Bible Translation into Spanish

Original Version:

(1) In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. (2) Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. (3) And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light. (4) God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. (5) God called the light "day," and the darkness he called "night." And there
was evening, and there was morning-the first day.

Translated Spanish Version:

In the below version, (1)=footnote 1

En el principio, Dios creó el cielo(1) y la tierra. (2) La tierra no tenía forma y estaba vacía, la oscuridad estaba sobre la superficie de la profundidad (3), y el espíritu de Dios estaba encima de las aguas (4). Y Dios dijo, "Que haya luz," y había luz. Dios vio que la luz era buena, y separó la luz de la oscuridad. Dios llamó la luz "día," y la oscuridad "noche." Y era noche, y era mañana (5) - la primera día.

1. "cielo" can mean both heaven, as it does here, but often refers literally to the sky.

2. The use of "Now" in the English version is omitted because a literal translation does not communicate the colloquial storytelling connotation the word has in English.

3. This clause makes as little sense in Spanish as it does in English

4. "Hover" is rendered as "was above" since it does not seem to be used as widely in Spanish.

5. "Era" is used instead of the literal translation of "había" for "there was." This is because using "había" seems too literal of a way to say "there was." Whereas in English "there was" can communicate both the sense of existence and, more remotely the passage of time, in Spanish I do not believe the passage of time to be communicated at all.

French Language Nationalism

Michael Kimmelman's article in the New York Times explores the most recent resurgence of French nationalism surrounding the French language. In the last few months, President Sarkozy has tried to appeal to conservative voters by reminding them of his ideological support for "l’exception culturelle," or cultural exceptionalism. As Kimmelman explains, this technically refers to parts of French culture like music and television, which the French government can continue to subsidize without international penalties. However, it was evolved to refer to the broader idea of maintaining a distinct Francophone culture. Conservatives in France increasingly denounce the willingness of popular culture and diplomats to use English.

However, as Kimmelman notes, the idea that the utility and scope of French-speaking is decreasing assumes a very limited view. French is in fact spoken by 200 million people. But a majority of these speakers are in Africa and only 65 million of them are French. Kimmelman goes on to detail several instances a writer with a foreign name was assumed to be unable to write well in French without any true assessment of his abilities. He also discusses the discomfort of many French people over the decreasing control they have over French-speaking culture. French was traditionally used as a language of indoctrination and superiority over colonized people. This legacy explains why some people in Africa still criticize writers like Algerian Yasmina Khadra. He writes his novels in French to reach a wider audience and because he likes the language. He does not feel speaking French necessarily aligns him with France.

This story again highlights the intense political and cultural associations people make with languages. However, it also shows that colonial languages like French and English can often be willfully adopted outside of their countries of origin. In this post-colonialist situation, a language's association with its original culture and country will likely remain for a long time. However, the accompanying ideology and culture of the country of origin can easily disappear. This situation confuses the traditional notion of language being intricately associated with the culture of its speakers.

References:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/25/arts/25abroad.html?src=me&ref=general

Foreign Language Learning in the US

In his blog on the Washington Post website, Jay Mathews pointedly asks why high school students in the United States spend so much time learning foreign languages when they rarely seem to gain fluency. From his (and my) anecdotal experience, it is often easy to get an A in a high school language class without ever becoming proficient in that language. As a result, students often spend several years in high school learning a foreign language with little to show for it by the end of their language educations.

Mathews questions our true motives and commitment to learning these languages. First, he says that in the Washington DC school system, where language learning is no longer required, he finds that most top students are still enrolled in language classes. However, he believes that this is primarily due to most colleges requiring foreign language classes, a requirement that effectively maintains the language-learning mandate. Second, he claims that in a more general sense, for all of the rhetoric about the value of language learning, the United States imports knowledge and essentially requires others to learn English. To put it more neutrally, there is a large enough body of English-language culture, business, and intellectual discourse that English-speakers rarely feel a pressing need to learn a new language.

The MLA published a report in 2006 about the state of foreign language learning in the United States. The amount of people learning languages in US Universities is at one of the highest levels it has been in 40 years, but it is not growing very quickly. The most interesting part of this report was the breakdown of how many people are learning individual languages and the ratio of advanced learners to beginning learners (testing how many people reach higher level classes). Spanish came out as the clear winner in these statistics, showing the highest number of learners and a low ratio between advanced and beginning learners meaning people often reach high level Spanish.

