Metaglossia: The Translation World

"A team of researchers from Saarbrücken and Leipzig has examined around 1,700 languages to identify structures that might occur universally. Of 191 grammatical patterns – known as linguistic universals – one third were found to be present in the languages studied. The team, led by Annemarie Verkerk of Saarland University and Russell Gray from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, has published its findings in Nature Human Behaviour.

 

Natural languages follow certain patterns. To facilitate the analysis and comparison of these patterns, the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig made the world’s largest database of grammatical features publicly available two years ago. This database, known as ‘Grambank’, was developed with contributions from over a hundred linguists worldwide and provides the foundation for the current study on shared characteristics among languages. ‘We used several highly complex statistical methods to analyse the Grambank data in order to identify which of the 191 hypothesized linguistic universals were consistently observed across all languages,’ explains Annemarie Verkerk, Junior Professor of Language Science at Saarland University. By using a variety of statistical approaches, the research team was able to achieve a level of statistical precision far beyond that offered by earlier studies.

 

‘Up until now, linguists have typically focused on languages that are geographically distant from one another to avoid excessive similarities within the same language family – for example, comparing Slavic languages not only with other Indo-European languages such as Italian and Romanian, but also with languages from, say, the Turkic or Afro-Asiatic language families,’ Verkerk notes. However, many of these previous studies not only restricted themselves to comparisons between a limited number of languages – resulting in reduced statistical significance – they also paid little attention to language history. ‘Our methods allow us to trace how languages have evolved over time and how they relate geographically to others. By making use of a kind of family tree for each individual language, we were able to exploit inter-language relationships to estimate how linguistic universals arise,’ explains Annemarie Verkerk.

 

Analyses from multiple perspectives confirmed that roughly one third of the 191 proposed universals appear as recurring patterns across all languages. ‘This is a clear indication that language evolution is not random. That’s why we need to continue studying language change to understand why so many languages share similar underlying grammatical structures. It seems very likely that there are deeply rooted principles governing how effective human communication systems are constructed,’ says Verkerk.

 

As an example of a language universal, Verkerk cites word order in sentences – whether verbs precede or follow objects and how this relates to other recurring patterns. In German, verbs typically precede the object, while in Japanese the reverse is true. A related feature is the order of adpositions and nouns. Adpositions are linking words that express a spatial or temporal relationship between a noun and other words or phrases in a sentence. German, for example, uses prepositions, which come before a noun or noun phrase, whereas Japanese uses postpositions, which come after a noun or noun phrase. The correlation between object–verb order and postpositions, as observed in Japanese, is among the strongest universals identified in the study. ‘Using Bayesian statistics, we calculated the probability that these universals can be recognized as grammatical patterns across different languages,’ explains Verkerk.

 

Verkerk‘s research colleague and a co-author of the study Russell Gray of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig explains how the team chose to present their results: ‘We debated whether we should present the findings as a “glass half-empty scenario” or as a “glass half-full”. Should we emphasize how many of the proposed universals lack robust statistical support, or should we highlight the solid evidence that we found for about a third of them?’ ‘Ultimately,’ says Gray, ‘we chose to focus on the recurring patterns and to demonstrate that human languages tend towards a limited set of preferred grammatical solutions, shaped by shared cognitive and communicative constraints.’

 

For future research in this field, Annemarie Verkerk recommends moving away from small samples of individual languages, focusing instead on large cross-linguistic datasets: ‘Future studies should not simply analyse dependencies between features appearing in multiple language systems, they should also consider how human languages have changed over time and which social, ecological and demographic factors have influenced their development.’

 

Wissenschaftliche Ansprechpartner:

Junior Professor Annemarie Verkerk

Department of Language Science and Technology

Saarland University

Tel.: +49 681 302-2550

Email: annemarie.verkerk@uni-saarland.de

 

Professor D. Russell Gray

Director of the Department of Linguistic and Cultural Evolution

Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology

Tel.: +40 341 3550-259

Email: russell_gray@eva.mpg.de"

09.12.2025

https://idw-online.de/de/news863040

#Metaglossia 

#metaglossia_mundus 

 

"A groundbreaking new monolingual dictionary by Foras na Gaeilge that provides people with a new way to understand, use and learn the Irish language, without relying on dictionaries in English or in other languages, has gone live.

Until its publication, anyone trying to understand an unfamiliar Irish word or phrase typically had to look it up in an Irish-English dictionary...

An Foclóir Nua Gaeilge (The New Irish Dictionary) is the first comprehensive monolingual "Irish-Irish" dictionary and was launched by President Catherine Connolly at a special Foras na Gaeilge event in the EPIC Irish Emigration Museum in Dublin.

"A contemporary monolingual dictionary is an essential resource in any living language, in which the language itself and its uniqueness are defined in its own words and by its own community, instead of constantly being defined through the medium of another language," said President Connolly.

"This new dictionary places the Irish language and Irish speakers on an equal footing with other modern languages and communities.

"Irish-language dictionary resources are now a model of best practice for other minoritised languages around the world."

For generations, Irish speakers who encountered unfamiliar Irish words were forced to translate them into English and then search for definitions in English dictionaries.

"This tedious process not only created unnecessary barriers to learning but also shaped how Irish speakers understood the world - through the lens of English," CEO of Foras na Gaeilge Seán Ó Coinn said.

An initial tranche of 20,000 entries has gone live on Focloir.ie
"The new monolingual Irish dictionary changes this paradigm. Instead of asking 'What's the English for X?', speakers will now be empowered to ask 'What does X mean?' in their own language.

"This shift has the potential to transform the teaching and learning of Irish at all levels - from young children discovering new vocabulary for the first time, to advanced speakers seeking deeper linguistic insight," he added.

The monolingual Irish dictionary has several features that make it the first of its kind, such as reflecting Irish as a living language by including real-world, every-day, contemporary usage, aiming to re-affirm current good practice in the standard language as well as recognising common dialectal forms.

It also includes definitions of foreign words that are in common use in the Irish language, such as ad hoc, al fresco, baguette, cappuccino and aide-de-camp.

Work on compiling An Foclóir Nua Gaeilge began in September 2022, with Foras na Gaeilge chief dictionary editor Pádraig Ó Mianáin and dictionary programme manager Cormac Breathnach leading the project.

An initial tranche of 20,000 entries, comprising 40,000 word senses, has gone live on Focloir.ie.

The main phase of the dictionary project is scheduled to be completed by August 2027, by which time it will comprise 30,000 entries and 80,000 senses."
10 Dec 2025
Sharon Lynch
https://www.rte.ie/news/ireland/2025/1209/1548134-new-irish-dictionary/
#Metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus

"IA inclusive : pourquoi les langues africaines sont un enjeu stratégique pour l'économie numérique

L'IA inclusive valorisant les langues africaines : réduire les biais, renforcer la souveraineté numérique et ouvrir de nouvelles opportunités économiques.

1. Pourquoi parler d'IA inclusive ?
L'IA est partout : traduction, assistants vocaux, chatbots, applications éducatives. Mais derrière ces progrès, une réalité inquiétante : plus de 80 % du contenu en ligne est produit dans une dizaine de langues, laissant de côté les milliers de langues africaines. Cette absence entraîne des biais culturels et linguistiques, avec un risque d'écarter des millions de citoyens du numérique.

2. Un levier économique sous-estimé
La valorisation des langues locales peut générer de nouvelles opportunités :

Éducation et formation : outils d'apprentissage adaptés aux langues locales.
Tourisme et culture : mise en valeur du patrimoine linguistique.
Innovation et emploi : création de postes pour les data engineers, linguistes, chercheurs.
Selon certains experts culturels à l'instar de Njeunga Yopa, les projections l'IA pourrait rapporter jusqu'à 2 900 milliards de dollars à l'économie africaine d'ici 2030, si son potentiel est exploité pleinement.

3. Les défis d'une IA inclusive en Afrique
Infrastructures insuffisantes : moins d'une centaine de data centers sur tout le continent.

Diversité linguistique extrême : plus de 2 000 langues, souvent non standardisées.

Manque de données annotées : sans corpus, impossible d'entraîner des modèles fiables.

Vision politique encore faible : besoin de financements et de stratégies nationales.

4. Stratégies pour construire des corpus inclusifs
Exploiter les sources publiques : actualités locales, blogs, mozilla commons, réseaux sociaux.

Collaborer avec les communautés : crowdsourcing, collecte via applis mobiles, partenariats avec des locuteurs natifs.

Créer des données synthétiques : paraphrases, back-translation, substitution lexicale.

Traduction et alignement : bâtir des corpus parallèles multilingues grâce à des ressources comme FLORES-200, metchoup translate ou JW300.

5. Étude de cas : le Medumba au Cameroun
Le Medumba, langue bamileke parlée par 200 000 personnes, illustre les difficultés. Faute de ressources numériques, chaque terme technique doit parfois être créé de toutes pièces. Une équipe de chercheurs a récemment constitué un corpus de 2 050 phrases traduites en Medumba. Résultat : un premier pas vers des modèles capables de traiter cette langue, mais aussi un exemple des efforts titanesques nécessaires pour chaque langue africaine.

6. Vers une souveraineté linguistique et numérique
Bâtir une IA inclusive, c'est :

Garantir la souveraineté numérique du continent.
Rendre la technologie accessible à tous, y compris aux populations non alphabétisées via les interfaces vocales.
Stimuler la création de start-ups locales spécialisées dans la data et l'IA.
Favoriser une économie de la connaissance ancrée dans les réalités culturelles africaines.
7. Conclusion & perspectives
L'Afrique ne doit pas seulement consommer l'IA, mais la co-construire. Chaque langue intégrée dans les modèles est une victoire contre l'exclusion numérique et une opportunité économique. La route est longue, mais les initiatives montrent qu'une IA inclusive est possible."
Chronique de Kemit Ing
ktc
29 septembre 2025 11:33
https://www.journaldunet.com/intelligence-artificielle/1544739-ia-inclusive-pourquoi-les-langues-africaines-sont-un-enjeu-strategique-pour-l-economie-numerique/
#Metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus

"PEN America is delighted to announce the 2026 literary grant winners for works-in-progress. Juried by panels of esteemed and award-winning writers, editors, translators, and critics who are committed to recognizing their contemporaries, these winning works-in-progress show the potential for lasting literary impact. The following grant winners will be supported as they continue their important work. We look forward to seeing these bold and thought-provoking examples of literary excellence brought to the world.

Publishers, agents, and editors who wish to learn more about these projects are invited to contact the PEN America Literary Awards team at awards@pen.org.

PEN/Jean Stein Grants For Literary Oral History ($15,000)

The PEN/Jean Stein Grants for Literary Oral History recognize literary works of nonfiction that use oral history to illuminate an event, individual, place, or movement. The grants are made possible by a substantial contribution from American author and editor Jean Stein, whose groundbreaking work helped to popularize literary oral history. Since 2021, PEN America has conferred two grants with cash prizes of $15,000 each.

Judges: Katie Singer, Deborah Taffa, Raj Tawney

Dayna Bateman, Hustling Vinyl: A Hidden History of the Record Business

A personal examination of the music industry as it transitions from physical to digital formats, Dayna Bateman’s Hustling Vinyl: A Hidden History of the Record Business transcends a mere management chronicle by weaving together grief, cultural memory, and broader questions about exploitation in creative circles. From shame over her father’s career to recognition of its importance, the author’s project exposes the invisible labor that sustains artistic production while also reconciling her family legacy. With archival documentation and access to a group of historically exploited industry experts, many of whom launched rockstar careers, Bateman brings an analytical framework to what could otherwise be merely nostalgic. As the author notes, many key witnesses are aging or deceased making their voices a crucial archive. This book will fill a genuine gap in music industry literature by centering the experiences of those who made the record business function yet rarely received recognition or fair compensation for the joy they brought to millions.

Anja Aronowsky Cronberg, To Kill A Child

To Kill a Child by Anja Aronowsky Cronberg brings forward a subject that many of us might prefer to avoid. And yet, as Cronberg argues, the fact that filicide is not an uncommon occurrence should be reason enough for us to attempt an understanding, of both the crime and of those who commit it. A mother herself, Cronberg sits with a number of incarcerated women convicted of killing their own children. Contextualized alongside interviews of family and myriad professionals, we learn of lives lived before the crimes, and come to see just how seamlessly a “normal life” can ultimately turn to the deeply abnormal. While educated in Design History & Theory, Cronberg’s oral history project illustrates a practiced and empathetic interviewing style along with some incredibly literary writing. This will be a hard read for many, but in the end can speak to the humanity in all of us.

PEN/Phyllis Naylor Grant For Children’s And Young Adult Novelists ($5,000)

The PEN/Phyllis Naylor Grant for Children’s and Young Adult Novelists is offered annually to an author of children’s or young adult fiction for a novel-in-progress. The grant is made possible by a substantial contribution from PEN America Member and prolific author, Phyllis Reynolds Naylor. The award was developed to help writers whose work is of high literary caliber and assist in the novel’s completion. The author of the winning manuscript is selected blindly by judges and will receive a $5,000 grant.

Judges: Chris Grabenstein, Lesa Cline-Ransome, Padma Venkatraman

Emily Whitman, The Fire Cub

This middle grade fantasy showcases excellent writing, sensory descriptions, and world building. The author’s decision to employ multiple points of view adds interest and the readers are provided with insights into the characters’ failings and humanity.

Mima, a 12-year-old orphan, lives with her aunt and uncle, who warn her to stay away from “Dreadwood”  – a forest that borders their farm. But something about Dreadwood calls out to Mima and she sneaks in whenever she can. Surrounded by the bushes and trees, watching the woodpeckers and worms, Mima feels safe there – until one day when she hears something roaring near the riverbank in Dreadwood. Like all intrepid adventurers, Mima isn’t scared away; instead she goes closer to investigate the source of the roar – and discovers a tiny treasure chest. She opens the chest – and sparks fly out. Unknown to her, one of the sparks enters her pocket… and out of her pocket emerges a lion cub with wings! Lonely Mima bonds instantly with this magical creature, and as it grows into a full-fledged lion, so does Mima’s courage and her ability to question the tales she has been told all her life about Dreadwood and the world beyond. Will she someday be so bold as to defy not only her uncle and aunt but also her king and country by escaping into the unknown on the back of her winged lion, in pursuit of freedom?

With language that sparkles, a feisty female protagonist whose character springs to life, a three-dimensional supporting cast and ambitious storytelling structure, The Fire Cub is a fantasy novel that we hope will enchant middle grade readers for many years to come.

PEN/Bare Life Review Grants ($5,000)

The PEN/Bare Life Review Grants support literary works in progress by immigrant and refugee writers, recognizing that the literature of migration is of inherent and manifest value. As of the 2024 grant conferral, PEN America confers two PEN/Bare Life Review Grants of $5,000 each.

The grants are made possible by a substantial contribution from The Bare Life Review, which celebrates world literature and has been a champion for migrant and diasporic arts.

Judges: Maria Kuznetsova, Rania Mamoun,Novuyo Tshuma

Simha Surendranathan, Annual Rings

Annual Rings is an impressive collection of powerful, moving poems. With a refined sensitivity to language, Surendranathan juxtaposes the daily brutalities of incarceration with the unbounded landscapes of the psyche. Here, thinking, feeling and dreaming become profound acts of freedom. Language becomes a mighty tool, metaphor and symbolism bringing into stark focus the human figure caged in the American prison cell. The prose is precise and sensuous, urgent and languid. Surendranathan takes us on epic migrations, from places private where language weaves delicate dreamscapes, to the prison block where public humiliations bludgeon the tongue. These poems move; they travel across cultures and languages—from Urdu to Malayalam to America’s various lexicons—excavating the ravages of confinement on the lofty human spirit. Here, poetry becomes a lifeline for the incarcerated subject, as life-giving as water. Through capturing life behind prison walls in such an exquisite register, Surendranathan invites us into a profound witnessing—at times a profound weeping—choosing life, life, life, at every turn.

