Translating the 'untranslatable | Language Services in India

Over the last few months, I have become curious about the rise of a rather interesting word: Hygge. Embodying the Danish concept of cosiness and conviviality, of staying indoors in winter by a warm fire with a hot chocolate... it is clear why this term has gained such popularity.

An Oxford Dictionary 2016 finalist for ‘Word of the Year’,  there is no direct translation for hyggein English, and it has often been used to define the Danish national character. Such culturally charged terms are difficult to translate, and may not be directly translatable from one language to another.

 One other such word is the Portuguese saudade. Often considered to be the hardest word to translate in the Portuguese language, it is a feeling of sweet nostalgia, with an intense longing for something or someone which is long gone. Saudade is hardly explainable, it is a deep and complex feeling which is lived, not explained. Such an explanation might result in an approximate idea, and an even more approximate translation.

 Serendipity. You might be surprised to find out that this English word is among the hardest to render into another language. The notion of a “happy accident” or of a “pleasant surprise” is however, not a uniquely English concept. Its universality has resulted in similar words appearing in other languages, adaptations made to fill the linguistic gap, as was the case with the French sérendipité.

Listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as the world's "most succinct word", Mamihlapinatapai, originating from the archipelago of Tierra del Fuego, is another word which could be as useful as it is difficult to translate. One interpretation for this word would be “the look shared by two people, who both wish for something to be done, but neither wants to take the initiative”.

Each language has words with no true equivalent in other languages. Some of these words have managed to integrate into the English language, over time. This is the case with kitsch or Zeitgeist borrowed from German, and whose origins are still clear today. Sometimes these words have become so integrated that the speakers might forget that they have been borrowed, as in the words jungle from Hindi and pyjamas from Urdu.

 The complexity and the limitations of different languages have inspired some linguists to construct their own, which would be able to encompass the full human experience. Perhaps the best known example of this is Esperanto. Created by L.L. Zamenhof in the late 19th Century, Esperanto is now widely spoken across the globe and can even be studied on popular language-learning app, Duolingo. More recently, John Quijada created an experimental language called Ithkuil, in order to convey complex philosophical concepts in a succinct and logical manner, and to fill gaps existing in modern languages.

Thanks to globalisation, the world feels smaller than ever before, making it possible to borrow from other languages when your own words are not enough. Language is in constant evolution, bringing new exciting opportunities and possibilities for global communication.

Is it too late to learn another language translation?

Language is an important part of what makes us human. It helps us to convey our thoughts and emotions to others and it is key to building relationships. Needless to say, it is important for us to acquire language as infants and, apparently, it is not even that difficult.

According to Rowland & Noble (2010), children as young as 12 months benefit from an innate sensitivity to the grammar that we need to understand causative sentences. Researchers are yet to discover exactly how the mechanism works that enables children to distinguish syllables and words from the sounds they hear and to acquire grammar to understand and produce language themselves.

In general, children learn and develop very quickly thanks to increased brain plasticity. This explains why they are able to pick up languages more easily than teenagers and adults. Children are literally built to take in language information and this happens unconsciously; it is in their brain chemistry. The brain gathers information much more easily in an unconscious state of mind than in a conscious one.

The combination of this mysterious language mechanism and the ability to learn unconsciously explains why children (vs. adults) can learn additional languages relatively easily when they are exposed to them. Once they have learnt the grammatical structures in one language, they can integrate them in any other languages that they unconsciously learn.

Even though it becomes more difficult to learn languages later on in life, it is of course still possible.

Personally, as a native Belgian Dutch speaker, I have always found it important to not only speak English, but also French. As a child, I didn’t like any of the television programmes I could watch on Flemish television channels, so my mum tried turning on the BBC. Not only did it entertain me, but I was learning English in the meantime. Learning French was a little harder. In Belgium, learning French starts at school when you are 11 years old and continues until you are 18. I only had the feeling that I could really speak French when I did an exchange with someone from Wallonia and spent a few days with her and her family. Being surrounded with French and having no choice but to speak French just worked for me and I liked it.

Over 95% of the team at Sharpline Graphics comes from a linguistic background, each bringing with them their own unique language-learning experiences.

Language formality: How do "you" get it right?

Would you like us to use a formal or informal approach when translating?”. “We’ve used an informal approach when translating”. These may be things you’ve heard when commissioning a translation but what exactly do they mean?

It might be helpful to clarify exactly what we mean by formality in language. Sometimes people (particularly English speakers) think it refers to talking casually and not overly formally or that it’s a matter of deciding whether to use slang/colloquial language or more ‘proper’ language. However, as a translation company, when we say formality, we are referring to codified rules embedded in languages and getting them right can be key to conveying your message correctly to your intended audience.

Interestingly, it mainly centres around how you address people or, to put it simply, how you say ‘you’. Let’s look at French as an example. When speaking to someone in French you can either use tuor vous where we would say ‘you’ in English. If you use tu, you’re addressing them informally, you probably know them and they are likely the same age or younger than you. If you use vous, it’s likely that they are a stranger, older than you, or that you’re trying to be respectful.

(As a side note, vous is also used to mean ‘you’ in French when talking to more than one person, though the loss of a plural ‘you’ form in standard English is a story for another day!)

In English, we may use different words which are more or less complicated, more or less polite, speak faster or slower, or even indulge in some code-switching, but our language lacks this inbuilt grammatical distinction. The closest approximation would be companies like Innocent Drinks, who have chosen a friendly, light-hearted and playful tone of voice, and it is this kind of ‘informal’ that clients often think we mean when we ask about formality. Here again though, ‘you’ is simply ‘you’ in English.

While for many of the languages we work with daily, the choice between levels of formality is relatively straightforward, some languages buck the trend. At one end of the spectrum, Swedish tends not to use the formal approach at all, and some speakers may even interpret it as condescending, whereas Japanese has a complicated system of formality which includes ‘honorifics’and ‘humblerifics’, governing not just how you address people, but also the verbs and expressions you choose.

Formality can also differ between countries speaking the same language. In Portugal, they use tuand vôce in the same way the French use tu and vous, but in Brazil, they generally use vôce for everyone. In Argentina, they don’t use tu and usted like most other Spanish speaking countries, but instead favour vos and usted. Even the two Latin cultures of Portugal and Spain turn to formal or informal to differing extents.

So, when we receive a document to translate, the very first question we ask ourselves is, “Who is this aimed at?”, as it’s important to know exactly who you are speaking to so that you can address them as they would expect to be spoken to. After all, through translating a text, our clients want to speak to people in the way that will best facilitate their message, not offend their potential customer, respondent or reader; getting the formality of a translation wrong can mean a reader ‘switches off’, offended or convinced the text isn’t for them. So, once we know the audience, and any client preferences, we can put our local knowledge to use to determine the most appropriate level of formality.

After all, to paraphrase the song, sometimes it’s not a question of what you say, it’s all in the way that you say it. 

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