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Translation 27. Google Translate: Present State and Ongoing Research

29 January 2011

ProZ.com is a large online site for professional translators and interpreters. It claims 300,000 members in 190 countries. In a recent newsletter, ProZ announced a new translating blogsite for members and ProZ member RominaZ posted this link to a recent article by Chris Griffiths on Google’s admission that its free online Translation service – which is very widely used and extremely useful for getting a rough idea of foreign language content – still has some way to go before being ready for “sensitive debates”.

Following up one of several links attached to the Griffiths’ article reveals further information from Murad Ahmed on the present state of Google’s massive translation operations and its ongoing research for improvements and extended uses.

Ahmed quotes the leader of Google’s translation team, Dr Franz Och:
“Like much else at Google, the solution to the problem lies in number-crunching. Google is trying to turn language into a mathematical problem. Its “machine translation” system analyses millions of different texts on the web, learning the laws and exceptions of a language and applying these rules to its translations.
…
“The way we are doing it is to learn from vast amounts of data,” Franz Och, the research scientist who leads Google’s translation team, said. “Our system is learning to mimic what human translators do … the quality of our translation is getting better.”

Ahmed also offers this interesting Google research news:
“As well as perfecting the system, Google is building devices that can make it more useful. Last year, Eric Schmidt, Google’s chief executive, demonstrated a device on which people can take picture of foreign text on a mobile phone – a road sign or a restaurant menu – and get a near-instant translation of it.

“When asked what was next in store for the technology, Mr Schmidt said: “Google can translate 100 languages to 100 languages, so why can’t I just speak on the phone to someone who doesn’t speak my language? Well, we’re not quite there yet, but it’s coming soon.”
*
For a basic explanation of the Statistical Machine Translation method (SMT) favoured by Google (which is based on the statistical analysis of large bilingual corpora), see hubpages.com.

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Translation 25. International Air Traffic Control and the Need for Good English

30 December 2010

International air travel is an everyday area of activity where misinterpreting, mistranslating and misunderstanding of language can have serious or tragic consequences.

The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) has finally fixed 11 March 2011 as the date by which international communications between air traffic controllers and foreign aircraft must take place in English, especially in landing and take-off operations. [See here.]

Although it is difficult to find online documented examples of incidents where poor English communication between the control tower and pilots has caused danger or contributed to plane crashes, here are two cases for consideration.

On 25 January 1990, AVIANCA Flight 052 from Medellín (Colombia) to New York crashed near busy JFK Airport after circling in a long queue of aircraft during very bad weather conditions and, finally, running out of fuel. 73 passengers and crew were killed and many of the 85 surviving passengers were seriously injured. Ironically, the survivors owe their lives to the fact that at the crash site there was no outbreak of fire because there was no fuel left to ignite.

According to Wikipedia’s account of the accident and the subsequent inquiry, “The NTSB’s report on the accident determined the cause as pilot error due to the crew never declaring a fuel emergency to air traffic control as per International Air Transport Association (IATA) guidelines.” However, in the 6th part of a documentary re-enactment (in English) of the fatal journey, it is suggested that, in addition to the very bad weather conditions and the queue of circling aircraft with which traffic controllers had to deal, one of the contributing factors was that the Colombian First Officer used the English word ‘priority’ instead of ‘emergency’ to New York Air Traffic Controllers.

A second example, in which a Russian traffic controller’s English was clearly inadequate in an extended emergency, comes from the Moscow Times of 11 November 2010. This report on new ICAO regulations on the use of English contains an online link to an 8-minute “You Tube” audio recording of the embarrassing misunderstandings by the Russian air traffic controller of a Mayday call from a Swiss pilot following a “bird strike” on takeoff. (The initial crucial word not understood was “Mayday”.)

The article is written by Oksana Gavshina, Anastasia Dagaveya, and Vladimir Filonov.

English Language to Rule Skies

“Pilots and air traffic controllers at airports serving international flights will only speak English starting in March.

Russian pilots and air traffic controllers at the country’s international airports will be required to conduct all conversations in English starting in March 2011, and the practice could eventually be extended to domestic flights.

English could become the only language for communication between traffic controllers and pilots for non-military Russian flights, said Alexander Neradko, head of the Federal Air Transportation Agency.
Currently, both Russian and English are used for radio communication at the country’s international airports, while the rest only use Russian.

Neradko said it was difficult for dispatchers to accept incoming flights in two languages, posing a safety risk. The conversations are held on one frequency, meaning that they are heard by all pilots, who need to know what nearby planes are doing, he said.

In March, all international airports will switch to English. At the same time, pilots and staff will be required to demonstrate Level 4 conversational skills according to the six-level scale of the International Civil Aviation Organization, or ICAO.

The organization had planned to introduce that requirement in 2008, but a three-year delay was requested for several countries, including Russia, to train pilots and flight control staff.

In Russia, knowledge of “radio-exchange terminology,” a standard set of commands and phrases, is all that is needed now, Neradko said.
The new ICAO standards would require a knowledge of English comparable to that of graduates from the Moscow State Institute of International Relations, he said, adding that companies were ready to make the change.

Level 4 under the ICAO system is roughly equivalent to the knowledge of a high school student who scores a B- or C+ in English, said Sergei Melnichenko, deputy head of the language school Kompleng, which has a program for aviation professionals.

The current level is adequate for standard flights, he said. But in an emergency, more fluency is needed to give advice and make quick decisions, requiring at least Level 4 knowledge, Melnichenko said.

In March, a Swiss Air flight taking off from St. Petersburg’s Pulkovo Airport struck a flock of birds, causing vibrations in both engines and forcing the pilots to issue a Mayday signal. The air traffic controller was unable to understand the problem for several minutes until a pilot on another plane explained the situation in Russian.

An eight-minute audio recording of the incident, including further miscommunication once the plane had safely landed, was eventually posted online. Aviation officials have confirmed its authenticity.” [The article continues.]

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Translation 23. Literary Translation: A Review Essay by Brian Nelson

30 November 2010

As I pointed out in an earlier blog, with reference to the very warm welcome accorded to Edith Grossman’s recent book, Why Translation Matters, ripples of overdue recognition of the craft of literary translation are spread when such skilled and respected practitioners of literary translation share their secrets and insights with us.

A more recent related plea for appropriate recognition for the work of literary translators has recently been presented by another distinguished literary translator and academic spokesman for literary translators, Professor Brian Nelson, in his review essay, ‘The Great Impersonators’ (The Australian Literary Review, 3 November 2010).

[Although no Internet reference seems available for this monthly section of The Australian newspaper, here is the version published in its November 2010 issue by The AALITRA Review (the Review of the Australian Association for Literary Translation). Also contained in this .pdf is a bonus piece on Grossman’s work by Jorge Salavert.]

In this review of three important recent books on translation, Emeritus Professor Nelson, who has translated several works by Emile Zola and is currently the President of the Australian Association for Literary Translation, briefly outlines and deplores public misunderstanding and underestimation of the input of the literary translator since the persecution of Saint Jerome, now the patron saint of translators.

According to Nelson, literary translation is still seen by too many (including many publishers and reviewers) as “an unfortunate necessity at best and, at worst, as a terrible form of treachery” – an allusion to the age-old slander, “Traduttore, tradittore” (translators are traitors).

After praising the recent memoir by Grossman and highlighting her passionate insistence on fidelity to the original text, Nelson goes on to present some aspects of the academic debate on translation studies in Umberto Eco’s Experiences in Translation (itself translated into English, by Alastair McEwen), such as the cultural differences between languages and the need to sacrifice “literal translation for the sake of preserving an appropriate style”.

However, it is Antoine Berman’s work Toward a Translation Criticism: John Donne (translated and edited by Françoise Massardier-Kenney) with its “theoretically sophisticated exploration of the ways in which translation is a critical process as well as a creative one”, that Professor Nelson singles out for recognition as a trail-blazing theoretical work well suited to a more rigorous discipline of translation studies, which he sees as vital to a more extensive (and overdue) public discovery and recognition of the real merits of literary translation.
*

(As an example of academic polemics over literary translation, see here.)

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Contemporary India. 1a. Basic Sources of Information. Catherine Taylor’s Possible Sequel to Sarah Macdonald’s Interpretation of India

29 November 2010

I had never heard of Catherine Taylor until I read the article which I reproduce below (from The Australian, Weekend Magazine, 9 October 2010, at the height of the Commonwealth Games media coverage). Seasoned India watchers will detect the usual strong indications of a successful and balanced interpretation of India by an “expat” (non-Indian) English speaker:
– prolonged residence in India
– journalistic and writing instincts and ambitions
– keen observation and sensitive reactions
– deep understanding and appreciation in the face of gross “provocation”.

If my intuition is correct, we should therefore be seeing the publication of another interesting book on India by this resident visitor in the not too distant future. Here, with due acknowledgement to Ms Taylor (and in anticipation of more of her Indian observations), is the full telltale article which prompts this prediction:
Mad for Mumbai (The Australian, 9 October, 2010).

“Living in India is like having an intense but insane affair, writes expat Catherine Taylor.”

“TONIGHT, as I waved my high heel in the face of a bewildered taxi driver, I thought suddenly: I am absolutely nuts in India. It’s a thought I have often. Someone or something is always going nuts, and quite often it’s me.

“I was trying to get a taxi driver to take me home, a mere 500 metres away, but it was pouring with rain and my shoes were oh-so-high, and it was late. He, of course, was having none of it; no amount of shoe-waving and sad-facing from a wild-haired firangi was changing his mind, when suddenly I remembered the magic trick – pay more than you should. “Arre, bhai sahab, 50 rupees to Altamount Road? Please?” And off we went.

“I have lived in Mumbai for almost three years. It was my choice to come – I wanted offshore experience in my media career and India was the only country looking to hire – and I wanted a change. I needed something new, exciting, thrilling, terrifying. And India gave that to me in spades. In fact, she turned it all the way up to 11. And then she turned it up a little more.

“To outsiders, living in India has a particular kind of glamour attached to it, a special sparkle that sees people crowding around me at parties. “You live in India? My God, really? I could never do that. What’s it like?” The closest I have come to answering that question is that it’s like being in a very intense, extremely dysfunctional relationship. India and I fight, we scream, we argue, we don’t speak for days on end, but really, deep down, we love each other. She’s a strange beast, this India. She hugs me, so tightly sometimes that I can’t breathe, then she turns and punches me hard in the face, leaving me stunned. Then she hugs me again, and suddenly I know everything will be all right.

“She wonders why I don’t just “know” how things are done, why I argue with her about everything, why I judge, why I rail at injustice and then do nothing about it. She wonders how old I am, how much I earn, why I’m not married. (The poor census man looked at me, stunned, then asked in a faltering voice, “But madam, if you’re not married then… who is the head of your household?”) I wonder how she can stand by when small children are begging on corners, how she can let people foul up the streets so much that they are impossible to walk along, how she can allow such corruption, such injustice, such A LOT OF HONKING.

“But she has taught me things. She has taught me to be brave, bold, independent, sometimes even fierce and terrifying. She has taught me to walk in another man’s chappals, and ask questions a different way when at first the answer is no. She has taught me to accept the things I cannot change. She has taught me that there are always, always, two sides to every argument. And she was kind enough to let me come and stay.

“She didn’t make it easy though (but then, why should she?). The Foreigner Regional Registration Office, banks, mobile phone companies and rental agencies are drowning under piles of carbon paper, photocopies of passports (I always carry a minimum of three) and the soggy tissues of foreigners who fall to pieces in the face of maddening bureaucracy. What costs you 50 rupees one day might be 500 rupees the next, and nobody will tell you why. What you didn’t need to bring yesterday, you suddenly need to bring today. Your signature doesn’t look like your signature. And no, we can’t help you. Come back tomorrow and see.

“It’s not easy being here, although I am spoiled by a maid who cooks for me, and a delivery service from everywhere that ensures I rarely have to wave my shoes at taxi drivers. I buy cheap flowers, trawl for gorgeous antiques, buy incredibly cheap books; I have long, boozy brunches in five-star hotels for the price of a nice bottle of wine at home, I have a very nice roof over my head … on the face of it, it would seem I have little to complain about. But then, I am stared at constantly, I have been spat on, sexually harassed, had my (covered) breasts videotaped as I walked through a market, had my drink spiked, been followed countless times. I have wept more here than I have ever in my life, out of frustration, anger, loneliness, the sheer hugeness of being here. But the longer I stay, the more I seem to relax, let go, let it be.

“But I do often wonder why I’m here, especially when I’m tired, teary and homesick, my phone has been disconnected for the 19th time despite promises it would never happen again, when it’s raining and no taxis will take me home. But then a willing ride always comes along, and we’ll turn a corner and be suddenly in the midst of some banging, crashing mad festival full of colour, where everyone is dancing behind a slow-moving truck, and I won’t have a clue what’s going on but a mum holding a child will dance up to my window and point and smile and laugh, and I breathe out and think, really, my God, this is fantastic. This is India! I live in India! She hugs me, she punches me, and she hugs me again.

“Yet I know won’t ever belong here, not properly. I know this when I listen to girls discussing what colour blouses they should wear to their weddings – she’s Gujarati, he’s from the south, she’s wearing a Keralan sari. I know when my friends give me house-hunting advice: “Look at the names of the people who already live there, then you’ll know what kind of building it is.” (Trouble is, I don’t know my Kapoors from my Kapurs, my Sippys from my Sindhis, my Khans from my Jains). I know this when my lovely fruit man (who also delivers) begs me to taste a strawberry he is holding in his grubby hands and I have to say no, I can’t eat it, I’ll die… I know I will never belong because, as stupid as it sounds, being truly, properly Indian is in your DNA. I marvel at how incredibly well educated so many of them are, how they can all speak at least three languages and think it’s no big deal, how they fit 1000 people into a train carriage meant for 300 and all stand together quite peacefully, how they know the songs from every Hindi film ever made, how they welcome anyone and everyone (even wild-haired, complaining firangis) into their homes for food, and chai, and more food.

