Less than an universal language

The pace of globalization, whether regarding products or language, is not uniform throughout the world.  As many American tourists have discovered to their frustration, not everybody speaks English, even in civilized in Europe.  For example, in Budapest, even though it is the capital city, many store employees do not understand or speak English.

This issue came up in a recent trademark dispute between the French Chronopost and DHL. One of the matters in dispute was whether the term webshipping would be understood by the French to imply delivery of products.  The judges ruled that while the term web clearly referred to the Internet, the average French speaker in 2000 would connect the word shipping to movement by ships, not to mailing products in general.  In other words, shipping was an exotic foreign word, not a description of services.

The question arises whether such a ruling would be issued in other countries.  For example, In Israel, where English instruction begins in 4^th grade, I strongly doubt it.  English is firmly ingrained in the daily language even in those less than successful in studies.  I suspect Germans would also have no problem understanding the term.  By contrast, it is possible that many native Spanish speakers, especially those in isolated areas in South America, would not know the meaning of the word.

The issue of the assumption of knowledge of a foreign language predates the Internet.  Tolstoy’s famous French dialogue in War and Peace was perfectly understandable to any pre-War World I Russian upper class individual, but significantly less those educated in the Soviet Era.  Thus, modern translations require explanation of the sentences in French.   Also, the time when a writer could quote Latin and be understood by the readers ended some 50 years ago.  However, there may be some English people educated in private schools that do understand them.  Then, there is the classic joke about David Levi, a former Israeli Foreign Minister who spoke French but not English.  Accordingly, it is told that he once returned an oven that he bought because it didn’t cook the of (chicken in Hebrew) when it turned in on off.   One can even argue the Internet language itself, so obvious to a certain generation, is still a foreign language to a significant percentage of the population.

I would be interested in hearing your impression of whether people where you live generally understand English.

Dubbed magic

As a translator of written texts, my main focus is the transfer on the content and style of the text to be translated into the equivalent in the target language, English in my case.  Watching the Hebrew-dubbed version of Mary Poppins, I was reminded of the lecture by Richael Glickman I heard at the recent ITA conference regarding dubbing of children’s shows. I watched the move in awe at the level of translation.

The translator/dubber succeeded in doing took things that I could never imagine impossible.  Not only did the translator express the idea but added two elements that involve the ear. The syllables /  speaking time in the Hebrew must closely match that of the English.  That equivalence is far from simple since English uses some 40-50% more words.  In other words, Hebrew translators actually have to add fillers to “complete” the text.  Moreover, the nature of the sounds as reflected by the form of the mouth, such an open “o” or closed “t”, must be the same.  So, even the words in Hebrew and English are parallel in terms of length, they may be inappropriate in terms of the video picture. If the character ends the song with a open mouth, you can’t have the localized version with a closed sound.  It simply looks funny.

As a demonstration, watch the youtube video of Spoonful of Sugar in several languages. In my opinion, the Danish was masterful but the Japanese dubber did not quite succeed.  As for the Hungarian, anybody that has ever heard Hungarian knows why the song was not even translated. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pih_f8GH31E)

So, if you wish to appreciate the art of dubbing, I strongly recommend looking at scenes from Mary Poppins or most Disney movies in Hebrew or most other languages.  Amazingly, it actually appears like the song was written in the target language.  That is truly seamless translation. 

*I would be interested in hearing about dubbing in other languages.

Conventional Relevance

I just returned from my 5^th Israeli Translators Convention.  Attending such an event requires a significant investment of money, time and energy.  Many people, translators and non-translators alike, ask what the return on this investment is.

The most obvious benefit is knowledge, whether immediately practical or not.  Dubbing, subtitling and faction translation are not even a marginal part of most translators business, all of which were explained in a wonderful clear manner, Yet, I feel somehow richer understanding the requirements and challenges of those fields since it expands my vision.

Of course, there were numerous technical workshops on various translation tools, including the MemoQ and SDL CAT tools (Computer Aided Translation), Abbyy Fine Reader and Word.  The concentrated and immediate access to experts is invaluable and really only available at conferences.

Of course, there were countless niche-specific presentations.  For those involved in the specific niche, the lecture provided priceless information. 

Finally, the conference was blessed by fascinating speeches from non-translators, ranging from Simcha Jacobici (the Naked Archaeologist), journalist Eetta Prince-Gibson, a Jerusalem based reporter, and Israeli writer Dorit Rabiniyan. 

Other areas of presentations included business, literary and cloud based translation.  Sometimes, it felt very frustrating only to be able to attend one lecture at a time.

The other major benefit, one that personally reinforces my energy and desire to do the best job possible, is the added proof, if one were necessary, that translation matters.  It affects how people understand the news, interpret the Bible, learn about other cultures through foreign fiction, cook a dish, understand a disease and defend their rights in court, to name just a few.  This often invisible part of the document production cycle is in fact no less important than the writing of the document itself.  In other words, even in some translators feel isolated and even neglected in their modern computer-equipped caves, we do indeed make the world better. 

