English PEN has gathered a collection of top translation tips from established and award-winning translators.

1. Keep your ears open for every bit of spoken language in source and target language that you might find useful. Collect it all in your head like a magpie.

2. Ditto – pick up expressions from written material too.

3. Read lots in your target language i.e. the language you’re translating into.

More >> http://www.englishpen.org/translation-tips-nicky-harman/

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Dopo il Trattato di Lisbona, in vigore dal 1 dicembre 2009, la “Comunità europea” non esiste più. La struttura dell’UE fondata su tre “pilastri” (prevista dal Trattato di Maastricht del 1992) è stata superata e i trattati consolidati oggi vigenti sono due: Trattato sull’Unione Europea (TUE) e Trattato sul funzionamento dell’Unione Europea (TFUE), che definiscono un’Unione Europea unica, un solo complesso giuridico.
Questa diversa struttura dell’UE ha portato a un piccolo, ma grande cambiamento nel lessico politico quotidiano. L’articolo 2, paragrafo 2, lettera a) del TFUE recita infatti:
“2) Nell’intero trattato: a) i termini «la Comunità» o «la Comunità europea» sono sostituiti da «l’Unione», i termini «delle Comunità europee» o «della CEE» sono sostituiti da «dell’Unione europea e l’aggettivo “comunitario”, comunque declinato, è sostituito da “dell’Unione”»....

More >> http://italians.corriere.it/2013/12/09/europa-la-morte-di-un-aggettivo/

The cost of poor grammar
By Daniel Hunter

A new study conducted by a professional translation and transcription provider has revealed that 59% of Britons would not use a company that had obvious grammatical or spelling mistakes on its website or marketing material; whilst 82% would not use a company that hadn’t correctly translated their online and marketing material into English.

As part of ongoing research focusing on the link between consumer spending and the quality of a company’s online presence, a leading translation and transcription company has undertaken a study looking at how a business’ spelling and grammar may impact upon a person’s likelihood to use a particular company or service.

The research, conducted by Global Lingo, polled 1,029 UK adults aged 18 and over on their online purchasing and browsing habits. Respondents were asked questions related to the factors that influence them to use a particular company or service, specifically in relation to web and marketing material.

More >> http://www.freshbusinessthinking.com/news.php?CID=0&NID=20553&PGID=1#.Uo9BRidc3Ct

Damn!: the perception of swearing in different languages

In most languages there are taboo words or expressions which, though considered to be inappropriate in many situations, are omnipresent and used by all groups in a society.

Swearing is very fascinating for all who are interested in linguistics and society, and because it is so little understood, it is still a social taboo. Used as simple expressions, or with the function of acting as a relief valve, or even to “clarify” some concepts, swearing is part of everyday language. This phenomenon is often underestimated, yet it constitutes a form of language with dignity and strong meaning which, is actually deeply rooted in linguistic and cultural heritage.

How old is swearing? Actually, a better question would be; how old is language?! According to some studies, some of the first sounds emitted by our ancestors had the form and the function of our bad words, and they were produced as a reaction to different situations of shock or surprise, danger or pain. According to this theory, the first words derive from shouts which, for animals and for primitive men, had the function of anger, fear, threat, pain and delight. Thus, those sounds would have an emotional origin. We don’t know if this is true or not, however the idea that a bad word – the emotional word par excellence - could have been the first word pronounced by a human being is very striking!

While such a theory has its attractions, we have no proof of it. What is certain though is that many ancient populations used to swear.

There are records of swearing among the Egyptians of antiquity. That the Jews of old were swearers is evident from the number of the prohibitions referring to this practice. Though the swearing of the Greeks was a very light and innocuous kind, they were a swearing people. Like the Greeks, the Romans swore by their gods.

More >> http://termcoord.eu/2013/11/damn-the-perception-of-swearing-in-different-languages/

