Interview with Grace Shalhoub - French legal translator

 

Intro - short biography

Grace Shalhoub is a court-certified legal translator based in France, specializing in legal and technical translation since 2014. She is also a certified translator in Quebec. Her main areas of expertise include criminal law, namely money-laundering and swindling cases, family law, and business law. Her working languages are French, English, Hebrew, and Arabic. She also has over 10 years of experience teaching legal English and English-to-French translation courses in France at both undergraduate and graduate levels.

 

1.      What does “traductrice assermentée” mean in the French context?

In France, a traducteur assermenté is a legal translator appointed by a Court of Appeal and authorized to produce certified translations. After taking an oath, the translator can certify translations with the required signature, stamps, and certification statement.

Certified translations signed by certified translators are often required by French authorities, including government agencies, police, courts, and other public institutions, whenever official documents issued in another language must be submitted for administrative or legal purposes.

Certified translations may be required in a variety of situations, including:

• Administrative matters: marriage, birth, and death registrations, as well as property transactions.
• Legal proceedings: foreign court judgments and rulings, adoption proceedings, and guardianship matters.
• Education: diplomas, degrees, transcripts, and other academic records issued abroad.
• Immigration and citizenship: residency applications, work permits, and applications for French citizenship.
• Business and corporate matters: company registration, subsidiaries, HR, and corporate documents.
• Tax and inheritance matters: estate administration, inheritance proceedings, and tax audits involving foreign-language assets.

  2.     What is the difference between the French and American translation market?

Having worked with both the French and American markets, I appreciate the distinctive characteristics of each. Each offers its own professional challenges, expectations, and opportunities, and this cross-market experience allows me to approach translation projects with an understanding of its linguistic, cultural, and institutional contexts.

 European translation market

European citizens frequently move to other European countries to live, study, or pursue professional opportunities. This mobility creates a wide range of translation needs, from personal and family matters—such as marriage, dual citizenship—to academic requirements, including university applications, enrollment, and exchange programs. Employment-related certificates, professional qualifications, and other administrative paperwork can also require translation when individuals relocate across borders.

French vs. US certification system

The French system for certified translation differs from the approach generally used in the United States. In France, sworn translators are appointed by judicial authorities, whereas the US does not have a single, nationwide system of court-appointed sworn translators equivalent to the French model. The French Translators Association (SFT) does not have its own certification program like the ATA.

 

3.     Name some linguistic challenges of translating into French legal language.

French is an official language in several European countries, including France, Belgium, Luxembourg, and Switzerland. However, the use of French does not imply a single, uniform legal terminology across these jurisdictions. Each country has its own legal system and legislative framework. French legalese must therefore be understood within its specific national context. There is no single, Europe-wide system of French legalese.

Another major challenge lies in the differences between civil law and common law. These legal traditions and philosophies rest on different legal concepts and sources of law. Translating legal documents between these systems requires more than linguistic proficiency. It calls for a solid understanding of both legal frameworks and the ability to recognize where concepts do not have direct equivalents.

4.     How does one enter the French translation market?

In France, undergraduate and graduate students pursuing degrees in translation are generally required to complete an internship as part of their academic training. For many, this is their first opportunity to discover the professional translation market, whether within a translation agency, a government agency, or an in-house translation department.

After graduation, career paths vary. Some graduates choose to work as freelance translators, while others pursue positions in translation project management or other language-related roles including teaching languages. However, full-time in-house translation positions have become increasingly scarce in recent years, making it more challenging for graduates to find permanent employment as translators.

My own career followed a corporate path. After completing a six-month internship at an engineering company, I joined the company as a full-time employee and spent the next six years working there, before eventually deciding to pursue a career as a freelance translator.

 5.     Name three lessons you have learned on how to survive as a freelance translator.

Find your niche. Choose a field you genuinely enjoy translating. Be curious about your chosen specialization, keep learning, and develop a thorough understanding of your subject matter.

Strive for excellence. Make quality your trademark. Impress clients with your writing style, subject-matter expertise, attention to detail, and translation skills. Become a trusted partner rather than simply another service provider. You’ll also put yourself in a stronger position to choose the clients and assignments that best fit your expertise and professional goals (and rates!).

Do not multitask. Running a freelance translation business involves much more than translating. Hire an accountant, seek professional advice on tax and social security matters, set up a professional email address, and build a website. Whenever possible, avoid spending valuable time trying to master every aspect of running a business on your own. This frees up more time for the activities that directly contribute to your success (and turnover): translating, developing your expertise, building relationships, and attracting new clients. Treat your translation practice as a business, not as a hobby or an amateur project. This shows clients that you take both your work and their needs seriously.

Shibboleth – French legal terminology then and now

 

Traditionally, legal language has two purposes: to provide a precise term and to prevent the uninitiated from understanding. The Plain Language movement, at least in English-speaking countries, has somewhat diminished the second tendency to want to confuse the person on the street but that change is far from universal or consistent. As a case in point, Tom West, in his outstanding webinar for the ATA discussed recent changes to the French codes of law, emphasizing terminology. First, I would recommend watching his webinar (through the ATA) if you do legal translation or interpretation in the French/English language pair. On the linguistic front, it was fascinating how the French legal language achieves the desired level of encryption, notably applying vagueness, generality and sheer misleading. Granted, the code reforms have improved the situation in some cases but the examples shed light on the codification of law in both senses of the word.

The first technique is using a general term to describe a specific action. It is similar to saying “kitchen” when you mean to ask someone to turn off the light in the kitchen. One example in French legal terminology is imprévision, which means something unforeseen. In legal language, it refers to the damage caused by an unexpected event not specified in the contract or list of force majeure cases. The English translation is hardship. Another example is that, traditionally, French laws had to meet the standard of bonnes moeurs, literally “good morals”. The new term is ordre public  but the English term is public policy. Finally, the French equivalent of the famous standard of the reasonable person (previously man) is pėre de famille, taken from the Latin term. The term suggests a test of whether a proper father of a  family would take a given action. The French have quite reasonably replaced it with reasonable, apparently because the mothers of the family had had enough of this sexism. In all these cases, it is possible to guess the meaning of the word but it takes a bit of imagination.

A second technique is to take a general word and give it a specific meaning, creating the false impression that the reader actually understands the significance. A prime example is the word crime. Contrary to appearance, the term in French law only refers to the most serious of all offenses, murder, rape and the like, with délit referring to lesser crimes and contravention applying to a misdemeanor. I imagine that a French lawyer would not fully understand the name of the movie Crimes and Misdemeanors. Likewise, a jurisdiction d’exception actually refers to courts with specialized but limited areas of jurisdiction, such as the Commercial Court. Jurisdiction actually refers to a court while exception relates to a specialty. A final example is the common French word proximité, which sounds like and generally means nearness. Alas, in legal French, it would refer to a local or district court. Knowledge is the key.

Finally, some terms are simply misleading. The reformed code replaces the traditional French legal répétition with restitution. The previously used chambre de l’instruction is now honestly called a chambre des investigations and libertés. At least the first term is clear. Finally, the appel public à l’épargne, which had nothing to do with savings (the last word), is now an offre au public des titres financiers. That is a public share offering to English speakers. At least, someone in the French Parliament cared about plain language.

Legal language has always served as a way of allowing or preventing entrance, a shibboleth. To its credit, the French government is working on reducing its level of encoding. I suppose that French will always be more ambiguous than English for better or worse. A word (or two) to the wise, including those in the webinar,  prevents some serious misunderstandings for lawyers and translators.

Taxing properties

 

[house*]

As the old joke goes, the only certainties are death and taxes. Regarding the first, none of us, as far as I know, have any personal experience to speak of but most adults are quite familiar with the second. For example, property owners and sometimes renters have to pay a property tax to their local authority to finance its services. This tax exists almost worldwide but how this tax is calculated varies from country to country. In theory the tax is the product of the base amount and the tax rate. Each country defines the first variable differently and has distinct mechanisms for setting the second as I will show in by comparing the property tax calculation methods in the United States, France and Israel.

In the United States, the base amount is highly variable while the rate is relatively stable. The local authority, usually the city, establishes the rate by vote with the increase in any given year limited by state law, thus protecting the taxpayer from sudden jumps. The city can apply discounts and exemptions for certain areas, building types and income levels at its discretion, On the other hand, the value of a property is based on its current assessed value, i.e., if former neighbors made a killing in selling their houses during a given year, everybody still living in the neighborhood must pay higher taxes as the value has risen according to the latest assessment. The constant increase in property value in California forced people to sell their houses because they could no longer afford the property taxes even if they had paid a modest price for it several decades previously. As a reaction to that, California voters in 1978 passed Proposition 13, which rolled back property taxes, which predictably significantly reduced local services. Thus, US property taxes vary greatly from place to place primarily due to property values.

By contrast, the French taxe fonciére is based on the rental value multiplied by a value local authority. The base amount is 50% of the annual rental value, an amount changing on a yearly basis. The tax rate increase is set by the government but a city can vote a supplementary amount as Paris did this year, raising the tax to 50%, yes fifty percent. Thus, not only do French landowners have to keep on eye on rental values but they also must watch their local councils.