So, it is back to work with a renewed understanding of why I read the small print of insurance contracts and articles of association.  We are relevant.  That confidence by itself is more than adequate compensation for the price of the conference.

A matter of choice

As parents know all too well, children function differently from adults.  They do have a logic to their choices, just not the same as their elders.  One of the ways children worldwide pick among similar options is by means of a song.  The actual words vary from country to country, but the idea is that the last syllable falls on the selected choice.

For example, in most English speaking countries, the selection song, with some local variations, goes like this.
Eeny, meeny, miny, moe

Catch a tiger by the toe

If it hollers, let it go

Eeny, meeny, miny, moe.

The animal and punishment varies, including go to jail in the Welsh version.  Of course, children have additional verses to string out the process and add tension.

The Hebrew version consists of a chorus and seemingly endless verses.  The chorus is as follows:

Enden dino, sof al hakatino

Sof al haki kato

Elik belik bom

Unlike the English version, there is no clear meaning, as least to the non-scholar, to the words of the chorus.

The French picking process turns out, rather surprising, to be mispronounced German:

Am, stram, gram

Pic et pic et colégram

Bour et bour et ratatam

Am, stram, gram

The meaning, unknown to the children no doubt, is the following: one, two three, steal, steal, maybug, run, run horseman, one two three.  As they say in jazz, it is the rhythm that counts, not the words.

Russian children make hard decisions as follows:

На златом крыльце сидели:
Царь, царевич, король, королевич,
Сапожник, портной - 
Кто ты будешь такой?
Говори поскорей,
Не задерживай 
Добрых и честных людей

This can be transliterated as follows:

Na zlatom krilze cidyeli /  Csar, parevich, korol, korolevich / sapojnik, portnoi / Kto ti budyesh takoi / Govori poskoryei / Nye zaderjibai / Lubich I chestnich lyudei

And translated as:

On the gold porch sat / Tzar, Tzarivich, prince, and young prince / shoemaker, tailor / Who are to be such? / Speak faster / Go ahead / of the good and kind people [Better translations are welcome]

The Russian version has clearly much more content.

So, if you have the privilege of hearing a child making a hard decision, listen to the rhythm of words and see if you can guess who or what will be picked.  You have to admit that the song method is much more entertaining than the adult version of flipping a coin.

Why was this Superbowl better than previous ones or a Guide For Foreigners

The Superbowl was played last night.  To those foreigners ignorant by default or choice, this game is the finals of the professional American football. Most foreigners probably did not even want to see the game as all they  would notice would be 22 rather large people jumping on each other, with the rules guiding this mayhem clearly incidental.  I have to confess that I did not see the game either for two reasons. First, due to time zone issues, the game was played in the middle of night.  Secondly, since my favorite team was , yet again, not in the Superbowl, I had no justification for ruining a good night’s sleep.  Still, based on what I read and saw this morning, I can say without any doubt that, as they say in France, it was a good year for Superbowls. To wit, here are some features that made this game relatively good, to be noted for next year if you consider ruining your night’s sleep to see that game.

1      The score was close both during and at the end of the game, 28-24, with New England winning.  While this game is supposed to represent the best two teams in the NFL, the results are often letdowns to all the leadup to the game, as in last year's dilly, 43-8.  No knowledge of American football scoring is required to see what a rout that was.

The referees did not decide the game.  Given the incredible number of rules, the number of people playing and the speed of the game, it is impossible to see everything accurately at all times.  The NFL uses video review for certain plays to reduce the human error factor. Yet, many games are “decided” by a controversial referee call, in complete disregard to any play or event that may have occurred beforehand.  Thus, the fans of the losing team blame the referees and claim that their team was robbed of a victory, thus permanently spoiling the taste of the victory for the winning team.  Fortunately, the referees did their job, apparently.

Katy Perry gave a half-time show that was entertaining without insulting anybody.  Somehow, unlike Janet Jackson, no article of clothing came off, an act that tends to upset the more conservative members of the audience.  I imagine many of the males watching the show were a bit disappointed. Not only that, she did not use any of those explicit terms that a person cannot use on American television (See George Carlin for the whole list).  As best I could tell, she did not feel any need to express herself in any other manner than singing and dancing.  All in all, it beats having the NFL apologize for these errors of etiquette.

They showed a Pete Rose in a sports shoe commercial.  For those unfamiliar with that name, he is a former outstanding baseball player banned from anything connected with baseball for life as a result of the cardinal sin of betting on baseball games when he was still a player.  By the way, reports are that some professional tennis players do the same thing, but that is another sport. It took chutzpah to use him to sell sports shoes, albeit not for baseball.  On a day of avoiding anything controversial, it is nice to add some cayenne pepper to the mix.

So, it is my hope that next year those unfamiliar with this famous American tradition will choose to ignore their complete ignorance of the rules of the game, the absurd local hour of its broadcast and the awful commentary and watch the Superbowl, paying attention to the important aspects. 