Minerva Laveaga Luna, Reasons Why I’m Late to Places

Reasons Why I’m Late to Places is a memoir-in-essays that follows a Mexican-American author through her childhood during the devastating 1985 earthquake in Mexico City to her adulthood in America, where she navigates the challenges of immigration, premature menopause, misdiagnosis, and the way that women, especially immigrants, are often ignored or not heard correctly when they are suffering physically and emotionally. Through the themes of the passage of time, living out of time, and being late to places, the author not only tells her own story in a gripping, experimental, and unflinching way, but she also shares the narrative of any person who is struggling to be heard and truly known. Through her sensitive and life-affirming narrative, Luna demonstrates that we shouldn’t be sorry about being late to places–rather, we should celebrate that we have shown up at all.

PEN/Heim Translation Fund Grants ($4,000)

Now in their 23rd year, the PEN/Heim Translation Fund Grants promote the publication and reception of translated world literature into English. Established by a gift from Priscilla and Michael Henry Heim in response to the dismayingly low number of literary translations appearing in English, the fund has supported more than 200 projects since its inception.

For the 2026 cycle, the judges reviewed applications from a wide array of languages of origin, genres, and time periods. Selected from this vast field of applicants are 10 projects, including Indonesian, Wolof, Kven, Brazilian Portuguese,  Chinese, and more. Each translator will receive a grant of $2,000-4,000 to support the translation’s completion.

Judges: Elvira Blanco, Ezra Fitz, Denise Kripper, Elizabeth Lowe, Jenny McPhee, Mario Pereira, Shuchi Saraswat, Declan Spring

Dominica Chang’s translation from the French of Among the Dunes by Louis Camara

Among the Dunes is a novel by the Senegalese author Louis Camara narrated by Nestor, a stray dog in Saint-Louis who recounts his life and that of his master, offering sharp, satirical, yet compassionate critiques of human society and behavior. From a novel as polyphonic as this—written in French, rooted in Senegalese culture, and layered with traditional Wolof oral idioms—Dominica Chang has produced a pitch-perfect translation, one that retells the story in English while hitting all the right notes. A challenging task expertly handled with a keen ear and a deft hand. Fans of canine characters from Garth Stein’s Enzo to Graciliano Ramos’ Baleia will find, in her attentive rendering, much to love and reflect on.

Milena Sanabria Contreras and Allison Stickley’s translation from the Spanish of A Brief History of Failure by Fátima Villalta

Fátima Villalta was born in Nicaragua in 1994 and currently lives in exile in Mexico. Breve Historia del Fracaso (A Brief History of Failure) is a collection of short stories that takes the reader through one hundred years of Nicaraguan history, beginning in a not-too-distant future and ending with a story set in the early 1900s. This will be Villalta’s first publication to be translated into another language. Milena Sanabria Contreras and Allison Stickley’s translation is remarkable for how it renders the voices of the everyday Nicaraguans populating these stories—foot soldiers, small bureaucrats, young people, and artists. While retaining the intimacy of the stories, Contreras and Stickley deftly put forward a history that isn’t as well known in the anglophone world. Their absorbing translation will find new resonances in our politically unstable times.

Robin Driver’s translation from the Brazilian Portuguese of Aquarium Fish by Rafaela Tavares Kawasaki

Aquarium Fish (original title: Peixes de Aquário), a debut novel by Rafaela Tavares Kawasaki is a contemplative, female-focused family saga about the lives of Japanese immigrants and their descendants in the Brazilian state of São Paulo. Published in 2021, the book was shortlisted for Brazil’s Prêmio Mix Literário, a prize focused on literary works that deal with subjects related to the LGBTQ+ community, later the same year. Translator Robin Driver deftly captures the elegiac, but never too sentimental, tone of Kawasaki’s lyrical prose. The English translation will bring an important work of Japanese-Brazilian fiction to the English-speaking world, which has little knowledge of this overlooked community.

Eirill Alvilde Falck’s translation from the Kven and Norwegian of The Heart of the Forest by M. Seppola Simonsen

The Heart of the Forest is an award-winning poetry collection written in both Norwegian and Kven— the Kven people are a Finnic ethnic minority in northern Norway whose language is spoken by fewer than 10,000 people. M. Seppola Simonsen, a nonbinary poet, is from the Norwegian island of Senja, and their exquisite, short poems explore the Kven heritage and the intersection of identity, language, and geography. Eirill Alvilde Falck’s translations have appeared widely in anthologies and literary magazines. Her translations vividly capture Simonsen’s imagery and their ability to render the power and complexity of nature and humanity’s place in it.

Marissa Grunes’ translation from the Spanish of Antarctica by Fabián Espejel

Antarctica by Mexican poet and translator Fabián Espejel, winner of the Aguascalientes Fine Arts Award in Poetry, takes us on a geographical and imaginative journey that inversely mirrors the expeditions of Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen, joining the long legacy of cultural fascination with Antarctica in the global south, and taking the reader through scenes of desire, loss, and the wild delight of language. This award will support an emerging translator bringing a new voice in Spanish-language poetry into English. Marissa Grunes’s translation is as musical and lyrical as it is experimental and bold and, above all, urgent. 

Eliza Marciniak’s translation from the Polish of The Secret of the Looking-Glass by Deotyma (pen name of Jadwiga Łuszczewska)

This visionary work of speculative fiction by 19th-century Polish female writer, poet and early feminist Jadwiga Łuszczewska (writing as Deotyma) combines elements of science fiction, Gothic horror, adventure story, and philosophical dialogue to address numerous issues still current today such as the dangers of technology and the boundaries between genius and madness. Eliza Marciniak’s translations of Polish authors have won various awards and been widely published. Her translation here successfully brings across the sparkling prose, the impeccably crafted narrative, and the erudite nature of the discussions between this novel’s forward-thinking characters.

Tímea Sipos’ translation from the Hungarian of Crybaby by Krisztián Marton

Krisztián Marton’s autobiographical debut novel, Crybaby, follows Marci, a biracial gay man growing up in the extremely homogenous society of Szeged in southern Hungary during the 1990s. In this raw and moving coming-of-age story, Marci navigates racial identity, fatherlessness, queerness, and complex relationships. In her translation, Tímea Sipos, a Hungarian-American writer and translator originally from Budapest, captures the tenderness, honesty, and nuances of this urgent narrative of identity, belonging, and emotional survival. With a sensitivity to the specificities of the Hungarian social and linguistic context pervading Marton’s novel, Sipos brings readers this candid exploration of race, masculinity, vulnerability, and LGBTQ+ experiences.

Annie Tucker’s translation from the Indonesian of Suspicious Days by Dea Anugrah

Suspicious Days is a sharp, funny, and self-aware novel that follows a young, directionless writer in Yogyakarta who stumbles into a literary mystery–and a violent quest for revenge–while searching for a missing poet. In a voice that shifts effortlessly between irreverent humor, cultural critique, and genuine yearning, Dea Anugrah offers a portrait of Indonesia’s contemporary literary and political landscape, filtered through the eyes of a disaffected youth. Annie Tucker’s clear and assured translation captures the novel’s fast-paced blend of autofiction, metafiction, and cultural commentary without losing its specificity to Indonesia’s literary world. With extensive experience translating contemporary Indonesian literature, Tucker brings both deep linguistic skill and cultural understanding to this project. Her work delivers the full force of Anugrah’s voice to English-language readers, introducing a fresh and fearless talent in contemporary Indonesian fiction.

Quentin Véron’s translation from the French of Solitude of a Python in Paris by Romain Gary (writing as Émile Ajar)

Romain Gary’s Gros-Câlin, first published in 1974 under the pseudonym Émile Ajar, occupies a unique and fascinating place in French literary history. When the author’s true identity was revealed after his death, it was hailed as one of the great literary revelations of the century––unmasking the only writer ever to win the prestigious Prix Goncourt twice. Gros-Câlin (“Big Hug” in English) tells the story of Michel Cousin, a lonely and eccentric Parisian statistician who adopts an eight-foot python in his quest for affection. With sensitivity, wit, and creative daring, Quentin Véron recreates in English the puzzling “foreign” language that a bored Cousin invents for himself, through which themes of affection, alienation, and rebirth take on renewed resonance. Navigating the “deluge of amusing malapropisms, puns, literary allusions, and warmly pathetic situational comedy” (translator’s words) of Gary’s signature “Ajarism,” Véron deftly renders the novel’s humor, pathos, and linguistic playfulness without losing its peculiar absurdity and tenderness.

Yě Yě’s translation from the Chinese of All of Our Homecomings Are Feted as Yi New Year by Jike Ayou

Jike Ayou, born in Puge county of Sichuan province, is the first migrant worker poet of Yi ethnicity and one of six poets featured in The Verse of Us, a documentary film on Chinese migrant worker poets. His collection of poems All of Our Homecomings Are Feted as Yi New Year was published in Chinese by Taibai Literature and Art Publishing House in 2019. His works have appeared in publications such as Selected Poems, Liangshan Literature, Workers’ Daily, and China Youth News. Like the ancient Chinese poets, Jike Ayou writes beautifully about Shanshui (landscapes) to lament his personal and political struggles. Translator Yě Yě carefully distills his delicate lines into terse English verse that echoes the lived experience of millions of migrant workers in China.

PEN Grant For The English Translation Of Italian Literature ($5,000)

Administered under and judged alongside the PEN/Heim Translation Fund Grants, the PEN Grant for the English Translation of Italian Literature honors a translator for a book-length translation of narrative prose and seeks to promote the publication of Italian literature into English. The winner will receive a $5,000 grant to aid in the project’s completion.

Lauren Green’s translation from the Italian of Adoration by Alice Urciuolo

Adoration is a fierce and absorbing novel set in the reclaimed marshlands south of Rome, where five teenagers struggle to make sense of a friend’s murder and the suffocating models of masculinity and desire that surround them. With shifting points of view and a keen eye for the rituals and violences that shape adolescence, Alice Urciuolo explores how a place saturated with Fascist history and patriarchal norms produces its own forms of rebellion as well as complicity.

Lauren Aliza Green’s translation reflects the urgency and intimacy of Urciuolo’s prose, capturing the novel’s polyphonic voices and its precise rendering of place, class, and coming of age. A novelist and poet herself, Green is well equipped to convey both the emotional range and the structural ambition of this compelling novel. Green’s English version delivers the novel’s full force: a clear-eyed and unsettling portrait of contemporary Italian youth, and the cultural legacies they inherit and resist."
https://pen.org/announcing-the-2026-pen-america-grant-winners/
#Metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus

They write that "they have been made aware that due to the acoustic conditions, the speaker's words were not of a quality that could be interpreted".

"Statement defending interpreter criticized for translation errors in Moscow issued by association

Days after the Hungarian delegation's trip to Moscow, the Hungarian Association of Translators and Interpreters (MFTE) issued a statement in response to criticism of their member's interpretation. The statement sent to Telex began by saying that their colleague has nearly three decades of experience as a high-level interpreter. She has been interpreting at the government level for a long time and has always performed excellently.

 

They write that the quality of an interpreter's work is not only influenced by their abilities, but also by several factors beyond their control, including acute health problems arising during the flight, exhaustion, their ears being clogged up due to flying, the lack of an in-ear monitor, or the fact that the person being interpreted for is not speaking audibly, or perhaps the acoustics of the room are not ideal.

 

They also noted that the protocol and security measures in place during such meetings are very strict – it is unclear what the consequences would have been if their colleague had jumped up to indicate that she could not hear.

 

“This is what occurred in the situation in question too. We understand that due to the acoustic conditions, the speaker's words were not of a quality that could be interpreted. This is confirmed by the fact that our colleague later performed excellently during the negotiations that followed the press conference.”

 

The statement also pointed out that some members of the delegation, including Péter Szijjártó, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade, said that they would not hold the interpreter responsible.

 

"The MFTE presidency stands by our colleague and repeatedly emphasizes that she meets all the professional requirements that can be expected in such situations."

 

At the end of the statement, they mentioned that they had wanted to publish it earlier, but due to the resignation of the organization's president on Tuesday, their time was taken up with organizational issues.

 

The Hungarian Prime Minister held talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin in the Russian capital on Friday. Ahead of the negotiations, Orbán and Putin spoke briefly in front of the cameras. Beyond the usual polite greetings, in this part of the talks, there could always be things said that predict the mood of the negotiations. Despite its significance, Orbán was given a rather superficial Hungarian translation of Putin's statement by the interpreter, who mistranslated almost the entire greeting of the Russian President. We detailed exactly what Putin said and how it sounded in Hungarian in this article..."

English

December 03. 2025. – 03:35 PM

Iván-Nagy Szilvia

Andrea Horváth Kávai (translation)

👇🏿👇🏿👇🏿

https://telex.hu/english/2025/12/03/statement-defending-interpreter-criticized-for-translation-errors-in-moscow-issued-by-association

#Metaglossia 

#metaglossia_mundus 

"The Rada Removes the Russian Language From Ukraine’s Translation of the European Charter The Decision Is Largely Symbolic, as the Constitution Guarantees Protection for Any Language Spoken by at Least 40% of Citizens

 

The Verkhovna Rada has backed a bill revising the Ukrainian translation of the European Charter and removing Russian and Moldovan from its list of protected languages, while adding Urum, Rumeic, Romani, Czech, Krymchak, Karaim and Yiddish. The document was adopted in its entirety and formally strips Russian of the protection envisaged by the Charter.

 

What Does the European Charter Actually Regulate?

The European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages is designed to safeguard languages that are in the minority within specific territories. Several Ukrainian experts note that Ukraine has long relied on an inaccurate translation of the Charter’s title, creating the impression that it concerns the protection of “national minorities.” In fact, the Charter is aimed at preserving languages at risk of extinction as part of Europe’s cultural heritage.

 

Why Is the Rada’s Decision Largely Symbolic?

 

Analysts argue that the Rada’s decision is symbolic and will not produce practical effects. The Ukrainian state does not provide systematic support to any of the listed languages, and the removal of Russian may be seen as a gesture ill-suited to Russian-speaking citizens and potentially advantageous to Kremlin propaganda. The widespread claim that the Russian language is supposedly losing legal protection is, experts say, absurd—it is guaranteed by Article 10 of Ukraine’s Constitution, where it is mentioned alongside other minority languages. Various estimates suggest that at least 40% of Ukraine’s population considers Russian their native language, though precise data are unavailable or not publicised..."

https://sfg.media/en/a/rada-removes-russian-language-from-european-charter-translation/

#Metaglossia 

#metaglossia_mundus 

"When thinking of ancient Greek philosophers, Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle will likely spring to mind, but only Plato and Aristotle left written works behind them that survive to this day thanks to the painstaking work of those who over the millennia copied and translated their texts. It is somewhat surprising that a philosopher as famous as Aristotle, who was also Alexander the Great’s teacher, should only be known through only a few of his treatises, but thankfully for scholars and philosophy enthusiasts, a new edition of his works is now available.

 

‘Aristotle: Complete Works’, edited by C. D. C. Reeve, the ΔΚΕ Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and Pavlos Kontos, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Patras, and published by Hackett in December 2025, is a monumental achievement, the first new English-language translation of the Aristotelian corpus since 1954. This edition reconfirms that Aristotle’s philosophy is both a cornerstone of history and an integral part of contemporary Western thought and culture, bringing Aristotle to life and making his works accessible for today’s readers.

 

For the first time ever, Greek scholars, mostly from the University of Patras, played a critical role, either as editors or readers. Such significant contribution by contemporary Greek scholars to an Anglophone edition of ancient Greek philosophical texts is unprecedented.

 

‘Aristotle: Complete Works’ is presented in two volumes and makes an excellent gift. The first volume includes his logic, biology, physics, natural sciences, and psychology. The second volume contains his metaphysics, ethics, politics, rhetoric, and poetics, a translation of the ‘Fragments’, the slightly dubious work ‘Magna Moralia’, and one work not by Aristotle, but probably from his school, the Athenian Constitution. It also contains an informative long Introduction, an elaborate Index with the numerous people and places mentioned by Aristotle, and an extensive, detailed Glossary of Aristotle’s key terms in Greek and English, accompanied by translation comments and references to pertinent passages. The Glossary allows readers to navigate the entire corpus on their own.

 

A distinguished group of scholars from Europe and the United States contributed translations of the Aristotelian treatises in which they specialize.

 

Professor Pavlos Kontos spoke with The National Herald about the impressive achievement. When asked how long the editing process took on such a monumental project, Prof. Kontos told TNH: “This is a nice question, but it’s difficult to answer! The whole thing started in 2012, when C. D. C. Reeve was translating Aristotle’s ‘Nicomachean Ethics’ for Hackett and asked me to serve as a line-by-line reader. I then urged him to re-translate Aristotle’s ‘Politics’, which he did. After that, he translated Aristotle’s ‘Metaphysics’, ‘Physics’, and other shorter treatises. I served as a line-by-line reader for all of these as well. Only after this did David have the ‘crazy’ idea that we edit an English translation of the entire corpus by commissioning the translation of certain treatises to other scholars. Final approval from Hackett was not received until as late as 2021! Thus, at least in my view, the correct way to calculate the timeline is from 2012: about 13 years.”

 

Prof. Kontos added that translating an Aristotelian text “requires mastery of Ancient Greek and English, expertise in Aristotle’s philosophy (and, in particular, in specific areas of his thought), knowledge of French and German (to allow comparison with the best available translations in those languages), and long experience in translation, so that one develops a distinctive ‘style.’”

 

“Our ‘Aristotle: Complete Works’ is, as far as we know, the only consistent translation of the entire corpus in any language, for though the translators are many, they all generously agreed to follow our choices (David’s and mine) in the translation of Aristotle’s key terms,” Prof. Kontos said.

 

More information is available online"

 

https://www.thenationalherald.com/this-centurys-monumental-translation-of-aristotles-complete-works/

#Metaglossia 

#metaglossia_mundus 

"Colloque national:"Les parcours du traducteur-interprète officiel : questionnements cognitifs et expériences personnelles"
Dans le cadre du mouvement scientifique du département de traduction, un colloque national a été organisé sur le thème : "Les parcours du traducteur-interprète officiel : questionnements cognitifs et expériences"

Cette rencontre a réuni des représentants de plusieurs bureaux nationaux de traduction officielle. La présence du vice-recteur, Pr. BACHIR Redouane, du doyen de la faculté des lettres et des langues, Pr. KHERBOUCHE Abderrahmane , de Pr. MOUROU Wassila, chargée de la gestion de la faculté des langues étrangères, ainsi que du président de la Chambre nationale des traducteurs-interprètes officiels et de sa délégation, a joué un rôle important dans le bon déroulement des activités du sixième colloque national."
https://www.univ-tlemcen.dz/fr/actualites/4124/colloque-national-les-parcours-du-traducteur-interpr-te-officiel-questionnements-cognitifs-et-exp-riences-personnelles
#Metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus

"Le Matin : Vous avez publié aux éditions internationales Al-Bouraq un ouvrage de traduction et d’exégèse en langue française du Coran que l’on peut qualifier d’œuvre grandiose. Est-ce que vous pourriez nous décrire ce travail ?

Abdelhak Azzouzi : Oui, le travail est composé de trois volumes et 3.200 pages. Il ne s’agit pas d’une simple traduction littérale, mais d’une entreprise d’exégèse complète qui allie clarté linguistique, profondeur herméneutique et respect absolu de la sacralité du texte coranique. J’ai mené ce travail avec la double exigence du linguiste et du croyant. Mon objectif était d’offrir au lecteur francophone une version du Coran qui restitue toute la puissance du message divin sans en trahir ni la beauté, ni la profondeur. Je me suis appuyé sur les grands ouvrages classiques du «tafsīr» tout en y apportant ma propre lecture contemporaine. En ne retenant que les interprétations compatibles avec la raison et les fondements de la foi, j’ai essayé d’apporter un équilibre entre attachement au texte et effort d’«ijtihād». Loin d’une approche figée, j’ai inscrit ma démarche dans la dynamique du renouveau intellectuel islamique, adaptée aux questionnements spirituels et sociaux de notre époque.

Le Pr Abdelhak Azzouzi signe une traduction et exégèse de référence du Coran en français

Le professeur Abdelhak Azzouzi, universitaire marocain, vient de signer une traduction et une exégèse du Coran en français qui s'annonce comme une référence incontournable. Publié aux éditions Al-Bouraq, cet ouvrage de trois volumes et 3.200 pages est le fruit de plus d'une décennie de travail acharné. Loin de se limiter à une simple traduction littérale, cette œuvre allie, selon-lui, rigueur académique, fidélité au texte sacré et accessibilité pour le lectorat francophone, musulman ou en quête de spiritualité.

Eugène Delacroix, qui fut épris du Maroc dès qu’il foula sa terre, formula à juste titre cette proposition : «Le beau est le fruit d’une inspiration persévérante qui n’est qu’une suite de labeurs obstinés». J’en ai fait une conviction et je peux en témoigner aujourd’hui, car ce travail m’aura pris dix ans d’efforts assidus. On comprendra qu’il ne s’agit donc pas d’un ouvrage ou d’un opuscule ordinaire, mais de connaissances approfondies du Coran, du Livre sacré des Musulmans.

Est-ce que vous pourriez nous parler de votre méthode ?

Chaque sourate est située, explorée et explicitée dans son contexte global, en tenant compte de ses intentions principales, avant d’être déclinée en unités thématiques cohérentes. La traduction n’est pas compartimentée selon des versets traités chacun isolément, mais s’opère plutôt par réseaux de signification en vue de favoriser une appréhension plus pertinente en prenant en charge le maillage structurant les idées et la dynamique narrative intrinsèque au texte sacré.

Je me suis aussi appuyé sur la science des circonstances de la révélation (asbāb an-nuzūl) pour replacer chaque verset dans son cadre temporel et événementiel. Cette approche restitue la cohérence du message divin et permet au lecteur de saisir la sagesse des commandements, leur lien avec les réalités humaines et la continuité spirituelle qu’ils incarnent. En intégrant ces données historiques et philologiques à mon commentaire, j’ai essayé de renouveler la compréhension du Coran tout en rappelant sa vocation intemporelle : être une source de paix intérieure, de justice et de bien universel. Mon œuvre ne se limite donc pas à un travail savant : elle constitue une passerelle entre les cultures, un dialogue vivant entre la foi et la raison, entre la révélation et le monde contemporain.

Je passe au peigne fin tout ce qui a trait à la grammaire arabe (i’râb), aux fleurs de la rhétorique et aux subtilités sémantiques qui servent de matériaux et de joyaux à la singulière magnificence coranique. Je n’omets pas, à juste titre d’ailleurs, de convoquer en renfort les apports des sciences modernes – physique, biologie, médecine – pour mettre en exergue les divers signes de Dieu dans l’univers, soulignant ainsi le trait d’union, marquant le rapport consubstantiel entre la Révélation et la Création.

Le travail est le fruit d’une longue et passionnante fréquentation du Texte coranique et de ses exégèses. J’ai essayé de le mener avec conviction et efficacité, car je crois que dans la lecture approfondie de ce Texte il y a possibilité de penser autrement notre monde et son destin : c’est-à-dire dans une perspective de paix et de triomphe du bien contre le mal. J’ai recherché avec passion, je traquais l’exactitude dans le commentaire, la justesse dans le mot à traduire, la portée féconde du sens à rendre. Je me suis efforcé de ne trahir ni l’arabe, ni le français, ni le contenu des termes d’une si grande richesse du Texte coranique. J’ai essayé en quelque sorte de faire passer la vraie langue du Texte original dans la vraie langue de la traduction. J’ai eu le constant souci de traduire non seulement à partir de la langue arabe, mais encore de l’arabe et d’écrire non seulement en langue française, mais encore en français.

Il y a lieu de signaler que vous avez publié deux versions de l’œuvre ?

Oui, en effet, cette publication se décline en deux éditions distinctes, fondées sur les deux lectures coraniques les plus répandues dans le monde musulman. La lecture de Warsh, que nous lisons au Maroc, et qui est largement diffusée en Afrique du Nord et en Afrique de l’Ouest. Chaque lecture est répartie en trois tomes distincts. Ce double choix est fort judicieux puisqu’il répond à un souci de conformité à la pluralité des traditions de récitation, et à inscrire cette entreprise dans la portée universelle censée être la sienne."
https://lematin.ma/nation/azzouzi-traduire-le-coran-cest-unir-la-foi-la-langue-et-la-raison/310959
#Metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus

"Translators produce translations via consistent contact with at least two languages. Contact with different languages is a main factor influencing language changes at all levels. However, quantitative exploration of syntactic variation in translation as a language contact event remains underexplored. This study explains translation changes through the lens of language contact and quantifies the influence of language contact on translation syntax in fiction and non-fiction genres. Univariate and multivariate analyses were conducted to examine linguistic variations at the syntactic level in Chinese-English translations by two groups of undergraduate student translators (Grade 4, with a higher degree of language contact; and Grade 3, with a lower degree), with expert translations serving as a benchmark for acceptable language changes. The results reveal four primary dimensions of syntactic variation: 1) structure diversity, 2) production length, 3) sentence complexity, and 4) information fragmentation. Genre-specific effects were observed, with translations in both genres exhibiting statistically significant syntactic changes across four dimensions, while fiction translation insignificant regarding the dimension of structure diversity. The findings imply that contact-induced linguistic changes amplify simplification and explicitation in translation, and manifest more prominently in genres oriented towards information transfer than in those prioritizing stylistic distinctiveness and immersive storytelling. These findings suggest that language contact offers a valuable lens for understanding linguistic changes in translation and imply that genre and language change mechanism are important factors in this perspective."
Translation as language contact: a multidimensional perspective of syntactic variation
Yanmeng Liu*
Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi'an, China
The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.
https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/language-sciences/articles/10.3389/flang.2025.1712405/abstract
#Metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus

"Outgoing NYC mayor orders agencies to use translation apps

(The Center Square) – As he prepares to step down, Mayor Eric Adams is making a high-tech push to help New York City become one of the most “language-friendly” cities in the world.

The ... Democrat signed an executive order Monday setting into motion a plan that will require city agencies and the NYPD to use Google Translate, Apple’s built-in Translate app and other programs to make city services more accessible to non-English speaking New Yorkers. Adams said the move will help eliminate language barriers in the nation’s most populous city.

“This is a global city, and we’re going to ensure we communicate as a global city,” Adams, who steps down on Jan. 1, said in remarks Monday. “We want every New Yorker, every agency to evaluate how they can further incorporate translation technologies into their day-to-day interaction with the public.”

Adams said the city’s Office of Technology and Innovation and the Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs have been testing translation apps to determine which programs will work best and acknowledged that the technology is “not perfect” and “clearly evolving” and will require additional review before it’s implemented.

“But it’s a far cry from having to wait only on the Language Line to be able to communicate with over 140 different languages here in the city,” he said.

Under the plan, the city plans to install language applications on more than 100,000 city-owned electronic devices and implement a new program in the public school system that will allow for translations of the top 12 languages spoken by students and their families, according to the Adams administration.

Meanwhile, the New York City Police Department’s Patrol Guide Policy is being updated to allow officers to use translation apps while interacting with the public, the administration said.

NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch, who was tapped by Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani to lead the agency for his administration, said she supports the program.

She said NYPD officers speak 109 different languages and come from more than 140 different countries. But in a city that speaks nearly 200 distinct languages, “even our officers might need some help talking to their neighbors.”

“Clear communication is essential to public safety,” Tisch said in remarks Monday. “Our officers interact with New Yorkers who speak dozens of different languages, often in situations where time and understanding matter. Expanding access to real-time translation tools helps officers communicate more clearly, respond more effectively, and better serve the people who need help.”"
Mon, December 8, 2025 by The Center Square
https://www.myhometowntoday.com/news/new-york/outgoing-nyc-mayor-orders-agencies-to-use-translation-apps/
#Metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus

"This PhD project investigates how literary translators and journalists react and respond to machine-translated metaphors and what the repercussions for professional practice are.

Duration

2025 - 2029

Contact

Mayra Nas

 

Machine translation (MT) has been part of the translation industry for many years, but the emergence of large language models (LLMs) has truly turned the field upside down. Unlike earlier translation systems, LLMs such as ChatGPT can generate fluent and stylistically adaptable translations. Combined with tools like Google Translate and DeepL, the work of translators and journalists has changed, as MT is increasingly integrated into their daily practice. Today, MT is used in a wide range of contexts; from casual communication to professional, medical, and legal settings.

However, the translation of metaphors remains a major challenge. Metaphors are figurative by nature and often culturally specific, making them vulnerable to amusing but also potentially serious mistranslations. Although MT quality has improved greatly in the past years, even the most advanced systems still make mistakes or invent information. At present, no systematic research identifies which metaphors become problematic in MT and how mistranslations affect understanding.

The Machine-Translation Metaphor (MTM) project investigates which metaphors cause problems in MT, why these issues arise and under which circumstances, and how they affect users and society. It examines metaphors as simultaneously linguistic, cognitive, and cultural phenomena, and studies MT from three perspectives: the Machine, the Professional User, and the Non-expert Reader. The PhD project focuses on the second perspective, exploring how professional users, i.e. literary translators and journalists, revise and reflect on machine-translated metaphors and how this shapes their practice."

https://www.universiteitleiden.nl/en/research/research-projects/humanities/professional-users-perspectives-on-metaphors-in-machine-translation

#Metaglossia 

#metaglossia_mundus 

"L’ACEP s’inquiète du fait que le Bureau de la traduction abaisse les critères de qualité pour l’interprétation et compromette la qualité des services en français

Déc 9, 2025

OTTAWA – L’Association canadienne des employés professionnels (ACEP) s’inquiète d’une énième décision du Bureau de la traduction qui compromet l’intégrité des langues officielles au Canada. Le syndicat a été informé d’une récente décision visant à restructurer le comité d’accréditation des interprètes parlementaires pigistes. Cette décision affaiblira un processus qui garantit la qualité de l’interprétation dans les institutions fédérales, un service indispensable aux député·es et à des millions de Canadiennes et Canadiens. On ne peut que s’alarmer davantage quant à l’incapacité de ce gouvernement à protéger et à préserver les langues officielles au Canada et en particulier le français.

 

Le Bureau de la traduction a décidé d’intégrer dans le comité un consultant externe qui n’a pas l’accréditation nécessaire pour travailler au Parlement; c’est pourtant cette accréditation qui garantit que les nouvelles et nouveaux interprètes parlementaires pigistes répondent aux normes élevées requises pour ce type de travail. Le Bureau cède donc une partie importante du pouvoir décisionnel à une personne qui ne répond pas elle-même aux normes de la profession. Le consultant nommé siégera au comité d’accréditation avec le groupe habituel d’interprètes permanent·es qualifié·es et chevronné·es, mais il détiendra un pouvoir immense, puisque ses décisions compteront pour 50 % dans la sélection des futur·es interprètes. En cas d’égalité des voix, c’est un·e cadre supérieur·e du Bureau de la traduction qui tranche.