Israel has the arnona, which, typically in Israel, is named after a special tax from centuries ago. The base value for this property tax is the size of the property with the  tax rate set by square meter. One would think that the base amount would remain constant but the local authorities have a nasty tendency to periodically remeasure houses and flats and discover previously unknown meters, such as outside walls and covered garages, thus adding sometimes 10% to the previous measurement. The local authority set the rate with the government determining the minimum and maximum amount. As usual, there is a catch in that a local authority may make an application to the Interior Minister for an exception to these limits. As elsewhere, the local authority can apply this rate uniformly or create partial or complete exemptions, an important matter in a country with a large number of religious institutions of various kinds. Israel property tax bills are relatively stable aside from those re-assessments.

It is almost certain that, if you are a property owner, you complain about property tax bills regardless of which country you live. To be fair, most people are not happy about the level of local services either but that is human, right? Curiously, each country has chosen its particular manner of calculating its pound (or dollar, shekel or euro) of flesh. Is one fairer than the other? That issue taxes my understanding of property.

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Lettre Israelienne – the SFT RTI2023 Congrés in Angers

[Chateau d'Angers*]

I enjoy attending translator conferences abroad. They represent not only an opportunity to learn, network and travel but also learn about other cultures. By the nature of their participants and subject matter, they have both an international and national character to one degree to another. The RTI2023 Congress organized by la Société française des traducteurs (SFT) in Angers, France at the end of the August was truly a French affair. Its content illuminated and reflected the reality of translators in France, which is quite different from those working in less structured countries. I came to understand that this formalization comes at a price but clearly provides benefits for the translators and interpreters working in France.

The nature of this Congrés, with some 260 participants, was almost entirely French, not nearly as international as in most translation conferences. First, aside from a few outliers, all of the participants were French or living in Europe working in the French market. Correspondingly, all lectures were French without a single presentation in English. The video presentation by the head of the Quebec Translation Association, the OTTIAQ, was about as foreign as it got. The audience was extremely polite, sitting through all the lectures even if they contained  an entire alphabet soup of acronyms, even applauding at the end. I did not hear a word of complaint about any aspect of the conference, grantedly well organized. The participants were well dressed, not a given at many translator conferences. The lectures began and ended on time with proper breaks for elegant food and good coffee, also not to be taken for granted. In terms of social interaction, the participants networked in a more subtle way than in conferences in countries with more direct cultures, such as the US or Israel. In short, this was a French conference.

As such, the content discussed and exposed the reality of translator living in France. Unlike more unregulated countries, translation, especially legal and other specializations, is a liberal profession recognized by the government. As such, certificates and official recognition of status are the key for professional success. The government has statutes specifying the requirements and obligations for attaining any status, including “expert”. As an official liberal profession, the government supported translators during the Covid period as it did many other independent business people. On the other hand, the bureaucratic nature of the government creates long, complicated processes. For example, opening a freelance business can take a week while an application to become an “expert” in a given legal jurisdiction can take a year with the relevant authority not having to explain a rejection. French translators seem to work within in a relatively structured set of rules.

In my opinion, this framework both limits development and creates security. On the one hand, the specialized sessions I attended, however well organized,  notably on quality control and ChatGPT, were highly theoretical on the verge of ideological. I felt that a newcomer to the field would not have gained much practical knowledge. Due to their more immediate urgency in other countries, conferences in which I have participated approached the matters more practically. On the other hand, the existence of an established path to financial success as a translator seems to create more emotional security. Translators and interpreters in France may have to play by the rules but they seem to have confidence in their ability to make a living. For purposes of comparison, the most common question in most translator/interpreter conferences is “How can I make a living in this profession” but not here. Thus, the structured nature of translation and interpretation in France creates a comfortable but insular world.

In 1721, the French writer Montesquieu wrote Lettres Persanes, a description of France at the time as if written by a Persian visitor, i.e., France as seen by a foreigner. Being only half French, I admit to experiencing this conference as a foreigner. I enjoyed it very much in all its Frenchness. It clearly expanded my horizons. I met many pleasant and interesting colleagues with whom I hope to keep in contact. I consider the SFT RTI2023 conference a success both in terms of organization and meeting its goals, i.e., knowledge and networking. The French do have style.

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Travel jitters

 

[Paris roofs*]

Travelling to an unknown location is exciting, at least for some people. The prospect of encountering a new culture, hearing a foreign language, tasting local foods and seeing unique places breaks up the metro, boulot, dodo routine, enriches the mind and even creates a purpose for working so hard on a day-to-day basis. However, this unknown also creates a certain anxiety, differing by person, whether it involves food, language, loss of orientation or any other familiar aspect in life. I personally have experienced these jitters in the past. Moreover, I am experiencing them right now as I am about to travel to a SFT (the French translators association) conference in Angers and then to Paris to see my family. I find myself a bit nervous about what I will encounter when I leave the airport despite the fact that I am quite familiar with France.