In general, the MLA report does not support or refute Mathews' argument since it only shows how many people are learning languages, not their motives or ultimate fluency. However, the popularity of Spanish also suggests that Mathews is right in claiming that Americans will not learn languages until they feel they need to. It is probably not coincidental that as Spanish-language learning has increased as a percentage of all language learning, the number of Spanish-speakers in the United States has continually increased. Spanish is both the second most spoken language in the United States and the most learned second language.

References:

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/class-struggle/2010/04/why_waste_time_on_a_foreign_la.html

http://www.mla.org/pdf/06enrollmentsurvey_final.pdf

Belgium's Language Tensions

Belgium has two official languages: French and Flemish. These two language groups, though largely mixed throughout the country, are administratively divided into separate regions, one in the predominantly Flemish part of the country and one in the French part. Further complicating the matter is Brussels, which is officially bilingual, and a small German-speaking minority areas called Eupen and Saint Vith. Belgium has historically suffered from tensions and conflict between its language groups, primarily between Flemish and French speakers.

An article in Deutsche Welle reported what some small Flemish towns are doing to stop what they see as an encroachment by French speakers. In Rhodes-Saint-Genèse, town officials have forbidden people from purchasing houses unless they have a connection to the community, effectively forbidding the arrival of newcomers. Other towns have introduced less formal policies or even simple understandings among residents. The effects are still the same and the message is clear: French speakers are not wanted in these towns.

This article and news coming out of Belgium would suggest that tensions are extremely high between these two groups. In an article on ProZ.com, a database and discussion forum for translators and linguists, Maria Karra wrote that in her experience, people of different linguistic groups in Brussels often speak in English rather than force one person to speak the language of the other. English is seen as a neutral language and is sometimes preferred to a choosing between Flemish or French. This is despite the required multilingualism in Belgian schools. By the end of their secondary education, students will have studied two languages (the choices being French/Flemish, English, and German) in addition to their own. In Brussels, French students are required to study Flemish and Flemish ones French. It is interesting then that the choice of English seems to be because of political connotations rather than out of need. This clearly suggests at the association many people make between language, culture, and often politics.

The Belgian government recognizes the importance of language on their citizens' identities and has several policies in place that reflect this recognition. Since 1961, a language census has been forbidden in Belgium making it impossible to accurately gauge which language is dominant and where. Further, the government is set up to equally represent both language groups in various scenarios that are outlined in the Karra article. These scenarios switch between giving unrepresentative weight to French and Flemish at various levels of government. The overall result though, is that both groups seem to be well-represented and few language-preferential laws are able to pass.

References:

http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,5475270,00.html

http://www.proz.com/translation-articles/articles/1250/1/The-Linguistic-Conflict-in-Belgium

Language Fluency in US Foreign Service

A huge and increasingly urgent problem for the United States government is foreign language fluency among its representatives. As we discussed in class, few if any troops in Afghanistan and Iraq speak Arabic, making it extremely difficult to connect with the local populations. However, the level of fluency in the US Foreign Service (Part of the State Department) is also shockingly bad. According to the Washington Post article cited below, 57% of US Foreign Service officers in Iraq can not adequately communicate in Arabic. However, even this number pales in comparison to the 73% of officers in Afghanistan who can not speak sufficient Arabic. These numbers are surprisingly high given the administration's stated desires to win the war by establishing relationships with the people on the ground.

It would be logical to assume that this problem exists only because Arabic has only recently become an important language to learn, meaning that there is a lack of qualified applicants. However, this does not seem to completely explain the high numbers. Over all Arabic speaking countries, 40% of officers are considered deficient. It is interesting that the US government has apparently decided to leave many competent Arabic speakers in these other countries rather than transfer them Iraq and Afghanistan where many would argue they are needed most.

Even moving beyond Arabic though, according to the article, one third of all officers did not pass their foreign language reading and speaking examinations. So the specific claim that Arabic is a language whose demand has exploded is not sufficient. It seems obvious that Foreign Service Officers should be required to speak the language of the area they are assigned. Looking on the State Department's website, Foreign Service Officers are generously compensated and a serious attempt is made to attract qualified applicants by matching their current salary. However, the State Department could perhaps better incentivize applicants and current officers by increasing pay for speakers of rarer languages.