 

« C’est une décision préoccupante et irresponsable, mais qui correspond malheureusement à la tendance que nous observons, déclare Antoine Hersberger, vice-président du groupe TR de l’ACEP, qui comprend les interprètes permanents. En conférant un pouvoir déterminant à quelqu’un qui n’est pas accrédité pour le travail parlementaire, le Bureau de la traduction ne tient pas compte de son expertise interne, abaisse la barre et affaiblit les normes mêmes qui protègent les langues officielles dans ce pays, ce qui aura des répercussions disproportionnées sur la population francophone canadienne. » 

 

Il est à noter que l’accréditation est obligatoire pour les interprètes qui souhaitent travailler sur la Colline du Parlement. Le Bureau de la traduction présente l’accréditation comme la garantie de qualité des services d’interprétation qu’il fournit, et elle est reconnue mondialement comme l’une des normes les plus élevées en interprétation. Cependant, depuis quelques années, le Bureau mine sa propre réputation et cette décision risque de la ternir davantage. Comme ce sont surtout les francophones canadiens, et en particulier les député·es francophones, qui utilisent les services de traduction et d’interprétation pour comprendre et se faire comprendre, toute baisse de qualité a des conséquences graves pour ces personnes. 

 

L’ACEP exhorte le Bureau de la traduction à rétablir immédiatement la composition antérieure du comité et le processus standard, qui garantissaient que toutes les décisions relatives à l’accréditation étaient prises par des professionnelles et professionnels qualifiés, et à relancer le processus d’accréditation actuel dans cette optique. Le syndicat invite également tous les leaders des organismes de défense des droits en matière de langues officielles, ainsi que les partis fédéraux et les gouvernements provinciaux, à prêter une attention particulière à l’érosion croissante des langues officielles causée par la négligence du gouvernement à l’égard du Bureau de la traduction et le sous-investissement dans ses services, et à reconnaître cette décision comme une menace grave et urgente pour l’égalité linguistique au Canada. Ce qui se passe au Bureau de la traduction nous met clairement en garde contre ce qui pourrait se produire ailleurs au gouvernement fédéral si l’on ne rétablit pas la vigilance à cet égard."

https://www.acep-cape.ca/fr/actualites/lacep-sinquiete-du-fait-que-le-bureau-de-la-traduction-abaisse-les-criteres-de-qualite

#Metaglossia 

#metaglossia_mundus 

"La théorie du linguiste américain John McWhorter sur l’origine des langues créoles
Écrit par : Robert Berrouët-Oriol, 09/12/250 77
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Le linguiste américain John McWhorter a publié, dans The New York Times du 13 novembre 2025, un article qui a eu un écho considérable dans les milieux académiques haïtiens, « One Horror of Slavery That Until Recently Could Not Be Told » [Une horreur de l'esclavage qui, jusqu'à récemment, ne pouvait être racontée]. Nous reproduisons ci-après la version française de cet article établie par Sandra Cadet, traductrice professionnelle.

Auteur de plus d’une vingtaine d’ouvrages spécialisés, John McWhorter est professeur agrégé de linguistique à l'Université Columbia. Sa thèse de doctorat portait sur le saramaccan, le créole parlé au Suriname par environ 58 000 personnes d'origine ouest-africaine. Il est l’auteur, entre autres, de « Towards a New Model of Creole Genesis » (1997), « The Missing Spanish Creoles : Recovering the Birth of Plantation Contact Languages » (2000), « Defining Creole » (2005), « A Grammar of Saramaccan Creole » (2012, co-écrit avec Jeff Good), « The Creole Debate » (2018).

Depuis nombre d’années, l’origine des créoles est sujet à des controverses, à des débats nourris de théories différentes et de prises de position parfois virulentes. Ainsi, certains auteurs défendent la théorie monogénétique, qui soutient que les créoles ont une origine commune. D’autres défendent la théorie polygénétique, qui suggère que les créoles se sont développés de manière indépendante dans divers contextes sociohistoriques. L'approche substratique met en avant l'influence des langues africaines sur la grammaire et le vocabulaire des créoles, tandis que l’approche superstratique iniste sur le rôle dominant des langues européennes, notamment le français, dans la formation des créoles.

Plusieurs linguistes de premier plan, connus et reconnus pour la haute rigueur de leurs travaux scientifiques, ont abordé la complexe question de l’origine des créoles.

PREMIER EXEMPLE -- Albert Valdman (Creole Institute, Indiana University). Auteur de nombreux articles de référence sur le créole haïtien parus dans des revues spécialisées et rédacteur de plusieurs rigoureux dictionnaires anglais-créole, ce linguiste-lexicographe a publié entre autres « Haitian Creole – Structure, Variation, Status, Origin » (Equinox Publishing Ltd, 2015). Le chapitre 13 de cet ouvrage s’intitule « The Genesis and Development of Haitian Creole » et il comprend les sous-chapitres suivants : « Theories about Creole Genesis », « The Genesis of French-Based Creoles », « The Role of Substrate Transfers in the Genesis and Development of Haitian Creole ».

Le livre du linguiste-lexicographe Albert Valdman --« Le créole : structure, statut et origine » (Institut d'études et de recherches interethniques et interculturelles, Université de Nice et Éditions Klincksieck, Paris, 1978)--, consigne l’information suivante :

« Il n'est plus besoin d'affirmer aujourd'hui que l'étude des langues créoles n'est plus une vogue passagère ou un champ d'investigation en friche abandonné aux philologues friands de curiosités linguistiques. En effet, de récentes recherches ont démontré que ces langues et leurs congénères, les pidgins, constituent un terrain d'enquête privilégié pour certains domaines des sciences du langage. Plus variables que les autres langues naturelles les créoles sont notoirement réfractaires aux modèles descriptifs statiques. Ainsi les nouvelles approches dynamiques, telles les échelles implicationnelles de D. DeCamp et l'analyse polylectale de C.-J. Bailey et de D. Bickerton ont-elles été conçues pour tenter de décrire la gamme de variabilité continue reliant les créoles dérivés de l'anglais aux variétés standards de cet idiome ; la notion de règle variable formulée par W. Labov et ses disciples a été élaborée grâce à son application à certains problèmes morphophonologiques du Non-Standard Black English, une forme d'anglais américain que certains spécialistes rattacheraient à un ancien stade créolisé ou pidginisé.

Les notions de monogenèse et de polygenèse au centre des discussions sur la genèse des créoles font leur réapparition dans le contexte plus large de l'acquisition d'une langue seconde en situation naturelle. L'apprentissage sommaire de la langue de la communauté « d'accueil » de la part des travailleurs immigrés, en République fédérale allemande et en France notamment, constitue un cas particulièrement intéressant de ce type d'acquisition. Il s'apparente à certains égards à celui des esclaves importés dans les plantations coloniales où naquirent les créoles : statut socio-économique déprécié des apprenants, isolement socio-culturel relatif. Pour de nombreux chercheurs l'acquisition d'une langue seconde, sur les plans syntaxique et sémantique surtout, s'explique moins par l'interférence des structures de la langue cible --notion reliée à la monogenèse-- que par des processus créatifs universels qui se manifesteraient d'une façon plus claire dans la genèse et le développement des créoles.

La langue vernaculaire d'environ huit millions de personnes, répandue sur deux vastes aires géographiques séparées par des milliers de kilomètres, le créole --ou, plus précisément, les parlers franco-créoles ou parlers créoles à base lexicale française-- représente la plus importante des langues créoles, non seulement du point de vue du nombre des locuteurs, mais aussi parce qu'elle témoigne d'un haut niveau d'élaboration. Langue à part entière le créole est pourvu d'une structure cohérente, d'un riche lexique et d'une large gamme de variabilité polylectale. Si les études dont nous disposons sur les parlers franco-créoles ne reflètent pas toujours les approches méthodologiques les plus récentes et les théories linguistiques de pointe, elles contiennent néanmoins la masse de données descriptives la plus abondante et la plus fiable dont disposent les créolistes. Toutefois, cette riche moisson est difficilement accessible, tant au spécialiste qu'au lecteur généraliste. À l'exception de l'excellente thèse comparative de M. Goodman (Creole French Dialects), les ouvrages portant sur les parlers franco-créoles prennent la forme de monographies dont la plupart sont des thèses doctorales à diffusion réduite. Bien que le créole, à l'exception des parlers des Petites Antilles à influence britannique, coexiste avec le français, un grand nombre d'études, et des plus marquantes, sont rédigées dans une langue autre que le français. Cet état de choses contribue à rendre le phénomène créole mal connu dans les pays de langue française, y compris dans les régions créolophones elles-mêmes où des actions lancées pour rehausser le niveau de l'instruction primaire exigent, pour être efficaces, une connaissance approfondie des réalités linguistiques. » [Le souligné en italiques et gras est de RBO]

DEUXIÈME EXEMPLE -- Georges Daniel Véronique (Université d’Aix-Marseille) a consacré plusieurs articles au créole et il a notamment publié « Créole, créoles français et théories de la créolisation » (revue L’information grammaticale numéro 85, 2000). Dans cet article l’auteur étudie « Les conditions sociales d'émergence des langues créoles : l'exemple des « créoles français », « Les procès linguistiques de la pidginisation et de la créolisation : grammaticalisation, réanalyse et évolution », « Qu'est-ce qu'un créole ? », Quelques théories de la créolisation ». Auteur de nombreux articles scientifiques sur le créole, le linguiste Georges Daniel Véronique est également co-rédacteur du livre collectif de référence « La didactisation du créole au cœur de l’aménagement linguistique en Haïti » (par Robert Berrouët-Oriol et alii, Éditions Zémès et Éditions du Cidihca, 2021). Dans cet ouvrage il présente une étude au long cours –« Créolisation et créoles »--, qui fournit un ample et systématique éclairage analytique sur l’origine des créoles et les créoles à base lexicale française dans leur inscription socio-historique, les conditions de leur apparition dans le système colonial, leur mode de développement, etc.

Au creux de cette étude, Georges Daniel Véronique nous enseigne –à la section « Le développement des langues créoles--, que « La formation des langues créoles est déterminée par la création des colonies, des forts et des comptoirs et par les navigations inter-îles dans le Pacifique, et par les contacts sociaux qui s’y nouent. Ce sont les seules langues dont on connaisse le point de départ, le terminus a quo. Différents auteurs ont identifié les situations sociales prototypiques de leur naissance. Chaudenson (1992) évoque des créoles exogènes, qui se développent dans des territoires vierges de tout parler (les îles du Cap-Vert, Maurice et la Réunion, etc.), et des créoles endogènes apparus dans un environnement dominé par d’autres langues (le kriyol de Guinée Bissau par exemple). L’on doit donc postuler plusieurs matrices sociales d’émergence des langues créoles. J’examinerai ici celles qui ont donné naissance aux créoles de plantation, aux créoles des comptoirs fortifiés (l’exemple guinéen) et des missions (le cas du Tayo). » [Le souligné en italiques et gras est de RBO]

À la section « La matrice des créoles exogènes » l’auteur précise que « Chaudenson (1979) et Kihm (2005) se sont penchés sur cette matrice sociale, souvent insulaire, actualisée dans la Caraïbe et dans l’Océan Indien, qui donne naissance aux créoles de plantation. »

Georges-Daniel Véronique est l’auteur de l’article « Créolisation et créoles . Sociolinguistique du contact » édité par Jacky Simonin et Sylvie Wharton (ENS Éditions, 2013). Il nous enseigne que « Ce chapitre est consacré aux processus de développement des langues créoles et à quelques-unes de leurs particularités. Les langues dont il sera question ici sont apparentées, au moins sur le plan lexical, à l’anglais, au portugais, à l’espagnol, au néerlandais ou au français, qui sont souvent désignés comme leurs langues lexificatrices (lexifier language), formule contestée par certains auteurs (Mufwene, 2005, par exemple). Ces langues sont également nommées créoles anglais (le créole de la Jamaïque ou de Saint-Vincent, par exemple), créoles espagnols (le papiamento / papiamentu d’Aruba, Bonnaire et Curaçao et le chabacano des Philippines, par exemple), créoles portugais (le kriyol de Guinée-Bissau, le créole du Cap-Vert, les créoles du golfe de Guinée par exemple), créoles hollandais (le berbice dutch et le skepi dutch de Guyana) ou créoles français, suivant l’origine dominante de leur lexique. L’ensemble « créoles français » comprend des créoles atlantiques et india-océaniques et un créole pacifique, tandis que les créoles anglais se retrouvent dans la Caraïbe, en Afrique et dans le Pacifique. On évoque aussi l’existence de créoles à base lexicale arabe (par exemple, le juba arabic ou le kinubi du Soudan) ou de langues africaines (le fanakalo d’Afrique du Sud, le kituba du Congo etc.). Dans le cadre de ce texte, je restreindrai la désignation « créole » aux seules langues apparues lors de l’expansion coloniale européenne des siècles passés, celles à qui le terme fut initialement appliqué. Ces langues partagent d’éventuelles affinités linguistiques qu’il conviendra d’évoquer. Les circonstances de leur émergence sont sans doute proches, à certains égards, de celles observées dans d’autres situations de contacts de langues, d’où certaines similitudes structurelles avec les langues qui en sont issues (kinubi, kituba, sango, etc. ; voir Kihm, 2011).
Les langues créoles sont donc apparues, essentiellement à partir du XVIIe siècle, dans le sillage de l’expansion européenne. Cependant, il convient de relever l’existence d’un texte en lingua de Preto (langue des noirs), aussi appelé falar Guiné (parler Guinée), publié en 1516 au Portugal, soixante ans après la découverte des îles du Cap-Vert en 1456. D’autres textes ultérieurs attestent également l’existence d’un créole portugais (proto-kriolu) à cette période. On a postulé que ce premier créole (lui-même peut-être dérivé de la lingua franca méditerranéenne) était à l’origine des langues créoles qui se sont développées par la suite dans les comptoirs européens en Afrique. C’est la théorie de la monogenèse des créoles : ils seraient tous nés d’une source portugaise par un processus de modification lexicale, de relexification et de dissémination. Cette hypothèse est aujourd’hui abandonnée (Migge, 2003). » [Le souligné en italiques et gras est de RBO]

TROISIÈME EXEMPLE -- La linguiste Marie-Christine Hazaël-Massieux (Université de Provence) est responsable du Groupe européen de recherches en langues créoles. L’essentiel de ses publications (nombreux articles et ouvrages) portent sur les créoles français. Elle a publié, entre autres, l’étude intitulée « Théories de la genèse ou histoire des créoles : l'exemple du développement des créoles de la Caraïbe » (revue Éla. Études de linguistique appliquée, 2006/3 no 143). L’« Avant-propos - Au sujet de la définition des langues créoles », est suivi de l’article « Et si l'on parlait des créoles dans les territoires créolophones ? ». L’auteure nous enseigne qu’« Il existe diverses théories concernant la genèse des créoles. Un numéro récent de la revue Études créoles proposait un bilan de ces hypothèses concernant la créolisation et mettait à jour des tendances différentes : certaines qu’on qualifie de " sociohistoriques ", d’autres qui sont axées davantage sur la " typologie "... Ces théories sont toutes des hypothèses, fondées sur des scénarios plus ou moins vraisemblables : ainsi certains linguistes qui les défendent se fondent sur l’étude des populations de bateaux négriers, d’autres insistent sur l’importance de la colonisation portugaise, certains soulignent que le temps passé dans les ports avant l’embarquement permettait aux esclaves de commencer à forger un medium commun, certains encore sont sensibles au fait que l’Afrique, qui a laissé des traces si importantes dans le " type " physique des populations, a bien dû aussi modeler la langue résultant des contacts, etc. Les théories varient, certes, mais si les faits historiques sont sûrs, le passage de données statistiques, historiques, géographiques, politiques ou économiques aux faits linguistiques se révèle très souvent délicat (et donc aventuré). Effectivement, la présence de nombreux esclaves originaires d’un pays à un moment donné de la colonisation n’implique pas :

— qu’ils parlaient tous la même langue ;

— que la parlant, ils l’utilisaient pour leurs échanges ;

— que l’utilisation de cette langue par une population d’esclaves ait eu des conséquences directes sur le créole : celui-ci pouvait être déjà en partie constitué quand ils sont arrivés aux îles ; les relations de travail pouvaient impliquer le recours préférentiel à une autre langue, etc.

