I was fortunate enough to undertake my MA in Translation
Studies in North Wales, a highly translational environment. An immersion in
diglossia was invaluable for my studies. It showed me how translation breaks
free from the textbooks that mothball it into theory and thrives as a reality
lived by so many on a daily basis. I had access to a translational atmosphere
that the jargon and statistics of a theory book cannot evoke but instead
dilute. The location of my study alerted me to something that is often, and
amazingly, ignored by the theorists, linguists and lexicographers: the highly
emotive desire to protect one’s mother tongue from extinction. The instinct to
avoid language death is what upholds the reality of translation, enabling it to
thrive. It accounts for much of the world's language politics, but is so often
overlooked in favour of the facts, figures and case studies that explain these issues
on a more superficial, and less human, level. While I am surprised that the
emotive nature of language politics (and resultant policies) is rarely, if
ever, discussed, it undeniably gives the medium of translation not only a
platform, but a duty to which we as translators are bound. The duty is to
enable 'nation to speak unto nation' without either speaker sacrificing his or
her identity, personality or past. Those things mean too much.