Translation service

 Translation service in Dhaka

Translation is the communication of the meaning of a source-language text through an equivalent target-language text. The English language draws a terminological distinction (which does not exist in every language) between translation (a written text) and interpretation (oral or signed communication between users of different languages); Under this distinction, translation can begin only after the presence of writing in the language community.

A translator always runs the risk of inadvertently introducing source-language words, grammar, or syntax into the target-language rendering. On the other hand, such "spillover" sometimes imported useful source-language calcs and loanwords that enriched the target languages. Translators, including the early translators of the scriptures, helped shape the languages they translated into. Online translation is the best and professional translation service now a days 

Because of the laboriousness of the translation process, attempts have been made since the 1940s with varying degrees of success to automate translation, or mechanically assist human translators. Facilitated translation services and "language localization".

Etymology

Rosetta Stone, a secular icon for the art of translation

The English word "translation" derives from the Latin word translatio, which comes from trans, "across" + ferre, "to carry" or "to bring" (-latio in turn coming from latus, the past participle of ferre). Thus translatio is "a carrying across" or "a bringing across"—in this case, of a text from one language to another.

Some Slavic languages and the Germanic languages (other than Dutch and Afrikaans) have calqued their words for the concept of "translation" on translatio, substituting their respective Slavic or Germanic root words for the Latin roots.[7][8][a][9] The remaining Slavic languages instead calqued their words for "translation" from an alternative Latin word, trāductiō, itself derived from trādūcō ("to lead across" or "to bring across")—from trans ("across") + dūcō, ("to lead" or "to bring").

The West and East Slavic languages (except for Russian) adopted the translātiō pattern, whereas Russian and the South Slavic languages adopted the trāductiō pattern. The Romance languages, deriving directly from Latin, did not need to calque their equivalent words for "translation"; instead, they simply adapted the second of the two alternative Latin words, trāductiō.

The Ancient Greek term for "translation", μετάφρασις (metaphrasis, "a speaking across"), has supplied English with "metaphrase" (a "literal", or "word-for-word", translation)—as contrasted with "paraphrase" ("a saying in other words", from παράφρασις, paraphrasis)."Metaphrase" corresponds, in one of the more recent terminologies, to "formal equivalence"; and "paraphrase", to "dynamic equivalence".

Strictly speaking, the concept of metaphrase—of "word-for-word translation"—is an imperfect concept, because a given word in a given language often carries more than one meaning; and because a similar given meaning may often be represented in a given language by more than one word. Nevertheless, "metaphrase" and "paraphrase" may be useful as ideal concepts that mark the extremes in the spectrum of possible approaches to translation.

Theories

Western theory

John Dryden

Discussions of the theory and practice of translation reach back into antiquity and show remarkable continuities. The ancient Greeks distinguished between metaphrase (literal translation) and paraphrase. This distinction was adopted by English poet and translator John Dryden (1631–1700), who described translation as the judicious blending of these two modes of phrasing when selecting, in the target language, "counterparts," or equivalents, for the expressions used in the source language:

When [words] appear... literally graceful, it were an injury to the author that they should be changed. But since... what is beautiful in one [language] is often barbarous, nay sometimes nonsense, in another, it would be unreasonable to limit a translator to the narrow compass of his author's words: 'tis enough if he choose out some expression which does not vitiate the sense.

Cicero

Dryden cautioned, however, against the license of "imitation", i.e., of adapted translation: "When a painter copies from the life... he has no privilege to alter features and lineaments..."

This general formulation of the central concept of translation—equivalence—is as adequate as any that has been proposed since Cicero and Horace, who, in 1st-century-BCE Rome, famously and literally cautioned against translating "word for word" (verbum pro verbo).

Despite occasional theoretical diversity, the actual practice of translation has hardly changed since antiquity. Except for some extreme metaphrasers in the early Christian period and the Middle Ages, and adapters in various periods (especially pre-Classical Rome, and the 18th century), translators have generally shown prudent flexibility in seeking equivalents—"literal" where possible, paraphrastic where necessary—for the original meaning and other crucial "values" (e.g., style, verse form, concordance with musical accompaniment or, in films, with speech articulatory movements) as determined from context.

Samuel Johnson

In general, translators have sought to preserve the context itself by reproducing the original order of sememes, and hence word order—when necessary, reinterpreting the actual grammatical structure, for example, by shifting from active to passive voice, or vice versa. The grammatical differences between "fixed-word-order" languages(e.g. English, French, German) and "free-word-order" languages (e.g., Greek, Latin, Polish, Russian) have been no impediment in this regard. The particular syntax (sentence-structure) characteristics of a text's source language are adjusted to the syntactic requirements of the target language.