“I’ve seen terrible things – someone fall under a train, children with sliced-off ears, old, old men sitting in the rain nursing half-limbs while they beg, children covered in flies sleeping on the pavement, beggars with no legs weaving themselves through traffic on trolleys, men in lunghis working with their hands in tiny corridors with no fans in sky-high temperatures. I’ve read heartbreaking things, of gang rapes, corruption, environmental abuse. I’ve smelled smells that have stripped the inside of my nostrils, stepped over open sewers in markets, watched a goat being bled to death.

“I’ve done things of which I am ashamed, things I never thought I would do. I have slapped a starving child away, I have turned my head in annoyance when beggars have tapped repeatedly on my taxi window, I have yelled at grown men in the face. I have been pinched and pinched back, with force. I have slapped, I have hit, I have pushed. I have screamed in anger. I have, at times, not recognised myself.

“I’ve yelled at a man for kicking a dog, and yelled at a woman who pushed into a line ahead of me when I wasn’t at all in a hurry. When a teenage beggar stood at the window of my taxi, saying “F… you madam” over and over, I told him to go f… himself and gave him the finger; once on the train I let a kid keep 100 rupees as change. I am kind and I am cold-hearted, I am fair and I am mean, I am delightful and I am downright rude. I am all of these at once and I distress myself wildly over it, but somehow, India accepts me. She has no time for navel-gazing foreigners; she just shoved everyone along a bit and made room for me. She has no time to dwell on my shortcomings, she just keeps moving along.

“And then, and then. I’ve been to temples where I’ve sung along with old women who had no teeth, I’ve held countless smiling ink-marked babies for photos, I’ve had unknown aunties in saris smile and cup my face with their soft, wrinkled hands, I’ve made street vendors laugh when I’ve choked on their spicy food, I’ve danced through the streets at Ganpati, fervently sung the national anthem (phonetically) in cinemas, had designers make me dresses, I’ve met with CEOs and heads of companies just because I asked if I could. She hugs, she punches, she hugs again.

“In short, I have been among the luckiest of the lucky. She keeps me on my toes, Ms India, and I have been blessed that she let me stay for a while. She wanted me to succeed here and she gave me grand opportunities and endless second chances. She willed me forward like a stern parent. She welcomed me. And when I leave, because I know I will one day, I will weep, because I will miss her terribly. And because I know she won’t even notice that I am gone.”

Given the language barrier and other political factors, it may be a very long time before we get such intimate and revealing pictures of life in China as those of Ms Taylor and the other writers referred to in my previous Indian blog.
Which may be a useful thought to mull over.

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Contemporary India. 1. Basic Sources of Information

28 November 2010

Part 1
Basic Cultural Introductions for Foreigners (and NRIs)

Those about to visit India for the first time or who are thinking of relocating there for work purposes with an Indian or foreign company naturally turn to the Internet to get basic information. Everything is there, scattered over many websites, but as a preliminary orientation, I would recommend one webpage, assembled by an Indian-based provider of content writing and design services, http://www.chilibreeze.com. On this page (URL below), “Chillibreeze.com” offers 39 introductory articles for both foreigners and returning NRIs (Non-Resident Indians) and POIs (i.e. other persons of Indian origin).

To further facilitate research, I have regrouped the articles below. To consult them, go to the relevant page of the Chillibreeze site and, checking them against a copy of this revised list, select the titles you wish to read. (I have separately listed the articles for NRIs and POIs which are in the Chillibreeze list on this web page and which also contain useful information about contemporary India, especially about changes in living conditions due to the prolonged economic boom of recent years.)

For Expatriates (Expats):
Group 1: Parts of the “India Survival Kit” Series posted in May 2008
The India Survival Kit – an Introduction. (This gives a full list of the 5 sections and articles offered.)

The articles:
Communication in India: It is different!
Ten Tips to Survive Indian Culture
How Indian Society functions: A few cultural tips
Indians Cannot Say ‘No’!
Indian Family Values: What you must know before you visit India
Indian English Quiz: How well do you know India?
What is Indian English? A Whole New Language!
Exotic India: Landscape, Celebrations, Temples, and Art Forms
Cultural tips for visitors to India: Food and Restaurant Etiquette in India
The Diary of an American visiting India – Part 1 / Part 2
The Role of Culture in Business Relationships with Indians – A Case Study

Group 2: Other articles mainly for Expatriates

Expatriates and NRIs in India – Experiences and Perceptions – May 2010 –
NRI tips to Expats Living in India – May 2005 –
Repositioning Delhi: A guide for expats and Indians – Aug 2008 –
Ten Tips from an Expat – May 2007 –
A look at the experiences of American in India – January 2006 –
An American’s Perspective of Life in India – May 2005 –
The Road Less Travelled:The Challenges – May 2005 –
Independence Day – Sept 2008 –
Meet Bob: An American Expat Living in Bangalore – May 2005 –
Must Have Book List for Bangalore Expats – Oct 2004 –
Expat Mom Gives Description of Life in Bangalore – Sept 2004 –
Long-Distance relationships – Jan 2009 –
Will your baby be born in India? – Oct 2007 –
Other Articles – mainly for NRIs and POIs
The Resident Non-resident – May 2010
Musings of an RNRI – Sept 2006
Returning to India: But which one? – Oct 2008
Moving to India? Five Things No One Will Ever Tell You – Jan 2010
India’s Work Culture- Some Tips for Returning Indians and Foreigners – May 2008
Notes from an Itinerant PIO on Freedom – May 2005
Why NRI’s Want Their Children to Grow up in India – May 2005
Top Ten Techie Favorite Areas in Bangalore – Oct 2008
A guide to relocating to Nagpur – Oct 2008
Is real estate in Bangalore booming? Let’s look at some trends – May 2008
Choosing the right school board for your child – Nov 2008
Tips for NRI parents living in India – August 2006
Surviving Summers in the Gulf – July 2010
Shopping at an Indian store in the US – Oct 2008.

Part 2

Basic Books by English-Speaking Visitors to India

The following is a brief reading list for those interested in benefitting from the (relatively) recent research and travels of English-speaking visitors to or residents of India.

Luce, Edward, In Spite of the Gods (The Strange Rise of Modern India), London, Little, Brown, 2006. (Abacus paperback edition, 2007. Also: New York, Doubleday, 2006.)