I begin by saying that these pre-trip nerves did not stop me from travelling and enjoying my travel experiences. When I and my wife flew to Budapest, I was troubled by the fact that I did not know a single word in Hungarian and could not pronounce it when if I heard it. Hungarian is not a Latin-based language and has a rather peculiar rhythm. In fact, I could not nor did not try to speak any Hungarian but found it quite easy to read the signs and attain essential information. My trip to Poland for a legal language conference created much more emotional ambiguity due to the close geographical connection to the Holocaust. The trip was indeed emotionally challenging but enriching as I learned how complex the connection between past and present is. For more thoughts, see this post. In both cases, I enjoyed the discovery, each in a different way.

My upcoming trip to France has created a different type of worry. To explain, I am half-French (my mother), lived in France for a short time in my 20’s and speak nearly fluent French, one of the languages from which I translate. I even have family there. A minor worry for me is entering a more formal society after more than 30 years of living in a “direct” country. Thus, I am a bit nervous about making some social faux-pas that are not as excusable for a person of my age (as compared to when I was younger). However, my greater fear is the potential disappointment on what I will see in Paris. To explain, I lived in that city some 40 years ago and last visited some 14 years ago. Neither I nor the city are same. You can say that we have evolved or, possibly, devolved. Thus, our upcoming meeting will much more similar a first date than a reunion. I confess that this uncertainty makes me a bit nervous.

Still, as Doris Day sang so wonderfully, che sara, sara. Whatever the case, it will be nice to see my cousins, stroll through a European city, enjoy the food, appreciate the lifestyle and, as I did some 40 years ago, let my American self  laugh at the French while my French side enjoys every bit of the experience. Even if I am not fond of how the city has changed, it is, to paraphrase Shakespeare, better to have seen and been a bit disappointed than never to have travelled at all. I accept travel jitters as an essential part of discovering the world. Of course, I will report how justified or unjustified my fears were when I return. The only thing to fear is fear itself?

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Highly civil law – the other approach to contract law

 

[Man looking through a telescope*]'

Sometimes a person visits another family or country and discovers that an alternative way of doing something actually has many advantages. That was my feeling after an amazing two-hour webinar by Thomas West on Russian legal translation organized by the American Translators Association. I knew that the civil law system had different procedural elements as compared to the common law system However, his lecture opened my eyes to an entirely different manner of approaching contracts, which I have to admit has much virtue. The lecture also suggested ways for lawyers and translators to bridge between these two worlds to the benefit of their clients.

Before discussing contract elements, it is important to understand the differing bases of common law and civil law. Common law began in England and spread to its colonies and territories, including the United States. Under this system, while the legislature may set broad guidelines on policy on a given legal matter, the courts through their decisions define the specific elements. In the United States, due to its federal structure, each of the fifty separate states could theoretically have a slightly different interpretation, limited in practice by decisions of the US Supreme Court and rules of the Universal Commercial Code in certain matters. In practice, legal interpretation does vary significantly in the United States, requiring specialized knowledge by lawyers of practices in specific jurisdictions. Furthermore, under common law, an enforceable contract requires an exchange of consideration, i.e., each side actually has to promise to give the other party something of value. Accordingly, the declaration that one person will give a gift to another person has no legal standing as the receiving party has promised nothing in return. By contrast, the civil system, which is the accepted system throughout Europe, including Russia, involves a set of specific rules written by the government in explicit codes, most famously “the Napoleonic code”. Under this system, judges apply the written rule to the cases, generally acting as the investigator in order to match the facts to the rule. The civil law system is far more rigid and standardized.

Mr. West discussed contract law in Russia but mentioned similar frameworks in Europe, including France. He pointed out that the Russian civil code defines the conditions of 26 specific contracts, including leases, cargo and insurance, as well as determines the general conditions of all contracts. These terms may either be negotiable, i.e., the parties can agree otherwise, or mandatory, i.e., elements that cannot be waived. Curiously enough, civil law does recognize some gift contracts even when the other party does not provide consideration, some kind of compensating return. Thus, a civil law contract must only include those elements that are specific to the matter with the assumption that applicable civil code applies to all other matters. It is clear that European contracts can be much shorter and still provide sufficient coverage.