Je suis trente huit and J’accuse

For a Jew or anybody with sense of history, the last year culminating in the events in Paris this month has been traumatic.  From the reported shootings in Marseille, the unreported regular attacks on Jews in Europe and the dramatic events in Paris at the Holocaust Museum, newspaper office and supermarket, the situation looks very dark, with a stark resemblance to those of 1938.

Then, a rogue leader of a large country publicly espoused nationalistic and xenophobic goals and acted to attain them.  While some people opposed them, many people and leaders either ignored the message or, even worse, sympathized with it.  Evil was eventually defeated but at a heavy price for all.

Today, the call is from a more omnipresent force, Islam.  Regardless of their variety and organizational form, Muslim organizations call for the destruction of all non-believers, starting with the Jews. Isis, Hezbollah, Iran, Saudi Arabia, the Palestinian Authority, Turkey and Syria all agree on one matter: pluralism is not an option.  Many European leaders choose to ignore this call in order to win votes while many people in the street and government, even non-Muslims, sympathize with the goal.  While many if not most Muslims, both in Europe and the Middle East, are not active politically, they are influenced both by this call and the inevitable anti-Arab reaction that terrorism causes. 

Yet, there are differences.  First, Israel exists.  If French Jews have started carrying Israeli flags in the street, it is a sign that that the Diaspora tactics of staying low is being replaced.  While the prime minister of Israel was criticized for pushing himself to the center of the Paris rally, the world had to be reminded that Jews were not going to count only the local leaders and police.  The latter are accountable to another country now.  Also, some European leaders have hopefully learned from 1938.  They are trying to stop this disaster while it is still manageable.  The fact is that Hitler could have been stopped then. While quislings will always exist, there is hope for an early unified reaction.

It is hard not envision a terrible war before use, one that will go beyond national borders.  It could release the butchery of the Middle Ages, where the ends justified the means and everybody pays the price.  It is not quite 1938 but it is too close for anybody’s comfort.  I accuse the world of a hypocrisy that is dangerous both to the Jews and itself. Most of all, I try to maintain the hope that enough people have learned from the events of the not-so-distant purpose.

Language Inequality or the Joy of Challenges - Part 2

As was explained in the previous post, each language poses a different level of challenge to those who wish to learn it, depending on various factors.

4. Syntax. Linguist theorist claim that human brains are wired into in the subject-verb-object structure, meaning that people instinctively expect and understand that order.   Whether this is true or not, languages not bound by this order, i.e. those that use the case system require more energy to learn and understand but are much freer in terms of sentence construction.  A comparison of English and Russian demonstrates this point.  While English may have many words to learn, once the learner recognizes that a given word is a noun, it requires no more effort to process and apply that word.  The writer/speaker can place that noun in that form in any place where that word as a noun can enter.  For example, the form of the word shelf is the same in the following sentences: The shelf is not straight; Line up the shelf; The bottle is on the shelf. The caveat is that the order of words is vital importance and follows strict rules.  You cannot randomly mix up them up without changing the meaning.  By contrast, Russian, like other case-languages, places various suffixes to nouns depending on its function in the sentence or what the word before it. The meaning of all this complexity is that learners of the Russian language do not have the tools to understand or write a proper Russian sentence until they learn all six cases (which is still easier to do than the 19 cases of Finnish).  So, students of Russian earn their rewards.  On the other hand, once this skill is attained, it is hard to make an error in sentence construction since almost anything is allowed.

5. Roots. The rule in regards to learning a language is that the fewer roots there are, the easier the language. In other words, you get more miles (kilometers) for every word you learn.  So, Hebrew, a non-developing language for so long, is extremely easy to learn in that perspective while English is simply hell.  The other issue with roots is familiarity. To a certain point, being familiar with the roots from another language eases the process radically. English speakers generally do not struggle with Spanish because many of the words sound familiar.  It can happen that too much familiarity brings confusion.  I studied Italian for several years.  I had to remember the spelling differences between it and French, a more familiar language for me.  For example, the word and is et in French but e in Italian.  The same issue might arise among speakers of Slavic languages, among others.  It always helps to have some knowledge in advance.

6. Intonation and tone. All languages have intonations, the manner in which various kinds of sentences are spoken, i.e. statement, question, exclamation, etc.  This voice control varies from language to language and country to country and presents the greatest challenge to mastering a language since it requires conscious retraining of your voice.  For example, English has limited up/down waves when making a statement: I bought a car.  There is almost no difference in tone between the first and last word.  In Russian, with the equivalent sentence, the first word would have a normal tone but the volume would decrease until the last word almost disappears.  French, by contrast, will resemble a sine wave pattern, up and down.  In Italian, well, it would like an opera, to my ear at least.  However, a far greater learning challenge is tone-based languages, such as Chinese.  The same sound can have numerous meanings, all depending on the tone of the pronunciation. Small children pick up those tones quickly but most adults struggle to master them.

So, it should be clear that no language is a piece of cake in all aspects nor is any language impossible to learn.  Natural talent can be factor but motivation, time and effort can overcome any difficulty a language can pose.  Every language opens the world and its people.  This investment is clearly worthwhile.