Conclure que des données historiques ont des conséquences automatiques sur la langue de communication et qu’elles expliquent les structures linguistiques est audacieux, et c’est pour cela que nous parlons d’hypothèses : les situations de multilinguismes n’ont pas fini de révéler leurs mystères, et la question de la domination d’une langue sur une autre ou plusieurs autres implique de nombreux facteurs, et il faut bien se garder de suggérer des solutions simples.

C’est pourquoi, il nous semble indispensable de proposer aussi des analyses linguistiques fondées sur les textes rédigés en créole au cours de la courte histoire des mondes créoles. Cela ne signifie pas que l’on méprise les hypothèses élaborées par certains avec beaucoup de talent, mais correspond au désir de pousser le plus loin possible l’étude des évolutions linguistiques qui peuvent, à terme, permettre de vérifier ou falsifier telle ou telle hypothèse. »

QUATRIÈME EXEMPLE -- Docteur en linguistique, Renauld Govain a présenté le 1er juin 2022 –à l’Université Paris 8 Vincennes – Saint-Denis / UFR Sciences du langage / UMR 7023, SFL/CNRS--, son remarquable « Mémoire de synthèse » en vue de l’obtention de « L’habilitation à diriger des recherches ». Ce mémoire post-doctoral a pour titre « La question linguistique haïtienne : histoire, usages et description ».

Le chapitre 3 de cet exceptionnel « Mémoire de synthèse » s’intitule « Le créole haïtien entre le temps et l’espace ». L’auteur nous enseigne ceci : 

« La formation des créoles à base lexicale française remonte aux XVIIe -XVIIIe siècles, au contact du FR [français] et de langues des esclaves provenant d’Afrique de l’Ouest dans le cadre de la colonisation française. Les premiers balbutiements du CH [créole haïtien] remontent à la fin du XVIIIe siècle, à la suite de la signature du traité de Ryswick le 25 septembre 1697 cédant à la France la partie occidentale de l’île d’Haïti baptisée Saint-Domingue par les colons, qui va devenir la République d’Haïti où va se développer le CH [créole haïtien]. Et l’Espagne a gardé la partie orientale occupant les deux tiers de l’île, aujourd’hui la RD [République dominicaine]. Ce traité de Ryswick est signé 12 ans après l’adoption du Code noir connu sous le nom de l'Ordonnance ou Édit de mars 1685 sur les esclaves des îles de l'Amérique signée par le roi Louis XIV en 1685 en vue de réglementer la condition des esclaves noirs de Saint-Domingue. L’importation d’esclaves d’Afrique à Saint-Domingue débute à peu près à cette même période. La colonie française de Saint-Domingue officialise son entrée dans la Traite négrière avec l’ordonnance de 1685, bien que la naissance de la Traite remonte à la fin de la première moitié du XVe siècle, en 1441 avec les Portugais (Botte, 1991) ».

« Le CH [créole haïtien] s’est ainsi développé dans un contexte transactionnel entre le FR [français] et des langues africaines des esclaves arrachés d’Afrique et transportés à Saint-Domingue. C’est dans cette logique que se situe la théorie africaniste de l’émergence du CH [créole haïtien] à savoir qu’il est une langue africaine à vocabulaire français (Sylvain, 1936). Les traces des langues indigènes d’avant les colonisations (espagnole puis française) ne sont guère aussi visibles que celles du FR [français] et des langues africaines en ce que les autochtones ont été assez rapidement décimés pour avoir été contraints de travailler très durement à l’extraction de métaux précieux, expériences dont ils n’avaient pas l’habitude, un acte génocidaire dont l’histoire occidentale classique a très peu parlé. Les langues indigènes avaient été digérées parce que la colonisation française était glottophage (dans le sens de Calvet, 1974), linguicide, voire glottophobe (dans le sens de Blanchet, 2016), d’autant que les colons ne toléraient que le FR [français] comme langue de communication dans la colonie. » [Le souligné en italiques et gras est de RBO]

« Cette hégémonie du FR [français] a traversé le temps et l’espace et perdure. Cette pratique glottophobe est encore actuelle : en France même, seule est valorisée la langue normée (Blanchet, 2016) ; en Haïti, elle a pour conséquence une minoration du CH [créole haïtien] et une majoration du FR [français] et, dans le contexte d’enseignement / apprentissage, une infériorisation d’apprenants ne connaissant pas le FR [français]. Avant l’importation massive d’esclaves, les Français étaient majoritaires. Ces langues indigènes auront laissé peu de traces sur le CH [créole haïtien]. Le FR [français] avait certes seul droit de cité dans la colonie mais, ce n’était pas encore une langue unifiée. Il s’est notamment agi de la variété d’oïl pratiquée dans le nord-ouest de la France du XVIIe siècle et qui comportait des variantes telles que l’intercompréhension n’était guère garantie. Ces variantes vont se trouver au contact de diverses langues africaines à Saint-Domingue, même si on ne peut pas préciser ces langues. Mais les langues du groupe kwa (dont principalement les langues gbés) étaient à un certain moment majoritaires considérant l’origine géographique de la majorité des esclaves au moment de l’émergence de la langue. »

« Les peuples de la Côte d’Or et de la Côte des Esclaves (Ghana, Haute-Volta, Togo, Dahomey, Nigeria occidental) fournissaient, après ceux des côtes du Congo et de l’Angola, le plus grand nombre de captifs aux plantations de Saint-Domingue Les Aradas, dénomination commune des captifs de nations diverses traités sur la Côte d’Or et de la Côte des Esclaves, avaient des croyances religieuses apparentées et une compréhension commune de l’ewe, langue de liaison de la région. (Midy, 2006 : 182). Lefebvre (1998), dans sa théorie de la relexification en référence à la genèse du CH [créole haïtien] soutient que celui-ci proviendrait de deux langues sources : le FR [français] et le fongbé pratiqué sur la Côte d’Or, en particulier sur les côtes du Bénin. À partir de 1750, les négriers français s’approvisionnaient à grande échelle au sud du Bénin (Midy, 2006). »

« On peut placer la naissance du CH [créole haïtien] dans le cadre d’une certaine mondialisation où s’étaient rencontrés sur un même espace géographique des locuteurs de langues, origines, cultures, nationalités, pays différents. Cette mondialisation forcée caractérisée par un violent déracinement suivi de la déportation massive d’Afrique dans la Caraïbe de locuteurs d’origines linguistiques diverses a créé une situation de contact de langues qui va redessiner l’identité linguistique de la région. Cette mondialisation est différente de celle d’aujourd’hui qui est une panacée socioéconomique, culturelle et politique traversant les États, les communautés, les cultures, voire les langues et qui est davantage profitable à l’anglais qu’elle promeut à travers les systèmes sociopolitiques, les organisations internationales, la technique ou la recherche. Le globalais (l’anglais-langue-du-monde) est une conséquence de cette mondialisation qui se présente comme un passage obligé en ce qu’elle développe des liens d’interdépendance entre les êtres humains, les activités humaines et les systèmes politiques à l’échelle de la planète » (Godinot, 2008 : 337). » [Le souligné en italiques et gras est de RBO]

Article du linguiste John McWhorter

« One Horror of Slavery That Until Recently Could Not Be Told »

The New York Times, 13 novembre 2025

Traduction française : Sandra Cadet

« Une horreur de l’esclavage qui, jusqu’à récemment, ne pouvait être racontée »

Lorsque le navire négrier connu sous le nom de Zorg quitta ce qui est aujourd'hui la côte ghanéenne en 1781, il se dirigea vers la Jamaïque, avec 442 Africains impitoyablement entassés dans l'espace destiné à environ 250 personnes. En chemin, il dévia de sa trajectoire, et la déshydratation ainsi que le scorbut eurent raison de l'équipage et de la cargaison. Le capitaine, gravement malade, nomma comme remplaçant un vaurien égoïste, un gouverneur colonial récemment congédié. Navigateur incompétent, il navigua au-delà de la Jamaïque.

Après trois mois en mer, lui et les deux autres hommes blancs aux commandes jetèrent environ 125 Africains réduits en esclavage par-dessus bord pour les noyer ou les faire dévorer par des requins.

De retour en Angleterre, le propriétaire du Zorg demanda une indemnisation d'assurance pour la perte. Lors du procès, il affirma que les réserves d'eau étaient si basses que l'envoi des Africains à la mort était la seule façon de garder les autres esclaves et eux-mêmes en vie. Lors d'un second procès, cependant — convoqué en réponse à un éditorial enflammé d'un abolitionniste outré — il s’avéra que le Zorg avait en fait beaucoup d'eau. Pourquoi, alors, les esclaves furent-ils jetés par-dessus bord? Parce que le capitaine avait déterminé que, dans leur état affaibli, ils auraient plus de valeur en tant que réclamation d'assurance que comme marchandise de vente aux enchères. Personne ne fut accusé de ce crime.

Siddharth Kara donne vie à ces événements répugnants, ainsi qu'à leurs répercussions conséquentes, dans le nouveau livre saisissant « The Zorg : A Tale of Greed and Murder That Inspired the Abolition of Slavery ». Parmi ses nombreuses révélations — y compris une description du Passage du Milieu aussi viscérale que le récit de la vie dans les plantations dans « James » de Percival Everett — figure la dure réalité du fait que d'autres Africains aient été vendus comme esclaves par d'autres Africains. Pas seulement quelques-uns d'entre eux. Selon les historiens John Thornton et Linda Heywood, dans leur étude sur la traite des esclaves au début des années 1600, environ 90% des Africains noirs vendus comme esclaves en Amérique du Nord anglaise et néerlandaise durant cette période avaient d'abord été capturés lors de guerres par d'autres Africains noirs. Les captifs étaient vendus à des commerçants blancs contre de l'or et des armes, puis nourris dans la gueule affamée de l'économie des plantations de l'autre côté de l'océan.

« The Zorg », fascinant en soi, arrive à un moment intéressant. L'histoire de l'implication des Noirs dans la traite des esclaves a souvent été considérée comme interdite — au mieux gênante et carrément calomnieuse, au pire. Mais elle a gagné en popularité ces dernières années. J'ai été heureux d’en voir la mention au Musée national d'histoire et de culture afro-américaines (bien que j'aurais souhaité un traitement plus approfondi) et fasciné de voir qu'il s'agit d'un thème important de l'exposition actuelle des peintures de Kerry James Marshall à la Royal Academy of  Art.

Kara décrit comment les esclaves étaient souvent capturés à des centaines de kilomètres à l'intérieur des terres et forcés de marcher jusqu'à la côte, enchaînés, cheville contre cheville, dans un « cercle » pouvant contenir plus de 100 âmes malheureuses. Le voyage pouvait durer six mois ou plus, et jusqu'à un tiers d'entre eux mouraient en chemin, laissés à pourrir sur le bord de la route. Les captifs furent vendus par des marchands haoussa à des commerçants ashantis, qui les revendaient ensuite à des membres de la tribu Fante, qui à leur tour les revendaient aux fonctionnaires blancs qui géraient les châteaux de traite d'esclaves sur la côte. Là, ils furent emprisonnés pendant des mois supplémentaires dans le donjon sombre et fétide du château, attendant d’être achetés par les capitaines de navires négriers. De là, ils passèrent par la « porte du non-retour » et entrèrent dans les cales de navires comme le Zorg.

Certains de ces châteaux de traite d'esclaves existent encore. Ma famille et moi en avons visité un en 1987, sur l'île de Gorée au Sénégal. Nous avons tenu dans nos mains les chaînes qui immobilisaient d'innombrables milliers de personnes innocentes. En regardant l'océan, j'ai essayé d'imaginer ce que ça faisait d'être entassé dans le plus grand navire qu'on ait probablement jamais vu et d’être emmené vers un destin dont on ne savait rien, parce que personne n'était jamais revenu pour raconter l'histoire.

Depuis, j'ai lu tout ce que j'ai pu sur ce que ces châteaux étaient. Le récit de Kara est le plus accessible que j'ai rencontré. Il explique l'anatomie du château de Cape Coast, un écosystème complexe comprenant des administrateurs blancs, des soldats, des artisans, des ouvriers, des comptables et un aumônier, ainsi qu'un grand nombre d'« esclaves du château » qui vivaient dans un village séparé. Ils travaillaient par équipes et par degrés de bondage : certains étaient des habitants qui recevaient un salaire; d'autres étaient des esclaves prêtés par les rois locaux. Quelques-uns parmi eux se sont retrouvés plus tard dans les colonies.

Depuis les châteaux, les captifs furent transportés en canot jusqu'au navire négrier sur des vagues terrifiantes, une autre torture, puis livrés dans la cale négrière. Même les diagrammes que vous avez peut-être vus montrant la coupe transversale d'un navire négrier, avec des corps humains empilés comme du bois de chauffage, ne rendent pas pleinement compte de l'horreur du Passage du Milieu. Les esclaves étaient coincés dans ce qui était essentiellement des étagères, d'un peu plus de deux pieds de hauteur. Quand le navire tanguait, les planches de bois contre lesquelles ils étaient coincés pouvaient arracher de larges morceaux de chair. L'odeur des personnes mourantes ou déjà mortes était presque insupportable. Sur le Zorg, une femme a accouché — et a été jetée par-dessus bord avec son bébé.

Comme l'a écrit le professeur d'études afro-américaines Henry Louis Gates Jr ., et comme je l'ai vécu, les gens sont souvent mal à l'aise d'apprendre que les Africains se sont vendus les uns les autres dans cet enfer vivant. Une objection fréquente est que les Africains n'avaient aucun moyen de savoir dans quelles conditions leurs captifs se retrouveraient. Mais ils ont vu ces captifs être conduits presque à mort, vendus comme des animaux et enfermés dans un château d'esclaves. Les trafiquants d'esclaves africains noirs disposaient de suffisamment d'informations pour comprendre l'immoralité fondamentale de cette entreprise. Si les Blancs avaient vu seulement ce que les Africains ont vu, nous n'hésiterions pas à les juger comme des impardonnables complices du péché. [Le souligné en italiques et gras est de RBO]

Une leçon de « The Zorg » est que l'histoire et les gens sont complexes. La vision, récemment à la mode, de l'histoire américaine (ou occidentale) comme un long règlement de comptes, où le Blanc est toujours l'oppresseur et les personnes de couleur toujours les subalternes, est au fond une tentation enfantine qui nous dispense de nous engager dans les détails et la nuance. Les humains de toutes les couleurs de peau ont souvent été horribles les uns envers les autres. Notre travail est de lutter contre cette tendance, pas de faire semblant qu'elle n'existe pas. Et de célébrer ceux qui le surmontent, quelle que soit leur race. L'abolitionnisme — une réussite occidentale anglophone dont Kara parle dans un dernier chapitre — était un exemple clé de cet effort, et « The Zorg » est un enseignement précieux sur ce qui l'a rendu si important.

D'ailleurs, une des raisons pour lesquelles ces châteaux me fascinent autant, c'est à cause de mon travail de linguiste. Ces sites de tant de cruauté et de mort étaient, selon mes recherches, aussi le berceau de nombreuses langues créoles du Nouveau Monde. Le patois jamaïcain, le gullah de la Caroline du Sud, le « créole » de la Guyane et bien d'autres ont commencé là. Les esclaves qui travaillaient dans le château trouvaient des moyens de communiquer avec les Blancs qui les avaient achetés. Si les esclaves du château ont ensuite été envoyés de l'autre côté de l'Atlantique, la lingua franca est partie avec eux et est devenue la langue commune des personnes réduites en esclavage qui travaillaient dans les plantations. [Le souligné en italiques et gras est de RBO]

Les esclaves ont disparu depuis longtemps, mais les langues qu'ils ont créées sont toujours bien vivantes et indiquent une naissance spécifique sur la côte ghanéenne, dans des châteaux de traite d'esclaves. L'histoire est là dans pratiquement chaque phrase. Les esclaves étaient capturés sur une vaste étendue de la côte nord-ouest de l'Afrique, du Sénégal au Ghana jusqu'à l'Angola, des régions où les langues diffèrent autant que le français, le japonais et l'arabe. Pourtant, toutes les variétés de « patois » des Caraïbes ont des structures grammaticales basées sur les langues parlées dans un seul endroit : les régions du Ghana actuel où se trouvaient les châteaux d'esclaves. Il y a autre chose qui les lie : tous utilisent des variantes de « unu », un pronom à la deuxième personne du pluriel que l'on retrouve uniquement dans la langue igbo du Nigeria, parlée sur cette même côte. (Ici en Amérique, les locuteurs du Gullah disent « hunnuh ».) [Le souligné en italiques et gras est de RBO]

Il n'est pas logique que le même pronom soit cohérent dans une trentaine de patois caribéens différents, créés par des locuteurs d'une bonne douzaine de langues — à moins que « unu » ne soit entré dans leur ADN par l’intermédiaire de l’unique créole ancestral en Afrique et ait ensuite été diffusé dans toute la région.

Un membre de l'équipage du Zorg a écrit dans son journal qu'un esclave a déclaré que lui et les autres préféraient mourir de faim plutôt que d'être jetés par-dessus bord. Il a fait sa demande en anglais, ce que Kara suggère qu’il a habilement appris de ce qu'il pouvait entendre alors qu'il était enchaîné dans la soute. C'est une histoire vivante, mais ce n'est pas ainsi que les humains acquièrent une langue. Selon moi, il semble plus probable que l'homme ait appris un peu d'anglais pendant qu'il était enfermé comme esclave dans un château.

Robert Berrouët-Oriol

Linguiste-terminologue"
https://www.lenational.org/post_article.php?cul=2934
#Metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus

"Lawyer takes Government to court over delay in translation of employment codes

 

 

Harare – based labour law expert, Adv Caleb Mucheche, has approached the High Court seeking an order to compel the Government to translate employment codes of conduct into all 14 constitutionally recognised vernacular languages and sign language...

 

Adv Mucheche, the first president of Zimbabwe African Labour Society for Labour Practitioners in Zimbabwe, argues that their failure to ensure translations constitutes an act of “constitutional perfidy” and systemic discrimination against workers not fluent in English.

 

He describes the current system as one that “weaponises the disciplinary process against workers” and denies the majority of Zimbabwean workers meaningful access to justice.

 

Currently, employment codes of conduct, including the National Code of Conduct (S.I. 15 of 2006) and public service regulations, are only required to be translated into Shona and Ndebele, leaving out other official languages such as Tonga, Kalanga, and sign language.

 

Adv Mucheche argues that this selective approach violates the constitutional mandate of inclusivity and equality.

 

“This omission obliterates the right to fair labour practice, turning due process into a punitive administrative formality,” he states.

 

Citing Section 6 (1) of the Constitution, Adv Mucheche underscores that all 16 official languages of Zimbabwe – including sign language-enjoy equal status and must be treated as such in labour regulations.

 

He asserts that the Registrar of Labour’s continued certification of English-only codes is not only unlawful but also an affront to the principle of constitutional supremacy.

 

“This is systemic linguistic discrimination that renders the ‘equal benefit’ of the law a legal fiction,” he argues.

 

The application seeks declaratory and mandamus orders to compel the respondents to enforce mandatory translation of all workplace codes within three months.

 

Adv Mucheche further requests that the Labour Code Regulations of 1990 be amended to explicitly require translations into all official languages.

 

He maintains that this omission is not a mere oversight but a deliberate failure to uphold constitutional obligations.

 

“The failure to immediately amend the regulations to incorporate all official languages is a breach of the constitutional mandate,” he declares.

 

This case is a direct challenge to what Adv Mucheche calls “institutional violence” against workers who are linguistically disenfranchised.

 

He emphasises that the Constitution mandates the state to ensure all citizens can access legal frameworks in their own languages. The current situation, he says, creates a legal vacuum.

 

 

“The inaccessible code of conduct leaves workers legally naked and susceptible to merciless employer action.”

 

Adv Mucheche concludes his affidavit by urging the court to intervene, describing the issue as one of fundamental human rights.

 

“This is not a matter of minor administrative detail; it is a critical intervention to secure linguistic justice and the supremacy of the Constitution.”

 

This move is rooted in the supreme law and labour laws of Zimbabwe, which demand inclusivity and accessibility for all citizens.

 

More than a decade after the enactment of the 2013 Constitution of Zimbabwe, the Government has yet to fulfill its legal obligation.

 

The Constitution explicitly requires the Ministry to facilitate the translation of these critical documents from English into the diverse local languages of the nation. The respondents are yet to respond to the application."

December 5, 2025

Fidelis Munyoro

Chief Court Reporter

https://www.heraldonline.co.zw/lawyer-takes-government-to-court-over-delay-in-translation-of-employment-codes/

#Metaglossia 

#metaglossia_mundus 

Orla Case explores translated fiction, its cross-cultural benefits, and the linguistic science behind it.

"by Orla Case
December 3, 2025

My Saturday mornings consist largely of one poorly timed wakeup, two scalding coffees, three minutes late to my weekly Oxford Blue meeting, and four more books purchased in Blackwell’s on the journey home. Each time I make the fateful £45 decision to walk through that door, I find myself drawn specifically to the ‘Translated Fiction’ section on the first floor. A section so beguiling I metamorphose into a voracious magpie, in awe of the dazzling titles and shiny covers. I am by no means alone in my fascination: a recent survey conducted by Nielsen for the Booker Prize Foundation highlights that young people drive the sales of translated fiction, despite the largest group of readers being over the age of 60. Recently, I have started to wonder if the segregation of translated fiction from works originally composed in English may be problematic, despite its convenience. Does the separation of translated works simply acknowledge the painstaking and vital work of the translators involved? The notion that works of fiction not originally written in English, and thus ideas not originally pondered in English, are in some way inherently different or perhaps second-fiddle is most certainly a dangerous one.

The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, more commonly known as the theory of linguistic relativity, posits that the language that we speak is related to, and influences, the way we think. Deservedly, this theory has come under great scrutiny sinceqqq its inception. Originating from the assumption that Native American people were inferior in their grammatical structure, and therefore their cognition, this hypothesis is rooted in colonialism. American linguist William Dwight Whitney went as far to state that Native American languages must be eradicated, and that those who spoke them should be taught English in order to adopt a ‘civilized’ way of life. In this case, the implication that thought differs with language fosters nothing more than bigotry. However, contemporary cognitive scientists and linguistic philosophers alike have accepted a slightly more palatable form of the theory of linguistic relativity: that language reciprocally influences thought. For instance, in his elementary works, Whorf himself discovered that in the Inuit lexicon, there are three words to distinguish varieties of snow, enabling increased perceptual discrimination between types of snow in Inuit communities. This is an example of a lexical gap, as a direct translation of such terms does not exist in English.To put it plainly, native English speakers simply do not need three words for snow. French and Czech author Milan Kundera, known for his groundbreaking novel The Unbearable Lightness of Being, emphasises the issues that lexical gaps breed for translators. The Czech word ‘litost’ has no exact translation in any other language, yet Kundera cannot “see how anyone can understand the human soul without”. The term depicts a feeling “as infinite as an open accordion, a synthesis of grief, sympathy, remorse, and indefinable longing”, which begs the question – does the language in which we read a novel change the emotions it evokes? And, if this is truly the case, does translating a piece of literature from its mother tongue dampen its effect?

One of my personal favourite examples of translated literature is the work of Olga Tokarczuk, a Nobel Prize-winning Polish author whose literary activism is laced with what can only be described as magical realism. Antonia Lloyd-Jones, who has translated many of Tokarczuk’s works into English, shared her experience with translating in an interview with Notes from Poland. Lloyd-Jones admits that “it is difficult not to get seduced by the Polish text and stick too closely to what’s on the page”, and expresses the need to consider “if this person were writing in English, how would they write that?”. The role of the translator is ultimately not to reproduce, but to allow each and every individual to best reap the benefits of the abundant harvest of literature worldwide, maintaining both connotation and denotation

Translated fiction is a vehicle for literary travel across borders, facilitating visits to the best tourist attractions and recreational indulgence in some of the intimate aspects of different cultures. It is not a pair of magic glasses that enables us to see the world from another perspective. Our digestion of translated fiction is inevitably compromised by our backgrounds and past experiences, but this does not take away from its merit as a window into the life of another. We will never know what it is like to think in another first language, just as we will never know what it’s like to grow up somewhere else. In an International Booker Prize interview, Vigdis Hjorth, author of Is Mother Dead,  says that reading translated fiction is important because:

“reading fiction from abroad, but in your own language, is a meeting with experiences, environments and cultures that are different from your own, but still you met them in a way that is familiar, in your own language. It’s a win-win experience”.

The way we think is most certainly impacted by the culture in which we are embedded, which inevitably includes our native language. Thus, the creative labour of the translator in preserving the intentions of the author, whilst appealing to a dissimilar cultural demographic, is not one to be overlooked. To acknowledge that a piece is translated is to acknowledge our ignorance of it in its true context, but appreciate the invaluable insight it gives us. Whilst the emotions aroused when reading a book in English might not be the same as those experienced when reading it in its original form, it is the closest we can come to literary universality, to broadening our horizons in the comfort of our own homes, and to embracing our unrelenting curiosity. Completely incomparable, translated fiction cannot be dictated as better or worse than its originally English counterpart; it is a necessary piece of the puzzle depicting humankind. We should all engage with it, but not with the expectation that it is a perfect representation of the initial version in its true context."
https://theoxfordblue.co.uk/meta-whorf-asis-on-litost-and-translated-fiction/?amp=1
#Metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus

"''Thirukkural'' translation to be made available in 30 more languages by Jan 2026, says official

 

Varanasi (Uttar Pradesh) | The Central Institute of Classical Tamil has started a new initiative to translate the classical Tamil text, Thirukkural, into 30 more languages, a top official of the institute said.

 

Thirukkural, which consists of 1,330 aphoristic couplets that are divided into three parts -- on virtue, material world and romantic love -- and is lauded as having universal relevance beyond its time.

 

The text has so far been translated into 34 languages, including 25 Indian languages, said R Chandrasekaran, Director, Central Institute of Classical Tamil, an autonomous institution established by the Ministry of Education, Chennai, after Tamil was declared a classical language in 2004.

 

"In addition to the 34 languages in which Tirukkural is already available, we have a plan to make it available in 30 more languages, including 23 Indian languages by Pongal 2026," he told PTI.

 

The Institute wants to see Thirukkural in 100 languages by August 2026, Prof Chandrasekaran said.

 

"That will convey to the world the value and specialities of Thirukkural to the people living across the globe," he said.

 

To a question, he said that the Centre wants to expand the reach of Thirukkural and its values by taking it to the people living in various parts of the globe, and hence the institute translates the text into more languages.

 

Some of the Indian languages into which Thirukkural is to be translated are non-scheduled languages. For example, it will be translated into a language spoken by the Irular tribe living in the Ootacamund, Nilgiris district, he said.

 

"We have released the translation of Tirukkural in scheduled languages already. Now, we are releasing it in non-scheduled languages," he explained.

 

To another query, he said some of the foreign languages into which Thirukkural is proposed to be translated include German, French and Spanish.

 

"We are tentatively planning to launch the translation of Thirukkural into non-scheduled languages by January 2026", he said.

 

It may be noted that January 15, the second day of Pongal festival (and Tamil month 'Thai'), is celebrated as Thiruvallurvar day in Tamil Nadu.

 

Referring to the launch of the multilingual translation of 'Tholkappiam', the oldest Tamil grammar book, by UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on December 2 during the inauguration of Kashi Tamil Sangamam 4.0, Chandrasekharan said the institute has taken up the initiative to cater to a wider section of the people.

 

"It has been translated into 10 languages, including four Indian languages viz. Odia, Assamese, Urdu and Tulu," he said."

Published on :

07 Dec 2025, 7:33 AM

https://english.metrovaartha.com/entertainment/thirukkural-translation-to-be-made-available-in-30-more-languages-by-jan-2026-says-official

#Metaglossia 

#metaglossia_mundus 

"...Oman will host the 8th conference of the International Association for Translation and Intercultural Studies (IATIS) themed "Sustainable Translation in the Age of Knowledge Extraction, Generation and Reproduction".

The 4-day conference will kick off on December 10, 2025 at Sultan Qaboos University (SQU) under the auspices of the Ministry of Information and the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Youth.

The Sultanate of Oman was chosen to host the conference’s 8th edition due to the country’s global reputation as an advocate of peace and a guardian of dialogue, international understanding and coexistence. The event gains impetus amid the current global and regional circumstances.

By hosting the event, the SQU seeks to promote international dialogue through translation studies, intercultural communication and research—the common areas that currently witness remarkable global activity.

The conference will be attended by a select group of scholars, researchers, experts, teaching staff and students from 61 countries.

The conference provides a platform for dialogue and exchange of expertise. It offers opportunities for exploring the latest trends, theories and practices in this field of knowledge. It will focus on its applications in real-life situations like the conservation of heritage, the settlement of peace and the promotion of international understanding.

The prospects also include transferring knowledge in the fields of medicine and public health, establishing the values ​​of justice in legal spheres, as well as related applications in the areas of tourism, information, international relations and the concept of soft power in bridging country-to-country relations.

The conference events include an exhibition about the role of translation in the sustainability of identity, heritage and culture, seminars and panel discussions that bring together participants from the Sultanate of Oman abroad who are specialized in the fields of translation, the sustainability of identity, heritage and culture.

The conference will feature an intensive media programme to be conducted in cooperation with the Ministry of Information. It will also include an educational programme dedicated to students of colleges and universities. The educational programme will be organized in cooperation with the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Youth."

 

OMAN NEWS AGENCY (ONA)

Published: 5:13 PM, Dec 07, 2025"

https://www.omanobserver.om/article/1180765/oman/community/oman-to-host-8th-translation-and-intercultural-studies-conference

#Metaglossia 

#metaglossia_mundus 

Bilingual brains reveal something fundamental about human intelligence. It's not about language. It's about domain translation, the cognitive capacity AI cannot replicate.

 

"What neuroscience reveals about human intelligence.

Updated December 8, 2025

Reviewed by Kaja Perina

 

Key points

Bilingual cognitive benefits stem from domain translation practice, not just language switching itself.

Neural networks manage multiple incompatible systems by selecting context-appropriate responses.

London taxi drivers and Japanese elders show similar cognitive gains through different domains.

Cultivating multilingual or multidomain fluency builds cognitive flexibility AI cannot replicate.

In 2009, I stood in Utrecht presenting research on the bilingual brain at the International Symposium on Bilingualism. This was my great-grandfather Wilhelm's city, the place he'd left more than a century earlier to migrate to Mexico. I was presenting research on the very phenomenon his migration had set in motion.

 

Wilhelm adapted quickly to San Luis Potosí. He learned Spanish, raising five children in a household that was neither fully German nor fully Mexican. He never taught his children German. The language was gone within a generation. But three generations later, my own children recovered it through deliberate immersion during my research fellowships in Germany, becoming trilingual.

 

This family story isn't just personal history. It's a case study in something fundamental about human cognition: Our capacity for adaptation is inseparable from our capacity for translation.

 

The Bilingual Brain as Model

Bilingual individuals offer a useful window into how human cognition achieves flexibility, albeit not for the reasons usually cited. The advantage isn't just about accessing two languages. It's what managing multiple linguistic systems reveals about adaptive cognition.

 

When bilinguals switch between languages, they engage neural networks that manage context-dependent selection—choosing the appropriate linguistic system based on who they're talking to, where they are, what they're discussing. This requires mapping different contexts onto different response systems while maintaining coherent output.