For attorneys and clients, this codex system radically simplifies life. Any individual seeking specific information about a term can consult the section on the specific type of contract in the codex, which generally has an official translation to the major European languages, and then compare it to the actual terms. For example, a contract that has no ending date of effectiveness is considered unlimited. It is also possible to write a contract that only partially relates to an existing form or even not at all. By contrast, an American plaintiff or defendant must consult a local attorney to ascertain how the relevant court will interpret a given term, who may not be able to provide an absolute answer. Flexibility has its price

For translators, this difference in approach creates terminology issues. For American translators, it may be possible to use terminology from Louisiana, which has some civil law elements, but Mr. West strongly advised avoiding this solution as most attorneys, not to mention their clients, are completely unfamiliar with this terminology. He suggested “nominate”, “innominate” and ’mixed” for contracts to distinguish those contracts specified in the code from those that are not. For contracts without consideration, he suggested ‘enforceable without valuable consideration”, which is clear, albeit a bit wordy. In any case, in order be thorough, legal translator may also need to consult the relevant codes for clarification.

The webinar also discussed language choice issues specific to Russian, which I found very illuminating in both confirming some of my previous terminology choices and correcting others. Beyond the technical matters, Mr. West’s webinar removed my culturally myopic disdain of civil law systems and allowed me to see the beauty of another approach. I am grateful not only for the knowledge I received but also for the perspective he provided. There is nothing like having your world expanded.

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Vive le Français

 

[Eifel tower*]

A few weeks ago, I had the special and unexpected pleasure of listening to an online session of the SFT, the French association of translators. The content was rather prosaic, even staid, specifically the specifics of the conversations between the association and the French government regarding COVID-19 relief available to translators and interpreters. Yet, in my eyes, it was a great pleasure, the mahiya as my mother would say (in Yiddish), because of the language. All the French I hear is from the television, which is respectable in terms of grammar and pronunciation most of the time but clearly meant for mass consumption on a communicative level. By contrast, the hosts employed elegant phrasing, accurate connecting words and all the tenses in the book. To some it may have sounded bureaucratic. However, I saw precision, clarity and, most importantly, elegance. Despite my less than great interest in the content, I simply sat back and enjoyed the show, so to speak.

I have often mocked France as the country in which style has almost completed defeated content.  In my experience, most French really do not care what they eat, people say or they achieve in life as long as the actual output has style. Michelin star-decorated restaurants serve plates that would leave Mahatma Gandhi hungry but cause Claude Monet to ring praises of the colors and textures. In my eyes, women’s clothes style in France is not based on the garment but on the overlay of shades and forms, quite different from the mode of most of its neighbors, especially Germany. Watching the July 14^th military parades in France, especially as compared to the Israel flag-exchange ceremony the eve of every Independence Day, is a marvel to the eyes but does pose questions regarding when these soldiers find time to learn how to fight. There is no doubt about it that the French style is aesthetic to the extreme.

Maybe due to age, I am learning to see the wisdom of the French approach. A neat, beautifully plated éclair looks much more appetizing than a messy one thrown  sloppily on a plate. Clothes do make the man (and woman) as so much of our first impression is based on a visual assessment, which often identifies important internal values. The manner of speaking and level of language use is quite often a reflection of the intelligence and intellectual approach of the speaker or writer. Even in my work, I have come to understand that many customers value neat formatting of text and tables as much as the skill of the translation.  It may be that style is really never completely divorced from reality.

To make it clear, my love of beautiful language is not limited to French. I appreciate the strange but charming logic of winding Russian sentences whose parts are connected by a coherent logic that only a Russian can create. I cannot help but smile when I hear Italian. The music of that language is simply entrancing in itself. As for English, a rough hybrid of a Gaelic, Germanic and Latin-based languages, when a diamond does appear, it is a result of extensive and artistic polishing. Thus, I appreciate the “effortlessness” of Rudyard Kipling and George Orwell, to name a few, knowing that the pearl was the fruit of great labor. So, elegance in any language is worthy of appreciation.

Still, maybe because I am half-French, when I hear or read beautiful French, it makes me happy, joyous even. Like listening to the last movement of Beethoven’s ninth symphony, it is an ode to joy. I will never be able to speak, not to mention write, that way but that does not stop me from appreciating the beauty of “une belle phrase”, a beautiful sentence, perfect in itself regardless the content or lack thereof, like Cinderella at the ball, a princess for that moment. So, vive le Français.

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Game of thrones – Special political traditions in France, Israel and the United States

 

[Throne*]

The art of translating goes beyond knowledge of language and encompasses comprehension of culture. A professional translator must know how the societies of the source language handle a given situation and translate the whole concept in such a way that the speaker of the target language can understand. For example, while the United States uses the common law system of law, France uses Droit publique, thus requiring the legal translator to understand the function of each court level in both systems in order to properly translate court documents. Similarly, while many democracies exist, fortunately, each has its own peculiarities. Thus, translators of political and journalistic materials must be familiar with the electoral processes in order to transmit them from one language to another. As an example, I will present a special, sometimes unique, aspect of the French, Israeli and American democratic processes.

