Translation

{{Short description|Transfer of the meaning of something in one language into another}}
{{About|language translation|other uses}}
{{Redirect|Translator|other uses|Translator (disambiguation)}}
{{Distinguish|Transliteration}}
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{{Use dmy dates|date=March 2024}}
[[File:Charles V ordonnant la traduction d'Aristote copy.jpg|thumb|upright=1.7|right|King [[Charles V of France|Charles V]] the Wise commissions a translation of [[Aristotle]]. First square shows his ordering the translation; second square, the translation being made. Third and fourth squares show the finished translation being brought to, and then presented to, the King.]]
{{Translation sidebar}}
'''Translation''' is the communication of the [[Meaning (linguistic)|meaning]] of a [[#Source and target languages|source-language]] text by means of an [[Dynamic and formal equivalence|equivalent]] [[#Source and target languages|target-language]] text.<ref>''The Oxford Companion to the English Language'', Namit Bhatia, ed., 1992, pp. 1,051–54.</ref> The English language draws a [[terminology|terminological]] distinction (which does not exist in every language) between ''translating'' (a written text) and ''[[Language interpretation|interpreting]]'' (oral or [[Sign language|signed]] communication between users of different languages); under this distinction, translation can begin only after the appearance of [[writing]] within a language community.

A translator always risks inadvertently introducing source-language words, [[grammar]], or [[syntax]] into the target-language rendering. On the other hand, such "spill-overs" have sometimes imported useful source-language [[calque]]s and [[loanword]]s that have enriched target languages. Translators, including early translators of [[sacred text]]s, have helped shape the very languages into which they have translated.<ref>[[Christopher Kasparek]], "The Translator's Endless Toil", ''[[The Polish Review]]'', vol. XXVIII, no. 2, 1983, pp. 84-87.</ref>

Because of the laboriousness of the translation process, since the 1940s efforts have been made, with varying degrees of success, to [[machine translation|automate translation]] or to [[computer-assisted translation|mechanically aid the human translator]].<ref>W.J. Hutchins, ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=3dU5AAAAQBAJ Early Years in Machine Translation: Memoirs and Biographies of Pioneers]'', Amsterdam, John Benjamins, 2000.</ref> More recently, the rise of the [[Internet]] has fostered a [[world-wide market]] for [[translation services]] and has facilitated "[[language localisation]]".<ref>M. Snell-Hornby, ''[http://www.intralinea.org/reviews/item/The_Turns_of_Translation_Studies_New_Paradigms_or_Shifting_Viewpoints The Turns of Translation Studies: New Paradigms or Shifting Viewpoints?]'', Philadelphia, John Benjamins, 2006, p. 133.</ref>

==Etymology==
[[File:Rosetta Stone BW.jpeg|thumb|upright|left|[[Rosetta Stone]], a [[secular icon]] for the art of translation<ref>"Rosetta Stone", ''The Columbia Encyclopedia'', 5th ed., 1994, p. 2,361.</ref>]]
The [[English language|English]] word "translation" derives from the [[Latin]] word {{Lang|la|translatio}},<ref>{{cite book|last1=Vélez|first1=Fabio|title=Antes de Babel|pages=3–21}}</ref> which comes from ''[[Wiktionary:trans#Latin|trans]]'', "across" + ''[[Wiktionary:fero#Latin|ferre]]'', "to carry" or "to bring" (''-latio'' in turn coming from ''latus'', the [[past participle]] of ''ferre''). Thus ''translatio'' is "a carrying across" or "a bringing across"—in this case, of a text from one language to another.<ref name="The Translator p. 83">[[Christopher Kasparek]], "The Translator's Endless Toil", p. 83.</ref>

Some [[Slavic languages]] and the [[Germanic languages]] (other than [[Dutch language|Dutch]] and [[Afrikaans]]) have [[calque#Loan translation: ''translātiō'' and ''trāductiō''|calque]]d their words for the [[concept]] of "translation" on ''translatio'', substituting their respective Slavic or Germanic root words for the Latin roots.<ref name="The Translator p. 83"/><ref>The Dutch for "translation" is ''vertaling'', from the [[verb]] ''vertalen'', itself derived from ''taal'', "language", plus [[prefix]] ''ver-''. The Afrikaans for "translation", derived from the Dutch, is ''vertaling''.</ref>{{efn|The Dutch ''overzetting'' (noun) and ''overzetten'' (verb) in the sense of "translation" and "to translate", respectively, are considered archaic. While ''omzetting'' may still be found in early modern literary works, it has been replaced entirely in modern Dutch by ''vertaling''.}}<ref>[http://gtb.inl.nl/iWDB/search?actie=article&wdb=WNT&id=M051812&lemmodern=overzetting "overzetting"] in [[Woordenboek der Nederlandsche Taal]], ''[[Dutch Language Union#Instituut voor de Nederlandse Taal|IvdNT]]''</ref> The remaining Slavic languages instead calqued their words for "translation" from an alternative Latin word, {{lang|la|trāductiō}}, itself derived from {{wikt-lang|la|trādūcō}} ("to lead across" or "to bring across")—from {{lang|la|trans}} ("across") + {{wikt-lang|la|dūcō}}, ("to lead" or "to bring").<ref name="The Translator p. 83"/>

The [[West Slavic languages|West]] and [[East Slavic languages]] (except for [[Russian language|Russian]]) adopted the {{lang|la|translātiō}} pattern, whereas Russian and the [[South Slavic languages]] adopted the {{lang|la|trāductiō}} pattern. The [[Romance language]]s, deriving directly from Latin, did not need to ''calque'' their equivalent words for "translation"; instead, they simply adapted the second of the two alternative Latin words, {{lang|la|trāductiō}}.<ref name="The Translator p. 83"/>

The [[Ancient Greek language|Ancient Greek]] term for "translation", {{lang|grc|μετάφρασις}} (''metaphrasis'', "a speaking across"), has supplied English with "[[metaphrase]]" (a "[[literal translation|literal]]", or "word-for-word", translation)—as contrasted with "[[paraphrase]]" ("a saying in other words", from {{lang|grc|παράφρασις}}, ''paraphrasis'').<ref name="The Translator p. 83" /> "Metaphrase" corresponds, in one of the more recent terminologies, to "[[#Equivalence|formal equivalence]]"; and "paraphrase", to "[[#Equivalence|dynamic equivalence]]".<ref name="Kasparek p. 84">Kasparek, "The Translator's Endless Toil", p. 84.</ref>

Strictly speaking, the concept of metaphrase—of "word-for-word translation"—is an [[Perfection|imperfect]] concept, because a given word in a given language often carries more than one meaning; and because a similar given meaning may often be represented in a given language by more than one word. Nevertheless, "metaphrase" and "paraphrase" may be useful as ''ideal'' concepts that mark the extremes in the spectrum of possible approaches to translation.{{efn|"Ideal concepts" are useful as well in other fields, such as [[physics]] and [[chemistry]], which include the concepts of perfectly solid bodies, perfectly rigid bodies, perfectly plastic bodies, perfectly black bodies, perfect crystals, perfect fluids, and perfect gases.<ref>[[Władysław Tatarkiewicz]], ''On [[Perfection]]'' (first published in Polish in 1976 as ''O doskonałości''); English translation by [[Christopher Kasparek]] subsequently serialized in 1979–1981 in ''Dialectics and Humanism: The Polish Philosophical Quarterly'', and reprinted in Władysław Tatarkiewicz, ''On Perfection'', Warsaw University Press, 1992.</ref>}}

==Theories==

===Western theory===
[[File:John Dryden by Sir Godfrey Kneller, Bt.jpg|thumb|upright|[[John Dryden]]]]
Discussions of the theory and practice of translation reach back into [[ancient history|antiquity]] and show remarkable continuities. The [[Ancient Greece|ancient Greeks]] distinguished between ''metaphrase'' (literal translation) and ''paraphrase''. This distinction was adopted by English poet and translator [[John Dryden]] (1631–1700), who described translation as the judicious blending of these two modes of phrasing when selecting, in the target language, "counterparts," or [[Dynamic and formal equivalence|equivalents]], for the expressions used in the source language:

{{blockquote|When [words] appear... literally graceful, it were an injury to the author that they should be changed. But since... what is beautiful in one [language] is often barbarous, nay sometimes nonsense, in another, it would be unreasonable to limit a translator to the narrow compass of his author's words: 'tis enough if he choose out some expression which does not vitiate the sense.<ref name="The Translator p. 83"/>}}

[[File:Cicero - Musei Capitolini.JPG|thumb|left|upright|[[Cicero]]]]
Dryden cautioned, however, against the license of "imitation", i.e., of adapted translation: "When a painter copies from the life... he has no privilege to alter features and lineaments..."<ref name="Kasparek p. 84"/>

This general formulation of the central concept of translation—[[Dynamic and formal equivalence|equivalence]]—is as adequate as any that has been proposed since [[Cicero]] and [[Horace]], who, in 1st-century-BCE [[Ancient Rome|Rome]], famously and literally cautioned against translating "word for word" ({{lang|la|verbum pro verbo}}).<ref name="Kasparek p. 84"/>

Despite occasional theoretical diversity, the actual ''practice'' of translation has hardly changed since antiquity. Except for some extreme metaphrasers in the early Christian period and the [[Middle Ages]], and adapters in various periods (especially pre-Classical Rome, and the 18th century), translators have generally shown prudent flexibility in seeking [[Dynamic and formal equivalence|equivalents]]—"literal" where possible, paraphrastic where necessary—for the original [[meaning (linguistics)|meaning]] and other crucial "values" (e.g., [[Style (fiction)|style]], [[verse form]], concordance with musical accompaniment or, in films, with speech [[Manner of articulation|articulatory]] movements) as determined from context.<ref name="Kasparek p. 84"/>

