230524P - HIGHER OBJECTIVES AND CHALLENGES OF TRANSLATION

Presented at the 19^th International Conference on Translation organized by the Malaysian Translators Association, Dewan Bahasa and Pustaka, and the IIUM Press on 24-26 May 2023 by Professor Omar Hasan Kasule Sr. MB ChB (MUK), MPH (Harvard), DrPH (Harvard).

1.0 VISION OF TRANSLATION

• Intellectual discourse
• Research

2.0 MISSION OF TRANSLATION

• Teach
• Convey information
• Inspire
• Transfer skills
• Facilitate research

3.0  TYPES OF TRANSLATION

• Language to a similar language. Problem of false friends. French & English.
• Language to same language (simplifying concepts). Using the local dialect.
• Dialect to language and language to dialect
• Translate a book in brief instead of the original large book

4.0 FORMS OF TRANSLATION

• Direct word to word
• Translate the meanings
• Translate concepts
• Rendering

5.0 SELECTION OF WHAT TO TRANSLATE

• Case by case basis
• Specific demand in that part of the world
• Book thought to have universal appeal
• Personal choice

6.0 TRANSLATION FROM ARABIC

• Quran translability? Scholars insist that we translate meanings of the Qur’an and not the Qur’an and that the Arabic original must appear alongside the translation
• Muslims essentially speak one language
• Arabic is a deep language difficult to translate accurately into more pragmatic languages like English
• Quranic and tafsir down the centuries make translation from Arabic easier

7.0 TRANSLATION FROM ENGLISH - simpler

• English is a pragmatic commercial straight forward language
• English is less poetic than most Muslim languages
• While translation into English is easier, we lose a lot of nuances in meaning
• I understand ‘Rabb’ in my native language but cannot find the exact meaning in English

6.0 TRANSLATION TO AND FROM OTHER LANGUAGES

• Some concepts do not exist in some languages like ‘prophet’ in Japanese
• Pictorial languages like Chinese convey more meaning for example the Chinese character for ‘woman’; may show pregnancy and child bearing
• Abstract concepts are still contextualized in their space and time for example the term ‘democracy’ has difference meanings and implications.

7.0 EXAMPLES OF TRANSLATIONS - European languages

• Albanian - 5
• Bosnian - 17
• French - 16
• German - 4
• Portuguese -1 / American and European forms
• Russian - 9

8.0 IMAGE ALBANIAN TRANSLATION
 
9.0 IMAGE BOSNIAN TRANSLATION
 
10.0 IMAGE BULGARIAN TRANSLATION
 
11.0 IMAGE GEORGIAN TRANSLATION
 
12.0 IMAGE GREEK TRANSLATION
 
13.0 IMAGE ROMANIAN TRANSLATION

14.0 CENTRAL ASIAN LANGUAGES

• Azeri - 13
• Kyrgyz

15.0 IMAGE KYRGYZ TRANSLATION


16.0 EXAMPLES OF TRANSLATIONS - West Asian languages

• Kurdish - 23
• Persian - 10
• Turkish - 20

17.0 IMAGE KURDISH TRANSLATION


18.0 EXAMPLES OF TRANSLATIONS - South Asian languages

• Bengali - 28
• Hindi - 1
• Urdu - 18
• Tamil - 13

19.0 IMAGE TAMIL TRANSLATION


20.0 EXAMPLES OF TRANSLATIONS - East Asian languages

• Chinese – 5
• Indonesian -14
• Malay -4

21.0 IMAGE JAPANESE TRANSLATION


22.0 IMAGE KOREAN TRANSLATION


23.0 EXAMPLES OF TRANSLATIONS - African languages

• Hausa – 1
• Somali – 2
• Swahili – 3

24.0 MAIN CHALLENGES OF TRANSLATION

• Intellectual concepts difficult to translate – worldview
• Local sensitivity of some words/names due to historical factors
• Intellectuals speak a European language and not the local language/dialect. They prefer reading the original book in Arabic or English

25.0 IMAGE OF AHAS’s QURANIC WORLD VIEW