[Bed]

2^nd tour or strange bedfellows - France has multiple political parties, with ever changing names. As a result, all French elections, from municipal to the presidential, are conducted into two rounds. To clarify, in the first round, any person, with or without party identification, may run for a public position but only the top two finishers appear in the ballot for the deuxieme tour. So, the deuxieme tour does not refer to the 1904 running of the Tour de France but instead to the second round of voting. This reduction to two candidates requires the losing local representatives and national parties to choose whether to remain neutral or recommend a vote for one of the two remaining candidates. Given the fluidity of modern French political alignment and the interaction between personal dislike and future ambition, the result is rather comical to an outside observer as personal and/or ideological enemies suddenly unite because they both despise or fear the challenger even more. The recently completed round of municipal elections in France provides numerous examples with a potpourri of local ideological alliances. Thus, the 2^nd tour exemplifies that the enemy of my enemy is my friend, at least for the moment.

[Bread and crumbs]

Remainders or waste not, want not – Israel also has a multiparty parliamentary system. In fact, Israel has never had a non-coalition government. Thus, the distribution of seats in the Knesset, the Israeli parliament, is of vital national interest. To determine the final result, the national election committee calculates the total number of actual, not only registered, voters and remove all votes for parties that did not meet the legal minimum for a seat, currently 3.25% of the total vote. The resulting number is divided by 120, the number of seats in the Knesset. For example, in the latest national election in March of 2020, each seat was equal to 37,943 voters. The interesting issue is what to do with the votes from 37,944 to 75,885. To avoid throwing them away, each party signs a heskem odefim, an agreement on how to distribute the remaining, unused votes, right before the election. The goal is to help the party closest to gaining one more seat, which may be the difference between being the government or opposition. The how and why of these agreements are for the politicians but the result is that the official results take up to three days so that some ballots can be checked and the heskem odefim can be applied. Every little vote counts.

[Jigsaw puzzle]

Gerrymandering or scribbly lines – The United States is a federal government and has effectively two parties. Individual elections are much simpler, i.e. the winner of hte one and only election is the person getting the most votes. However, the U.S. Constitution, written with its typical ambiguity, creates a unique process for defining the voting district for a member of the House of Representatives, which is legislatively limited to 435 members. Article 1 of the Constitution merely states that a representative must be elected every two years by a district with no more than 30,000 registered voters. Having observed the dead borough phenomenon in the UK, i.e., districts where most of the voters has long died, the Congress allows the redistricting every change of decade after the census. Now the fun begins. Whichever party controls the legislative branch in a state gets to redraw the map, guided only by the Constitutional limit of equal districts of no more than 30,000 voters. The considerations are not administrative but electoral. To clarify, as a rule, most minorities tend to vote Democrat while many white suburban voters tend to vote Republican, depending on the local politics. So, if a party wishes to diminish the impact of a concentrated voting bloc, it divides up its voters among several districts while the opposite is true if the goal is to maximize electoral impact. The district lines do not have to resemble any known geometric shape. In recent years, the courts have started to reject extreme gerrymandering but it is clear that one of the strengths of the Republican Party has been its control of many of the state legislatures for several decades. The devil is in the details, even in politics.

Seen from the outside, these traditions are curious, even amusing, a bit like reading or viewing the Game of Thrones.  However, from the inside, they have a huge impact on the residents of the country. A customer requiring translation of an economic or political text must make sure that the translator understands the concept and can transmit it to the target audience. Unlike the series, this game is real.

*Caption pictures to allow full access to the blind. All images via Pixabay.

Cultural variety

                                          (Japanese picture of man in boiling water*)

As a continuation to two previous posts about words and cultures, culture is relative to a specific society not only in form but also in connotation. Formally speaking culture includes the artistic achievements of a group but also the mechanisms of daily interaction. So, the type of music loved by people is an example of culture but so is the manner of saying hello, whether that is by shaking hands, bowing, kissing cheeks, or using words alone. Thus, it is clear that all human languages must include some way to express culture.

For a linguist, an additional distinction is the attached connotation. For example, the word “culture” when applied in the United States, France, Israel and Russia can imply very different purposes. Modern America was settled by immigrants that were poor and quite often uneducated, even illiterate... Thus, a reference to culture is a way of distinguishing one person from another, generally negatively. Describing a lover of opera as cultured can either be praise or derogatory, i.e., elitist, depending on the point of few. Not only that, its multiethnic society has espoused a vision of blending as compared to maintaining traditions. Thus, the expression “they come from another culture” is an alternative phrase for “they don’t behave like Americans”. The American ethea of anti-intellectualism and melting pot, notwithstanding the existence of exceptions to these tendencies, adds a connotation of different to the term culture.

By contrast, France glories in its Culture. French people are proud of its artistic icons, whether in literature or the visual arts.  The country even has a special institution for them, the Pantheon. The average French person mentions Victor Hugo, Marcel Proust, Claude Monet and Edith Piaf with pride. Even those that would never read any of their books beyond what is required for the Bac or go to a museum would think twice before stating so. France is the cultural leader of Europe, at minimum, in terms of literature, art and food. Unlike the United States, culture in France, or at least its appreciation, is a unifying factor.

Israel too was founded by immigrants but they came from many communities, each with its own Culture and culture. The dogma of wiping out the diaspora and imposing the new Israeli stamp on all of its citizens, applied for its first 25 or so years, is slowly but surely disappearing. Today, Israelis talk about culture to explain differences in food, music and wedding arrangements. In practice, most couples reflect mixed ethnic background except for the ultra-orthodox. This requires negotiation of cultural issues such as which foods to eat on holidays, the level of spiciness and frequency of family visits, to name just a few matters. Culture in Israel is of part of the dialogue of everyday life.

The Russian use refers to both the high-brow and, more commonly, the communal aspect of culture. As the French, Russians are proud of Dostoevsky, Tolstoy and Tchaikovsky, to name a few. However, the most common use of the word culture is the negative term некультурный человек  [nekulturni cheleovek], meaning an uncultured person, better translated by the term barbarian. To clarify, this expression does not refer to the lack of familiarity with Shostakovich’s music. Instead, it describes crude (by Russian standards) behavior, a lack of social savior faire and open greed. It is hard for a foreigner to decode this term as it encompasses so many unspoken rules.  For example, to the best of my knowledge, Ivan the Terrible was a некультурный человек but Stalin and Putin are okay.  It is possible to be unbelievable cruel but remain cultured. So, when a Russian accuses you of being uncultured, you have apparently crossed some (ultraviolet) red line.

Dictionaries may agree upon the definition of culture but people stamp their own opinions and perspectives on the term. There is a wonderful scene in Shogun in which several Japanese calmly discuss how they are so much civilized than the shipwrecked English sailors, which are being boiled alive at the time. One person’s culture is another person’s primitivism.

*Insert captions under pictures to allow access to the blind. Picture from wikipedia.

The King is dead - The French heritage of patrimoine

                                              [Bust of King Louis XIV, "the Sun King"*]

Human societies share a base core of concepts as reflected by words. Examples include house, meal, work and father. While all languages have words for these ideas, the details and connotations as well as relative importance vary from language to language and culture to culture. By going beyond translation, it is possible to use lexicon to understand the priorities and subtleties of any given society.

An interesting example is the French world patrimoine, derived from the Latin for the heritage of the father. Le Petit Robert, the classic French-French dictionary, affectionally known to some Francophiles as “Little Bob”, defines the word in terms of inherited assets, total assets of a person, treasures from the past and the collective inherited characteristics. The English translations include estate, property, holdings, inheritance and heritage. The power of the single word in French is spread into five different words in English, each with its own context. Thus, the concept of passing on gifts exists in both cultures but is lexically expressed differently.

Given the conceptionally wide coverage of the French word, it is no surprise that it appears quite frequently both in terms of quantity and range of subject matter in French. It is rare to find a newspaper or magazine where the word does not appear at least once, if not multiple times. The word can refer to a fancy chateau of Cardinal Richelieu, an asset subject to the incredible estate taxes of French tax law reaching 55-60% percent for non-sibling heirs, the incredible crème fraiche produced by multiple generations of a boutique dairy in some province and the books of Marcel Proust, which are longer than those of Herman Melville and contain much less action. For that matter, people whose direct ancestors survived the black plague are immune to AIDS and have a valuable patrimoine. The word packs quite an impact.

This power goes beyond verbl use and both fuels and is fueled by people. In France, there is a countless number of volunteer groups and government agencies trying to save some patrimoine or another. I have heard of organizations for the preservation of ancient forms of wheat, tomatoes and flour; the houses and recipes of Colette, Anatole France and Monet; old windmills and recipes of the various monarchs; the chansons of the 1920’s and 1930 as well as the street music of the 19^th century; church buildings and remnants (often merely “rems”) of some long forgotten castle or fortification;  and furniture and decorations from any century prior to the 21th. All this effort and time reflects the important of the past on the French.

