Joris’s essays were collected in 2003 in the book “A Nomad Poetics.”Credit...Wesleyan University Press
In addition to his translations of Celan, Mr. Joris published several volumes of his own poetry, including “Poasis: Selected Poems 1986-1999” (2001) and “Barzakh: Poems 2000-2012” (2014); books of essays, including “A Nomad Poetics” (2003); and translations of Rilke, Edmond Jabès and other poets. He also edited anthologies, including the two-volume “Poems for the Millennium: The University of California Book of Modern and Postmodern Poetry,” with Jerome Rothenberg (1995 and 1998).
In addition to his wife, a performance artist, he is survived by a son, Miles Joris-Peyrafitte; a stepson, Joseph Mastantuono; and a sister, Michou Joris.
Asked to explain why he was drawn to translating, Mr. Joris told the periodical Arabic Literature in 2011: “Because, by accident of birth, I was blessed or damned with a batch of different languages and a perverse pleasure of pitting them and their different musics against each other.”
Adam Nossiter has been bureau chief in Kabul, Paris, West Africa and New Orleans, and is now a Domestic Correspondent on the Obituaries desk. More about Adam Nossiter
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/05/books/pierre-joris-dead.html
Artificial intelligence turns static search engines into thought-shaping forces that subtly guide how we think, but who’s in control?
"KEY POINTS
Gutenberg unlocked words, and Google unlocked facts. AI shapes thought.
AI shifts from search to influence, framing how we think.
We must recognize AI’s role and stay architects of our minds.
Source: DALL-E /
A Snapshot of Knowledge
History tells a clear story of how technology amplifies human intelligence. Here’s a condensed perspective that’s not intended to minimize this vast area but to focus on how AI is as fundamental and transformative as the printed book and the internet.
The Gutenberg Era: Unlocking words. Before the printing press, knowledge was controlled by a privileged few. Gutenberg changed that, making words—and, by extension, ideas—widely available. Literacy rates increased, fueling the Renaissance, the Reformation, and the Enlightenment. For the first time, information could be mass-produced, shifting intellectual power.
The Google Era: Unlocking facts. The internet and search engines transformed knowledge into an on-demand resource. Information that once required hours in a library became available in seconds. But facts, while powerful, are static. A search engine is a map—it points to existing knowledge but does not create new connections.
The AI Era: Unlocking thought. This is where the shift happens. AI, particularly large language models (LLMs), doesn’t just retrieve facts—it synthesizes them. Instead of guiding users through a pre-mapped landscape, LLMs generate a personalized web of thought in real time. Each interaction produces insights uniquely shaped to the user’s intent and context—knowledge that has never existed in this form before. This isn’t just retrieving knowledge—it’s shaping it. It’s a shift from searching to creating. AI isn’t just a tool—it’s a defining force of The Cognitive Age.
The Rise of the Influence Engine
We once relied on human influencers—mentors, authors, teachers, and thought leaders—to help shape our understanding. AI is now entering that role, not as a personality or a singular voice but as a meta-influencer—a system that curates, filters, and structures the flow of human knowledge. Think about how this shift has unfolded and impacted our lives.
Search engines: You type a question, and the engine retrieves the best available answers (user-driven fact retrieval).
Recommendation engines: AI curates what you see based on engagement patterns (algorithm-driven content shaping).
Influence engines: AI actively structures how you think about a topic, suggesting ideas before you even ask (AI-driven cognitive framing).
This evolution is subtle but important. AI is no longer just responding to human thought—it is helping to direct its trajectory.
The Invisible Influence of AI
In many ways, the real power of an influence engine isn’t just in what it shows you; it’s in what it filters out. Conventional search engines have always optimized results, prioritizing perspectives based on relevance, popularity, and engagement. But AI goes further. Unlike search, which retrieves and ranks existing information, AI synthesizes responses, shaping knowledge before it even reaches the user. It doesn’t just filter what’s visible; it frames the narrative itself.