[[File:Samuel Johnson by Joshua Reynolds 2.png|thumb|upright|[[Samuel Johnson]]]]
In general, translators have sought to preserve the [[Context (language use)|context]] itself by reproducing the original order of [[sememe]]s, and hence [[word order]]<ref>[[Lydia Davis]], "Eleven Pleasures of Translating", ''[[The New York Review of Books]]'', vol. LXIII, no. 19 (8 December 2016), pp.&nbsp;22–24. "I like to reproduce the word order, and the order of ideas, of the original [text] whenever possible. [p. 22] [T]ranslation is, eternally, a compromise. You settle for the best you can do rather than achieving perfection, though there is the occasional perfect solution [to the problem of finding an equivalent expression in the target language]." (p.&nbsp;23.)</ref>—when necessary, reinterpreting the actual [[grammar|grammatical]] structure, for example, by shifting from [[active voice|active]] to [[passive voice]], or ''vice versa''. The grammatical differences between "fixed-word-order" [[language]]s<ref>Typically, [[analytic language]]s.</ref> (e.g. English, [[French language|French]], [[German language|German]]) and "free-word-order" languages<ref>Typically, [[synthetic language]]s.</ref> (e.g., [[Greek language|Greek]], [[Latin]], [[Polish language|Polish]], [[Russian language|Russian]]) have been no impediment in this regard.<ref name="Kasparek p. 84"/> The particular syntax (sentence-structure) characteristics of a text's source language are adjusted to the syntactic requirements of the target language.
[[File:Martin Luther, 1529.jpg|thumb|left|upright|[[Martin Luther]]]]
When a target language has lacked [[terminology|term]]s that are found in a source language, translators have borrowed those terms, thereby enriching the target language. Thanks in great measure to the exchange of calques and loanwords between languages, and to their importation from other languages, there are few [[concept]]s that are "[[untranslatability|untranslatable]]" among the modern European languages.<ref name="Kasparek p. 84"/> A greater problem, however, is translating terms relating to cultural concepts that have no equivalent in the target language.<ref>Some examples of this are described in the article, [http://www.noproblem.no/translate.html "Translating the 17th of May into English and other horror stories"], retrieved 15 April 2010.</ref> For full comprehension, such situations require the provision of a [[gloss (annotation)#In linguistics|gloss]].

Generally, the greater the contact and exchange that have existed between two languages, or between those languages and a third one, the greater is the ratio of [[metaphrase]] to [[paraphrase]] that may be used in translating among them. However, due to shifts in [[ecological niche]]s of words, a common [[etymology]] is sometimes misleading as a guide to current meaning in one or the other language. For example, the English ''actual'' should not be confused with the [[cognate]] French {{lang|fr|actuel}} ("present", "current"), the Polish {{lang|pl|aktualny}} ("present", "current," "topical", "timely", "feasible"),<ref name="Kasparek p. 85">Kasparek, "The Translator's Endless Toil", p. 85.</ref> the Swedish ''aktuell'' ("topical", "presently of importance"), the Russian {{lang|ru|актуальный}} ("urgent", "topical") or the Dutch ''actueel'' ("current").

The translator's role as a bridge for "carrying across" values between cultures has been discussed at least since [[Terence]], the 2nd-century-BCE Roman adapter of Greek comedies. The translator's role is, however, by no means a passive, mechanical one, and so has also been compared to that of an [[artist]]. The main ground seems to be the concept of parallel creation found in critics such as [[Cicero]]. Dryden observed that "Translation is a type of drawing after life..." Comparison of the translator with a musician or actor goes back at least to [[Samuel Johnson]]'s remark about [[Alexander Pope]] playing [[Homer]] on a [[flageolet]], while Homer himself used a [[bassoon]].<ref name="Kasparek p. 85"/>

[[File:Herder by Kügelgen.jpg|thumb|left|upright|[[Johann Gottfried Herder]]]]
In the 13th century, [[Roger Bacon]] wrote that if a translation is to be true, the translator must know both [[language]]s, as well as the [[science]] that he is to translate; and finding that few translators did, he wanted to do away with translation and translators altogether.<ref>Kasparek, "The Translator's Endless Toil", pp. 85-86.</ref>

[[File:Per Krafft - Portrait of Bishop Ignacy Krasicki - MNK II-a-671 - National Museum Kraków.jpg|thumb|upright=1.0|[[Ignacy Krasicki]]]]
The translator of the [[Bible]] into German, [[Martin Luther]] (1483–1546), is credited with being the first European to posit that one translates satisfactorily only toward his own language. L.G. Kelly states that since [[Johann Gottfried Herder]] in the 18th century, "it has been axiomatic" that one translates only toward his own language.<ref>L.G. Kelly, cited in Kasparek, "The Translator's Endless Toil", p. 86.</ref>

Compounding the demands on the translator is the fact that no [[dictionary]] or [[thesaurus]] can ever be a fully adequate guide in translating. The Scottish historian [[Alexander Fraser Tytler, Lord Woodhouselee|Alexander Tytler]], in his ''Essay on the Principles of Translation'' (1790), emphasized that assiduous reading is a more comprehensive guide to a language than are dictionaries. The same point, but also including listening to the [[spoken language|''spoken'' language]], had earlier, in 1783, been made by the Polish poet and [[grammar]]ian [[Onufry Kopczyński]].<ref name="Kasparek p. 86">Kasparek, "The Translator's Endless Toil", p. 86.</ref>

The translator's special role in society is described in a posthumous 1803 essay by "Poland's [[La Fontaine]]", the Roman Catholic [[Primate of Poland]], poet, [[Encyclopedia|encyclopedist]], [[Novelist|author]] of the first Polish novel, and translator from French and Greek, [[Ignacy Krasicki]]:

{{blockquote|[T]ranslation... is in fact an art both estimable and very difficult, and therefore is not the labor and portion of common minds; [it] should be [practiced] by those who are themselves capable of being actors, when they see greater use in translating the works of others than in their own works, and hold higher than their own glory the service that they render their country.<ref>Cited by Kasparek, "The Translator's Endless Toil", p. 87, from [[Ignacy Krasicki]], {{lang|pl|"O tłumaczeniu ksiąg"}} ("On Translating Books"), in {{lang|pl|Dzieła wierszem i prozą}} (Works in Verse and Prose), 1803, reprinted in [[Edward Balcerzan]], ed., {{lang|pl|Pisarze polscy o sztuce przekładu, 1440–1974: Antologia}} (Polish Writers on the Art of Translation, 1440–1974: an Anthology), p. 79.</ref>}}

===Other traditions===
Due to [[Western colonialism]] and cultural dominance in recent centuries, Western translation traditions have largely replaced other traditions. The [[American Tradition Partnership|Western traditions]] draw on both ancient and medieval traditions, and on more recent European innovations.

Though earlier approaches to translation are less commonly used today, they retain importance when dealing with their products, as when historians view ancient or medieval records to piece together events which took place in non-Western or pre-Western environments. Also, though heavily influenced by Western traditions and practiced by translators taught in Western-style educational systems, Chinese and related translation traditions retain some theories and philosophies unique to the Chinese tradition.

==== Near East ====
{{Expand section|date=March 2012}}
Traditions of translating material among the languages of ancient [[Egypt]], [[Mesopotamia]], [[Assyria]] ([[Syriac language]]), [[Anatolia]], and [[Israel]] ([[Hebrew language]]) go back several millennia. There exist partial translations of the Sumerian ''[[Epic of Gilgamesh]]'' ({{circa|2000 BCE}}) into [[Southwest Asia]]n languages of the second millennium BCE.<ref>J.M. Cohen, "Translation", ''[[Encyclopedia Americana]]'', 1986, vol. 27, p. 12.</ref>

An early example of a [[bilingual]] document is the 1274 BCE [[Treaty of Kadesh]] between the [[ancient Egypt]]ian and [[Hittite Empire|Hittie empire]]s.

The [[Babylonia]]ns were the first to establish translation as a profession.<ref>Bakir, K.H. 1984. Arabization of Higher Education in Iraq. PhD thesis, University of Bath.</ref>

The first translations of Greek and Coptic texts into Arabic, possibly indirectly from Syriac translations,<ref>Wakim, K.G. 1944. Arabic Medicine in Literature. Bulletin of the Medical Library Association 32 (1), January: 96-104.</ref> seem to have been undertaken as early as the late seventh century CE.<ref>Hitti, P.K. 1970. History of the Arabs from the Earliest Times to the Present. 10th ed. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan.</ref>

The second Abbasid Caliph funded a translation bureau in Baghdad in the eighth century.<ref>Monastra, Y., and W. J. Kopycki. 2009. Libraries. In: The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Modern Islamic World. edited by J.L. Esposito, 2nd ed., vol.3, 424-427. New York: Oxford University Press.</ref>

Bayt al-Hikma, the famous library in Baghdad, was generously endowed and the collection included books in many languages, and it became a leading centre for the translation of works from antiquity into Arabic, with its own Translation Department.<ref>Hussain, S.V. 1960. Organization and Administration of Muslim Libraries: From 786 A.D. to 1492 A.D. Quarterly Journal of the Pakistan Library Association 1 (1), July: 8-11.</ref>

Translations into European languages from Arabic versions of lost Greek and Roman texts began in the middle of the eleventh century, when the benefits to be gained from the Arabs’ knowledge of the classical texts were recognised by European scholars, particularly after the establishment of the Escuela de Traductores de Toledo in Spain.

[[William Caxton]]’s ''Dictes or Sayengis of the Philosophres'' (Sayings of the Philosophers, 1477) was a translation into English of an eleventh-century Egyptian text which reached English via translation into Latin and then French.

The translation of foreign works for publishing in Arabic was revived by the establishment of the [[Madrasat al-Alsun]] (School of Tongues) in Egypt in 1813.<ref>S.A. El Gabri, ''The Arab Experiment in Translation'', New Delhi, India, Bookman’s Club, 1984.</ref>

====Asia====
{{Further|Chinese translation theory}}
[[File:Jingangjing.jpg|thumb|upright=1.0|[[Buddhism|Buddhist]] ''[[Diamond Sutra]]'', translated into [[Chinese language|Chinese]] by [[Kumārajīva]] – world's oldest known dated printed book (868 CE)]]

There is a separate tradition of translation in [[South Asia|South]], [[Southeast Asia|Southeast]] and [[East Asia]] (primarily of texts from the [[India]]n and [[China|Chinese]] civilizations), connected especially with the rendering of religious, particularly [[Buddhism|Buddhist]], texts and with the governance of the Chinese empire. Classical Indian translation is characterized by loose adaptation, rather than the closer translation more commonly found in Europe; and [[Chinese translation theory]] identifies various criteria and limitations in translation.