Interviews and observations of India by the Financial Times’s correspondent from 2001 to 2005 during which time he learned Hindi and married an Indian wife. Highly recommended by Mark Tully, Professor Amartya Singh, William Dalrymple and ex-President Kalam, among others. A real mine of insight and information, with analyses of the changing caste system, the status of India’s Muslims and the rise of Hindu nationalism.
See William Grimes’s Review: ‘The Power and the Potential of India’s Economic Change’.

Sample: “Much of the book consists of interviews and colorful vignettes intended to illustrate the myriad statistics that, out of context, can numb the mind. The blend of anecdote, history and economic analysis makes In Spite of the Gods an endlessly fascinating, highly pleasurable way to catch up on a very big story.”

Kremmer, Christopher, Inhaling the Mahatma, HarperCollins, 2006.

An account of various aspects of contemporary Indian history and life based on seven years of travels and residence in India between 1990 and 2001 by a journalist and writer who took the trouble to learn Hindi and established very close contacts with influential Indians.
A recent REVIEW by Richard A. Johnson.

Macdonald, Sarah, Holy Cow. An Indian Adventure, Sydney/London, Bantam Books, 2002.

An Australian journalist’s entertaining and informative account of contemporary life in India.
(A suitable bestseller for air travel.)

Tully, Sir Mark
The doyen of British correspondents in India over the past 40 years, renowned in the UK and in India. His work in presenting India to the overseas English-speaking world has been recognised by awards from Queen Elizabeth II and the Indian Government. A later blog will deal with his lifelong work in more detail. For this basic orientation list the following two works are recommended.
No Full Stops in India, London, Penguin, 1992.
The Heart of India, London, Penguin, 1996.

Aitken, Bill
Like fellow Indiaphile and septuagenarian Mark Tully, Bill Aitken has spent several decades of his life living and interacting with Indians and writing about them and about India. Like Tully, he is well known in India, where he has lived as a naturalised Indian citizen for nearly fifty years.

Aitken’s special interests are spirituality, travel, climbing, the Himalayas, and Steam Railways.
The Penguin Introduction to two of his works reveals that “He has lived in Himalayan ashrams, worked as secretary to a Maharani, freelanced under his middle name (Liam McKay) and undertaken miscellaneous excursions – from Nanda Devi to Sabarimala – on an old motor bike and by vintage steam railway.”

For this basic list on “India for foreigners”, I include three samplers of Aitken’s specialised oeuvre. More comment and analysis will follow in a later blog.

Footloose in the Himalaya, Delhi, Permanent Black, 2003.
Of the three mountaineering travel books by Aitken that I have read, this latest one is the best, full of fascinating detail, observations and adventure.
The Nanda Devi Affair, Penguin Books India, 1994.
Aitken’s very special spiritual climbing quest.
Branch Line to Eternity, Penguin Books India, New Delhi, 2001.
His travels on the last steam engines operating in India.

Dom Moraes and Sarayu Srivatsa, Out of God’s Oven. Travels in A Fractured Land, New Delhi, Viking, 2002.

An investigative book by two Non-Resident Indians, based on six years of travel and interviews on contemporary Indian issues.
(For an Asia Times Online review by Jason Overdorf in March 2003, see here.

Overdorf comments: “In a book of remarkable scope, the two writers address many of the seminal events of Indian history of the past three decades, ranging from riots by Dalits (formerly untouchables) …”

Dalrymple, William
Dalrymple has gained considerable acclamation and fame from his many scholarly works on India and Indian history. His latest book on spirituality in India has become a best seller in the English-speaking world (like most of the books on this list):
Nine Lives. In Search of the Sacred in Modern India, London, Bloomsbury, 2009.

These nine exotic interviews on very diverse aspects of religion were prompted by Dalrymple’s desire to investigate the present state of religious beliefs in India following a period of great economic and social change.

Fishlock, Trevor, India File, 2nd edition, New Delhi, Rupa, 1987.

Another of the distinguished list of British correspondents in India, Fishlock first published this slim volume in 1983. His first chapter, ‘Inheritance’ (pp. 1-19) is still well worth reading.
*
NOTE: Further blogs on printed and online information about contemporary India are planned.

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Background Reading on Contemporary India

7 October 2010

The purely economic pluses and minuses of staging the 2010 Commonwealth Games in New Delhi will become apparent long after the Games are finished, as is the case with many of these ambitious international sporting events. Much more immediate will be the effect on overseas opinion of the publicity generated by the intense media coverage of the Games over these 13 days. A more personal form of publicity which will be spread around many countries is that of the thousands of visiting athletes and spectators. It is therefore to be hoped that a wider interest in travel to India, with her varied exotic offerings, will be a positive result of the 2010 Games, eclipsing the effects of the unfortunate (but unavoidable) negative publicity and nervousness which preceded the Opening Night.

Those eager to acquire a balanced picture of contemporary India may enjoy the following selection of recent books by travellers who have provided us with very detailed accounts and analyses (warts and all), based on lengthy periods of residence and observation.

Edward Luce, In Spite of the Gods (The Strange Rise of Modern India), London, Little, Brown, 2006. (Also: New York, Doubleday, 2006.)
Interviews and observations of India by the Financial Times’s correspondent from 2001 to 2005, during which time he learned Hindi and married an Indian wife. Highly recommended by Mark Tully, Professor Amartya Sen, and William Dalrymple, among other cognoscenti, Luce offers a wealth of insight and information, and includes analyses of the changing caste system, the status of India’s Muslims and the rise of Hindu nationalism.
See William Grimes’s Review: ‘The Power and the Potential of India’s Economic Change’.
Sample: “Much of the book consists of interviews and colorful vignettes intended to illustrate the myriad statistics that, out of context, can numb the mind. The blend of anecdote, history and economic analysis makes In Spite of the Gods an endlessly fascinating, highly pleasurable way to catch up on a very big story.”

Christopher Kremmer, Inhaling the Mahatma, HarperCollins, 2006.
An account of various aspects of contemporary Indian history and life based on seven years of travels and residence in India between 1990 and 2001 by a journalist and writer who took the trouble to learn Hindi and established very close contacts with influential Indians. Like Edward Luce, Kremmer married an Indian woman.
A recent REVIEW by Richard A. Johnson.

Sarah Macdonald, Holy Cow. An Indian Adventure, Sydney/London, Bantam Books, 2002.
An Australian journalist’s entertaining and informative account of contemporary life in India.
(A suitable bestseller for air travel.)

Sir Mark Tully
The doyen of British correspondents in India over the past 40 years, renowned in the UK and in India. His work in presenting India to the overseas English-speaking world has been recognised by awards from Queen Elizabeth II and the Indian Government. For this basic orientation list the following two works are recommended.
No Full Stops in India, London, Penguin, 1992.
The Heart of India, London, Penguin, 1996.

Bill Aitken
Like fellow Indiaphile and septuagenarian Mark Tully, Bill Aitken has spent several decades of his life living and interacting with Indians and writing about them and about India. Like Tully, he is well known in India, where he has lived as a naturalised Indian citizen for nearly fifty years.

Aitken’s special interests are spirituality, travel, climbing, the Himalayas, and Steam Railways.
The Penguin Introduction to two of his works reveals that “He has lived in Himalayan ashrams, worked as secretary to a Maharani, freelanced under his middle name (Liam McKay) and undertaken miscellaneous excursions – from Nanda Devi to Sabarimala – on an old motor bike and by vintage steam railway.”
For this basic list on “India for foreigners”, I recommend three samplers of Aitken’s specialised oeuvre.
Footloose in the Himalaya, Delhi, Permanent Black, 2003.
Of the three mountaineering travel books by Aitken that I have read, this latest one is the best, full of fascinating detail, observations and adventure.

The Nanda Devi Affair, Penguin Books India, 1994.
Aitken’s very special spiritual climbing quest.
Branch Line to Eternity, Penguin Books India, New Delhi, 2001.
His travels on the last railway steam engines operating in India.

Dom Moraes and Sarayu Srivatsa, Out of God’s Oven. Travels in A Fractured Land, New Delhi, Viking, 2002.
An investigative book by two Non-Resident Indians (NRIs), based on six years of travel and interviews on contemporary Indian issues.
(For an Asia Times Online review by Jason Overdorf in March 2003, see here.

Overdorf comments: “In a book of remarkable scope, the two writers address many of the seminal events of Indian history of the past three decades, ranging from riots by Dalits (formerly untouchables) …”

William Dalrymple
Dalrymple has harvested considerable acclamation and fame from his many scholarly works on India and Indian history. His latest book on spirituality in India has become a best seller (like most of the books on this list):
Nine Lives. In Search of the Sacred in Modern India, London, Bloomsbury, 2009.
These nine exotic interviews on very diverse aspects of religion were prompted by Dalrymple’s desire to investigate the present state of religious beliefs in India following a period of great economic and social change.

Trevor Fishlock, India File, 2nd edition, New Delhi, Rupa, 1987.
One of a distinguished line of British correspondents in India, Fishlock first published this slim volume in 1983. His first chapter, ‘Inheritance’ (pp. 1-19) is still well worth reading.

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Translation 22. Cultural Content of Given Names. The Case of Hindi

30 August 2010

For the curious student of foreign languages and cultures, the influence of dominant national religions is often visually or audibly embedded in the language, especially in vocabulary and idiom and, as we shall see below, in people’s first, or given, names.

In English, with the decline in influence of the various Christian churches, the deliberate choice by parents of given names with strong Christian connotations has waned, especially in the cases of Faith, Hope, Charity, Comfort, Constance, Grace (Gracie), Epiphany, and Patience. With many others, the survival of the names usually has more to do with their acceptability and sound than with solid religious associations.
For example:
Adam, Benedict, Benjamin, Candace, Christian, Christopher, Dominic, Eve. (As further proof of this decline, the former descriptor for English language given names was the Christian name but this term is no longer officially recommended or accepted in most English-speaking countries because of far-reaching social and cultural changes in the past 50 years.

In other European languages the religious link is still strong, or at least stronger than in English, notably in southern predominantly (at least in name) Catholic Europe. For example, in spite of the massive decline of catholicism in Spain since the demise of dictator Franco and in some other Spanish-speaking countries, many children are still baptised as:
(Girls):
Anunciación, Concepción, Inmaculada (immaculate), Natividad (the Nativity), Encarnación (incarnation), Ascensión, Martirio (martyrdom), Esperanza (Hope), Consuelo (Consolation), Milagros (Miracles), Jesusa, Dolores (María de los Dolores), Cruz (Cross – as noun rather than adjective);
and
Amparo (Protection), María del Pilar (Mary of the Pillar), Mercedes (Mercies), Rosario (rosary), Caridad (Charity), Paz (Peace).

Similarly, the following boy’s names are still bestowed upon infants in Spanish-speaking countries:
Jesús, Salvador (Saviour), José, (Joseph), José María (Joseph and Mary), Santos, (Saints), Angel, Angel María, and Miguel Angel.

In Jewish families, religion-related given names are still current and strongly retain their cultural semantic connotations:
Aaron, Abraham, Adam, Benjamin, Daniel, David, Ephraim, Esther, Hannah, Isaac, Jacob, Jeremiah, Jonathan, Joshua, Moses, Noah, Rachel, Rebecca, Ruth, Samuel, Sarah, Solomon.

In India, a sizeable minority of the population are Muslims and bear Muslim names deriving from Arabic, Persian and Urdu:
Abdul, Ahmed, Ali, Anwar, Asif, Aziz, Feroz, Hussein, Imran, Irfan, Irshad, Karim,
Mirza, Mohammed, Nasim, Nur, Rahim, Said, Salim, Salman, Samir, Saroj, Sayid, Tahir, Tariq,Yusuf, Zakir, etc.

However, the overwhelming majority of Indians (approximately 80%) identify themselves as Hindu and bear names so closely associated with aspects of Hindu spirituality and culture that many of them are also nouns or adjectives in Sanskrit or in Hindi, its derivative or descendant.

Since these Hindi/Sanskrit names are still far less well known in the wider English-speaking world outside (largely English-speaking) India than the others offered above and since they are featured in the global media more and more often due to India’s increasing economic and geopolitical development and will continue to grow in global importance for English speakers (and others), I present a small selection in this overview of the links between culture / religion and language.

Acknowledgement
Apart from my own reading, travel and study, I am relying heavily here on the glosses offered in a very rich, tentacular interconnected website for ALL Given Names, that of Mike Campbell, which I recommend for further and deeper study: Behind the Name. The Etymology and History of First Names

The following is a selection of female and male Hindi or Sanskrit names which will be met in travel in India as well as in the media and on the Internet, and, of course, more and more, in Bollywood films and in the literary and sporting worlds.

Abhishek, m, anointment
Aishwarya, f, prosperity
Ajeet / Ajit, m, unconquered
Amar, immortal [cf. Amartya Sen]
Amitabh, m, shining (Buddha) [as in Bachchan]
Ananda, f, bliss
Aravind, m, lotus
Arjun, m, clear
Aseema, f, boundless
Ashok, m, without sorrow

Bharat, India
Dev, m, god
Devdas, m, servants of the gods
Devi, f, goddess
Divya, f, divine
Gauri, f, goddess Parvati
Gita, f, song [Bhagavad Gita]
Gopal, m, cow protector [Krishna]
Govind, m, cow herder [Krishna] [Sikh version: Gobind]

Jagdish, m , ruler of the world
Jay, m, victory
Jayant, m, victorious
Jyoti, f, light
Kalyana, m, beautiful [also a beer]
Kamal, m, lotus
Kiran, f, sunbeam
Krishna, m, dark blue; Krishna
Lakshmi, f, female deity

Madhu, f, honey
Mahesh, m, great Lord
Maya, f, illusion
Mohan, m, charming
Narendra, m, lord of man
Nirmala, f, pure

Padma, f, lotus
Pankaj, m, lotus
Prabhu, n, mighty
Pradeep, m, lantern
Priya, f, beloved
Purushottam, m, the best amongst men

Radha,f, flower [& Krishna’s female companion]
Raj, m, king
Rajesh, m, king + Isha (deity)
Rajneesh, m, lord of the night
Ram, Rama, m, Lord Rama
Ramesh, Rama + Isha (deity)
Rani, f, queen
Ravi, m, sun

Sachin, m, pure
Sanjay, m, triumphant
Sati, f, truthful
Satya, m, truth
Shanti, f, peace
Sunil, m, positive prefix + blue [Krishna-like?]
Suraj, m, sun
Venkat, m, a reference to Vishnu
Vijay, m, victory
Vikram, m, distinction.

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Translation 20. Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex

30 July 2010

An interview with writer Sarah Glazer on (Australian ) ABC Radio’s “Bookshow” on 29 July 2010 provided the trigger for the following short but fascinating investigation of a long-running and multifaceted publishing controversy about the translation of the renowned French intellectual’s seminal feminist and existential work (Le Deuxième Sexe). The radio programme dealt with the longevity of the original unsatisfactory 1953 translation of Simone de Beauvoir’s work and the publisher’s decades-long unwillingness to replace the translation of this bestselling work with a more accurate and unabridged one. Topics covered: the frequent distracting translation errors, the publisher’s decision to omit between 10% and 15% of the original, and the final appearance and mixed reception of a second translation of the long text last year. Read all about it on the “Bookshow” for 29 July 2010.

Further examination of these different issues reveals evidence of a tussle between the original publisher of the English translation (Alfred Knopf), which has allegedly sold one million copies over 50 years (mainly to college students taking gender and feminist courses) and American feminist academics who, in view of the book’s importance and density, had been advocating an annotated edition produced by, or subject to, guidance from a committee of experts in philosophy and feminism.

In the end, the academics appear to have lost this battle (although an annotated edition is still possible in the future) and a fresh controversy has arisen over the quality of the new translation.

In a 2008 article celebrating the centenary of de Beauvoir’s birth and advocating a much wider audience for The Second Sex, Professor Toril Moi (author of Simone de Beauvoir: The Making of an Intellectual Woman) announced that a new translation was finally in preparation.

“Unfortunately, the only English translation of The Second Sex, done in 1953 by the zoologist H. M. Parshley, is seriously defective. Almost 15 per cent of the text is missing. The philosophical inaccuracies are such that it is difficult to get a clear sense of Beauvoir’s thought. For decades, Random House, Beauvoir’s US publisher, resisted every suggestion that the translation was flawed. Last year, however, it suddenly announced that a new translation has finally been commissioned.”

The professor added: “The translators, Constance Borde and Sheila Malovany-Chevalier, are best known as cookery book writers. Let’s hope they do justice to Beauvoir’s masterpiece.” (Following that acidic comment, puzzled outside observers should take note that this controversy is 100% American in character, given that the two recent translators emigrated from America to Paris four decades ago and have held French university positions teaching English and literature. As for fellow American and the only male in the dramatis personae, Professor Parshley, he has not suffered at all from the criticism of his work, having died in 1953.)

Two years later, following the publication of the new 800-page translation (The Second Sex, by Simone de Beauvoir, translated by Constance Borde and Sheila Malovany-Chevallier, Cape, 2009, ISBN 978 0 224 07859 7), the main London newspapers, The Times, The Independent, and The Guardian praised the efforts of Borde and Malovany-Chevallier, while one or two U.S. broadsheets were less welcoming.

Shortly afterwards, Professor Moi wrote a vigorous 5,000-word essay in the The London Review of Books (LRB), ‘The Adulteress Wife’ .

This article re-introduces The Second Sex and its importance as a feminist text as well as sketching the 25 years of efforts to persuade the reluctant publisher to replace the first translation (“lively and readable”, but full of errors and incomplete) with a more accurate and unabridged one.

Professor Moi mentions a few of the other protagonists in this long quest, including Professor Margaret Simons (‘The Silencing of Simone de Beauvoir: Guess What’s Missing from The Second Sex’ in Beauvoir and The Second Sex (1999), pp. 61-71) and the more accessible 2004 article by Sarah Glazer in the New York Times, which was followed in 2005 by the announcement that British publisher Cape and Knopf in U.S.A. had jointly commissioned a new translation (with a partial grant from the French government).

Moi then confirms her misgivings about the credentials of the two contracted translators by devoting more than half of this review-essay to an aggressively detailed analysis of her reasons for pronouncing the new translation to be unsuitable, and in some aspects less readable than the universally criticised version by Professor Parshley.

“Now we have the new translation. Many will turn to it with high hopes. Is it the definitive translation? Does it convey Beauvoir’s voice and style? Unfortunately not.”
…
“After taking a close look at the whole book, I found three fundamental and pervasive problems: a mishandling of key terms for gender and sexuality, an inconsistent use of tenses, and the mangling of syntax, sentence structure and punctuation.”

On that third aspect, Moi criticises the translators’ decision “to reproduce Beauvoir’s long sentences connected by semicolons in English, on the grounds that they are ‘a stylistic aspect of her writing that is essential, integral to the development of her arguments’. In French, her long, loosely connected sentences convey speed, passion, and sheer delight in piling up her discoveries. If English sentences are strung together in the same way, however, the impression won’t be the same. French and English differ significantly in their tolerance of relatively vague connections between sentence elements.” (In this connection the reviewer refers to research by the translation linguist Jacqueline Guillemin-Flescher.)

The final dismissive verdict:
“The best I can say about the new translation of The Second Sex is that it is unabridged, that some of the philosophical vocabulary is more consistent than in Parshley’s version, and that some sections (parts of ‘Myths’, for example), are better than others. The translators claim that their aim was to bring ‘into English the closest version possible of Simone de Beauvoir’s voice, expression and mind’. The ambition is laudable, but the result is what Nabokov, a great champion of literal translation, called ‘false literalism’ (as opposed to ‘absolute accuracy’). The obsessive literalism and countless errors make it no more reliable, and far less readable than Parshley.”

The replies from readers in subsequent issues of the LRB are mixed (and include one by the two translators and a reply by Toril Moi) but more than one hint like the following (from a French reader) refers to the unfulfilled academic publishing demands: “Many of Moi’s criticisms of Parshley are valid, as other scholars have substantiated; her derision of Borde-Malovany-Chevallier, however, has a taste of sour grapes.”