di Giancarlo Anello

Lingue e linguaggio incidono in modo decisivo sulle modalità di interazione personale e quindi sulle più basilari forme di relazione giuridica ma non possono essere considerati alla stregua di beni giuridici in senso stretto. Le questioni linguistiche, in generale, possono fondarsi sulle prescrizioni delle carte costituzionali o internazionali, ma nel ragionare su di esse si deve dare conto che le lingue sono sempre qualcosa di più di un mero strumento di comunicazione. Esse costituiscono un marcatore dell’identità individuale e collettiva e, attraverso la loro pragmatica, si configurano come vere e proprie istituzioni culturali. Inoltre, le leggi linguistiche e le norme giuridiche raramente vanno di pari passo. Le lingue non rispettano i confini territoriali di uno Stato; non si fermano alle frontiere, ma le attraversano in modo immateriale, anche senza essere portate dalle persone che le parlano. Sebbene, in condizioni di isolamento, lingue differenti possano convivere le une accanto alle altre per secoli, nel caso di circolazione di persone, scambi commerciali o lavorativi, di rapporti familiari tra gruppi linguistici diversi le lingue più “deboli” saranno lentamente ma inesorabilmente soppiantate da quelle più “forti”, ovvero quelle che le persone hanno più incentivo a parlare o opportunità ad imparare a causa del loro maggiore prestigio o della loro più ampia diffusione.

Tali assunti, che da un punto di vista sociolinguistico potrebbero apparire delle ovvietà, possono costituire il punto di avvio di un cortocircuito normativo senza precedenti in Italia. Una recente sentenza (TAR Lombardia, 25 maggio 2013, n. 1348) ha sollevato un intenso dibattito circa la qualificazione della lingua italiana come lingua ufficiale dello stato. Nel dettaglio, il tribunale amministrativo lombardo ha annullato una delibera del Politecnico di Milano, impugnata da diversi docenti dell’Ateneo, che imponeva, in vista dell’internazionalizzazione dell’istruzione e della ricerca, l’insegnamento per i corsi di laurea magistrale e i dottorati esclusivamente in lingua inglese. Tra l’altro, la decisione in questione configurava, traendola indirettamente dall’art. 6 della Costituzione, l’ufficialità della lingua italiana come principio cogente e imperativo dell’ordinamento; riteneva che tale qualifica determinasse il primato della lingua italiana in ogni settore della vita dello Stato, anche di là da specifiche disposizioni di tutela; specificava che tale primato spettasse all’italiano soprattutto rispetto ad altre lingue straniere prive di disposizioni di salvaguardia; chiariva che tale primato giuridico andasse riconosciuto non in modo fine a sé stesso, ma in maniera da garantire la conoscenza e la diffusione dei valori che ispirano lo Stato italiano.



More >> http://www.confronticostituzionali.eu/?p=716

Ringraziamo la collega Gloria Bianchi del contributo.

It is perhaps the most important word in one of the greatest and most famous sentences in the history of the English language.


Yet for more than two centuries “hwæt” has been misrepresented as an attention-grabbing latter-day “yo!” designed to capture the interest of its intended Anglo-Saxon audience urging them to sit down and listen up to the exploits of the heroic monster-slayer Beowulf.

According to an academic at the University of Manchester, however, the accepted definition of the opening line of the epic poem – including the most recent translation by the late Seamus Heaney - has been subtly wide of the mark.

In a new paper, Dr George Walkden argues that the use of the interrogative pronoun  “hwæt” (rhymes with cat) means the first line is not a standalone command but informs the wider exclamatory nature of the sentence which was written by an unknown poet between 1,200 and 1,300 years ago.

According to the historical linguist, rather than reading: “Listen! We have heard of the might of the kings” the Old English of “Hwæt! We Gar-Dena in gear-dagum, þeod-cyninga,  þrym gefrunon, hu ða æþelingas  ellen fremedon!” should instead be understood as: “How we have heard of the might of the kings.”

More >> http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/news/listen-beowulf-opening-line-misinterpreted-for-200-years-8921027.html

MARC VINCENZ AND HIS TRANSLATORS

“The profession of literary translator is little appreciated and undervalued, but absolutely necessary in getting works of literature into all the world’s corners. And, particularly in poetry or literary fiction, the translator is far more than a mediator. He or she is also a creator.”

Marc Vincenz is Swiss-British, was born in Hong Kong, and currently divides his time between Reykjavik, Zurich and New York City. His work has appeared in many journals, including Washington Square Review, Fourteen Hills, The Potomac, Saint Petersburg Review, The Canary, The Bitter Oleander, and Guernica. Recent collections include: Gods of a Ransacked Century (Unlikely Books, 2013), Mao’s Mole (Neopoiesis Press, 2013) and forthcoming Behind the Wall at the Sugar Works (2014). A new English-German bi-lingual collection, Additional Breathing Exercises is also forthcoming from Wolfbach Verlag, Zurich, Switzerland (2014).