In the East Asian sphere of Chinese cultural influence, more important than translation ''per se'' has been the use and reading of Chinese texts, which also had substantial influence on the Japanese, Korean and Vietnamese languages, with substantial [[Sino-Xenic vocabularies|borrowings of Chinese vocabulary]] and writing system. Notable is the Japanese [[kanbun]], a system for [[Gloss (annotation)|glossing]] Chinese texts for Japanese speakers.

Though Indianized states in Southeast Asia often translated [[Sanskrit]] material into the local languages, the literate elites and scribes more commonly used Sanskrit as their primary language of culture and government.
[[File:VOA Perry Link.jpg|thumb|[[Perry Link]]]]
Some special aspects of translating from [[Chinese language|Chinese]] are illustrated in [[Perry Link]]'s discussion of translating the work of the [[Tang dynasty]] poet [[Wang Wei (Tang dynasty)|Wang Wei]] (699–759 CE).<ref>[[Perry Link]], "A Magician of Chinese Poetry" (review of [[Eliot Weinberger]], with an afterword by [[Octavio Paz]], ''19 Ways of Looking at [[Wang Wei (Tang dynasty)|Wang Wei]] (with More Ways)'', New Directions; and [[Eliot Weinberger]], ''The Ghosts of Birds'', New Directions), ''[[The New York Review of Books]]'', vol. LXIII, no. 18 (24 November 2016), pp. 49–50.</ref>

{{blockquote|Some of the art of classical [[Chinese poetry]] [writes Link] must simply be set aside as [[untranslatability|untranslatable]]. The internal structure of [[Chinese characters]] has a beauty of its own, and the [[calligraphy]] in which classical poems were written is another important but untranslatable dimension. Since Chinese characters do not vary in length, and because there are exactly five characters per line in a poem like [the one that [[Eliot Weinberger]] discusses in ''19 Ways of Looking at [[Wang Wei (Tang dynasty)|Wang Wei]] (with More Ways)''], another untranslatable feature is that the written result, hung on a wall, presents a rectangle. Translators into languages whose word lengths vary can reproduce such an effect only at the risk of fatal awkwardness....

Another imponderable is how to imitate the 1-2, 1-2-3 [[rhythm]] in which five-[[syllable]] lines in classical Chinese poems normally are read. Chinese characters are pronounced in one syllable apiece, so producing such rhythms in Chinese is not hard and the results are unobtrusive; but any imitation in a Western language is almost inevitably stilted and distracting. Even less translatable are the patterns of [[Tone (linguistics)|tone]] arrangement in classical Chinese poetry. Each syllable (character) belongs to one of two categories determined by the [[pitch contour]] in which it is read; in a classical Chinese poem the patterns of alternation of the two categories exhibit [[Parallelism (grammar)|parallelism]] and mirroring.<ref name="LXIII 2016 p. 49">[[Perry Link]], "A Magician of Chinese Poetry", ''[[The New York Review of Books]]'', vol. LXIII, no. 18 (November 24, 2016), p. 49.</ref>}}

Once the untranslatables have been set aside, the problems for a translator, especially of Chinese poetry, are two: What does the translator think the poetic line says? And once he thinks he understands it, how can he render it into the target language? Most of the difficulties, according to Link, arise in addressing the second problem, "where the impossibility of perfect answers spawns endless debate." Almost always at the center is the letter-versus-spirit [[dilemma]]. At the literalist extreme, efforts are made to dissect every conceivable detail about the language of the original Chinese poem. "The dissection, though," writes Link, "normally does to the art of a poem approximately what the [[scalpel]] of an [[anatomy]] instructor does to the life of a frog."<ref name="LXIII 2016 p. 49"/>

Chinese characters, in avoiding [[grammar|grammatical]] specificity, offer advantages to poets (and, simultaneously, challenges to poetry translators) that are associated primarily with absences of [[Subject (grammar)|subject]], [[Grammatical number|number]], and [[Grammatical tense|tense]].<ref name="LXIII 2016 p. 50">[[Perry Link]], "A Magician of Chinese Poetry", ''[[The New York Review of Books]]'', vol. LXIII, no. 18 (24 November 2016), p. 50.</ref>

It is the norm in classical [[Chinese poetry]], and common even in modern Chinese prose, to omit subjects; the reader or listener infers a subject. The grammars of some Western languages, however, require that a subject be stated (although this is often avoided by using a passive or impersonal construction). Most of the translators cited in Eliot Weinberger's ''19 Ways of Looking at [[Wang Wei (Tang dynasty)|Wang Wei]]'' supply a subject. Weinberger points out, however, that when an "I" as a subject is inserted, a "controlling individual mind of the poet" enters and destroys the effect of the Chinese line. Without a subject, he writes, "the experience becomes both universal and immediate to the reader." Another approach to the subjectlessness is to use the target language's [[passive voice]]; but this again particularizes the experience too much.<ref name="LXIII 2016 p. 50"/>

[[Noun]]s have no [[Grammatical number|number]] in Chinese. "If," writes Link, "you want to talk in Chinese about one rose, you may, but then you use a "[[measure word]]" to say "one blossom-of roseness."<ref name="LXIII 2016 p. 50"/>

Chinese [[verb]]s are [[grammatical tense|tense]]-less: there are several ways to specify when something happened or will happen, but [[verb tense]] is not one of them. For poets, this creates the great advantage of [[ambiguity]]. According to Link, Weinberger's insight about subjectlessness—that it produces an effect "both universal and immediate"—applies to timelessness as well.<ref name="LXIII 2016 p. 50"/>

Link proposes a kind of uncertainty principle that may be applicable not only to translation from the Chinese language, but to all translation:

{{blockquote|Dilemmas about translation do not have definitive right answers (although there can be unambiguously wrong ones if misreadings of the original are involved). Any translation (except machine translation, a different case) must pass through the mind of a translator, and that mind inevitably contains its own store of perceptions, memories, and values.

Weinberger [...] pushes this insight further when he writes that "every reading of every poem, regardless of language, is an act of translation: translation into the reader's intellectual and emotional life." Then he goes still further: because a reader's mental life shifts over time, there is a sense in which "the same poem cannot be read twice."<ref name="LXIII 2016 p. 50"/>}}

====Islamic world====
Translation of material into [[Arabic language|Arabic]] expanded after the creation of [[Arabic script]] in the 5th century, and gained great importance with the rise of [[Islam]] and Islamic empires. Arab translation initially focused primarily on politics, rendering Persian, Greek, even Chinese and Indic diplomatic materials into Arabic. It later focused on translating classical Greek and Persian works, as well as some Chinese and Indian texts, into Arabic for scholarly study at major Islamic learning centers, such as the [[Madrasah of Al-Karaouine|Al-Karaouine]] ([[Fes]], [[Morocco]]), [[Al-Azhar Madrasah|Al-Azhar]] ([[Cairo]], [[Egypt]]), and the [[Al-Nizamiyya of Baghdad]]. In terms of theory, Arabic translation drew heavily on earlier Near Eastern traditions as well as more contemporary Greek and Persian traditions.

Arabic translation efforts and techniques are important to Western translation traditions due to centuries of close contacts and exchanges. Especially after the [[Renaissance]], Europeans began more intensive study of Arabic and Persian translations of classical works as well as scientific and philosophical works of Arab and oriental origins. Arabic, and to a lesser degree Persian, became important sources of material and perhaps of techniques for revitalized Western traditions, which in time would overtake the Islamic and oriental traditions.

In the 19th century, after the [[Middle East]]'s [[Islam]]ic clerics and copyists
{{blockquote|had conceded defeat in their centuries-old battle to contain the corrupting effects of the [[printing press]], [an] explosion in publishing ... ensued. Along with expanding secular education, printing transformed an overwhelmingly illiterate society into a partly literate one.

In the past, the [[sheikh]]s and the government had exercised a monopoly over knowledge. Now an expanding elite benefitted from a stream of information on virtually anything that interested them. Between 1880 and 1908... more than six hundred newspapers and periodicals were founded in Egypt alone.

The most prominent among them was ''al-Muqtataf'' ... [It] was the popular expression of a '''translation movement''' that had begun earlier in the century with military and medical manuals and highlights from the [[Age of Enlightenment|Enlightenment]] canon. ([[Montesquieu]]'s ''Considerations on the Romans'' and [[Fénelon]]'s ''Telemachus'' had been favorites.)<ref name = debellaigue77>[[Christopher de Bellaigue]], "Dreams of Islamic Liberalism" (review of Marwa Elshakry, ''Reading Darwin in Arabic, 1860–1950'', University of Chicago Press), ''[[The New York Review of Books]]'', vol. LXII, no. 10 (June 4, 2015), p. 77.</ref>}}

A translator who contributed mightily to the advance of the Islamic Enlightenment was the Egyptian cleric Rifaa al-Tahtawi (1801–73), who had spent five years in [[Paris]] in the late 1820s, teaching religion to [[Muslims|Muslim]] students. After returning to Cairo with the encouragement of [[Muhammad Ali of Egypt|Muhammad Ali]] (1769–1849), the [[Ottoman Empire|Ottoman]] viceroy of Egypt, al–Tahtawi became head of the new school of languages and embarked on an intellectual revolution by initiating a program to translate some two thousand European and Turkish volumes, ranging from ancient texts on geography and geometry to [[Voltaire]]'s biography of [[Peter the Great]], along with the ''[[Marseillaise]]'' and the entire ''[[Code Napoléon]]''. This was the biggest, most meaningful importation of foreign thought into Arabic since [[Abbasid]] times (750–1258).<ref>[[Malise Ruthven]], "The Islamic Road to the Modern World" (review of [[Christopher de Bellaigue]], ''The Islamic Enlightenment: The Struggle between Faith and Reason, 1798 to Modern Times'', Liveright; and Wael Abu-'Uksa, ''Freedom in the Arab World: Concepts and Ideologies in Arabic Thought in the Nineteenth Century'', Cambridge University Press), ''[[The New York Review of Books]]'', vol. LXIV, no. 11 (22 June 2017), p. 22.</ref>