Religious texts

Further information: Bible translations and Quran translations

Jerome, patron saint of translators and encyclopedists

An important role in history has been played by translation of religious texts. Such translations may be influenced by tension between the text and the religious values the translators wish to convey. For example, Buddhist monks who translated the Indian sutras into Chinese occasionally adjusted their translations to better reflect China's distinct culture, emphasizing notions such as filial piety.

One of the first recorded instances of translation in the West was the 3rd century BCE rendering of some books of the biblical Old Testament from Hebrew into Koine Greek. The translation is known as the "Septuagint", a name that refers to the supposedly seventy translators (seventy-two, in some versions) who were commissioned to translate the Bible at Alexandria, Egypt. According to legend, each translator worked in solitary confinement in his own cell, and all seventy versions proved identical. The Septuagint became the source text for later translations into many languages, including Latin, Coptic, Armenian, and Georgian.

Still considered one of the greatest translators in history, for having rendered the Bible into Latin, is Jerome (347-420 CE), the patron saint of translators. For centuries the Roman Catholic Church used his translation (known as the Vulgate), although even this translation stirred controversy. By contrast with Jerome's contemporary, Augustine of Hippo (354–430 CE), who endorsed precise translation, Jerome believed in adaptation, and sometimes invention, in order to more effectively bring across the meaning. Jerome's colorful Vulgate translation of the Bible includes some crucial instances of "overdetermination". For example, Isaiah's prophecy announcing that the Savior will be born of a virgin, uses the word 'almah, which is also used to describe the dancing girls at Solomon's court, and simply means young and nubile. Jerome, writes Marina Warner, translates it as virgo, "adding divine authority to the virulent cult of sexual disgust that shaped Christian moral theology (the [Moslem] Quran, free from this linguistic trap, does not connect Mariam/Mary's miraculous nature with moral horror of sex). The apple that Eve offered to Adam, according to Mark Polizzotti, could equally well have been an apricot, orange, or banana; but Jerome liked the pun malus/malum (apple/evil).

Pope Francis has suggested that the phrase "lead us not into temptation", in the Lord's Prayer found in the Gospels of Matthew (the first Gospel, written c. 80–90 CE) and Luke (the third Gospel, written c. 80– 110 CE), should more properly be translated, "do not let us fall into temptation", commenting that God does not lead people into temptation—Satan does.[m] Some important early Christian authors interpreted the Bible's Greek text and Jerome's Latin Vulgate similarly to Pope Francis. A.J.B. Higgins[129] in 1943 showed that among the earliest Christian authors, the understanding and even the text of this devotional verse underwent considerable changes. These ancient writers suggest that, even if the Greek and Latin texts are left unmodified, something like "do not let us fall" could be an acceptable English rendering. Higgins cited Tertullian, the earliest of the Latin Church Fathers (c. 155–c. 240 CE, "do not allow us to be led") and Cyprian (c. 200–258 CE, "do not allow us to be led into temptation"). A later author, Ambrose (c. 340–397 CE), followed Cyprian's interpretation. Augustine of Hippo (354–430), familiar with Jerome's Latin Vulgate rendering, observed that "many people... say it this way: 'and do not allow us to be led into temptation.'"

In 863 CE the brothers Saints Cyril and Methodius, the Byzantine Empire's "Apostles to the Slavs", began translating parts of the Bible into the Old Church Slavonic language, using the Glagolitic script that they had devised, based on the Greek alphabet.

The periods preceding and contemporary with the Protestant Reformation saw translations of the Bible into vernacular (local) European languages—a development that contributed to Western Christianity's split into Roman Catholicism and Protestantism over disparities between Catholic and Protestant renderings of crucial words and passages (and due to a Protestant-perceived need to reform the Roman Catholic Church). Lasting effects on the religions, cultures, and languages of their respective countries were exerted by such Bible translations as Martin Luther's into German (the New Testament, 1522), Jakub Wujek's into Polish (1599, as revised by the Jesuits), and William Tyndale's (New Testament, 1526 and revisions) and the King James Version into English (1611).

Mistranslation: Michelangelo's horned Moses

Efforts to translate the Bible into English had their martyrs. William Tyndale (c. 1494–1536) was convicted of heresy at Antwerp, was strangled to death while tied at the stake,

and then his dead body was burned. Earlier, John Wycliffe (c. mid-1320s – 1384) had managed to die a natural death, but 30 years later the Council of Constance in 1415 declared him a heretic and decreed that his works and earthly remains should be burned; the order, confirmed by Pope Martin V, was carried out in 1428, and Wycliffe's corpse was exhumed and burned and the ashes cast into the River Swift. Debate and religious schism over different translations of religious texts continue, as demonstrated by, for example, the King James Only movement.