Washington Post:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/07/AR2010040704503.html

Foreign Service Officer Recruiting:

http://careers.state.gov/officer/employment.html

National Gaelic Language Plan in Scotland

In 2005, the Gaelic Language Act established a committee, known as the Bòrd na Gàidhlig, to improve the status and increase the use of the Gaelic language in Scotland. Scottish Gaelic is a traditional language of Scotland, but its use has been steadily declining for more than 100 years. According to the 2001 Census, only 1.2% of the Scottish population spoke Gaelic. The Bòrd na Gàidhlig aims to prevent the decrease in speakers by actively promoting the use of the language. They intend to do this by improving the status of the language, increasing education, and changing signage across Scotland to be in both English and Gaelic. It is this last goal that was the subject of a BBC article about Glasgow's Gaelic Language Plan. Over the next three years, the city of Glasgow will open a second Gaelic language school, increase bilingual signage, and increase the use of bilingual government communications. In its plan, the Bòrd recognizes the need to increase the use of Gaelic for it to remain relevant. As a result, the Bòrd has outlined several initiatives to increase quotidian use of Gaelic in the workplace and in homes.

The desire to improve the status of Scottish Gaelic and increase its usage is similar to attempts by Ireland to increase the use of Irish (also known as Gaelic) there. Irish is the primary language for 3% of the country's population. However, through wide spread teaching of Irish, the language is now widely spoken. Largely because it is a mandatory subject in middle school, around 40% of Ireland's population consider themselves able to speak Irish.

Though the Scottish Bòrd does not explicitly aim for such widespread usage, it seems that the logical extreme of a desire to reintroduce Gaelic into Scottish culture would be to implement a program similar to Ireland's. In this way, a large bilingual portion of the population would be able to carry on the usage of Gaelic, something the Scottish parliament presumably thinks is important to maintaining Scottish culture.

References:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/glasgow_and_west/8605014.stm

http://www.opsi.gov.uk/legislation/scotland/acts2005/asp_20050007_en_1

http://www.gaidhlig.org.uk/national-plan-for-gaelic.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_language

Political Correctness and Gendered Language

"If people everywhere show greater sensitivity to the impli-

cations of the language they use, a higher degree of precision

Will result. It should be remembered that imprecise word choices

may be interpreted as biased, discriminatory or demeaning,

even if they are not intended to be."

UNESCO Guidelines on Gender-Neutral Language

The UNESCO Guidelines on Gender-Neutral explains that gender-neutrality allows a language to be more precise by only using gendered language when it truly applies to a single gender. Perhaps more importantly, gender-neutral language in English ends the male-bias in words meant to describe all humans like man and mankind. The ideas outlined in UNESCO's handbook are not particularly unique; they are just an explicit set of guidelines for the larger movement away from traditionally male-oriented language. The handbook is full of suggestions on how to rephrase sentences like "Man's search for knowledge has led him to improve scientific methodology" to the un-gendered "The search for knowledge has led to improvements in scientific methodology."

In a piece for Men's News Daily, Theodore Dalrymple criticizes such gender-neutral language as "censorship" by social forces and sub-editors. He argues that though words like "mankind" are gendered, their replacements (humankind) are often longer, in his view uglier, and even gendered themselves (humankind still contains the word man). Dalrymple's argument seems very traditional in his refusal to change his use of English. However, he also raises some valid points, such as the continued presence of male-orientation in words that are supposedly gender-neutral. He is also correct to point out that in some instances, gender-neutral language can cause sentences to be less concise. Like the UNESCO report, Dalrymple's criticisms are not unique, but explicitly lay out some of the criticisms of gender-neutrality in language. However, unlike Dalrymple, we need not immediately dismiss the goal of gender-neutrality in language. Instead, his criticism raises the valid questions of how best to make the English language more precise and less male-oriented. In some cases, a simple replacement of words as outlined in the UNESCO report will suffice. In other cases though, as Dalrymple points out, there does not exist a way to concisely express an idea without suggesting a gender. Perhaps the creation or wider-spread usage of new words and pronouns would solve the problems outlined above.

References:

http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0011/001149/114950mo.pdf

http://mensnewsdaily.com/2010/04/05/feminist-censorship-and-language-reform/