{{blockquote|In France al-Tahtawi had been struck by the way the French language... was constantly renewing itself to fit modern ways of living. Yet [[Arabic]] has its own sources of reinvention. The root system that Arabic shares with other [[Semitic languages|Semitic]] tongues such as Hebrew is capable of expanding the meanings of words using structured [[consonant]]al variations: the word for airplane, for example, has the same root as the word for bird.<ref>[[Malise Ruthven]], "The Islamic Road to the Modern World" (review of [[Christopher de Bellaigue]], ''The Islamic Enlightenment: The Struggle between Faith and Reason, 1798 to Modern Times'', Liveright; and Wael Abu-'Uksa, ''Freedom in the Arab World: Concepts and Ideologies in Arabic Thought in the Nineteenth Century'', Cambridge University Press), ''[[The New York Review of Books]]'', vol. LXIV, no. 11 (22 June 2017), p. 24.</ref>}}

[[File:Muhammad Abduh (trimmed).JPG|thumb|upright=.8|[[Muhammad Abduh]]]]
The movement to translate English and European texts transformed the Arabic and [[Ottoman Turkey|Ottoman]] [[Turkish language|Turkish]] languages, and new words, simplified syntax, and directness came to be valued over the previous convolutions. Educated Arabs and Turks in the new professions and the modernized [[civil service]] expressed [[skepticism]], writes [[Christopher de Bellaigue]], "with a freedom that is rarely witnessed today ... No longer was legitimate knowledge defined by texts in the religious schools, interpreted for the most part with stultifying literalness. It had come to include virtually any intellectual production anywhere in the world." One of the [[neologisms]] that, in a way, came to characterize the infusion of new ideas via translation was ''"darwiniya"'', or "[[Darwinism]]".<ref name = debellaigue77/>

One of the most influential liberal Islamic thinkers of the time was [[Muhammad Abduh]] (1849–1905), Egypt's senior judicial authority—its chief [[mufti]]—at the turn of the 20th century and an admirer of [[Charles Darwin|Darwin]] who in 1903 visited Darwin's exponent [[Herbert Spencer]] at his home in [[Brighton]]. Spencer's view of [[social organism|society as an organism]] with its own laws of evolution paralleled Abduh's ideas.<ref>[[Christopher de Bellaigue]], "Dreams of Islamic Liberalism" (review of Marwa Elshakry, ''Reading Darwin in Arabic, 1860–1950''), ''[[The New York Review of Books]]'', vol. LXII, no. 10 (4 June 2015), p. 77–78.</ref>

After [[World War I]], when Britain and France divided up the Middle East's countries, apart from Turkey, between them, pursuant to the [[Sykes-Picot agreement]]—in violation of solemn wartime promises of postwar Arab autonomy—there came an immediate reaction: the [[Muslim Brotherhood]] emerged in Egypt, the [[House of Saud]] took over the [[Hijaz]], and regimes led by army officers came to power in [[Iran]] and Turkey. "[B]oth illiberal currents of the modern Middle East," writes [[Christopher de Bellaigue|de Bellaigue]], "Islamism and militarism, received a major impetus from Western [[Imperialism|empire-builders]]." As often happens in countries undergoing social crisis, the aspirations of the Muslim world's translators and modernizers, such as [[Muhammad Abduh]], largely had to yield to retrograde currents.<ref>[[Christopher de Bellaigue]], "Dreams of Islamic Liberalism" (review of Marwa Elshakry, ''Reading Darwin in Arabic, 1860–1950''), ''[[The New York Review of Books]]'', vol. LXII, no. 10 (4 June 2015), p. 78.</ref>

==Fidelity and transparency<!--linked from 'Friedrich Schleiermacher'-->==
[[File:John Dryden by John Michael Wright, 1668 (detail), National Portrait Gallery, London.JPG|thumb|right|upright=1.0|[[John Dryden|Dryden]]]]
[[Fidelity]] (or "faithfulness") and felicity<ref name="This Little Art 2018 p. 22">[[Marina Warner]], "The Politics of Translation" (a review of [[Kate Briggs]], ''This Little Art'', 2017; [[Mireille Gansel]], translated by [[Ros Schwartz]], 2017; [[Mark Polizzotti]], ''Sympathy for the Traitor: A Translation Manifesto'', 2018; [[Boyd Tonkin]], ed., ''The 100 Best Novels in Translation'', 2018; [[Clive Scott (linguist)|Clive Scott]], ''The Work of Literary Translation'', 2018), ''[[London Review of Books]]'', vol. 40, no. 19 (11 October 2018), p. 22.</ref> (or [[transparency (linguistic)|transparency]]), dual ideals in translation, are often (though not always) at odds. A 17th-century French critic coined the phrase "{{lang|fr|les belles infidèles}}" to suggest that translations can be either faithful or beautiful, but not both.{{efn|French philosopher and writer [[Gilles Ménage]] (1613-92) commented on translations by humanist Perrot Nicolas d'Ablancourt (1606-64): "They remind me of a woman whom I greatly loved in [[Tours]], who was beautiful but unfaithful."<ref>Quoted in Amparo Hurtado Albir, ''La notion de fidélité en traduction'' (The Idea of Fidelity in Translation), Paris, Didier Érudition, 1990, p. 231.</ref>}} Fidelity is the extent to which a translation accurately renders the meaning of the [[source text]], without distortion. Transparency is the extent to which a translation appears to a native speaker of the target language to have originally been written in that language, and conforms to its grammar, syntax and idiom. John Dryden (1631–1700) wrote in his preface to the translation anthology ''Sylvae'':
{{blockquote|Where I have taken away some of [the original authors'] Expressions, and cut them shorter, it may possibly be on this consideration, that what was beautiful in the Greek or Latin, would not appear so shining in the English; and where I have enlarg'd them, I desire the false Criticks would not always think that those thoughts are wholly mine, but that either they are secretly in the Poet, or may be fairly deduc'd from him; or at least, if both those considerations should fail, that my own is of a piece with his, and that if he were living, and an Englishman, they are such as he wou'd probably have written.<ref>{{cite web|last1=Dryden|first1=John|title=Preface to Sylvae|url=http://www.bartleby.com/204/180.html|website=Bartelby.com|access-date=27 April 2015}}</ref>}}

A translation that meets the criterion of fidelity (faithfulness) is said to be "faithful"; a translation that meets the criterion of transparency, "[[idiomatic]]". Depending on the given translation, the two qualities may not be mutually exclusive. The criteria for judging the fidelity of a translation vary according to the subject, type and use of the text, its literary qualities, its social or historical context, etc. The criteria for judging the transparency of a translation appear more straightforward: an unidiomatic translation "sounds wrong" and, in extreme cases of word-for-word translation, often results in patent nonsense.

[[File:Friedrich Daniel Ernst Schleiermacher.jpg|thumb|right|upright=0.9|[[Friedrich Schleiermacher|Schleiermacher]]]]
Nevertheless, in certain contexts a translator may consciously seek to produce a literal translation. Translators of literary, religious, or historic texts often adhere as closely as possible to the source text, stretching the limits of the target language to produce an unidiomatic text. Also, a translator may adopt expressions from the source language in order to provide "local color".

[[File:Lawrence Venuti.jpeg|thumb|upright|[[Lawrence Venuti|Venuti]]]]
While current Western translation practice is dominated by the dual concepts of "fidelity" and "transparency", this has not always been the case. There have been periods, especially in pre-Classical Rome and in the 18th century, when many translators stepped beyond the bounds of translation proper into the realm of ''[[adaptation]]''. [[Adapted translation]] retains currency in some non-Western traditions. The [[India]]n epic, the ''[[Ramayana]]'', appears in many versions in the various [[Languages of India|Indian languages]], and the stories are different in each. Similar examples are to be found in [[medieval Christianity|medieval Christian]] literature, which adjusted the text to local customs and mores.

Many non-transparent-translation theories draw on concepts from [[German Romanticism]], the most obvious influence being the German theologian and philosopher [[Friedrich Schleiermacher]]. In his seminal lecture "On the Different Methods of Translation" (1813) he distinguished between translation methods that move "the writer toward [the reader]", i.e., transparency, and those that move the "reader toward [the author]", i.e., an extreme fidelity to the foreignness of the source text. Schleiermacher favored the latter approach; he was motivated, however, not so much by a desire to embrace the foreign, as by a nationalist desire to oppose France's cultural domination and to promote [[German literature]]{{Citation needed|date=September 2023}}.

In recent decades, prominent advocates of such "non-transparent" translation have included the French scholar [[Antoine Berman]], who identified twelve deforming tendencies inherent in most prose translations,<ref>[[Antoine Berman]], ''L'épreuve de l'étranger'', 1984.</ref> and the American theorist [[Lawrence Venuti]], who has called on translators to apply "foreignizing" rather than domesticating translation strategies.<ref>[[Lawrence Venuti]], "Call to Action", in ''The Translator's Invisibility'', 1994.</ref>

===Equivalence===
{{main|Dynamic and formal equivalence}}
The question of [[fidelity]] vs. [[transparency (linguistic)|transparency]] has also been formulated in terms of, respectively, "''formal'' equivalence" and "''dynamic'' [or ''functional''] equivalence" – expressions associated with the translator [[Eugene Nida]] and originally coined to describe ways of translating the [[Bible]]; but the two approaches are applicable to any translation. "Formal equivalence" corresponds to "metaphrase", and "dynamic equivalence" to "paraphrase". "Formal equivalence" (sought via "literal" translation) attempts to render the text literally, or "word for word" (the latter expression being itself a word-for-word rendering of the [[classical Latin]] {{lang|la|verbum pro verbo}}) – if necessary, at the expense of features natural to the target language. By contrast, "dynamic equivalence" (or "''functional'' equivalence") conveys the essential thoughts expressed in a source text—if necessary, at the expense of literality, original [[sememe]] and [[word order]], the source text's active vs. passive [[voice (grammar)|voice]], etc.

