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Akorbi Language Consulting, a global translation services provider to the healthcare, technology, legal, pharmaceutical and government industries, announced today that Co-Founder and CEO Claudia Mirza has been elected to the Board of Directors of the Greater Dallas Hispanic Chamber of Commerce (GDHCC).

The Greater Dallas Hispanic Chamber of Commerce (GDHCC) provides a platform for Hispanic businesses to promote themselves and network with fellow Hispanic business owners in the Dallas area. The GDHCC supports the advancement, education and economic growth of the Hispanic business community. With a membership of more than 1,800 businesses, corporations, and individuals, the chamber influences local commerce through certifications, legislative action and business development.

See: Marketwire

Fifty online tools that can help you along, making it simple to learn new words, find out where they came from and just plain play with words. Check out these sites to build vocab, learn about words or make up your own.

See: Online Universities

The completion of the 22-volume Urdu dictionary is a matter of satisfaction for the nation and a tribute to the country’s lexicographers, philologists, etymologists and litterateurs whose vision and commitment to Urdu’s cause have finally been crowned with success.

Although the function marking the completion of this Herculean effort by teams of dedicated men and women was held in Karachi on Saturday, the last volume of the dictionary, containing 200,000 entries, came off the press last April, marking the culmination of a hard and painstaking intellectual labour spread over 52 years.

Work on a concise version has already begun. It is hoped that Urdu Lughat: Tareekhi usool par will be made available to all Pakistani universities, colleges and public libraries at subsidised prices.

See: DAWN.COM

The Argentine Translators and Interpreters Association (Asociación Argentina de Traductores e Intérpretes – AATI) elected a new Board for the 2010-2014.

See: AATI

The tale told by the European Commission about Gareth, a British football fan arrested in Portugal, denied an interpreter by the police was “made up”.

This tale made the case for a new European Union regulation standardizing the treatment of criminal suspects facing proceedings in foreign countries in an unfamiliar language. However, the example “was made up,” wrote Mrs. Reding’s spokesman, Matthew Newman, in an email.

“We didn’t want to use actual people,” he said later by telephone. Gareth (we should probably henceforth call him “Gareth”) was “inspired by actual cases,” Mr. Newman said, but didn’t represent an actual person in an actual predicament. “Gareth” appears in fact to be a composite of events, people, and the fertile imaginations of the European Commission’s press-release-writing team.

Mr. Newman said that two examples given by Mrs. Reding at today’s press conference (14 soccer fans arrested and forced to share the same interpreter, and a person arrested at an airport after her traveling companion was found with cocaine) refer to actual people — as far as the commission knows. But the people cited in the March 9 press release aren’t real.

See: The Wall Street Journal Blog

In the city of Springfield, one out of every five residents speaks a language other than English at home, according to federal Census figures from 2003. Forty-one percent of them report that they do not speak English “very well.”

Springfield’s diversity is one of its strengths. But the diversity of its languages can also be one of the city’s biggest challenges. The public school system—where 57 percent of the students are Hispanic—struggles with how to work with children who come from non-English-speaking homes. In 2006, the U.S. Justice Department filed a voting rights lawsuit against the city for failing to adequately serve Spanish-speaking voters, prompting officials to hire more bilingual poll workers and provide translators, among other changes.

Now a group of city activists is calling on the Springfield Police Department to improve its services to residents who don’t speak English. The Pioneer Valley Project—a coalition of community, religious and labor groups—is advocating for a city ordinance that would establish strict protocols for how the SPD deals with non-English speakers, including bilingual interpreters and translated documents. The changes, they say, would ensure that the city is satisfying federal civil rights laws, and strengthen communication between police and residents in situations that can have life-or-death consequences.

See: Valley Advocate

Authorities in northwest China’s Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, the country’s largest Hui community, issued a plan Tuesday to train Arabic language professionals beginning this year and running until 2020.

The regional government will encourage Arabic language studies by using various methods, including holding Chinese to Arabic translation training courses, according to the talent development plan issued prior to the China-Arab Economic and Trade Forum to be held in Ningxia in September.

In recent years, an increasing number of Muslims in Ningxia began to learn Arabic to become translators. After graduation, they have found jobs in China’s developed coastal regions and, even in the Middle East, said the spokesman.

See: Xinhua News Agency

“Native languages are alive and well, and they need the federal government to help their voices flourish.”

That was the message of a group of Indian educators who gathered for the National Native Language Revitalization Summit on Capitol Hill July 13 – 14 to make legislators and administrators aware of their concerns and desire for support.

Meetings with Congress members and Obama administration officials took place throughout, and some federal officials took part in the event, promising to help strengthen Native languages.

Ryan Wilson, president of the National Alliance to Save Native Languages, highlighted a plethora of reasons for increased language support from the federal government. Chief among them is the ability to save cultures that have been treaded upon for hundreds of years, yet still survive, he said.

See: Indian Country Today

The Minister of Labour and Productivity, Chukwuemeka Wogu, has said a recent report by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) that the Igbo language might become extinct in the next 50 years is worrisome and calls for prompt attention.

Mr. Wogu, who represented President Goodluck Jonathan, stated this in an address at the second International Conference on the Extinction of the Igbo language in Owerri, Imo State.

Mr. Wogu blamed parents for downplaying the language and called on stakeholders to look inwards for solutions.

He also called on other Nigerian groups to emulate the efforts of the Igbo to preserve their language.

See: 234Next.com

Joran Van der Sloot has filed a complaint against the translator who took part in the questioning that resulted in his confession.

Van der Sloot’s attorney insists the translator misrepresented himself as the official translator of the Dutch embassy.

The translator was part of the questioning in which Van der Sloot confessed to killing Stephany Flores in May.