This subtle steering can reinforce certain viewpoints, amplifying some emotions while muting others. Even the pursuit of clarity comes at a cost. AI optimizes for efficiency, smoothing out complexity in ways that may remove the very struggle that fuels deep thinking.
A search engine offers a set of options, a map of knowledge to explore. An influence engine goes further: It shapes the terrain, defining what we consider relevant or meaningful.
Are we still shaping our own understanding, or is AI shaping it for us?
The Death of the Open Question?
The danger isn’t that AI is influencing thought. We’ve always been influenced by external forces. The real danger is that AI feels natural in doing so. Unlike human influencers, whose biases and agendas are visible, AI’s influence is often imperceptible. We experience it not as coercion, but as efficiency. A well-trained AI will never say, “Think this way.” Instead, it will make certain ideas more frictionless, certain connections more intuitive, certain responses more predictable. It creates an ease of thought that, while helpful, might erode the struggle that deep thinking requires. Will we still wrestle with complex ideas? Or will AI smooth the path so completely that we forget how to challenge our own assumptions?
Where Do We "Think" From Here?
The transition from search engines to influence engines is already underway—AI is shaping human thought whether we acknowledge it or not. So how do we respond? We can start by recognizing that AI isn’t just surfacing facts but subtly guiding our cognitive pathways. Not all efficiency is progress, so it’s worth seeking friction—embracing the complexity of thought and pushing back against seamless answers. Above all, we must stay the architects of our own understanding, letting AI collaborate without surrendering the curiosity and skepticism that keep us human...
But thought isn’t just being unlocked. It’s being shaped. And that may pose the most important question of our time."
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-digital-self/202503/ai-shifts-search-engines-to-thought-engines
#metaglossia_mundus
"SAN FRANCISCO — Alphabet's Google launched an experimental version of its search engine on Wednesday that completely eliminates its classic 10 blue links in favor of an AI-generated summary.
The new feature, available to subscribers of Google One AI Premium, can be accessed via the results page for any search query by clicking on a tab labeled "AI Mode" to the side of existing options like Images and Maps.
"We've heard from power users that they want AI responses for even more of their searches," Robby Stein, a vice president of product, said in a blog post.
Google One AI Premium is a $19.99 per month plan that provides extra cloud storage and special access to some AI features.
Google currently displays AI Overviews, summaries that are increasingly appearing atop the traditional hyperlinks to relevant webpages, for users in more than 100 countries. It began adding advertisements to AI Overviews last May.
With AI Mode, users see a more comprehensive AI summary with hyperlinks to cited webpages. The 10 blue links have been replaced by a search bar for asking follow-up questions.
Google said AI Mode is being powered by a custom version of its Gemini 2.0 model with reasoning capabilities that make it better equipped to handle complex queries.
Alphabet's $350 billion in 2024 revenue was primarily driven by search-related advertising. It is facing the biggest challenge to its core business in years from AI challengers led by Microsoft-backed OpenAI, which added search functions to ChatGPT last October.
Google has made integrating AI into search its biggest bet, investment chief Ruth Porat said at the Reuters NEXT conference in December.
In February, edtech company Chegg sued Google, accusing the previews of eroding demand for original content and undermining publishers' ability to compete."
https://azdailysun.com/google-tests-ai-only-version-of-its-search-engine/article_771ba376-7ab8-5a98-b802-96d4c70bbf4f.html
#metaglossia_mundus
"Development of web-based resource usage patterns among English-to-Chinese trainee translators
Abstract
The aim of this article was to examine changes in trainee translators’ web-based resource use patterns during a four-month English-to-Chinese translation practice course. An analytical framework was employed to statistically examine resource use development, including new and emerging resources. The research design incorporated four repeated measures with a cohort of 19 participants, and data were collected via the simultaneous use of a key logger and a screen recorder in a remote setting. A quality assessment was conducted to investigate the correlation between resource use and the overall quality of the final translation products. Findings indicate a shift in resource preference from dictionaries to knowledge-based resources, with trainee translators focusing on larger contextual issues rather than lexical problems. The quality assessment revealed a slight negative correlation between the translation error scores and the percentage of time allocated to knowledge-based resources. These findings highlight the importance of understanding trainee translators’ shifting resource use and evaluating their resource competence. The implications of the findings for translator training are discussed, and the need to adapt training programs to meet changing resource landscapes emphasized..."