More >> http://authors-translators.blogspot.it/2013/11/marc-vincenz-and-his-translators.html 

Scrive Simonetta Fiori sulle pagine di la Repubblica

"È UNA corrente inarrestabile, nella bonaccia del mare editoriale. In mancanza di capolavori, l' unica vera novità sembra arrivare da un' ondata di traduzioni dei classici stranieri, prevalentemente l' Ottocento russo, francese e inglese. Un importante pezzo del catalogo di Einaudi, ad esempio, arriva risciacquato nel fiume della lingua contemporanea..."

More >>  http://www.scribd.com/doc/171663504/Ci-salveranno-le-traduzioni-Simonetta-Fiori-su-la-Repubblica

One day, when Peter Capaldi is remembered only as the 12th Doctor in Doctor Who and not the foul-mouthed Malcolm Tucker who first spat out the word "omnishambles", a curious reader who comes upon it in the pages of a yellowing Kindle will be able to look it up in the dictionary and find that it meant "a situation that has been comprehensively mismanaged, characterised by a string of blunders and miscalculations".
The word, originally coined by the writers of the political satire The Thick of It, and adopted by the Labour leader, Ed Miliband, to describe the caravan and pasty taxes and other political blunders and U-turns of the government's 2012 budget, has made it into the Oxford Dictionaries online.
Last year omnishambles was voted the word of the year by the Oxford English Dictionary.

More >> http://www.theguardian.com/science/2013/aug/28/omnishambles-new-words-oxford-dictionaries?utm_source=buffer&utm_campaign=Buffer&utm_content=buffer3d20a&utm_medium=twitter

Douglas Coupland: I’m with Smupid!
By Douglas Coupland

Our era needs new words to describe new conditions

It occurs to me that our new era requires new words to describe new conditions, so herewith follows a quick useful lexicon for 2013.

The first modern condition that springs to mind is one described by the word: smupidity (n.) smart + stupidity

Smupidity defines the mental state wherein we acknowledge that we’ve never been smarter as individuals and yet somehow we’ve never felt stupider. We now collectively inhabit a state of smupidity. Example: “Yes, I know I was able to obtain a list of all Oscar winners from 1952 in three tenths of a second, yet it makes me feel smupid that I didn’t waste two hours visiting the local library to obtain that list.” In our newly smupid world, the average IQ is now 103 but it feels like it’s 97.

More >> http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/db60613a-15a6-11e3-950a-00144feabdc0.html#ixzz2ewwrX8yZ

ADA ARDUINI AND HER AUTHORS
“At times you feel such a deep connection to a book that words simply flow and you write like your fingers are on fire. (...)
If I weren’t a literary translator, I would choose some other job with irregular schedules, lots of trips and loads of encounters.”
Ada Arduini is an Italian literary translator. She speaks English, French and a very basic Spanish.

Come ti sei avvicinata al mestiere della traduzione letteraria? Quali autori traduci e da quali lingue?
Sono sempre stata un’accanita lettrice e dopo il liceo traducevo per me e per gli amici i testi di Billy Bragg o di Jacques Brel (alle medie e al liceo ho studiato francese). Ho iniziato a pensare di poter tradurre seriamente solo dopo la laurea in Lingua e letteratura inglese e aver fatto domanda per il Master biennale in traduzione letteraria dall’inglese di Ca’ Foscari, nel ’95. Da allora non ho praticamente più smesso.
Ho tradotto Colm Tóibín, Maeve Brennan, Catherine Dunne, Alain de Botton, Edward Said, Jim Crace, Janet Hobhouse, Bryher, Stephen Elliott, Kate Atkinson, Kate Summerscale, Sigrid Nunez, Alfred Hayes, Charles Simmons, Maggie O’ Farrell, Katherine Kressmann Taylor.
Quali sono secondo te i pregi e i difetti del mestiere di traduttore letterario?
Visto com’è cambiato drasticamente (e in peggio) negli ultimi anni il mondo del lavoro, ne vedo sempre di più i pregi e sempre meno i difetti. Posso lavorare dove e quando voglio, stabilire da me orari e scalette, decidere personalmente con che committenti voglio avere a che fare. Certo: noi traduttori dobbiamo provvedere da soli alla nostra salute e alla nostra pensione, siamo sempre appesi al filo delle scadenze, delle consegne e delle committenze sempre più scarse e mal pagate, dobbiamo farci scudo da soli (o quasi) contro editori insolventi o scorretti, ma quando sento i racconti delle umiliazioni e delle incertezze patite anche da amici che hanno il tanto agognato “posto fisso”, non so, mi sento fortunata. Ciò non toglie che non mi sia guadagnata quello che ho ora con fatica, sudore e tenacia.