There is, however, no sharp boundary between formal and functional equivalence. On the contrary, they represent a spectrum of translation approaches. Each is used at various times and in various contexts by the same translator, and at various points within the same text – sometimes simultaneously. Competent translation entails the judicious blending of formal and functional [[Dynamic and formal equivalence|equivalents]].<ref>[[Christopher Kasparek]], "The Translator's Endless Toil", pp. 83-87.</ref>

Common pitfalls in translation, especially when practiced by inexperienced translators, involve false equivalents such as "[[false friend]]s"<ref>{{cite web|url=https://blog-english.jrlanguage.com/overcome-5-challenges-of-english-to-spanish-translation/|title=How to Overcome These 5 Challenges of English to Spanish Translation|date=23 June 2017|publisher=Jr Language|access-date=30 September 2017}}</ref> and [[false cognate]]s.

=== Source and target languages ===
In the practice of translation, the '''source language''' is the language being translated from, while the '''target language''' – also called the '''receptor language'''<ref>Willis Barnstone, ''The Poetics of Translation'' (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993), p. 228.</ref> – is the language being translated into.<ref>Basil Hatim and [[Jeremy Munday]], [https://books.google.com/books?id=3gZc6rCduLYC&dq=target+language+translation&pg=PA171 Translation: An Advanced Resource Book], Introduction, pg. 171. [[Milton Park]]: [[Routledge]], 2004. {{ISBN|9780415283052}}</ref> Difficulties in translating can arise from [[lexicon|lexical]] and [[syntactical]] differences between the source language and the target language, which differences tend to be greater between two languages belonging to different [[language family|language families]].<ref>Bai Liping, "Similarity and difference in Translation." Taken from [https://books.google.com/books?id=Okf1VDZLFpAC&dq=source+language+translation&pg=PA399 Similarity and Difference in Translation: Proceedings of the International Conference on Similarity and Translation], pg. 339. Eds. Stefano Arduini and Robert Hodgson. 2nd ed. [[Rome]]: Edizioni di storia e letteratura, 2007. {{ISBN|9788884983749}}</ref>

Often the source language is the translator's [[second language]], while the target language is the translator's [[first language]].<ref>Carline FéRailleur-Dumoulin, [https://books.google.com/books?id=q2BK1Uv0wgAC&dq=target+language+translation&pg=PA36 A Career in Language Translation: Insightful Information to Guide You in Your Journey as a Professional Translator], pgs. 1-2. [[Bloomington, Indiana|Bloomington]]: [[AuthorHouse]], 2009. {{ISBN|9781467052047}}</ref> In some geographical settings, however, the source language is the translator's first language because not enough people speak the source language as a second language.<ref name=":1">{{Cite journal|last=Pokorn|first=Nike K.|date=2007|title=In defense of fuzziness|journal=Target|volume=19|issue=2|pages=190–191|doi=10.1075/target.19.2.10pok}}</ref> For instance, a 2005 survey found that 89% of professional Slovene translators translate into their second language, usually English.<ref name=":1" /> In cases where the source language is the translator's first language, the translation process has been referred to by various terms, including "translating into a non-mother tongue", "translating into a second language", "inverse translation", "reverse translation", "service translation", and "translation from A to B".<ref name=":1" /> The process typically begins with a full and in-depth analysis of the original text in the source language, ensuring full comprehension and understanding before the actual act of translating is approached.<ref>[[Christiane Nord]], [https://books.google.com/books?id=HaHTZ2IxIX4C&dq=source+language+translation&pg=PA1 Text Analysis in Translation: Theory, Methodology, and Didactic Application of a Model for Translation-oriented Text Analysis], pg. 1. 2nd ed. [[Amsterdam]]: [[Rodopi (publisher)|Rodopi]], 2005. {{ISBN|9789042018082}}</ref>

Translation for specialized or professional fields requires a working knowledge, as well, of the pertinent terminology in the field. For example, translation of a legal text requires not only fluency in the respective languages but also familiarity with the terminology specific to the legal field in each language.<ref>Gerard-Rene de Groot, "Translating legal information." Taken from [https://books.google.com/books?id=e1Fjal9DNpoC&dq=target+language+translation&pg=PA132 Translation in Law], vol. 5 of the ''Journal of Legal Hermeneutics'', pg. 132. Ed. Giuseppe Zaccaria. [[Hamburg]]: LIT Verlag Munster, 2000. {{ISBN|9783825848620}}</ref>

While the form and style of the source language often cannot be reproduced in the target language, the meaning and content can. Linguist [[Roman Jakobson]] went so far as to assert that all cognitive experience can be classified and expressed in any living language.<ref>Basil Hatim and [[Jeremy Munday]], [https://books.google.com/books?id=3gZc6rCduLYC&dq=target+language+translation&pg=PA10 Translation: An Advanced Resource Book], Introduction, pg. 10. [[Milton Park]]: [[Routledge]], 2004. {{ISBN|9780415283052}}</ref> Linguist [[Ghil'ad Zuckermann]] suggests that the limits are not of translation ''per se'' but rather of ''elegant'' translation.<ref name=Revivalistics>{{cite book|author=[[Ghil'ad Zuckermann|Zuckermann, Ghil'ad]]|title=[[Revivalistics: From the Genesis of Israeli to Language Reclamation in Australia and Beyond]]|publisher=Oxford University Press|location=New York|year=2020|isbn=9780199812790}} {{ISBN|9780199812776}}</ref>{{rp|219}}

==== Source and target texts ====
{{see also|Source text}}
In translation, a '''[[source text]]''' ('''ST''') is a text written in a given source language which is to be, or has been, translated into another language, while a '''target text''' ('''TT''') is a translated text written in the intended target language, which is the result of a translation from a given source text. According to [[Jeremy Munday]]'s definition of translation, "the process of translation between two different written languages involves the changing of an original written text (the source text or ST) in the original verbal language (the source language or SL) into a written text (the target text or TT) in a different verbal language (the target language or TL)".<ref>{{Cite book|title=Introducing Translation Studies: theories and applications (4th ed.)|last=Munday|first=Jeremy |author-link=Jeremy Munday |publisher=Routledge|year=2016|isbn=978-1138912557|location=London/New York|pages=[https://archive.org/details/introducingtrans0004mund/page/8 8]|url=https://archive.org/details/introducingtrans0004mund/page/8}}</ref> The terms 'source text' and 'target text' are preferred over 'original' and 'translation' because they do not have the same positive vs. negative value judgment.

Translation scholars including [[Eugene Nida]] and [[Peter Newmark]] have represented the different approaches to translation as falling broadly into source-text-oriented or target-text-oriented categories.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Introducing Translation Studies: theories and applications (4th ed.)|last=Munday|first=Jeremy|publisher=Routledge|year=2016|isbn=978-1138912557|location=London/New York|pages=[https://archive.org/details/introducingtrans0004mund/page/67 67–74]|url=https://archive.org/details/introducingtrans0004mund/page/67}}</ref>

====Back-translation====
A "back-translation" is a translation of a translated text back into the language of the original text, made without reference to the original text. Comparison of a back-translation with the original text is sometimes used as a check on the accuracy of the original translation, much as the accuracy of a mathematical operation is sometimes checked by reversing the operation.<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=1xAdjkR14ocC&dq=source+language+translation&pg=PA454 Measurement in Nursing and Health Research], pg. 454. Eds. Carolyn Waltz, Ora Lea Strickland and Elizabeth Lenz. 4th ed. [[New York City|New York]]: [[Springer Publishing]], 2010. {{ISBN|9780826105080}}</ref> But the results of such reverse-translation operations, while useful as approximate checks, are not always precisely reliable.<ref>{{cite journal |url=http://www.atc.org.uk/winter2004.pdf |title=Back Translation: Same questions – different continent |journal=Communicate |issue=Winter 2004 |page=5 |last=Crystal |first=Scott |access-date=20 November 2007 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060520035802/http://www.atc.org.uk/winter2004.pdf |archive-date=20 May 2006}}</ref> Back-translation must in general be less accurate than back-calculation because [[linguistic]] symbols ([[word]]s) are often [[ambiguous]], whereas mathematical symbols are intentionally unequivocal. In the context of machine translation, a back-translation is also called a "round-trip translation." When translations are produced of material used in medical [[clinical trial]]s, such as [[informed consent|informed-consent forms]], a back-translation is often required by the [[Ethics Committee (European Union)|ethics committee]] or [[institutional review board]].<ref>{{cite journal |url=http://www.gts-translation.com/medicaltranslationpaper.pdf |title=Back Translation for Quality Control of Informed Consent Forms |journal=Journal of Clinical Research Best Practices |access-date=1 February 2006 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060505141653/http://www.gts-translation.com/medicaltranslationpaper.pdf |archive-date=5 May 2006}}</ref>

[[File:Mark Twain, Brady-Handy photo portrait, Feb 7, 1871, cropped.jpg|thumb|left|upright=0.8|In 1903, [[Mark Twain]] back-translated his own [[short story]], "[[The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County]]".]]

