Happy International Translation Day!!

Thierry LOTTE wrote:

Since about 10 years there is a very strange marketing trend to create totally artificial \"XXX Days\" without any serious reasons.

Soon or later, I am confident that we will have some \"Victorian Strumpet day\", \"Siamese Cats Day\" (I sustain this one), \"PWB Day\",\"George Orwell\'s Day\", \"Lousy Jokers\'Day\" and so on...

Now I wish I would some kind of \" Tolerance Day\" where nobody should be afraid by its innocent postings on this nice site.

Irresponsably yours,

Thierry

Thierry LOTTE wrote:


Claudia Iglesias wrote :



If you are interested by “ La malinche” please kindly read the following novel :

“AZTECA” – by Garry Jennings

Martin Schmurr wrote:

I know that ProZ policy says comments other members feel offended by have to be removed (and I know ProZ didn't censure it but they asked José to retire it and he did).

[Edited at 2003-10-01 12:17]

Martin Schmurr wrote:
I know that ProZ policy says comments other members feel offended by have to be removed (and I know ProZ didn't censure it but they asked José to retire it and he did).

But is Tolerance not a value to defend? The absurd first page of this thread appears like a smoking battlefield after a religious battle on ProZ.com. If José's posting remained there, this bitter impression would disappear.

Said Kaljanac a.k.a. SARAJ wrote:

In other words we, as professional translators and linguists regardless to our faith/religion, should not be as narrow minded as to consider him as THE reference, nor to claim that he is NOT a reference at all. We always should bear in mind that we have many references, representing us all, which makes us richer.

Bosnian forum moderator
Said aka SARAJ

José Luis Villanueva-Senchuk wrote:

...
The ancient Greek word for interpreter/translator is Hermêneus, directly related to the name of the god Hermes.

Its many further meanings—mediator, go-between, deal-broker, marriage-broker—open up a window onto the work of interpreters during prehistory.

And the knowledge that we gain of this prehistory thanks to these meanings provides an additional window opening onto the origins of language itself."

"Abstract:

The case for Hermes as the god of translators and interpreters is a clear and compelling one... ."

lien wrote:

Next year, let's celebrate with the Rosetta Stone,

laca wrote:

"...Egypt wants the Rosetta Stone, a 2000-year-old relic and one of the British Museum's most important exhibits, returned to Cairo... the Egyptian Government is calling for the stone's return and threatening to pursue its claim aggressively if the British Museum does not agree to give it back voluntarily..."

José Luis Villanueva-Senchuk wrote:

The case for Hermes as the god of translators and interpreters is a clear and compelling one. While some European translators have campaigned for St. Jerome as the patron saint of translation, there are probably some good reasons, with all due respect to the translator of the Vulgate, for having a god of translation rather than a saint. First of all, in global terms Asians and others outside of Europe are more likely to respond to ancient Greek traditions than to Christian ones (as they do when they attend the Olympic Games), since similar "gods-of-the-road" are revered in Japanese, Chinese, and even Mayan culture. Furthermore, the circumstances surrounding the "divinity" of Hermes may open the way to some surprising new insights into translation history and broaden the scope of Translation Studies as a whole. Hermes was par excellence the god of interpreting, of quick-wittedness, of wily improvisation, and translation, like writing itself, was a later development. Several current schools of Linguistics have their grounding in ancient Greek works on grammar, but as we shall see, the Greeks themselves, following Plato, looked to two authorities where language was concerned: grammarians and interpreters. While grammarians have until recently rooted their quest for rules and their sometimes dubious claims of universality in the structure of a single language, interpreters have necessarily always been concerned with at least two or more languages and the frequently jagged interface between them. And as will be explained, the tale of Hermes can also open up unexpected vistas onto the prehistory of interpreting, an area usually regarded as beyond our study, and perhaps even help to unravel the mystery of the origins of language itself.

It should be added that Hermes of course also acted as divine messenger, presided over commerce and travel (both clearly linked to translation), and was the tutelary god of all the arts and crafts...."

Parrot wrote:



Egyptian mythology equates this personality to Thoth, who invented the calendar and letters (and was thus said to have weakened the mind of man, making his memory dependent on systems of recording).

The closest Indian personality, however, is Ganesh, the god with the elephant's head, who is the patron of intellectual activity (read: literature, mathematics, sciences). The son of Shiva and Parvati, how he lost his original head has many versions, but he is depicted as a model of filial piety: some say he lost his head defending his mother, to which they add that he lost one tusk defending his father. In his statues, he holds that tusk in his right hand, because it is also said that he used it to write down the Mahabharata when Vyasa the poet recited it for the first time.

So, schoolchildren love him. I once saw a little girl embracing his fat-bellied figure in a temple, as an Indian friend explained, "she probably has exams coming up." His image is also all over the accounting departments of the private business sector, since he has a reputation as a bringer of luck, prosperity and wealth. He is the lord of Shiva's gunas or demons, (read: troublemakers), the "remover of obstacles" (and also the one that puts them there).

Namaste.

lien wrote: