Who needs the translator?

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Last week, Trump had a lengthy and somewhat controversial conversation with Putin. According to this report, the reason that the call lasted so long was that Putin doesn’t speak English, so that translators were required. It’s a very ethno-centric way of looking at it. It could equally be said that the translators were required because Trump doesn’t speak Russian, an alternative perspective which seems to have completely gone over the heads of the Americans.

Besides, it isn’t even true. Putin speaks English fairly well, even if he prefers not to do so when involved in negotiations and discussions, to the extent of having been observed correcting the translators on previous occasions. He’s also very fluent in German, giving him at least three languages, compared to Trump’s one. And listening to Trump speak on occasions, there are surely grounds for wondering whether he can legitimately claim to speak even one language fluently. Even if Putin were content to use English in the discussion, translators might still be needed to make sense of some of Trump’s words (covfefe, anyone?) let alone his mangled and rambling sentences.

It reveals a lot about American attitudes that the man who speaks three languages reasonably well is regarded as the problem requiring a translator, whilst the man who struggles to make sense in one is regarded as the norm.

Bring back Norman Wisdom

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The story about Llangollen International Eisteddfod deciding to change its motto because Google Translate can’t translate it correctly is a sad sign of the times. The expert advice obtained by the Eisteddfod authorities (“Their unanimous advice was that the motto is beautiful when read with an understanding of the nuances of the Welsh language, but that for non-Welsh speakers and new generations of audiences and indeed Welsh speakers, the intended meaning is not clear enough.") seems reasonable enough (although the idea that new generations of Welsh speakers can’t understand the phrase “byd gwyn” should raise some concerns about the education system). It’s not a bad argument for having a different but parallel motto in English; the idea that the one has to be a direct translation of the other is a strange one. It’s not much of an argument for changing the original Welsh, though.

Where do we end if we start expunging phrases from Welsh because Google Translate can’t handle them? As an experiment, I tried asking Mr Google to translate “bwrw hen wragedd a ffyn”, a phrase which I don't think any Welsh speaker would have much difficulty understanding. The answer I got was “cast old women and sticks”, an ageist phrase which is obviously offensive to elderly humans of the female gender with its suggestion that it’s acceptable to throw them around the place. And I don’t doubt that there are many other idioms which we all use daily which will not always translate literally into English. Are we to strip them all out of the Welsh language because of the inadequacies of an automated translation software package?

And does the argument apply to all languages compared to all other languages (there are probably few phrases in any language which wouldn’t cause a problem sooner or later if literally translated into every other language)? Incidentally, it isn’t only Google that can struggle with idiom: there is a story about a meeting in the European Parliament where “Nous avons besoin de la sagesse normande” (la sagesse Normande being a French idiom for common sense) was translated by the interpreter as “We need Norman Wisdom”. A beautiful and entirely accurate literal translation, but utterly destroying the meaning of the speaker’s words. As it happens, Mr Google has the same problem with the phrase; it also gives Norman wisdom (albeit with a small w) as the translation of sagesse Normande.

Notwithstanding that the ‘problem’ demonstrably also affects other languages, I suspect that I know the answer to that question about the more general applicability of the proposed approach to other languages, sadly. As a nation, we have a more than unfortunate tendency to compare everything we do with our larger neighbour; for some, it seems that even the words we use can only be judged by comparison with any potential translation into English. It’s a sad reflection on us that the proposal for change has got as far as it has.

Highlighting the article

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UK Prime Ministers, of whatever colour, bang on about ‘the special relationship’ with the US.  In fairness, all US Presidents refer, in return, to ‘a special relationship’ with the UK.  The difference between the two positions is small; so small that some don’t even notice the difference when people speak, but the use of the indefinite article highlights a huge gulf in what the phrase means.

For the US, the relationship with the UK is one of a number of ‘special relationships’; it’s not unique.  The degree of ‘specialness’, as well as the number of such relationships varies over time, depending on the perceived interests of the US at any given point.  That difference was highlighted by the fact that the UK Prime Minister was apparently around eighth on the list to receive a call from the President-elect.  For the UK, there is one and only one such relationship.  That alone underlines that this is not as reciprocal as it is generally painted.  It also tells us something about the attitude of successive UK governments; whilst they are always extremely keen to avoid upsetting the US, it doesn’t work the same way in the other direction.

