A friend recently wrote a post on Facebook in Marathi after seeing a rainbow in which she used the words 'rangancha fatkara', रंगांचा फटकारा that was translated into English as a 'slap of colours.' Fatkara is a splash, while a slap is fatka फटका. This translation is done by artificial intelligence or AI and it proves the need for good translators.
The need for translation from one language to another is felt strongly in a country like India, a land where hundreds of languages are spoken/written, if we include the dialects. While some languages may have many common words, for example Marathi and Kannada, or Marathi and Gujarati, some are totally different from each other. More so, the same word may convey something entirely different in two languages. For example, shiksha in Hindi is education, while it's punishment in Marathi. Given this scenario, the ability to know more languages than one's mother tongue is decidedly advantageous. Such people, the translators, who can understand one language and put the meaning across in another, make it possible for a native Marathi speaker /reader like me to enjoy literature in Bengali written by Rabindranath Tagore or Sharat Chandra Chatterjee, in Kannada written by Bhairappa or Vaidehi, in Spanish by Marquez. I will always remain grateful for their hard work; but for them, I would have missed the beauty of Tagore's stories, Sharad Babu's novels, Bhairappa's version of the Mahabharata, and the magical realism of Marquez.
Translators are in great demand these days mainly from companies working in the field of AI. Once you have fed the computer with the translations of certain words, there is no need of a living person to do the translation for you. The translated versions of various posts and comments that we see on Facebook in languages other than the one we use, are provided automatically, i.e. by AI. Of course, AI works on the basis of words fed to it by living persons, but the database doesn't have a context for the words to be translated. It is done to cut costs and thus very often we come across advertisements or subtitles that are incorrect, hilarious, annoying, and irritating. The message in the advertisements may reach the reader but the words definitely lose their original shine. People who work as translators complain that they are not given their dues, respect, pay, or credits.
The world is a richer place because of translators who quite literally transport the reader of one language and culture to the language of the original writing, the reader gets a feel of the alien culture, food, fashion, cities, housing, etc. She may dream to travel to this land someday.
Although it is said that 'much is lost in translation', whatever remains is also valuable. No doubt, the 'lost in translation' feeling is sometimes prominent while watching the film in a language we don't understand. Sometimes the subtitles don't match the actions on the screen, sometimes the beauty or the literary value of a song is lost in a literal translation. Subtitling has gained momentum as a skill or an art in recent years and that has benefited viewers across the globe. Viewers who love web series, films, documentaries made in different countries and in different languages.
A heartfelt thank you to the translators on this International Translation Day.
We at population first value translators and had awarded an incredible book Romantic Encounters of a Sex Worker written in Tamil by Nalini Jameela and Translated into English by Reshma Bhardwaj.
Mrinmayee Ranade
Communications Consultant
Population First