[[Mark Twain]] provided humorously telling evidence for the frequent unreliability of back-translation when he issued his own back-translation of a French translation of his [[short story]], "[[The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County]]". He published his back-translation in a 1903 volume together with his English-language original, the French translation, and a "Private History of the 'Jumping Frog' Story". The latter included a synopsized adaptation of his story that Twain stated had appeared, unattributed to Twain, in a Professor Sidgwick's ''Greek Prose Composition'' (p.&nbsp;116) under the title, "The Athenian and the Frog"; the adaptation had for a time been taken for an independent [[Ancient Greece|ancient Greek]] precursor to Twain's "Jumping Frog" story.<ref>[https://archive.org/details/jumpingfroginen01twaigoog <!-- quote=french The Jumping Frog. --> Mark Twain, ''The Jumping Frog: In English, Then in French, and Then Clawed Back into a Civilized Language Once More by Patient, Unremunerated Toil'', illustrated by F. Strothman, New York and London, Harper & Brothers, Publishers, MCMIII [1903].</ref>

When a document survives only in translation, the original having been lost, researchers sometimes undertake back-translation in an effort to reconstruct the original text. An example involves the novel ''[[The Manuscript Found in Saragossa|The Saragossa Manuscript]]'' by the Polish aristocrat [[Jan Potocki]] (1761–1815), who wrote the novel in French and anonymously published fragments in 1804 and 1813–14. Portions of the original French-language manuscript were subsequently lost; however, the missing fragments survived in a Polish translation, made by [[Edmund Chojecki]] in 1847 from a complete French copy that has since been lost. French-language versions of the complete ''Saragossa Manuscript'' have since been produced, based on extant French-language fragments and on French-language versions that have been back-translated from Chojecki's Polish version.<ref>[[Czesław Miłosz]], ''The History of Polish Literature'', pp. 193–94.</ref>

Many works by the influential [[Classical antiquity|Classical]] physician [[Galen]] survive only in medieval [[Arabic]] translation. Some survive only in [[Renaissance Latin]] translations from the Arabic, thus at a second remove from the original. To better understand Galen, scholars have attempted back-translation of such works in order to reconstruct the original [[ancient Greek|Greek]].{{citation needed|date=September 2018}}

When historians suspect that a document is actually a translation from another language, back-translation into that hypothetical original language can provide supporting evidence by showing that such characteristics as [[idiom]]s, [[pun]]s, peculiar [[Grammar|grammatical]] structures, etc., are in fact derived from the original language. For example, the known text of the ''[[Till Eulenspiegel]]'' folk tales is in [[High German]] but contains puns that work only when back-translated to [[Low German]]. This seems clear evidence that these tales (or at least large portions of them) were originally written in Low German and translated into High German by an over-[[Metaphrase|metaphrastic]] translator.

Supporters of [[Aramaic primacy]]—the view that the [[Christianity|Christian]] [[New Testament]] or its sources were originally written in the [[Aramaic language]]—seek to prove their case by showing that difficult passages in the existing [[Ancient Greek|Greek]] text of the New Testament make much more sense when back-translated to Aramaic: that, for example, some incomprehensible references are in fact Aramaic puns that do not work in Greek. Due to similar indications, it is believed that the 2nd century Gnostic [[Gospel of Judas]], which survives only in [[Coptic language|Coptic]], was originally written in Greek.

[[John Dryden]] (1631–1700), the dominant English-language literary figure of his age, illustrates, in his use of back-translation, translators' influence on the evolution of languages and literary styles. Dryden is believed to be the first person to posit that English sentences should not end in [[preposition]]s because Latin sentences cannot end in prepositions.<ref>[http://ling.kgw.tu-berlin.de/lexicography/data/B_HIST_EU.html Gilman, E. Ward (ed.). 1989. "A Brief History of English Usage", Webster's Dictionary of English Usage. Springfield (Mass.): Merriam-Webster, pp. 7a-11a], {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081201152753/http://ling.kgw.tu-berlin.de/lexicography/data/B_HIST_EU.html |date=1 December 2008}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|last=Greene|first=Robert Lane|title=Three Books for the Grammar Lover in Your Life: NPR|newspaper=NPR.org|url=https://www.npr.org/2011/05/17/133652882/three-books-for-the-grammar-lover-in-your-life?sc=fb&cc=fp|publisher=[[National Public Radio|NPR]]|access-date=18 May 2011}}</ref> Dryden created the proscription against "[[preposition stranding]]" in 1672 when he objected to [[Ben Jonson]]'s 1611 phrase, "the bodies that those souls were frighted from", though he did not provide the rationale for his preference.<ref>Rodney Huddleston and Geoffrey K. Pullum, 2002, The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language. Cambridge (UK): Cambridge University Press, p. 627f.</ref> Dryden often translated his writing into Latin, to check whether his writing was concise and elegant, Latin being considered an elegant and long-lived language with which to compare; then he back-translated his writing back to English according to Latin-grammar usage. As Latin does not have sentences ending in prepositions, Dryden may have applied Latin grammar to English, thus forming the controversial rule of [[Preposition stranding#The Debate about P-stranding|no sentence-ending prepositions]], subsequently adopted by other writers.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3komDgAAQBAJ&q=word+by+word+kory+stamper|title=Word by Word: The Secret Life of Dictionaries|last=Stamper|first=Kory|date=1 January 2017|publisher=Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group|isbn=9781101870945|pages=47}}</ref>{{efn|Cf. a supposed comment by [[Winston Churchill]]: "This is the type of pedantry up with which I will not put."}}

== Translators ==
Competent translators show the following attributes:
*a ''very good'' knowledge of the language, written and spoken, ''from which'' they are translating (the source language);
*an ''excellent'' command of the language ''into which'' they are translating (the target language);
*familiarity with the subject matter of the text being translated;
*a profound understanding of the [[etymological]] and [[idiomatic]] correlates between the two languages, including [[Register (sociolinguistics)|sociolinguistic register]] when appropriate; and
*a finely tuned sense of when to ''metaphrase'' ("translate literally") and when to ''paraphrase'', so as to assure true rather than spurious ''[[#Equivalence|equivalents]]'' between the source and target language texts.<ref>*[[Christopher Kasparek]], "Prus' ''Pharaoh'' and Curtin's Translation," ''[[The Polish Review]]'', vol. XXXI, nos. 2–3 (1986), p. 135.</ref>

A competent translator is not only bilingual but [[bicultural]]. A [[language]] is not merely a collection of [[word]]s and of rules of [[grammar]] and syntax for generating [[Sentence (linguistics)|sentence]]s, but also a vast interconnecting system of [[connotation]]s and [[culture|cultural]] references whose mastery, writes [[linguist]] [[Mario Pei]], "comes close to being a lifetime job."<ref>[[Mario Pei]], ''The Story of Language'', p. 424.</ref> The complexity of the translator's task cannot be overstated; one author suggests that becoming an accomplished translator—after having already acquired a good basic knowledge of both languages and cultures—may require a minimum of ten years' experience. Viewed in this light, it is a serious misconception to assume that a person who has fair fluency in two languages will, by virtue of that fact alone, be consistently competent to translate between them.<ref name="Kasparek p. 86"/>

[[Michael Wood (literary scholar)|Michael Wood]], a [[Princeton University]] emeritus professor, writes: "[T]ranslation, like language itself, involves contexts, conventions, class, irony, posture and many other regions where [[speech act]]s hang out. This is why it helps to compare translations [of a given work]."<ref>[[Michael Wood (literary scholar)|Michael Wood]], "Break your bleedin' heart" (review of [[Marcel Proust]], ''Swann's Way'', translated by [[James Grieve (Australian translator)|James Grieve]], NYRB, June 2023, {{ISBN|978 1 68137 6295}}, 450 pp.; and [[Marcel Proust]], ''The Swann Way'', translated by [[Brian Nelson (literature professor)|Brian Nelson]], Oxford, September 2023, {{ISBN|978 0 19 8871521}}, 430 pp.), ''[[London Review of Books]]'', vol. 46, no. 1 (4 January 2024), pp. 37–38. (p. 38.)</ref>

[[Emily Wilson (classicist)|Emily Wilson]], a professor of classical studies at the [[University of Pennsylvania]] and herself a translator, writes: "[I]t is [hard] to produce a good literary translation. This is certainly true of translations of [[ancient Greek]] and [[Latin|Roman]] texts, but it is also true of literary translation in general: it is very difficult. Most readers of foreign languages are not translators; most writers are not translators. Translators have to read and write at the same time, as if always playing multiple instruments in a [[One-man band|one-person band]]. And most one-person bands do not sound very good."<ref>[[Emily Wilson (classicist)|Emily Wilson]], "Ah, how miserable!" (review of three separate translations of ''[[The Oresteia]]'' by [[Aeschylus]]: by [[Oliver Taplin]], Liveright, November 2018; by [[Jeffrey Scott Bernstein]], Carcanet, April 2020; and by [[David Mulroy]], Wisconsin, April 2018), ''[[London Review of Books]]'', vol. 42, no. 19 (8 October 2020), pp. 9–12, 14. (Quotation: p. 14.)</ref>

When in 1921, three years before his death, the English-language novelist [[Joseph Conrad]] – who had long had little contact with everyday spoken Polish – attempted to translate into English [[Bruno Winawer]]'s short Polish-language play, ''The Book of Job'', he predictably missed many crucial nuances of contemporary Polish language.<ref>[[Zdzisław Najder]], ''Joseph Conrad: A Life'', Camden House, 2007, ISBN 978-1-57113-347-2, pp. 538–39.</ref>

The translator's role, in relation to the original text, has been compared to the roles of other interpretive artists, e.g., a musician or actor who interprets a work of musical or dramatic art. Translating, especially a text of any complexity (like other human activities<ref>[[Stephen Greenblatt]], "Can We Ever Master King Lear?", ''[[The New York Review of Books]]'', vol. LXIV, no. 3 (23 February 2017), p. 36.</ref>), involves ''interpretation'': choices must be made, which implies interpretation.<ref name="Kasparek p. 85"/>{{efn|"Interpretation" in this sense is to be distinguished from the function of an "[[#Interpreting|interpreter]]" who translates orally or by the use of [[sign language]].}}{{efn|Rebecca Armstrong writes: "A translator has to make choices; any word they choose will carry its own nuance, a particular set of interpretations, implications and associations. [Often the translator] need[s] to render the same [...] word differently in different contexts."<ref>Rebecca Armstrong, "All Kinds of Unlucky" (review of ''The [[Aeneid]], translated by [[Shadi Bartsch]]'', Profile, November 2020, {{ISBN|978 1 78816 267 8}}, 400 pp.), ''[[London Review of Books]]'', vol. 43, no. 5 (4 March 2021), pp. 35–36. (Quotation: p. 35.)</ref>}}  Mark Polizzotti writes: "A good translation offers not a reproduction of the work but an interpretation, a re-representation, just as the performance of a [[Play (theatre)|play]] or a [[sonata]] is a representation of the [[Play (theatre)|script]] or the [[Sheet music|score]], one among many possible representations."<ref>[[Mark Polizzotti]], quoted in [[Marina Warner]], "The Politics of Translation" (a review of [[Kate Briggs]], ''This Little Art'', 2017; [[Mireille Gansel]], ''Translation as Transhumance'', translated by [[Ros Schwartz]], 2017; [[Mark Polizzotti]], ''Sympathy for the Traitor: A Translation Manifesto'', 2018; [[Boyd Tonkin]], ed., ''The 100 Best Novels in Translation'', 2018; [[Clive Scott (linguist)|Clive Scott]], ''The Work of Literary Translation'', 2018), ''[[London Review of Books]]'', vol. 40, no. 19 (11 October 2018), p. 21.</ref> A translation of a text of any complexity is – as, itself, a work of art – unique and unrepeatable.