See: NBC13.com

Increased use of machine translation (MT) by clients and language service providers has resulted in a greater need for posteditors; however, conflicting or lack of postediting guidelines and acceptance criteria has created resistance among language specialists in providing this much needed service.

A recent survey by TAUS highlighted the main issues: “Pain points in postediting management”

-Translators’ resistance
-Ambiguous client quality demands
-Lack of visibility into quality of MT system
-Other (please specify)

Note: Seventy-five language service providers  based in North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific and South America responded to the questionnaire.

See: TAUS

ProZ.com is looking for representatives from the freelance translator community to participate in an exciting 2010 virtual conference panel titled “Rates in the translation industry”

This panel will be moderated by Renato Beninatto and include representatives from the LSP/translation agency community along with an end client representative and Henry Dotterer, founder of ProZ.com.

Volunteers must:
* be ProZ.com members in good standing
* make themselves available for several training/testing sessions prior to the 2010 virtual conferences
* own and have full ability to use a webcam and a USB headset/microphone
* have access to stable Internet access
* possess a positive attitude and ability to enter into a productive discussion on the topic of rates in the translation industry
* be available for the dates of this year’s ProZ.com virtual conferences

To volunteer as a potential panelist, please submit a support request at: http://www.proz.com/support

See: ProZ.com 2010 Virtual Conference

International Conference:  “Role of Translation in Nation Building, Nationalism and Supranationalism”
New Delhi, December 16-19, 2010. Jointly organized by Indian Translators Association and Linguaindia Foundation

See: ItaIndia

After nearly three months and millions of gallons of oil, it looks like the leak in the Gulf of Mexico may finally stop gushing. While BP’s blunders have caused untold damage to the environment, its failure to provide language services continues to put human life at risk.

The Labor Secretary ‘s  office complained that BP was not providing limited English proficient workers with proper training in their native languages to help them understand how to properly handle contaminants.

A congressman from Louisiana has also complained both to BP and to federal agencies about the notable lack of bilingual staff and interpreters who can communicate with the area’s diverse population.

Why are interpreters so critical? Approximately 40,000 Southeast Asians live in the Gulf Coast region, making a living by fishing, packing shrimp, shucking oysters, and working in hotels and restaurants. About a third of all fishermen in the gulf are Vietnamese. The region is also home to many Spanish speakers.

The lesson for BP, and for any other firm that operates in multiple countries? If you want to build a successful global business that can weather even the toughest storms, you must be able to communicate with your customers — and your employees — no matter what their native languages.

See: Global Watchtower

Following two cease & desist letters addressed to them from visual novel publisher, Minori (Ef), fan-translation group, No Name Losers, have at last ceased work on Ef. In their last C&D to NNL. In their last C&D to NNL, Minori wrote:

If you wish to obtain an official license from us, handle the ratings issue, follow our requested procedures and sell and/or distribute [our software] within English-speaking circles, then there is the possibility of you

visiting our office and discussing with us a license agreement. We would look forward to people following the proper procedure for getting things done.

Meanwhile, NNL, too, have taken the contents of their website down and replaced it with a notice stating they are in talks with Minori’s CEO.

See: Siliconera

Funny Translator is a new web project that twists phrases, sayings, song lyrics-whatever the case may be-with Funny Translator’s surprisingly-bad translation service, which translates from English to 56 other languages and back. Members of the site’s com

The project was started “to emphasize how bad machine translation is,” according to Translation Services USA president and CEO Alex Buran, who, along with the team behind ConveyThis, began Funny Translator in June 18, 2010 as “Bad Translator.” By revealing the limitations of automated translation services such as Google Translator and Yahoo! Babel Fish, the hope is to promote the need for high-quality, human translations for important texts such as legal documents, corporate websites, and instruction manuals.

See: AddPR.com

Also see: The New York Times

Web-lingo will be translating 150 German novels into English for a large German publisher based in Germany. Starting with 12 novels and 600 000 words with a deadline of one month.

See: Bizcommunity

Video interpreting has been around for many years. But, the ability for the average person to make a video call using a mobile device is a much more recent development. CNET predicted nearly two years ago that mobile video calling was about to go mainstream. But when — if ever — will mobile video interpreting make its way to the masses?

While we’re definitely fans of making language services available across more diverse platforms in all possible output formats — speech-based and visual language transfer included — we’re more skeptical about mobile video interpreting as a replacement technology for other segments of the remote interpreting marketplace, for a few reasons:

1. The consumer market for remote interpreting is tiny.
2. The market for video interpreting is even tinier: video interpreting is still just a fraction of the size of its older and bigger cousin, telephone interpreting. Even when they join forces, both forms of remote interpreting appear scrawny alongside the much heftier on-site interpreting market.
3. Screen size.

See: Global Watchtower

When it comes to learning a new language, there is nothing more frustrating than not understanding a crucial word or phrase. For those looking for a quick, easy and simple answer to their Hebrew-English translating needs, the Quicktionary®TS – a hand-held pen scanner (scanning translator) – is an ideal solution that gives fast, accurate and reliable results to people on the move.

See: The Jerusalem Post

The Central Massachusetts Area Health Education Center offers medical interpreter training funded by the Executive Office of Health and Human Services.

Given the extensive, specialized vocabulary and concepts involved, medical interpreting represents more than just repeating words, she said, and is different than interpreting in other fields.

But while a standard certification could save hospitals money when assessing new hires,  managers must grapple with how to handle existing interpreters, approaching the new changes with ambivalence.
The new standards come as the field embraces technology. MetroWest Medical has 17 flat-screen-equipped, wheeled units called MARTTI – my accessible real-time trusted interpreter – featuring videoconferencing between doctors and patients on one end and Spanish and Portuguese speakers in an Ohio call center on the other.

See: The Milford Daily News