A famous mistranslation of a Biblical text is the rendering of the Hebrew word קֶרֶן (keren), which has several meanings, as "horn" in a context where it more plausibly means "beam of light": as a result, for centuries artists, including sculptor Michelangelo, have rendered Moses the Lawgiver with horns growing from his forehead.

Chinese translation, verses 33–34 of Quran's surah (chapter) 36

Such fallibility of the translation process has contributed to the Islamic world's ambivalence about translating the Quran (also spelled Koran) from the original Arabic, as received by the prophet Muhammad from Allah (God) through the angel Gabriel incrementally between 609 and 632 CE, the year of Muhammad's death. During prayers, the Quran, as the miraculous and inimitable word of Allah, is recited only in Arabic. However, as of 1936, it had been translated into at least 102 languages.[132]

A fundamental difficulty in translating the Quran accurately stems from the fact that an Arabic word, like a Hebrew or Aramaic word, may have a range of meanings, depending on context. This is said to be a linguistic feature, particularly of all Semitic languages, that adds to the usual similar difficulties encountered in translating between any two languages.[132] There is always an element of human judgment—of interpretation—involved in understanding and translating a text. Muslims regard any translation of the Quran as but one possible interpretation of the Quranic (Classical) Arabic text, and not as a full equivalent of that divinely communicated original. Hence such a translation is often called an "interpretation" rather than a translation.[133]

To complicate matters further, as with other languages, the meanings and usages of some expressions have changed over time, between the Classical Arabic of the Quran, and modern Arabic. Thus a modern Arabic speaker may misinterpret the meaning of a word or passage in the Quran. Moreover, the interpretation of a Quranic passage will also depend on the historical context of Muhammad's life and of his early community. Properly researching that context requires a detailed knowledge of hadith and sirah, which are themselves vast and complex texts. Hence, analogously to the translating of Chinese literature, an attempt at an accurate translation of the Quran requires a knowledge not only of the Arabic language and of the target language, including their respective evolutions, but also a deep understanding of the two cultures involved.

Experimental literature

Experimental literature, such as Cathy Acker's novel Don Quixote (1986) and Giannina Braschi's novel Yo-Yo Boeing! (1998), features a translational writing that highlights interlinguistic and translational encounters and the discomforts of literary translation as a creative practice. These authors weave their own translations into their texts.

Acker's postmodern fiction both fragments and preserves the materiality of Catullus' Latin text in a way that teases out its semantics and syntax without fully motivating it, a method that unsettles the notion of any fixed and finished translation.

Whereas Braschi's trilogy of experimental works (Empire of Dreams, 1988; Yo-Yo Boing!, 1998, and United States of Banana, 2011) deal with the subject of translation. His trilogy presents the evolution of the Spanish language through loose translations of dramatic, poetic, and philosophical writings from the Middle Ages, Golden Age, and Modernist eras into contemporary Caribbean, Latin American, and Nuyorican Spanish expressions. Brachy's translations of classical texts into Iberian Spanish (among other regional and historical linguistic and poetic frameworks) challenge the notion of a national language.

science fiction

Science fiction is a genre with a recognized set of conventions and literary genealogies, language that often includes neologisms, neosems, [clarification needed] and invented language, techno-scientific and pseudoscientific vocabulary, and fictional representations of translation processes. Science-fiction reading involves specific concerns. Science-fiction translators acquire specific skills and undertake an independent publishing and cultural organization. As with other mass-fiction genres, these professional specializations and roles are often not recognized by publishers and scholars.

Science fiction translation accounts for the transnational nature of science fiction's shared conventions and tropes. After World War II, many European countries were swept up in a wave of translations from English. Due to the predominance of English as a source language, the use of pseudonyms and pseudonymous translations has become common in countries such as Italy and Hungary, and English has often been used as a vehicle language for translations from Chinese and Japanese.

More recently, the international market for science fiction translations has seen an increasing presence in source languages other than English.

Technical translation

Main article: Technical translation

Technical translation renders documents such as manuals, directives, internal memos, minutes, financial reports, and other documents for a limited audience (those directly affected by the document) and whose useful life is often limited. Therefore, a user guide for a particular model of refrigerator is useful only to the owner of the refrigerator, and will only be effective if that model of refrigerator is used. Similarly, software documentation is usually related to a specific piece of software, the applications of which are used only by a specific class of users.