Conrad, whose writings [[Zdzisław Najder]] has described as verging on "auto-translation" from Conrad's Polish and French linguistic personae,<ref>[[Zdzisław Najder]], ''Joseph Conrad: A Life'', 2007, p. IX.</ref> advised his niece and [[Polish language|Polish]] translator [[Aniela Zagórska]]: "[D]on't trouble to be too scrupulous ... I may tell you (in French) that in my opinion ''il vaut mieux interpréter que traduire'' [it is better to interpret than to translate] ...''Il s'agit donc de trouver les équivalents. Et là, ma chère, je vous prie laissez vous guider plutôt par votre tempérament que par une conscience sévère ...'' [It is, then, a question of finding the equivalent expressions. And there, my dear, I beg you to let yourself be guided more by your temperament than by a strict conscience....]"<ref>[[Zdzisław Najder]], ''Joseph Conrad: A Life'', 2007, p. 524.</ref> Conrad advised another translator that the prime requisite for a good translation is that it be "idiomatic". "For in the [[idiom]] is the ''clearness'' of a language and the language's force and its picturesqueness—by which last I mean the picture-producing power of arranged words."<ref>[[Zdzisław Najder]], ''Joseph Conrad: A Life'', 2007, p. 332.</ref> Conrad thought [[C.K. Scott Moncrieff]]'s English translation of [[Marcel Proust]]'s ''À la recherche du temps perdu'' (''[[In Search of Lost Time]]''—or, in Scott Moncrieff's rendering, ''Remembrance of Things Past'') to be preferable to the French original.<ref>Walter Kaiser, "A Hero of Translation" (a review of Jean Findlay, ''Chasing Lost Time: The Life of [[C.K. Scott Moncrieff]]: Soldier, Spy, and Translator''), ''[[The New York Review of Books]]'', vol. LXII, no. 10 (4 June 2015), p. 55.</ref>{{efn|See "[[#Poetry|Poetry]]", below, for a similar observation concerning the occasional superiority of the translation over the original.}}

Emily Wilson writes that "translation always involves interpretation, and [requires] every translator... to think as deeply as humanly possible about each verbal, poetic, and interpretative [[choice]]."<ref>[[Emily Wilson (classicist)|Emily Wilson]], "A Doggish Translation" (review of ''The Poems of [[Hesiod]]: Theogony, Works and Days, and The Shield of Herakles'', translated from the Greek by [[Barry B. Powell]], [[University of California Press]], 2017, 184 pp.), ''[[The New York Review of Books]]'', vol. LXV, no. 1 (18 January 2018), p. 36.</ref> Translation of other than the simplest brief texts requires painstakingly [[close reading]] of the [[source text]] and the draft translation, so as to resolve the ambiguities inherent in [[language]] and thereby to [[asymptotically]] approach the most accurate rendering of the source text.<ref name="Pharaoh 2020">[[Christopher Kasparek]], translator's foreword to [[Bolesław Prus]], ''[[Pharaoh (Prus novel)|Pharaoh]]'', translated from the Polish, with foreword and notes, by Christopher Kasparek, [[Amazon Kindle]] [[e-book]], 2020, ASIN:BO8MDN6CZV.</ref>

Part of the ambiguity, for a translator, involves the structure of human language. [[Psychologist]] and [[neural science|neural scientist]] [[Gary Marcus]] notes that "virtually every sentence [that people generate] is [[ambiguity|ambiguous]], often in multiple ways. Our brain is so good at comprehending language that we do not usually notice."<ref>[[Gary Marcus]], "Am I Human?: Researchers need new ways to distinguish artificial intelligence from the natural kind", ''[[Scientific American]]'', vol. 316, no. 3 (March 2017), p. 63.</ref> An example of linguistic ambiguity is the "pronoun disambiguation problem" ("PDP"): a machine has no way of determining to whom or what a [[pronoun]] in a sentence—such as "he", "she" or "it"—refers.<ref>[[Gary Marcus]], "Am I Human?: Researchers need new ways to distinguish artificial intelligence from the natural kind", ''[[Scientific American]]'', vol. 316, no. 3 (March 2017), p. 61.</ref> Such disambiguation is not infallible by a human, either.

Ambiguity is a concern both to translators and – as the writings of poet and literary critic [[William Empson]] have demonstrated – to [[literary criticism|literary critics]]. Ambiguity may be desirable, indeed essential, in [[poetry]] and [[diplomacy]]; it can be more problematic in ordinary [[prose]].<ref>[[David Bromwich]], "In Praise of Ambiguity" (a review of [[Michael Wood (academic)|Michael Wood]], ''On Empson'', [[Princeton University Press]], 2017), ''[[The New York Review of Books]]''), vol. LXIV, no. 16 (26 October 2017), pp. 50–52.</ref>

Individual [[expression (linguistics)|expression]]s – [[word]]s, [[phrase]]s, [[sentence (linguistics)|sentence]]s – are fraught with [[connotation]]s. As Empson demonstrates, any piece of language seems susceptible to "alternative reactions", or as Joseph Conrad once wrote, "No English word has clean edges." All expressions, Conrad thought, carried so many connotations as to be little more than "instruments for exciting blurred emotions."<ref>[[Michael Gorra]], "Corrections of Taste" (review of [[Terry Eagleton]], ''Critical Revolutionaries: Five Critics Who Changed the Way We Read'', Yale University Press, 323 pp.), ''[[The New York Review of Books]]'', vol. LXIX, no. 15 (6 October 2022), p. 17.</ref>

[[Christopher Kasparek]] also cautions that competent translation – analogously to the dictum, in mathematics, of [[Kurt Gödel]]'s [[incompleteness theorems]] – generally requires more information about the subject matter than is present in the actual [[source text]]. Therefore, translation of a text of any complexity typically requires some research on the translator's part.<ref name="Pharaoh 2020"/>

A translator faces two contradictory tasks:  when translating, to strive for [[omniscience]] concerning the text; and, when reviewing the resulting translation, to adopt the reader's unfamiliarity with it.  Analogously, "[i]n the process, the translator is also constantly seesawing between the respective linguistic and cultural features of his two languages."<ref name="Pharaoh 2020"/>

Thus, writes Kasparek, "Translating a text of any complexity, like the performing of a musical or dramatic work, involves ''interpretation'': choices must be made, which entails interpretation. [[Bernard Shaw]], aspiring to felicitous understanding of literary works, wrote in the preface to his 1901 volume, ''[[Three Plays for Puritans]]'': 'I would give half a dozen of [[Shakespeare]]'s plays for one of the prefaces he ought to have written.'"<ref name="Pharaoh 2020"/>

{{blockquote|It is due to the inescapable necessity of interpretation that – ''pace'' the story about the 3rd century BCE [[Septuagint]] translations of some biblical [[Old Testament]] books from [[Hebrew]] into [[Koine Greek]] – no two translations of a literary work, by different hands or by the same hand at different times, are likely to be identical. As has been observed – by [[Leonardo da Vinci]]? [[Paul Valery]]? [[E.M. Forster]]? [[Pablo Picasso]]? by all of them? – "A work of art is never finished, only abandoned."<ref name="Pharaoh 2020"/>}}

Translators may render only parts of the original text, provided that they inform readers of that action. But a translator should not assume the role of [[Censorship|censor]] and surreptitiously delete or [[bowdlerize]] passages merely to please a political or moral interest.<ref name="Billiani, Francesca 2001">Billiani, Francesca (2001)</ref>

Translating has served as a school of writing for many an author, much as the copying of masterworks of [[painting]] has schooled many a novice painter.<ref>[[Anka Muhlstein]], "Painters and Writers: When Something New Happens", ''[[The New York Review of Books]]'', vol. LXIV, no. 1 (19 January 2017), p. 35.</ref> A translator who can competently render an author's thoughts into the translator's own language, should certainly be able to adequately render, in his own language, any thoughts of his own. Translating (like [[analytic philosophy]]) compels precise analysis of [[language|language element]]s and of their usage. In 1946 the poet [[Ezra Pound]], then at [[St. Elizabeth's Hospital]], in [[Washington, D.C.]], advised a visitor, the 18-year-old beginning poet [[W.S. Merwin]]: "The work of translation is the best teacher you'll ever have."<ref>''[[W.S. Merwin: To Plant a Tree]]'': one-hour documentary shown on [[PBS]].</ref>{{efn|Elsewhere Merwin recalls Pound saying: "[A]t your age you don't have anything to write about. You may think you do, but you don't. So get to work translating. The [[Occitan language|Provençal]] is the real source...."<ref>[[Ange Mlinko]], "Whole Earth Troubador" (review of ''The Essential W.S. Merlin'', edited by [[Michael Wiegers]], Copper Canyon, 338 pp., 2017), ''[[The New York Review of Books]]'', vol. LXIV, no. 19 (7 December 2017), p. 45.</ref>}} Merwin, translator-poet who took Pound's advice to heart, writes of translation as an "impossible, unfinishable" art.<ref>Merwin's introduction to his 2013 ''Selected Translations'', quoted by [[Ange Mlinko]], "Whole Earth Troubador" (review of ''The Essential W.S. Merlin'', edited by [[Michael Wiegers]], Copper Canyon, 338 pp., 2017), ''[[The New York Review of Books]]'', vol. LXIV, no. 19 (7 December 2017), p. 45.</ref>

Translators, including monks who spread [[Buddhist]] texts in [[East Asia]], and the early modern European translators of the Bible, in the course of their work have shaped the very languages into which they have translated. They have acted as bridges for conveying knowledge between [[culture]]s; and along with ideas, they have imported from the source languages, into their own languages, loanwords and calques of [[grammar|grammatical structures]], [[idiom]]s, and [[vocabulary]].

