Eulogistic lexicon – The art of translation

 

Many people equate translation with mechanically replacing a word in one language with one with the same meaning in the other language. It is similar to describing painting as brushing color on a surface. While there is a small measure of truth, the analogies ignore the art involved in creating a useful result. As an example, last week I received an interesting project involving the translation of old gravestones from Hebrew to English. To be clear, the longest of them did not contain more than 20 words. However, the act of translation required a clear understanding of the full texture of the words in both languages.

The challenge began from the start with the honorifics. The letter מ [mem], which is a short form of מרת [marat], preceded the names of some of the women. The problem is that English has two different forms of address, Ms. and Mrs. After careful thought, I chose the former term because the reader of my translation is from the modern era and, more importantly, the issue of her marital status should be minimized. I recognize that Mrs. would be also appropriate since it reflects language use during the relevant years, 1912-1946. However, I chose the more modern term. As for the male deceased, the letter ר [resh], a short form for Rabbi, appeared before the name. However, the term Rabbi was used quite often as an honorific, like Mr. Not every Jew was a religious scholar, although some were. My solution was to write “Rabbi” and let the genealogist ascertain who was a real rabbi and who was merely a respectable gentleman. In both cases, it is possible to justify and criticize my choice.

The fun had only begun. First names in Hebrew and English are not always identical. The English spelling of the name appeared in the caption to the photograph I received from the client. However, I still had to choose between the Hebrew version and the “official” English version. For example, on the gravestones of those named Jacob was written יעקב [Yaakov]. On the one hand, the names are similar enough for a non-Hebrew speaker to identify the connection. Furthermore, my task was to translate the Hebrew, which may include the actual form of the name. On the other hand, the audience was the English-speaking family. I saw no need to add complexity to the already logistically and emotionally challenging task of learning about one’s family. I feel confident that Yaakov would not be angry at me for calling him Jacob even if some translators may question my judgment.

Many gravestones carried a few carefully chosen words of praise. The bereaving families noted that many of the deceased were תם [tom]. A quick dictionary search of the term brings up innocent and naive, to name a few. However, these words in English have a negative connotation, implying ignorance or stupidity according to the context. For example, a naïve businessperson or child lacks something important. By contrast, the meaning here is a person that acted with a pure heart. Thus, I choose guileless, a rare but positive word. In the context of Judaism, this is a virtue.

On the subject of virtue, at least one gravestone mentionedחסוד  [hasud] as a trait of the deceased. The two most obvious meaning are demure and pious. The former implies self-defacement in a negative way while the second is a bit vague to my ears, although it would also be appropriate. I choose virtuous as it expresses the idea that the person strove to live his/her life according to the values of the religion.

The last matter I had to consider was how to relate to the abbreviation ז"ל placed after the name of the father to mark his prior death. In some documents, it is possible to write the late, as in “the last John Smith bequeathed his money….” That term does not read well on a gravestone. Neither did RIP as there is a bit of sarcasm there. I instead chose of blessed memory, which is both a literal translation and appropriate.

Thus, translation is the art of choosing the appropriate word or phrase, taking into account all aspects of both the source and target language. This complex matching makes it both interesting and challenging to create a proper translation. If you need an accurate translation and are tempted to use AI or Google, remember your child’s rendition of a dog hanging on the refrigerator.

The educational pendulum – a step too far?

 

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Something is wrong in the kingdom of Denmark, educationally speaking. or so it seems to me. The attitude towards and, consequently, of educational institutions has changed 180 degrees over my life. They have gone from being a provider of God-inspired, figuratively, wisdom to an issuer of career–required, literally speaking, certificates. The teacher, once the kingpin, has become a cog in a complicated system of wheels powered by money. I understand the change and appreciate how much it has improved education but I feel it is time for the pendulum to go in the other direction.

The journey of my generation began with the teacher as God’s assistant (or maybe vice versa). Teachers decided what we needed to learn, which was accepted without question by both students, their parents and administrators. The system created a dogma, often unjustified, that educators somehow knew what we, the students, needed to understand in order to be successful in life. Questioning was taboo, as I discovered as late as 2000 when I did my MBA at a British university. During my college years, in the 1970’s, at some universities, such as UCSC where I studied, it was possible to talk with teachers on a friendly basis and even disagree about interpretation. However, nobody, including the college administration, openly disputed the teacher’s basis for assessment and the right to fail those that did not meet their criteria.

Today, in many if not most institutes of higher education worldwide, students are the customers, i.e., the college needs their tuition to survive. As high school testing standards have deteriorated over the decades, the gap between the assumed and actual knowledge of students beginning their degree programs has widened significantly. This discrepancy, combined with the ever-increasing tuition fees, has created a serious financial dilemma for college administrators: colleges need paying students in order to be able to keep their doors open. At the same time, the academization of professional life has made attaining the appropriate certificates essential for attaining most jobs, e.g., BAs for nurses. Finally, fundamental faith in the system, the belief that the people up there know what they are doing, has dropped to critical levels, also often justifiably. These crises together have created an atmosphere where an unspoken agreement exists in which students, their parents, administrators and even many teachers believe that an institution, when faced with a conflict between a student’s lack of knowledge and need for the certificate, should opt to issue the latter. Colleges and universities have become, to one degree or another, factories for diplomas, not actual knowledge. Interestingly enough, most people recognize and accept this phenomenon.