For a refreshingly urbane overview of this translation saga, with further interesting revelations, see Professor Carlin Romano’s recent article on The Second ‘Second Sex‘ in The Chronicle of Higher Education. His concluding remarks are a plea for an end to the heated discussion:

“Beauvoir’s point, like most in the book, comes through in either translation. And so it’s a shame that the Second Sex Translation Follies are turning into a well-made play in which everyone acts the role assigned by theatrical cliché. Maybe a wiser way to look at things is that it’s precisely because all have done so that we find ourselves in such a happy place.”
…….
“Pardon me, then, if I applaud Beauvoir scholars, translators, and rights people alike …”

Footnote for Encyclopedists
The article on de Beauvoir on the “Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy” website, which styles itself as “A Peer-reviewed academic source” (U.S- based), refers to The Second Sex as “one of the foundational texts in philosophy, feminism, and women’s studies” but fails to warn the prospective reader about the quality of the first translation or of omissions, except for the ambiguous statement: “Published in two volumes in 1949 (condensed into one text divided into two “books” in English) …” Consequently, there is no mention of the lengthy campaign for a second translation into English nor of last year’s publishing event.

On the other hand, in the Wikipedia article on Simone de Beauvoir and a separate one on The Second Sex, the inadequacy of the first English translation, the prolonged lobbying for a replacement translation, and the 2009 publication are briefly documented:

“Chapters of Le deuxième sexe (The Second Sex) were originally published in Les Temps modernes.[53] The second volume came a few months after the first in France.[54] It was very quickly published in America as The Second Sex, due to the quick translation by Howard Parshley, as prompted by Blanche Knopf, wife of publisher Alfred A. Knopf. Because Parshley had only a basic familiarity with the French language, and a minimal understanding of philosophy (he was a professor of biology at Smith College), much of Beauvoir’s book was mistranslated or inappropriately cut, distorting her intended message.[55] For years Knopf prevented the introduction of a more accurate retranslation of Beauvoir’s work, declining all proposals despite the efforts of existentialist scholars.[55] Only in 2009 was there a second translation, to mark the 60th anniversary of the original publication. Constance Borde and Sheila Malovany-Chevallier produced the first integral translation, reinstating a third of the original work.”
[Attention, Wikipedian editors: “a third” should be whittled down to “15%” and check whether the Professor’s appointment was in biology or zoology.]

The websites of fledgeling online Encyclopedias Citizendium and Knol have nothing of interest to offer.

Credit where credit is due.

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Mistranslation 19. Two Unusual Cases of Successful Literal Translators: Pedro Carolino and Basil Thomson

30 June 2010

In those language pairs where literal translation is possible, competent translators learn very early in their studies to discriminate between appropriate literal translation between the two languages (where the result is acceptable in the target language and fully conveys the meaning of the original text) and inappropriate literal translation (where the target language version is linguistically inappropriate or fails to convey the meaning of elements in the original).

Literal translation in this second sense usually leads to serious misunderstandings or gaps in the communication but it also has the potential to make people laugh! Given this potential, it is not surprising that inappropriate literary translation (like malaproprisms and similar genuine language errors) may not all be the result of ignorance but may be deliberately confected to amuse others. The two egregious cases chosen for description represent both types and they have provoked much laughter over a considerable amount of time (140 and 50 years, respectively): they may perhaps be dubbed celebrity literal mistranslations. The first was written by the Portuguese citizen Pedro Carolino, equipped with great initiative, chutzpah and ignorance of English. The second less well known example of published literal translations, on the other hand, was deliberately confected to amuse his fellow Argentine citizens by Basil Thomson.

Pedro Carolino

On the face of it, Pedro Carolino seems to have been an opportunist out to make money in the nineteenth century language tuition field. In 1855, he published (or self-published) O Novo Guia da Conversação, em Português e Inglês. This appears to be his adaptation of José da Fonseca’s 1853 O Novo guia da conversação em francês e português, and, indeed, the latter’s name is also on this first edition, but perhaps more as a courtesy.

The volume became famous in Europe for its constant and colossal language errors, which were based mainly on Carolino’s sheer ignorance of English and his daring literal translations of the Fonseca items into “English” using a French-English dictionary (à coups de dictionnaire!). In 1883, the exotic English part of his original Portuguese-English Conversation manual was published separately in Britain and USA as English as She is Spoke. Well over a century later, it is still in print, in English, as a work of humour.

My 1970 edition (London, St George’s Press), which bears only the name of Pedro Carolino, is subtitled “Extracts from The New Guide of the Conversation in Portuguese and English”. In his Introduction, James Millington comments: “…it has been reserved to our own time for a soi disant instructor to perpetrate – at his own expense – the monstruous joke of publishing a Guide to Conversation in a language of which it is only too evident that every word is utterly strange to him.” It is Middleton who offers the conclusion that, to produce his bizarre language teaching offering, Carolino had used the Portuguese-French phrase-book and a French-English dictionary mentioned above. [The contemporary US edition was published by Dover.]

Interested readers are invited to log on to amazon.com to see the various editions of English as She is Spoke at present available, including a Kindle one (but “not available” when I looked yesterday).
(Update: A better informed correspondent has kindly sent me the link to a FREE download of English as She is Spoke but note Gutenberg’s Advice: “Not copyrighted in the United States. If you live elsewhere check the laws of your country before downloading this ebook.”)

Here are a few samples of Carolino’s ignorant genius. (Speakers of French and Portuguese will detect many literal translations from French and a few from Portuguese which underlie, and inspire! – the curious book.)

From the Author’s Preface:
“A choice of familiar dialogues, clean of gallicisms … ”
and:
“We expect then, who the little book (for the care of what we wrote him, and for her typographical correction) that may be worth the acceptation of the studious persons, and especialy of the Youth, at which we dedicate him particularly.”

From “Familiar Phrases”:
“Go to send for.
“Have you say that?”
“At what purpose have say so?”
“Put your confidence at my.”
“At what o’clock dine him?”
“Apply you at the study during that you are young.”

From “Familiar Dialogues”:
“With a gardener”
“It delay me to eat some wal nuts-kernels; take care not leave to pass the season.”
“Be tranquil, I shall throw you any nuts during the shell is green yet.”

From “Anecdotes”
“A man one’s was presented at a magistrate which had a considerable Library.
“What you make?” beg him the magistrate. “I do some books,” he was answered.”

Basil Thomson

The second successful practitioner of inappropriate literal translation was an expatriate Englishman who had settled in Argentina in 1949 and worked as a journalist for the English language Buenos Aires Herald (until1979 when he was expelled by the military junta). In addition to his (serious) news dispatches, Thomson published a number of columns in which he set out to offer his bilingual middle and upper class Argentinean, Anglo-argentine and Celtic-argentine readers the pleasure of laughing at the frequent inappropriate literal translations from Spanish in the English narrative of a character whom he called Ramon (no accent). These columns (“Ramon Writes”) were highly successful from 1949 to 1977 and were finally published in book form by the newspaper in 1979, ostensibly to raise funds for a charity but possibly as a tribute to Ramon, aka Thomson, after his harassment and expulsion by the military régime. (Ramon Writes, Buenos Aires Herald, 1979)

Although aimed at a much smaller audience than that achieved in the lifetime and perhaps a century after the death of Pedro Carolino, Basil Thomson’s deliberate liberties with literal translation may still be enjoyed by speakers of Spanish, in particular Argentinians.