The question which interests me is why UK governments are so keen on this particular relationship that they are prepared to prostrate themselves before whoever the US citizens elect to lead their country.  There’s surely more to it than the parody in ‘Yes, Minister’ when Hacker gets so excited about the photos of him on the White House lawn appearing in the UK press.

It may stem partly from the linguistic connection.  Churchill described the US and UK as “two countries divided by a common language”, but we shouldn’t underestimate the impact of direct communication unmediated by translation in the way people relate to each other.  That language issue in turn isn’t unrelated to the imperial past; one of the glories of empire is, apparently, bequeathing the English language to the world, even if that language is increasingly, and with considerable justification, being referred to as American.

And that imperial past is relevant in another way as well: there are those who seem still to regard the US as some sort of wayward child, for which the ‘mother country’ still has a fond (if not always entirely deserved) regard.  It’s yet another example of the way in which the UK establishment appear to be so attached to the past that they are determined to continue living there.

But, tempting as it is to regard all this as touching, not to say a little touched, it has at least two major problems for the citizens at large.  In the first place, it means that much of what passes for UK foreign policy is decided in Washington rather than in London (it’s called ‘getting our country back’, apparently), even if those who benefit from that policy are also on the other side of the Atlantic; and the second is that it has been part of the reason, for decades, that the UK has failed to engage properly or enthusiastically with our more natural partners in Europe.

One of the reasons for de Gaulle’s vetoes on UK membership of the EEC was that he feared a US Trojan horse in the top councils of Europe.  And I suspect that, on the one issue where a popular referendum has gone against the US’s wishes (for the UK to stay in the EU), the US policy was driven by exactly that which de Gaulle feared – a desire to have a tame voice in those councils.

Even with a Trump government for which trade deals are about the US getting what it wants at everyone else’s expense, the siren voices of the US puppets are still telling us that the wayward child will make an exception for us, because we’re so ‘special’, despite all the hard evidence to the contrary.  Just what will it take for the UK to wake up to reality and accept that it’s a middling size state in a global economy rather than a superpower ruling the waves in a two-country alliance?  I suspect that the only thing that will achieve that is the end of the UK as a single state.  And given where they’re now taking us, that can’t come soon enough.

Two languages good, three languages better

Tweet There's nothing particularly new or innovative about the proposal put forward by the Conservative Assembly Group last week for the teaching of foreign languages in primary schools.  It’s an idea which gets floated periodically, takes a headline or two, then fades away again.

That doesn't mean that the idea is without merit.  Indeed, in principle it's something I'd support.  There are one or two little difficulties with it however.

The first is that so few primary school teachers are themselves fluent enough in a foreign language to teach it.  There's a "chicken and egg" question there, obviously.  How do we make sure that our adults are multilingual if we don't teach them languages as children; and how do we teach the children without the multilingual adults?  It's not an insuperable problem, but neither can the cycle be broken by simply passing a new law changing the curriculum.

The NUT representative was also right to draw attention to the already over- full curriculum.  (And that's something given a further relevance by the proposal put forward by some in the wake of the Olympic Games that children should have six hours of sport every week.)

Again the curriculum should not be an insuperable problem - other countries manage it after all - but there does seem to be something of a trend amongst politicians to be forever tinkering with the curriculum.  And it’s invariably about adding to it, not taking away.

But my biggest concern is about how effective such a policy would be.  The Tories talked glibly about Wales now becoming a bilingual nation, and aiming to become trilingual.  Worthy words.  However, that glosses over the fact that the teaching of Welsh as a second language in our schools has been a massive failure to date.

Children are leaving primary schools in Wales -- even so-called Category A schools, where Welsh is supposed to be the medium of instruction - unable to function in Welsh.  Most people involved in the system know that; but few are willing to say it.

It isn't inevitable that this should be so; nor is it a reason, in itself, not to try and teach other languages as well.  It is, though, a reason to look at how we teach languages and how we can do so more effectively.  If we can't teach two languages effectively where both of those languages are highly visible and in use every day around us, there seems little hope that we will add a third and teach it effectively.