Yuxing Cai & Vanessa Enríquez Raído
Humanities and Social Sciences Communications volume 12, Article number: 301 (2025)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41599-025-04642-0
#metaglossia_mundus
"...Meidad Ovadia, the creator of the new digital Khoekhoegowab dictionary ‘LexiKhoe’, says with contributions from community members, the dictionary can reach great success.
He was speaking to Desert FM yesterday.
“This whole community can make a great, great project, a great dictionary. And I think that in a year from now, it can consist of thousands of words, and even more,” Ovadia said.
After joining a research group, Ovadia said he noticed there are almost no digital resources in Khoekhoegowab. He added that he saw a demand and need for such a dictionary.
He said he saw the demand for something which is more accessible to the public and more readable for the Khoekhoegowab-speaking community.
“And this is why I decided to create such a dictionary. I’m a software engineer, and when I see something I can solve myself and create a technological solution for it, I’m very excited to do so,” Ovadia said.
He noted that this is a crowdsourced dictionary, which means any user of the dictionary can enter entries into the dictionary.
Ovadia said only time will tell whether it will be successful or not, but he believe it will be successful and will inspire other language communities.
“But, see, we must understand that although there are dictionaries which are very important, language is something that is constantly developing and changing. Obviously, a printed dictionary cannot be published every day, whereas a digital dictionary can be updated any time, any minute,” he said.
Ovadia said it is a much more efficient way of documenting and preserving the language..."
https://www.namibian.com.na/khoekhoegowab-digital-dictionary-launched/
#metaglossia_mundus: Your take?
"Srinagar, Mar 2: To advance research in Indian-language-to-Indian-language (IL-IL) machine translation, the University of Kashmir (KU), in collaboration with the International Institute of Information Technology (IIIT-Hyderabad), organised a four-day workshop on Developing IL-IL Benchmark Data at the varsity from February 25 to 28.
The workshop, part of the HIMANGY (Hindustani Machini Anuvaad Technology) consortium under the broader BHASHINI Project funded by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), Government of India, aimed to create benchmark datasets for enhancing machine translation accuracy in multiple Indian languages, including Hindi, Telugu, Kashmiri, Kannada, Gujarati, Sindhi, Dogri, Odia, Punjabi, Urdu, and English.
Vice Chancellor KU, Prof. Nilofer Khan, in her remarks, highlighted the significance of the initiative in strengthening AI-driven language technologies. “Developing robust benchmark datasets is crucial for improving machine translation systems and fostering linguistic inclusivity in the digital era. This initiative aligns with the university’s commitment to interdisciplinary research in Artificial Intelligence and Natural Language Processing,” she said. Prof. Dipti Mishra from IIIT-Hyderabad, emphasized the importance of building strong linguistic benchmarks to support digital inclusivity for Indian languages. “Ensuring representation of diverse languages in machine translation will bridge communication gaps and make digital content more accessible,” she noted.
Prof. Aadil Amin Kak, Department of Linguistics KU, stressed on the workshop’s role in ensuring greater visibility for Kashmiri in the digital space and said that such initiatives would help break linguistic barriers and enhance communication across different language communities. The event saw the participation of 70 researchers from leading institutions across India, including IIT-Patna, Punjabi University-Patiala, IIIT-Bhubaneswar, CDAC-Noida, University of Hyderabad, DAIICT-Ahmedabad, and GCW-Jammu. Experts engaged in collaborative efforts to refine machine translation models, ensuring better accuracy and effectiveness in Indian language processing."
https://risingkashmir.com/ku-hosts-workshop-on-language-machine-translation/
#metaglossia_mundus
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