I, as a “dinosaur” who will retire from institutional college teaching in Israel in three semesters, find it disturbing that too many first-year Israeli engineering students I teach can pass my English course without knowing how to write a proper sentence in English or even in their native tongue, let alone a paragraph, not to mention create an organized argument. For me, effective communication is an essential skill. The world does not care if English is the second or even third language. As I tell my students, if a customer asks whether or not a bridge will bear a given weight, you need to be able to produce a coherent answer. My college, to be fair, is slightly more insistent on keeping testing standards up than many others. However, the unspoken and spoken message is that it is not “good for the college or department” if too many students fail. Teachers, beware.

At the same time, students should be made aware that they will be shortly entering the world of real work without many of the tools they need to be effective and that this lack will impact their own professional lives, not to mention those affected by the results of their work. It is clear that the omniscient and omnipotent status of teachers not so long ago was unjustified and harmful. On the other hand, the perception of a teacher as a clerk functioning as a cog in the system is equally unjustified and harmful. It is time to find a reasonable medium between these two extremes. The pendulum needs to start swinging in the other direction.

Annoyed communication – the art of signal communication

 

Last week, in the middle of a long drive home back to northern Israel, I got annoyed, very annoyed, due to the poor service at a restaurant. I got up from my seat, not once but twice, went to the cashier area and stated in a loud voice such that everybody in the whole restaurant could hear that I still had not received my salad. Some of you may find my behavior exaggerated while others may completely relate to my actions. That difference in opinion reflects the fact that culture dictates the appropriate way to express dissatisfaction, a language that is learned at home and through exposure to society. The complicating factor is that almost all societies are multi-ethnic, making it impossible to assume a common language and creating misunderstandings and failed messages. In my case, I have learned to communicate á la Israel.

If it is human to err, it is even more human to become annoyed with your fellow homo sapiens. The challenge is to express that annoyance without creating the potential for violence. At the minimum level, salespeople in certain cities, formally obliged to remain polite with customers, are experts in rolling their eyes when the potential buyer becomes too demanding, at least in their view. Likewise, the French have the amazing ability to insult you using the most polite and elegant language, becoming completely formal in their address as in “Madame, je regrette que vous ne trouviez pas la couleur que vous désirez. Madame, je suggère que vous essayez à un autre magasin.“, (In English, “Ma’am, I am sorry that you cannot find the color you want. Ma’am, I suggest you try another store.”), of course, in the most correct possible tone. The English, as a rule, tend to prefer understatement: “Waiter, the steak is a bit overcooked.”, meaning it is dead three times over. Americans are more over the top if still civil: “The steak is overcooked! Bring me a properly cooked one”. Alas, with many Israelis as well as other Mediterranean people, this relatively polite approach will not always create sufficient momentum; sometimes a bit of drama is necessary, which some people find acceptable and even amusing. No feelings are hurt. In each of the approaches, the annoyed and the annoyer receive the same message.

People do not learn the code at school, at least not in the classroom, but at home and in their neighborhood. Children carefully observe their parents and neighbors interact, paying attention to the choice of words, tone and physical expression. For example, children watching their mother tell a neighbor not to leave her garbage outside the door of her apartment note the expressions and intonation used to communicate their mother’s annoyance as well as the neighbor’s reaction. Parent-teacher conferences are excellent primers in the fine art of communicating negativity. “Your son needs to control his urge to talk to his friends during class” expresses the same message as “Your son needs to stop talking in class” and even “Your son disturbs the class with his talking”, but each has its nuances. By the time we reach adulthood, we learn how to acceptably express our unhappiness.

The major problem for societies is that almost every country is now multiethnic and, thus, a hodgepodge of communication codes. The United States, Australia, Israel and the UK are immigrant societies with people having quite varying degrees of assimilation and exposure to the native culture. Even traditionally more homogenous societies, such as France and the Scandinavian countries, have become multiethnic. This blending, regardless of the benefits it brings, creates situations where misunderstandings occur, i.e., one party perceives the behavior as rude or even threatening when there was no such intention. Neither person fully understands the other person’s code, which leads to conflict. Fortunately for the world, it is possible to learn the code at any age and consciously choose a successful strategy when expressing unhappiness or grasp what the annoyed party meant by making allowance for the other way. Live and learn.

As for the restaurant scene, I did receive my salad, albeit a rather poor one, but did not leave a tip. The manager came by and mumbled a few words of apology but did not offer to drop the charge for the dish. Ultimately, we understood each other but did not overreact, a positive situation as far as society is concerned. So, rude is as rude is perceived. That interpretation is a learned art.