 

This same mechanism operates across domains. London taxi drivers navigating complex spatial layouts show well-known hippocampal adaptations that support managing thousands of routes and selecting the appropriate one based on context (Maguire et al., 2006). A different illustration comes from Japan, where older adults routinely engage with a written language that uses three distinct character systems, hiragana, katakana, and kanji, requiring constant shifts in form, meaning, and context. This ongoing, multisystemic engagement supports cognitive health even in a largely monolingual society.

 

The pattern isn't specific to language. It's about flexibility through managing multiple systems that can't be simultaneously active but must remain accessible. This is domain translation at the cognitive level.

 

Translation as Fundamental Mechanism

Translation, from the Latin translatus, means "to carry across." And this carrying across is what brains do constantly.

 

Every act of cognition involves translation: the infant translates sensory patterns into categories, the child translates embodied experience into symbolic thought, the scientist translates observations into theory. What we call "learning" is translation. What we call "understanding" is translation. What we call "adaptation" is translation between what our neural architecture expects and what the environment provides.

 

This reframes intelligence itself. Intelligence isn't just computation within a single domain. It's the ability to move between domains, to translate incompatible systems of meaning into coherent action.

 

The Human Advantage

This matters urgently because of artificial intelligence. Large language models can process information at scales humans never could, matching human performance on many standardized tasks. However, they remain trapped within computational frameworks.

 

article continues after advertisement

 

Humans do something different. We translate between fundamentally incompatible systems: between computational abstraction and embodied sensation, between symbolic representation and physical presence, between what we can articulate and what we intuitively understand.

 

When we're overwhelmed by abstract processing, we don't solve it with better algorithms. We translate to an entirely different domain: we go for a walk, listen to live music, cook dinner. We move from the symbolic to the sensory.

 

Intelligence Essential Reads

 

The Existential Crisis of the Gifted

 

What It's Like to Be a Gifted, High-IQ Person in a Non-Gifted Family

This isn't stress relief. It's domain translation as survival mechanism. The body knows what the overwhelmed mind forgets: adaptive intelligence requires moving between systems, not optimizing within them.

 

Why This Matters

AI systems optimize within domains. When the environment changes in ways training data didn't anticipate, they fail catastrophically. They have no mechanism for domain translation. They don't have a body. They don't have a life.

 

Humans survive environmental change by switching domains entirely. When one framework stops working, we adopt another. When symbolic processing becomes overwhelming, we shift to sensory experience. When conscious reasoning reaches its limits, we rely on intuition.

 

This flexibility isn't a deficit in human cognition. It's our core strength. We're not information processors who happen to have bodies. We're domain translators who happen to process information.

 

Implications

If translation between domains is our fundamental adaptive mechanism, then human flourishing in the AI era requires cultivating this capacity. This means recognizing when we're domain-trapped and need to translate, developing fluency in multiple domains, and building cognitive architectures that facilitate domain switching.

 

My children's trilingualism isn't only valuable because they can communicate in three languages. It's valuable because they learned early that meaning exists across incompatible systems, that you can belong to multiple worlds simultaneously, that adaptation requires translation.

 

This is what Wilhelm's migration taught me a century later. He didn't just move from Utrecht to San Luis Potosí. He translated himself into a new world while maintaining continuity of self. The capacity to become someone new while remaining yourself, to carry meaning across incompatible domains, is the inheritance that matters.

 

The Future

AI will continue improving at computational tasks within defined domains. But the uniquely human advantage lies in our ability to move between domains AI cannot bridge. Between computation and embodiment. Between optimization and meaning. Between what we can measure and what we can feel.

 

The future won't belong to those who process the most information. It will belong to those who can translate between human and artificial intelligence, between multiple systems of meaning, between who we are and who we need to become.

 

Because adaptation, at its core, has always been translation. And translation, at its core, has always been human...

 

References

 

Maguire, E. A., Woollett, K., & Spiers, H. J. (2006). London taxi drivers and bus drivers: A structural MRI and neuropsychological analysis. Hippocampus, 16(12), 1091–1101. https://doi.org/10.1002/hipo.20233";

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-emergence-of-skill/202512/the-bilingual-brain-translation-as-adaptation

#metaglossia_mundus

#Metaglossia

"Catherine Thankamma writes about her experience of translating Malayalam novels, ‘Kocharethi’ by Narayan, and ‘Pulayathara’ by Paul Chirakkarode, into English.

Catherine Thankamma

Dec 07, 2025 · 01:30 pm

 

Translating regional language texts into English has become the “in” thing in the last two decades, with translators, especially in Kerala, eagerly soliciting writers to get a chance to translate their novels. With Geetanjali Shree and Banu Mushtaq winning the International Booker Prize, the fervour has definitely hit the roof. The eagerness to translate, however, wanes when it comes to texts that occupy a space beyond the boundaries of mainstream literature, texts that are sidelined, at times even erased by the source language literary community.

 

However, when such texts do get translated into English, the translation performs the unintended task of enabling them to gain visibility and traction within the linguistic terrain from which they evolved; it’s almost like forcing the hand of the mainstream literary community to acknowledge the existence of these texts and their authors. I refer to two of my translations to prove my point, Kocharethi by Narayan, India’s first tribal novelist, and Pulayathara by Paul Chirakkarode, both novels that have withstood the test of time.

 

A strategic act of defiance

Narayan belonged to the Mala Araya tribe, which at one time inhabited the hilly terrain of the Western Ghats in central Travancore. He was born in 1940, seven years before India gained independence. A first-generation literate, he passed the tenth standard examination and joined the postal service in Kochi. He began his literary career by penning short stories. Writing Kocharethi, his first novel, was a strategic act of defiance against a certain upper caste writer’s attempt to misrepresent the tribal community and reduce it to a trope. He completed the novel in 1988 and gave the manuscript to a friend for an objective evaluation. The friend took the manuscript but forgot all about it. Narayan wasted almost five years, too diffident to ask his friend what he thought about its literary worth. Finally urged by another friend, he retrieved the manuscript; then rewrote it as the ink had dulled by then.

 

The book was published in 1998, a decade later. It won the 1999 Kerala Sahitya Academy Award and two other awards. The ordinary Malayalee reader welcomed the novel wholeheartedly but the response of the literary elite was unsettling. While some openly challenged the text’s legitimacy, the diplomatic ones opted for a willed silence. The result, even as late as 2009, postgraduates in Malayalam, research scholars in Malayalam, who spoke volubly on black identity and negritude, had not heard of Narayan and Kocharethi, despite the fact that the text had been translated into Hindi, and a Tamil translation was in the offing. A few translators did approach Narayan, expressing interest in translating the text into English, but all they did was pocket the complimentary copy and disappear.

 

The English translation finally materialised only because the late Ayyappa Paniker demanded that Mini Krishnan of Oxford University Press commission it. That I, whose only credentials as a translator at that time were limited to half a dozen short stories of NS Madhavan, which I translated for The Little Magazine, was asked to translate a text like Kocharethi speaks for itself.

 

Translating the novel was difficult, requiring frequent and extensive interactions with the author. The weight of the realisation that I was not just translating a text, but bore the moral and ethical responsibility of translating an entire tribal community’s interaction with modernity, was daunting. Narayan helped me understand the cultural nuances of usage and expressions, as well as gain insight into the customs and rituals of the tribe. And of course, I had a brilliant editor in Mini Krishnan. Then came the 2011 Crossword Award, which inevitably extended the text and the author’s visibility beyond Kerala’s literary terrain, ensuring translations into three more regional languages plus French. Juri Dutta’s translation won the Assam Sahitya Academy award. But I want to focus on the shift in perception that occurred in the source language community.

 

Academia could no longer ignore a text that had travelled so far as to be included in the culture studies program of the University of Calgary. Malayalam and English language departments across the state included the text in their postgraduate syllabi, not in any core paper, mind you, but in optional papers like Dalit Studies, Translation Studies or Culture Studies; papers whose inclusion makes the syllabus look impressive but few colleges opt for. Narayan continued to be an outsider for the most part, dignified till the end. I recall an incident: When urged to undergo cardiac surgery, Narayan stumped the doctor with the words, “I walked half a kilometre to get here. Can you guarantee that I will walk out of this hospital?”

 

When Narayan died in 2022 due to Covid-related complications, the print and visual media mentioned his passing, and a brief statement of condolence was made in the state assembly; that was all. Way back in 2011, when a certain powerful academic and Adivasi welfare activist vehemently opposed Mini Krishnan’s claim that Narayan was India’s first tribal writer, Krishnan gracefully withdrew, and the translation introduced Narayan as South India’s first tribal writer. However, in a recent publication, the same writer calls Narayan India’s first tribal writer; an acknowledgement that has come too late for the one person who would have treasured it! However, Narayan has one great asset, the backing of his Mala Araya tribe, which is determined that his legacy remains.

 

A powerful depiction of oppression

The same cannot be said of Paul Chirakkarode, who died in 2008. He wrote Pulayathara in 1962. It’s a short novel, with a simple storyline but certain features make it remarkable; one, the seamless interweaving of social history and fiction, which transforms it into a powerful depiction of the oppression and persecution of the Pulaya community who worked in the paddy fields of Kuttanad in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Second, the way Chirakkarode moulds language to depict the various levels of oppression and angst experienced not just by Dalits who convert to Christianity but also those who adhere to their native beliefs and rituals; for instance, the monosyllabic acquiescent responses of the indigenous Dalit labourer which reveal the near total erasure of autonomy, the half- formed sentences of the converted Dalits who struggle to express their thoughts, the crisp, controlled utterances of the upper caste landlords; they are all linguistic markers of inequality, held together the omniscient narratorial voice which alternates between strident criticism and evocative sentences that achieve almost lyrical cadences.

 

Most importantly, Pulayathara exposes the hypocrisy of the Church, which even as it actively engages in converting Dalits, maintains a complicit silence regarding the inequality that exists within the church, making no attempt to erase the caste hierarchy that is maintained between the Syrian Christians who claim an ancient lineage and converted Dalits, a hierarchy which is manifested spatially with the converts sitting on straw mats on the floor while the Syrian Christians lounge on benches at the back of the church.

 

The church naturally does not take well to criticism. As no one would publish the novel, Chirakkarode paid for 500 copies to be printed, but the church, which is a major vote bank in Kerala politics, made sure that the book disappeared from the public domain. When Oxford University Press commissioned the Anthology of Malayalam Dalit literature in translation and the editors decided to include a few chapters from Pulayathara, they discovered that only two copies existed in all of Kerala, one of which was a tattered copy in Thiruvananthapuram public library, on the brink of being weeded.

 

Now comes the interesting part. The news of the anthology prompted Raven Books, a local publisher, to bring out a thousand copies of the source text. When the English translation appeared in 2019, Malayala Manorama, a leading publishing house, stepped in to reprint the source text. Translation into English did something unique; it made it impossible for the source language community to feign ignorance anymore; ensured the rebirth of the source text after five and a half decades of incognito existence. What saddens me, however, is that in spite of knowing all this history of exclusion and near erasure, prejudice made a certain well-known Malayalee Dalit writer incapable of an objective assessment of the text and Chirakkarode’s contribution to Malayalam literature.

 

I recall an incident that occurred a couple of years ago. I was asked to conduct a translation workshop in a local college. The texts selected for the two-day program included a poem by a well-known Malayalam Dalit writer. The powerful imagery prompted me to check if it had been translated. It had. However, a crucial line had been carelessly translated, thereby destroying not just a powerful image but the very structural and thematic cohesion of the poem. The poet is unaware of the error that has crept into the translation. More importantly, anyone who reads just the translation will dismiss the poem as trivial. Uncompromising integrity to the source text, therefore, needs to be the cornerstone of the translation process, particularly in the case of writers from marginalised communities, who are either deceased or lack the necessary competence to identify errors that can occur during the process of translation.

 

Catherine Thankamma’s latest book is A Kind of Meat and Other Stories."

https://scroll.in/article/1088914/translators-notebook-uncompromising-integrity-is-essential-when-translating-texts-from-the-margins

#Metaglossia 

#metaglossia_mundus 

As trees across campus shed the last of their autumn leaves, a new species of tree blossomed in the Department of World Languages, Literatures and Cultures. Its trunk and branches were papier-mâché, and its colorful leaves displayed various versions of a single poem. Students created the tree as a part of Introduction to the Art of Translation, a class about the theory of translation taught by Marella Feltrin-Morris, professor in the Department of World Languages, Literatures and Cultures. 

 

"The translation tree, created by the students in Introduction to the Art of Translation, has been planted in the Office of International Student and Scholar Services, open for additional translations of the Italian poem, “Soldati.”

 

As trees across campus shed the last of their autumn leaves, a new species of tree blossomed in the Department of World Languages, Literatures and Cultures. Its trunk and branches were papier-mâché, and its colorful leaves displayed various versions of a single poem. Students created the tree as a part of Introduction to the Art of Translation, a class about the theory of translation taught by Marella Feltrin-Morris, professor in the Department of World Languages, Literatures and Cultures. 

 

 

 

 

The tree is an artistic representation of the Italian poem “Soldati,” or “Soldiers,” written by nobel-prize winning poet Giuseppe Ungaretti. The tree trunk contains the original poem, with students’ translations written on paper leaves hanging from the branches. 

 

 

 

 

Though the tree initially consisted only of translations created in the class, Feltrin-Morris and her students hope to encourage community members from across to contribute to the project. On Nov. 14, students from the class set up a table in Textor Hall to promote the tree, inviting people passing by to marvel at its beauty and aid its growth. On Dec. 3, the tree was relocated to the Office of International Student and Scholar Services, where international students will be able to add their own translations. 

 

 

 

 

For years, Feltrin-Morris dreamed of creating the tree, but said she felt daunted by her lack of artistic skill. This year, thanks to the enthusiasm of her students, she is finally bringing her vision to life. She enlisted Senior Lio Grogan to assemble the model using twigs from real trees and old newspapers. Though Grogan said they never imagined being this involved in the process, they are pleased with their role in the project. 

 

 

 

 

“Having a visual representation of multiculturalism and multilingualism is very rewarding,” Grogan said. “It’s always fun to see how people interpret things through art [and] language.”

 

 

 

 

The project aims to increase the visibility of translation, a field that Feltrin-Morris said is often taken for granted. 

 

 

 

 

“The translator is not simply conveying information,” Feltrin-Morris said. “They’re also helping understand a different culture.”

 

 

 

 

Communicating the nuances of “Soldati” is particularly challenging. The four line, eight word poem is famous across Italy for its brevity and poignant message. Ungaretti wrote the piece in 1918 while fighting in World War I. The poem compares soldiers to autumn leaves, hanging to life precariously, waiting to drop one by one. The subject matter gave the Translation Tree seasonal relevance — its construction coincided with the height of Fall and Veterans Day. And though the constant imminence of death felt in wartime is a uniquely traumatic experience, the impermanence of mortality is universally relatable. 

 

 

 

 

“I think that the reason why the poem has survived for so long is that it speaks to a sense that we all share at one time or the other,” Feltrin-Morris said. “Not that we think that we’re dying from one moment to the next, but that we feel this sense of insecurity. This certainly speaks to the political situation, the world situation, but even when we think of our own mental health. How do we give voice to that sense of insecurity?”

 

 

 

 

Feltrin-Morris said she also sees autumn leaves as a metaphor for translation itself. The layout of the tree represents the ephemerality of the medium. 

 

 

 

 

“No translation is ever going to be final,” Feltrin-Morris said. “No translation is ever going to be the one. There’s always going to be something else. We appreciate a text, not just through one translation, but through many translations.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The leaves on the tree can be seen with each student’s translations of the poem, highlighting the interpretive nature of translation. (Kai Lincke)

 

The imperfection and impermanence of the field is what makes the class both frustrating and fascinating. By understanding translation as an art form, students learn to see it as a circle of life, rather than a linear process. 