Here are some samples of Basil’s work. It should be noted that the English sounds so peculiar not only because of inappropriate words and phrases (and specially coined English words) but also because of double negatives and Spanish patterns of word order for clauses and sentences. Some readers will also recognise echos of the fabled exotic English of some expatriate Latin Americans.

On page 10, Thomson describes how Ramon was born. After rejecting the idea of writing a dictionary of entertaining “Irish-Argentinianisms”, “I put myself in the place of a fairly advanced and confident but careless student and expressed myself as I imagined he would. This involved thinking in vernacular Spanish and writing in English.”

The compilers chose this extract as their favourite one. I have added a few glosses.
“I supplicate you that you pass of high [ignore] so much discourtesy of my part for not writing these past four months.

What passed was that I had planned to go to that one in person and because of that I desisted. It had of object my visit to see if I could accommodate myself in some ministry or gobernation after they happened the events that are of public dominion.

But in vespers of [on the eve of] absenting myself there writes me a friend of the faculty to tell me that my voyage would be to the divine button because the things have not changed themselves nothing: the milics have copated themselves everything.

As you can await, I felt myself disillusioned, because I give myself count [realise] that this life of camp [country] doesn’t fall me well, and of commerce I do not want to occupy myself. For me, who coursed three years of studies of public traducer there should always exist entry into the official life. With the patience of always, I will wait.” (p. 12)

Just one more:
“At my arrival I went to visit a known one who is familiar of another, who is vinculated with a man who knows all the world. He gave me a letter of presentation and I presented myself and was received very amiably. This man he gave me a card, we took the coffee together and he redacted a letter for me directed to the secretary of redaction of one of the principal pregonators of the country.

“I won’t molest you with the all the letter but it was something formidable. It said that I desire to associate myself with the profession and, it being possible, to incorporate myself to the paper “of your dignified direction”. And a lot more, ending as usual, with “with my motives expressed I make propitious the opportunity to salute you attentively without any other particular.”

(This work is listed as Out of Print by Amazon.com and on Abebooks.com there is only one copy available, for $32. First come, first served!)

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Translation 18. Some English-Spanish Translation Pitfalls. Part 2.

18 May 2010

[From Part 1:
Most words in formal and scientific English and Spanish are of Latin or Greek origin. Many therefore have predictable cognate forms in Spanish or English, which eases the process of learning one of these languages by speakers of the other. However, there are a significant number of cases where the corresponding English/Spanish forms show significant differences, often in their prefixes or suffixes. These irregular correspondences or “near-cognates” need to be learned separately, especially by translators and interpreters. In this blog and the following one, a selection of such potential translation pitfalls is presented.]

Part 2. N-Z
(English>Spanish)

neurotransmitter, neurotransmisor
non linear, no lineal
nuclide, nucleido

occupant, inquilino; pasajero
official, adj: oficial; n. funcionario
optimal, óptimo
organo, [prefix]: orgánico

parasitic, parasitario; (also: parasítico)
pathogenesis, patogenia
pathogenetic, patogénico
pathogenic, patógeno
peripheral, periférico
personnel, n, personal
phenobarbitone, fenobarbital
physical, adj., físico
physicist, n, físico
physiotherapist, fisioterapeuta
physiotherapy, fisioterapia
platelets, plaquetas
pollinate, polinizar
pollination, polinización
polychlorinated, policlorado
polyunsaturated, poliinsaturado
population, población; adj., demográfico
porphyry, pórfido; adj, porfídico
prediction, pronóstico; profecía
prejudicial, perjudicial
pressurize, presionizar
prestressed concrete, hormigón pretensado
profile, perfil
prognosis, pronóstico
propanone, acetona
proponent, partidario
proposition, propuesta
prospect, perspectiva
prospecting, prospección
protective, protector
protozoa, protozoarios, protozoos
protozoon, protozoo, protozoario
prussic acid, ácido cianhídrico
psychopharmaceuticals, psicofármacos
purification, depuración
purify, depurar
purifying, depurador
purity, pureza
pyrogenic, pirógeno

quantum mechanics, mecánica cuántica

radiant flux density, radiancia
radioactive, radiactivo
radionuclide, radionucleido
reactant, reactivo
reagent, reactivo
realistic, realista
rearmament, rearme
recondition, reacondicionar
recreational, recreativo
refractory, refractario
regulating agent, agente estabilizante
rehydration, rehidratación
reinforce, reforzar
remedial, terapéutico
repay, pagar
repository, depósito; depositario
representative, adj., representativo; n, representante
reproductive, reproductor
revaluation, revalorización
reverberate, retumbar
reverse osmosis, ósmosis inversa
rhetoric, n, retórica
rhetorical retórico
rock, adj., rupestre
ruminant, adj. y n., rumiante

sal ammoniac, cloruro de amonio
salary, sueldo
salination, salinización
saline water, agua salobre
salutary, saludable
sanitarium (North American English), sanatorio
sanitation, saneamiento
schistosomiasis, esquistosomiasis
sensible, sensato
sensitive, sensible
sensitivity, sensibilidad
sensitize, sensibilizar
sequestering agent, agente lixiviador
signatory, firmante; (also: signatario, -a)
significant, significativo; trascendente
silica, sílice
silicon, silicio
soda, sosa
soda ash, cenizas de sosa
stagnant, estancado
statistician, estadístico
steel, adj., siderúrgico
stroke, apoplejía; ataque cerebral
strontium, estroncio
sub arctic, adj., subártico
sulphonamide, sulfamida
sulphur dioxide, anhídrido sulfuroso
surgery, cirugía (surgeon: cirujano)
surgical, quirúrgico
symmetrical, simétrico
sympathetic, compasivo
synthesize, sintetizar
syzygy, sizigia

tantalum, tantalio
tariff, arancel
tax, n, impuesto; adj., fiscal
temperate, templado
theoretically, en teoría; teóricamente
thermal, térmico
therm, [th], termia [Unit of heat]
thyroid, n, tiroides; adj., tiroideo
tremor, temblor
turbidity, turbiedad; turbidez
two dimensional, bidimensional

ubiquitous, omnipresente; ubicuo
un-, [negative prefix]: no, in- ,des-, poco, sin
undulating, ondulante, ondulado
unhygienic, antihigiénico
unsatisfied, insatisfecho
unsaturated, insaturado
unstable, inestable
unusable, inutilizable
unusual, insólito
Utopian, utópico; utopista

vaccinate, vacunar
validate, convalidar
validation, convalidación
viral, vírico

water, adj., hidráulico; hidrográfico; hidrológico
water cycle, ciclo hidrológico
water soluble, hidrosoluble
wind energy, energía eólica

zirconium, circonio
*

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