Translation

From Wikinfo

Jump to: navigation, search

For translation software, see machine translation. For other meanings of translation see Translation (disambiguation).

Translation is the act of moving information from one language to another. Today this is increasingly assisted by the use of machine translation.

The translation process can be logically divided into two steps: 1. The meaning must be decoded from the source language, and 2. This meaning must be re-encoded with the target language. For precise translation, both of these steps often require knowledge of both the semantics of the language and the culture of its speakers. As well as preserving the meaning, a successful translation appears to a native speaker of the target language to be the speech or writing of another native speaker (except in the special circumstance that the speaker was not intended to be a native speaker, for example in a play).

All forms of literature and speech can be translated, including novels, movies, poetry, speeches, and non-fiction. Different areas are of varying difficulty of translation, however. Poetry is almost impossible to accurately translate for it depends as much on form as it does on meaning. Non-fiction, on the other hand, is often very straight forward to translate as meaning is all that is important.

In recent years the long anticipated goal of machines assisting in the translation process have met with some success. The goal of converting information from one language to another automatically is a major goal of natural language processing. The international plaza of the internet has been a promising testing ground for these technologies, such as Alta Vista's Babel Fish, which can make information conprehensible, but do not yet threaten the employement of professional translators.

Translating non-fiction texts requires little knowledge of culture or artistic aspects, and generally falls to companies staffed by low-skilled workers. This includeds the translation of manuals and other business and professional texts. Many governments also do a great deal of translating. For instance the government of Canada must translate all official documents into English and French. The European Union has many official languages and must employ a large number of translators.

If the translation of non-fiction works is regarded as a skill the translation of fiction and poetry is much more of an art. In translation something of the original is always lost, a rigorous word for word copy of the text would lose much of the impact of the writing because cultural differences would be ingonerd. An excellent translator will always face a delicate balancing act between accuracy and readability. People with this skill are rare and highly sought after by publishers.

The translation of religious works has played an important role in world history. For instance the Buddhist monks who translated the Indian sutras into the Chinese language would often skew the translation to better adapt to China's very different culture. Thus notions such as filial piety were stressed.

The translation of the Christian Bible has long been of great import. St. Jerome is still considered one of the greatest translators in history for his work on translating the work into Latin. Jerome's translation was used by the Catholic Church for centuries, but even his translation met much controversy when it was released.

The Protestant Reformation saw the translation of the Bible into the local languages of Europe, and act condemned by the Catholic Church and one that had a great impact on the split between Protestantism and Catholicism. Martin Luther's Bible in German and the King James Bible in English had immense impacts on the religion, culture, and language of those countries.

See also: Bible translations

Noted Translators:

External Links

References

Retrieved from "http://www.wikinfo.org/index.php/Translation"
Personal tools
In other languages