Being half-French but also half-American, I cannot but help consider the psychological impact of such an obsession on French thinking. Assuming a zero-sum status on time for thought and action, i.e., each person has limited quantities of them, it is interesting to make conjectures on the benefits and price of this tendency. As I see it, France and French were once the leading stars of Western civilization, dominating Europe both politically and linguistically. Alas, the German unification by Bismarck, World War I and emergence of the United States and Soviet Union,  to name just a few causes, changed that reality. Still, as in Spain, the French are understandably quite nostalgic for the “good old days”. Relishing them makes the French and French government feel much better.  Furthermore, in themselves, these various heritages are impressive and worth preserving. Many of the chateaux and culinary delights are France are truly impressive.  However, I have always sensed that this conservation is at the expense of valuing the present and developing the future. Why aren’t modern French singers, scientists and industrialists equally esteemed in France or abroad? For the purpose of contrast, the Americans Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and Michael Jordan are known worldwide. Even France’s most iconic modern symbol, the late Johnny Hallyday, is a conscious imitation of Elvis Presley (not the other way around as some French may think). In fact, modern France has produced some impressive buildings, scientific achievements, music and crafts. How many French people have the time or even care to sing their praise?

Thus, the pronounced use of the word patrimoine reflects not only its linguistic flexibility but also the attitude of the French to the past and present. It has been said that people who forget their past are doomed to repeat it but that does not mean that people who celebrate their past are destined to restore it.  Compare Italy of ancient and modern times. As a Francophile, I would say the King is dead, long live the President.

*Insert picture captions to allow access to the blind.

Picture credit: Image by <a href="https://pixabay.com/users/ibudiallo-2645883/?utm_source=link-attribution&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_campaign=image&amp;utm_content=2811294">Ibrahim Diallo</a> from <a href="https://pixabay.com/?utm_source=link-attribution&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_campaign=image&amp;utm_content=2811294">Pixabay</a>

Number theory

Numbers have significance well beyond their quantitative meaning.  For example, the term 24/7 is universally understood to mean around the clock without mention of the units, i.e., hours and days per week. The challenge for translators and non-natives is understanding the localized meaning, which may or may exist in the culture of the person trying to understand the term. Misinterpretation can lead to confusion at best and wrong conclusions at worst.

The most obvious number issues are quantities, dates and time.  Some languages, notably English, use the decimal point to distinguish the whole numbers from the decimal and lower numbers, e.g. 5.547 percent is 5 and 547/1000 percent.  By contrast, the comma is used to divide between each three places in whole numbers, e.g. 7,890 is seven thousand and eight hundred and ninety. By contrast, the French, among others, reverse this convention such that 5.547 is five thousand, five hundred and forty-seven while 7,890 is 7 and 890/1000 percent.  What a difference a punctuation mark can make.  The date issue can be critical.  The United States is almost the sole country that places the month before the day with most other countries starting the date of the month. Thus, translators often write out the name of the month to avoid any potential confusion. Europe traditionally has used a 24-hour clock such that each hour has a specific number. For example, 12:00 and 24:00 are clearly different times.  By contrast, in the United States, while few institutions use “military time” as the 24-hour clock is referred to, most people add am or pm or morning and evening. The problem is even Americans are confused whether 12 am is midnight or noon (it is the latter). 

In some cases, each county has its own variation of important numbers.  For instance, to call for an ambulance in the United States, you dial 911 while in France it is 112, Israel 101 and Russia 02, to name just a few.  For those who still have perfect vision, in the United States, you have 20/20 vision, meaning that you can see a certain image at 20 feet while France you have 10 vision and Israel 6/6. As they say, to each his own.

The United States has some of its specific terms.  A company filing Chapter 7 or 11 is going bankrupt. 9/11 is day of mourning that will not be forgotten for many decades. Any baseball fan knows that a 300 hitter is pretty good (for those not in the know, he gets a hit 30 percent of the time) while a 500 team has the same number of wins and losses.  In colleges, any 101 course is introductory, e.g., Economics 101 is the initial course. On the financial front, most Americans file a 1040 form of some type and know that the IRS requires it if they may not know how to fill it in. For that matter, Israeli get a 106 form from their employer every year reporting their income and deductions for the entire tax year. You got to be there to understand.

Culture also has added significance to numbers but the effect is often generational. Depending on the age, people may remember Adam 12, a patrol cop show from the 1960’s, Room 222, a TV program about a school in the early 1970’s and Beverly Hills 92010 for those a bit younger.  In terms of books, 1984 is a well-known book by George Orwell. Of course, all living generations know that 007 is a spy.

If I live until 120, as they say in Hebrew, I will probably witness the appearance of num(b)erous digital terms. Some will stick while others will be forgotten as in Bug 2000. Yet, numbers are here to stay.