More >>  http://authors-translators.blogspot.it/2013/06/ada-arduini-and-her-authors.html

How Many Times Can a Tale Be Told?
Each Translation of a Classic Has New Way With Words
 
By
JEFFREY A. TRACHTENBERG

Leo Tolstoy's novel "Anna Karenina" famously starts "All happy families are alike." But what readers may want to know is how alike are different translations of such foreign classics?

There are half-a-dozen English-language translations of the 1878 Russian novel available for sale online, including the 2001 version produced by celebrated translators Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky. An endorsement by Oprah Winfrey turned that edition into a best-seller, with more than 1.3 million copies in print to date.

Yet next year, two new translations of the massive novel will hit the shelves. "Why two more now, and in the same year? I have no idea," says Mr. Pevear in an email.

It isn't only Tolstoy's works that get such treatment. For example, shoppers can choose from half-a-dozen versions of "The Decameron," Giovanni Boccaccio's sometimes bawdy 14th-century tale. This month, however, W.W. Norton & Co. will publish a new translation by Wayne A. Rebhorn priced at $40. New versions of "The Iliad" and "The Odyssey" are also coming this fall.

More >> http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323455104579015190699664588.html

English is rapidly becoming a lingua franca in international communication for commerce and trade, education, science, international relations and tourism.

It is the fastest growing language in the world, with more people speaking English than ever before. School children in India and China are learning English at a staggering rate as their countries emphasise the importance of English as a ticket to participating in the global economy.

For example, the rise of English in China is unprecedented, and has been likened to a mania, with school children as young as seven learning to speak English.

More >> http://www.northweststar.com.au/story/1567010/renaming-english-does-the-world-language-need-a-new-name/

A translator who embarks on the seemingly steep path of medical translation has two main obstacles: medical knowledge, and medical terminology. This post is about the latter. Medical terminology presents problems which are different from other specialised domains. This post presents the most obvious problems in determining the right medical terminology. It is not an extensive list; nevertheless, it should present a clear case for the difficulties translators encounter in translating medical texts. Though written mostly from the point-of-view of French to English translation, it can also apply to medical translation of all language pairs. Lastly, these issues can also apply to the practice of medical lexicography.

E ancora un'altra segnalazione:

Ci segnalano un articolo, del 2011 ma sempre attuale.

There are several measures you can take to establish productive relationships with your customers. Delivering high quality translations and keeping up with deadlines will play the most important part of course.
There are many things we have learnt by working with hundreds upon hundreds of translators and clients over the years, which we thought would be good to share with you: avoiding the seven mistakes identified in this article will help you have a long term relationship with your clients, and will more importantly, ensure that you run a stress free business.

More>> http://yildizgoren.wordpress.com/2011/12/26/7-mistakes-freelance-translators-should-avoid/

Le intraducibili
Breve abbecedario di parole belle e uniche. Quelle che danno un nome a sensazioni o gesti ineffabili per le altre lingue
 
Sappiamo tutti di che cosa si sta parlando, ma il più delle volte ignoriamo che c’è una parola per dirlo. Perciò suona come un abracadabra, una formula magica (o un lampo di poesia) l’espressione che, tutto d’un fiato, nomina ciò che si credeva ineffabile, chiama all’appello e a rapporto situazioni o sensazioni “inaudite” solo perché non ancora registrate con un proprio nome, né ancora messe a verbale nella propria lingua. Quando però manca la parola, dorme la citazione calzante dentro un libro mai aperto, il nome sfugge, c’è sempre modo di andarlo ad acchiappare oltrefrontiera. Gli scozzesi dicono “to tartle” quell’esitazione balbettante e imbarazzata di chi, di fronte al suo interlocutore, è sopraffatto da un vuoto di memoria, dimentica il nome del tizio con cui sta parlando, e magari – circostanza aggravante – deve pure presentarlo a una terza persona che non vede l’ora di farne la conoscenza. Allora cerca invano con gli occhi, schiocca le dita, prova diplomaticamente a stimolare suggerimenti e alla fine non può fare altro che ammettere la sua imperdonabile dimenticanza. Aiuta in questo caso a cavarsi dagli impicci chiamare la pausa di silenzio col suo nome, scusarsi e riannodare il filo della conversazione chiedendosi per esempio se in Scozia capiti più spesso che altrove di incappare in una così comune defaillance. 

More >> http://www.ilfoglio.it/soloqui/18064#.UYdkppu25CA.facebook