 

 

 

 

One fundamental of the class is the understanding that so much of language can never truly be translated. The course devotes an entire project to “untranslatable words” — words that are so specific in their meaning and cultural context they cannot easily be transferred from one language to another. Students are often asked to translate documents charged with specific emotional significance; Grogan’s current assignment is to translate a death certificate. 

 

 

 

 

Junior Chloé Pénot, a student in the class, said she appreciates the nuances of the discipline. 

 

 

 

 

“In this class, you realize that there is no perfect translation,” Pénot said. “Nothing can be perfect because between languages, there’s no means of communicating exactly phrases, nuances, pictures, all of that.”

 

 

 

 

Each student enriches the class with their unique language knowledge. Students in the class speak Cantonese, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, Spanish and Swahili. Over the years, Feltrin-Morris estimates that the class has included 25 different languages.

 

 

 

 

This year, roughly half the class speaks Spanish, making it the most common language for translations on the tree. Of all the Spanish translations of “Soldati,” no two were exactly alike, varying based on dialect or interpretation of the poem.

 

 

 

 

Sophomore Xavier Newby, a Spanish major and one of the nine Spanish-speaking students in the class, said he was surprised and inspired by the diversity of Spanish translations.

 

 

 

 

“A lot of the time with poetry, especially if you don’t have the author of the poem in front of you, it’s up to your interpretation of what that poem means to you personally,” Newby said. “Capturing all of the different interpretations in a language other than the original when you aren’t the author yourself is really difficult.”

 

 

 

 

Newby said that a translator must decide which aspects of the poem must be prioritized and which must be sacrificed. Should they preserve the rhyme scheme, or emphasize strong word choice? Should they clarify the message, or maintain syllable count?

 

 

 

 

Each translation hanging from the tree alters the poem in a different way. Some students changed the order of the words for clarity. Others changed the placement of line breaks, altering the structure of the piece. 

 

 

 

 

Though Grogan said they often feel daunted by the expansive task of translation, they said they have learned to see the beauty of its imperfection. 

 

 

 

 

“When you’re translating poetry, you might as well become a poet yourself,” Grogan said. “Because you are essentially rewriting the poem … It’s very much an artistic medium.”"

 

By Meital Fried, Contributing Writer

 

December 5, 2025

 

https://theithacan.org/65264/life-culture/art-of-translation-class-utilizes-poetry-to-spread-its-roots/

 

#Metaglossia 

 

#metaglossia_mundus 

""Les Bouquiottes d'lai Castafiore" : un album de Tintin en patois bourguignon de l'Auxois voit le jour

 

Fanny Gelb

8 décembre 2025

 

"Les Bouquiottes d'lai Castafiore", comprenez "Les Bijoux de la Castafiore". Pour la première fois, un album de Tintin en bourguignon de l'Auxois voit le jour. Nicolas Poussy est originaire de Mont-Saint-Jean (Côte-d'Or). Pour ce fan de Tintin, il était naturel de lier ses racines à sa passion.

 

Est-ce que "Les Bouquiottes d'lai Castafiore", ça vous parle ? C'est la traduction de l'album de Tintin "Les Bijoux de la Castafiore" en bourguignon de l'Auxois ! Le vint-et-unième album des Aventures de Tintin, histoire mythique du dessinateur belge Hergé, est traduit dans ce patois de Côte-d'Or. Une initiative de Nicolas Poussy, un tintinophile - un fan de Tintin - originaire de Mont-Saint-Jean. Il a entendu ses grands-parents parler l'Auxois durant toute sa jeunesse. Alors cet album c'est pour continuer à faire vivre cette langue.

 

Dans la commune de Mont-Saint-Jean, à une dizaine de kilomètres de Pouilly-en-Auxois, la charmante maison en pierre de Nicolas Poussy est en plein travaux...

 

Dans la maison de Nicolas Poussy, il est difficile de faire un pas sans tomber sur un bibelot à l'effigie d'un personnage de l'univers de Tintin. © Radio France - FG

L'album des "Bouquiottes", comme on peut le simplifier, tenait à cœur à Nicolas Poussy. Le but : faire vivre le patois, aujourd'hui presque plus parlé, grâce à sa passion de Tintin. "C'est Tintin qui amène le patois à la maison. Quand je vois sur des marchés des enfants qui ont cinq ans et qui reconnaissent les titres mais qui disent qu'ils ne comprennent rien. Ils se demandent si c'est de l'anglais, alors que, non, c'est du patois, ça remet une couche de transmission d'un patrimoine", s'enthousiasme encore Nicolas Poussy.

 

Nicolas Poussy a commencé la traduction tout seul de son côté, il y a cinq ans. "Il y avait certains termes que j'avais entendu dans ma jeunesse. C'était assez intuitif. Après, il a fallu faire des recherches avec de la littérature en patois." Mais sans dictionnaire, le plus compliqué a été la conjugaison. "Si on veut de l'homogénéité, on va se faire un peu sa propre graphie. Par exemple, le mot "semblable". Ici, on dit " semblabiye". On entend le "-bieu". C'est pas évident de traduire ça, de le faire sentir dans l'album. Alors on a mis un "-y" pour l'illustrer."

...

L'album est le petit dernier des BD traduites dans 51 langues régionales. C'est souvent "Les Bijoux de la Castafiore" qui est choisi, explique Robert Sillen, directeur juridique chez Casterman. "C'est une aventure qu'on peut imaginer facilement en France. Elle ne se déroule pas à l'étranger. Donc c'est plus logique que les personnages parlent la langue régionale.""

https://www.francebleu.fr/infos/culture-loisirs/les-bouquiottes-d-lai-castafiore-un-album-de-tintin-en-patois-bourguignon-de-l-auxois-voit-le-jour-2657648

#Metaglossia 

#metaglossia_mundus 

"Pacific islanders on Tokelau celebrate full translation of Bible in their language

By Chris Eyte Dec 5, 2025 

 

The translation of the Bible into Tokelauan involved experts such as Ioane Teao, (pictured, left, with Dr. Stephen Pattemore) who dedicated over 23 years to the work, and Rev. Tui Sopoaga, who chaired the translation committee. United Bible Societies LinkedIn

Pacific islanders on the small island nation of Tokelau have received the first complete Bible translation in their local heart language of Tokelauan.

 

Announcing the accomplishment on social media on Dec. 3, the United Bible Societies (UBS) hailed the news as a “historic milestone for one of the world’s most remote island nations.”

 

About 1,500 people live across the three isolated atolls Atafu, Nukunonu, and Fakaofo of the island nation located between Hawaii and New Zealand, and in the southern part of the ocean. Most of the islanders are Christians and their dialect is historically in the oral tradition rather than a written form.

 

“This achievement is a testament to the power of partnership and the perseverance of God’s people. It shows what can happen when translation, community, and faith come together,” said Neels Janse van Rensburg, Chief Executive Officer of Bible Society New Zealand (BSNZ).

 

“What makes this moment especially meaningful is the journey behind it,” explained the UBS.

 

“For a language that has been largely oral, this translation required deep collaboration with the community, careful linguistic work, and 26 years of patient partnership. We are grateful to everyone in Tokelau, the Bible Society New Zealand (BSNZ), and the wider global Bible translation community who contributed to this milestone.”

 

A launch of the complete Bible translation took place on the Fakaofo Atoll on Oct. 27. It coincided with Tokelau Language Week in Aotearoa (New Zealand). The BSNZ team visiting Tokelau for the launch were honored at a parliamentary sitting with an official “thank you” alongside a cultural evening of song and dance presented by the people from the three tropical coral atolls. 

 

A “Toluma” traditional gift given to the BSNZ team comprised a wooden container used by the Tokelauans when canoe fishing at sea. It traditionally holds valuables and the caught fish, and is cleverly designed to float towards land should the canoe capsize.  

 

Tokelau community leader and former Ulu-o-Tokelau (Tokelaun head of government), Kelihiano Kalolo, described the new Bible translation as “a very big event,” which also served to remind people of the importance in both preserving and strengthening the language.  

 

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“It will be good for the development of the spiritual life of people that will lead to harmonious living in the villages,” he said. 

 

The work started as a structured project in 1996 with the launch of a translators’ workshop, following a “dream that had been for decades prior,” according to the UBS. The mission worked with BSNZ to make it a reality. 

 

“Over the following decades, teams of translators, linguists, and advisors worked diligently to bring scripture to life in Tokelau’s own words,” added the UBS release.

 

“The task was monumental—not least because Tokelauan had long been an oral language, with early translators first needing to develop consistent written forms and grammar before translation could begin.”

 

The translation team included Ioane Teao who dedicated 23 years to the work and Rev. Tui Sopoaga, who chaired the translation committee. 

 

They worked with Stephen Pattemore, BSNZ’s now-retired translation director, and eventually performed the final verse check in 2019. 

 

Clare Knowles, Abi Das, and Daniel Harrison guided the final stages of typesetting, design, and publication, ensuring the Bible would be ready in time for the long-awaited celebration, according to the UBS.

 

Rensburg paid tribute to colleagues from UBS for their hard-working efforts in the project.

 

“UBS provided earlier translation advisory and consultancy services in the pioneering years of the project, technical tools, such as Paratext, and strategic guidance that were essential to this project’s success,” said van Rensburg. 

 

The history of the translation originated with the idea of a Tokelauan Bible in the late 1960s when a number of Tokelauans migrated to New Zealand. Samoan Bibles served earlier generations but the new Tokelauans arriving in the country were not fluent in Samoan. They worshiped in their own language in the 1980s but there remained a prevailing need for Bibles that would make the Word of God accessible in their heart language. 

 

“The need for Scripture in their native language became urgent,” stated the UBS. 

 

Meetings about the issue took place in 1991 between the Pacific Islanders Presbyterian Church in Grey Lynn and Porirua, both suburbs in New Zealand. Consultations were also facilitated across Auckland, Hutt Valley, Rotorua, and Taupo. 

 

A delegation subsequently visited Tokelau in 1994 to obtain approval for the translation project. The local government and church groups gave support and the project officially began in June 1996 under the Tokelauan Society for the translation of the Bible, in partnership with BSNZ and UBS.

 

“The Bible’s arrival represents a linguistic and cultural rejuvenation,” stated the UBS.

 

“For generations, Tokelauans have relied on the Samoan Bible for Old Testament readings and the portions available to them in Tokelauan. In 1999, the Gospel of Mark was published, and four years later, the Four Gospels were released. In 2009, the New Testament was launched with a celebration at Pahina Church. 

 

“For the first time now in 2025, God’s Word in full can be read, heard, and cherished in Tokelauan.”"

https://www.christiandaily.com/news/pacific-islanders-on-tokelau-celebrate-full-translation-of-bible-in-their-language

#Metaglossia 

#metaglossia_mundus 

"While classic folk horror relies on a basic recipe—an isolated setting, a landscape that feels hostile, or at best indifferent but uncomfortably alert, ossified rituals against an unspoken, watchful threat, beauty that invokes dread, paganism and not-fun festivals, insular communities a little too keen on conformity—in translation, we can taste the terrors particular to other cultures and other landscapes.

 

Here’s a reading list of translated fiction that will make you quiver, shiver, and think twice about crossing invisible lines.

 

Samanta Schweblin, Fever Dream (trans. Megan McDowell)

 

South America has given us much contemporary body, ecology and folk horror, and I’m still not over Fever Dream by Samanta Schweblin (trans. Megan McDowell). A little boy sits by a dying woman’s bedside, interrogating her about how she got there, and pushing her to remember “the worms,” a hidden danger. Years before, he almost died after drinking poisoned river water, then an Argentine folk ritual saved his life—but maybe not his soul.

 

The deep horror here is environmental, and this is a perfect example of slow, atmospheric mood-setting that lulls you into a false sense of security. A whole lot of not very much happens—until you suddenly find yourself creeped out of your skin...

 

Ricardo Chávez Castañeda, Alejandro Magallanes, The Book of Denial (trans. Lawrence Schimel)

 

Not folk horror in the strictest sense but one that gets right under your skin and means to claw its way out is a stunning graphic novel, or perhaps more aptly, an illustrated performance: The Book of Denial by Ricardo Chávez Castañeda & Alejandro Magallanes (trans. Lawrence Schimel) uses the Mexican Dia de los Muertos as a jumping-off point for—in its own words—”the worst story in the world.”

 

A little boy discovers how inexplicably cruel the real world can be—has been—to children, when he pages through the book his father is writing and begins to comprehend that the real monsters—people—are with us every day. “How can you see letters without wanting to read them?”—curiosity as one of the staple drivers of horror plots.

 

Zuzana Ríhová, Playing Wolf (trans. Alex Zucker)

 

Over to Europe and Playing Wolf by Zuzana Ríhová (trans. Alex Zucker), a vivisection of a yuppie couple who move to a remote Czech village as a cure for their troubled marriage, to find that the villagers are not exactly wholesome and also seriously disinclined to welcoming the newcomers.

 

Some disturbing local rituals and sinister noises outside their cottage later, the couple’s young son vanishes, in this sly, sharp tale with a nod to fairy tales about hunters and hunted.

 

John Ajvide Lindqvist, Let the Right One In (trans. Ebba Segerberg)

 

Let the Right One In by John Ajvide Lindqvist (trans. Ebba Segerberg) concerns a bullied Swedish boy befriended by another lonely soul—a vampire living as a young girl. Lindqvist confidently relocates the dread and isolation of a rural hamlet to a comfortless brutalist housing estate, and his supernatural creature—in the wrong time and place—is as tragic as it is chilling.

 

Halldor Laxness, Under the Glacier (trans. Magnus Magnusson)

 

A young naif is sent to a remote Icelandic locale to investigate the rumors of a priest gone rogue in Nobel prize-winner Halldor Laxness’s Under the Glacier (trans. Magnus Magnusson). Our narrator arrives at the foot of Snaeffels volcano, prosaically, by bus—but, in the end, hightails it back “hoping that I would find the main road again.”

 

The local version of Christianity is doctrinally suspect, the community leader engages him in cryptic, circular conversation, and the femme fatale is a woman straight out of the sagas—so far so Wicker Man—but Laxness’s jeu d’esprit novella is both a spoof and deeply serious, satiric and philosophical, not horror-ful but very charming in a quietly absurd, rather Scandinavian way..."

 

https://lithub.com/chilling-lit-six-novels-in-translation-that-blend-folktales-and-horror/

#Metaglossia 

#metaglossia_mundus 

"Le Goethe-Institut Tunis, en partenariat avec la maison d’édition Pop Libris Editions et la librairie Al Kitab, organise une rencontre entre littérature et musique autour de la traduction tunisienne du roman “Der Steppenwolf-Le Loup des steppes- du romancier, poète, peintre et essayiste allemand Hermann Hesse, devenue “El Dhib”, une œuvre culte réinventée dans une langue vivante, rugueuse et intime.

 

La rencontre, qui aura lieu le 14 décembre 2024 à la librairie Al Kitab-Mutuelleville, se déroulera en présence du traducteur et écrivain Dhia Bousselmi, ainsi que de l’éditeur de Pop Libris, Sami Mokadam, qui, dans un débat littéraire, évoqueront les défis, les choix et les audaces de cette traduction singulière: comment transposer la folie, la solitude, le jazz et la philosophie dans les mots de la rue tunisienne ?

 

La soirée sera ponctuée d’un concert littéraire avec le comédien Mohamed Grayaa, qui prêtera sa voix au loup, accompagné à la contrebasse par Wassim Berrhouma, donnant à voir une performance qui fait vibrer les mots."

https://www.webmanagercenter.com/2025/12/06/557243/hermann-hesse-en-tunisien-debat-autour-de-la-traduction-singuliere-del-dhib-der-steppenwolf-par-pop-libris-et-al-kitab/

#Metaglossia 

#metaglossia_mundus