===Interpreting===
[[File:Cortez & La Malinche.jpg|thumb|left|upright=1.0|[[Hernán Cortés]] and [[La Malinche]] meet [[Moctezuma II]] in [[Tenochtitlan]], 8 November 1519.]]
[[File:Lewis and Clark 1954 Issue-3c.jpg|thumb|upright=1.2|[[Lewis and Clark Expedition|Lewis and Clark]] and their [[Native Americans in the United States|Native American]] interpreter, [[Sacagawea]]]]
{{Main|Interpreting}}
[[Interpreting]] is the facilitation of [[speech communication|oral]] or [[sign language|sign-language]] [[communication]], either simultaneously or consecutively, between two, or among three or more, speakers who are not speaking, or signing, the same language. The term "interpreting," rather than "interpretation," is preferentially used for this activity by Anglophone interpreters and translators, to avoid confusion with other meanings of the word "[[wikt:interpret|interpretation]]."

Unlike English, many languages do not employ two separate words to denote the activities of [[writing|written]] and live-communication ([[speech communication|oral]] or [[sign language|sign-language]]) translators.{{efn|For example, in [[Polish language|Polish]], a "translation" is "{{lang|pl|przekład}}" or "{{lang|pl|tłumaczenie}}." Both "translator" and "interpreter" are "{{lang|pl|tłumacz}}." For a time in the 18th century, however, for "translator," some writers used a word, "{{lang|pl|przekładowca}}," that is no longer in use.<ref>[[Edward Balcerzan]], {{lang|pl|Pisarze polscy o sztuce przekładu, 1440–1974: Antologia}} (Polish Writers on the Art of Translation, 1440–1974: an Anthology), 1977, ''passim''.</ref>}} Even English does not always make the distinction, frequently using "translating" as a synonym for "interpreting."

Interpreters have sometimes played crucial roles in [[human history]]. A prime example is [[La Malinche]], also known as ''Malintzin'', ''Malinalli'' and ''Doña Marina'', an early-16th-century [[Nahua peoples|Nahua]] woman from the Mexican [[Gulf of Mexico|Gulf Coast]]. As a child she had been sold or given to [[Maya peoples|Maya]] slave-traders from Xicalango, and thus had become bilingual. Subsequently, given along with other women to the invading Spaniards, she became instrumental in the [[Spain|Spanish]] conquest of [[Mexico]], acting as interpreter, adviser, intermediary and lover to [[Hernán Cortés]].<ref>Hugh Thomas, ''Conquest: Montezuma, Cortes and the Fall of Old Mexico'', New York, Simon and Schuster, 1993, pp. 171-72.</ref>
[[File:Lin Shu.jpg|thumb|upright|[[Lin Shu]]]]
Nearly three centuries later, in the [[United States]], a comparable role as interpreter was played for the [[Lewis and Clark Expedition]] of 1804–6 by [[Sacagawea]]. As a child, the [[Lemhi Shoshone]] woman had been kidnapped by [[Hidatsa]] Indians and thus had become bilingual. Sacagawea facilitated the expedition's traverse of the [[North American continent]] to the [[Pacific Ocean]].<ref>"Sacagawea", ''[[The Encyclopedia Americana]]'', 1986, volume 24, p. 72.</ref>

The famous Chinese man of letters [[Lin Shu]] (1852 – 1924), who knew no foreign languages, rendered Western literary classics into Chinese with the help of his friend Wang Shouchang (王壽昌), who had studied in France. Wang interpreted the texts for Lin, who rendered them into Chinese. Lin's first such translation, 巴黎茶花女遺事 (''Past Stories of the Camellia-woman of Paris'' – [[Alexandre Dumas, fils]]'s, ''[[The Lady of the Camellias|La Dame aux Camélias]]''), published in 1899, was an immediate success and was followed by many more translations from the French and the English.<ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Chen|first1=Weihong|last2=Cheng|first2=Xiaojuan|date=1 June 2014|title=An Analysis of Lin Shu's Translation Activity from the Cultural Perspective|url=http://www.academypublication.com/issues/past/tpls/vol04/06/14.pdf|journal=Theory and Practice in Language Studies|volume=4|issue=6|pages=1201–1206|doi=10.4304/tpls.4.6.1201-1206|issn=1799-2591}}</ref>

===Sworn translation===
[[Translating for legal equivalence|Sworn translation]], also called "certified translation," aims at legal equivalence between two documents written in different languages. It is performed by someone authorized to do so by local regulations, which vary widely from country to country. Some countries recognize self-declared competence. Others require the translator to be an official state appointee. In some countries, such as the United Kingdom, certain government institutions require that translators be accredited by certain translation institutes or associations in order to be able to carry out certified translations.

===Telephone===
Many commercial services exist that will interpret spoken language via telephone. There is also at least one custom-built mobile device that does the same thing. The device connects users to human interpreters who can translate between English and 180 other languages.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.npr.org/blogs/alltechconsidered/2013/06/27/186525030/translation-please-hand-held-device-bridges-language-gap |title=Translation, Please: Hand-Held Device Bridges Language Gap |newspaper=NPR|access-date=9 October 2014}}</ref>

===Internet===
Web-based human translation is generally favored by companies and individuals that wish to secure more accurate translations. In view of the frequent inaccuracy of machine translations, human translation remains the most reliable, most accurate form of translation available.<ref>{{Cite news| url=http://www.economist.com/node/15582327?story_id=15582327&source=hptextfeature | newspaper=The Economist | title=The many voices of the web | date=4 March 2010}}</ref> With the recent emergence of translation [[crowdsourcing]],<ref>{{Cite web |last=Graham |first=Paul |url=https://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2011-07/04/mechanical-turkish-ackuna |title=How Ackuna wants to fix language translation by crowdsourcing it &#124; Wired UK |publisher=Wired |access-date=1 May 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120517232045/http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2011-07/04/mechanical-turkish-ackuna |archive-date=17 May 2012 |url-status=dead}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.benzinga.com/press-releases/11/02/p843476/translation-services-usas-crowdsourcing-translator-ackuna-com-raises-th |title=Translation Services USA's Crowdsourcing Translator, Ackuna.com, Raises the Bar for More Accurate Machine Translations |publisher=Benzinga |access-date=1 May 2012}}</ref> [[translation memory]] techniques, and [[internet]] applications,{{citation needed|date=May 2023}} translation agencies have been able to provide on-demand human-translation services to [[Small and medium businesses|business]]es, individuals, and enterprises.

While not instantaneous like its machine counterparts such as [[Google Translate]] and [[Babel Fish (website)|Babel Fish]] (now defunct), as of 2010 web-based human translation has been gaining popularity by providing relatively fast, accurate translation of business communications, legal documents, medical records, and [[software localization]].<ref>{{cite web |url=https://venturebeat.com/2010/03/26/speaklike-offers-human-powered-translation-for-blogs/ |title=Speaklike offers human-powered translation for blogs |website=VentureBeat |last= Boutin|first=Paul|date=26 March 2010}}</ref> Web-based human translation also appeals to private website users and bloggers.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/11/AR2010011100701.html |newspaper=The Washington Post |title=MyGengo Is Mechanical Turk For Translations |first=Serkan |last=Toto |date=11 January 2010}}</ref> Contents of websites are translatable but URLs of websites are not translatable into other languages. Language tools on the internet provide help in understanding text.

===Computer assist===
{{Main|Computer-assisted translation}}
Computer-assisted translation (CAT), also called "computer-aided translation," "machine-aided human translation" (MAHT) and "interactive translation," is a form of translation wherein a human translator creates a [[#Source and target texts|target text]] with the assistance of a computer program. The machine supports a human translator.

Computer-assisted translation can include standard [[dictionary]] and grammar software. The term, however, normally refers to a range of specialized programs available to the translator, including translation memory, [[terminology]]-management, [[concordancer|concordance]], and alignment programs.

These tools speed up and facilitate human translation, but they do not provide translation. The latter is a function of tools known broadly as machine translation. The tools speed up the translation process by assisting the human translator by memorizing or committing translations to a database (translation memory database) so that if the same sentence occurs in the same project or a future project, the content can be reused. This translation reuse leads to cost savings, better consistency and shorter project timelines.

==Machine translation==
{{Main|Machine translation}}
Machine translation (MT) is a process whereby a computer program analyzes a [[source text]] and, in principle, produces a target text without human intervention. In reality, however, machine translation typically does involve human intervention, in the form of pre-editing and [[post-editing]].<ref name="NIST">See the [https://www.nist.gov/speech/tests/mt/ annually performed NIST tests since 2001] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090322202656/http://nist.gov/speech/tests/mt/ |date=22 March 2009 }} and [[Bilingual Evaluation Understudy]]</ref> With proper [[terminology]] work, with preparation of the [[source text]] for machine translation (pre-editing), and with reworking of the machine translation by a human translator (post-editing), commercial machine-translation tools can produce useful results, especially if the machine-translation system is integrated with a translation memory or [[translation management system]].<ref>{{cite journal|last=Vashee |first=Kirti |title=Statistical machine translation and translation memory: An integration made in heaven! |journal=ClientSide News Magazine |volume=7 |issue=6 |pages=18–20 |year=2007 |url=https://webmailcluster.perfora.net/xml/deref?link=http://rs6.net/tn.jsp?t=8mtygbcab.0.ksqvgbcab.ro78ttn6.33435&ts=S0250&p=http://www.clientsidenews.com/downloads/CSNV7I6.zip |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070928140236/https://webmailcluster.perfora.net/xml/deref?link=http:%2F%2Frs6.net%2Ftn.jsp%3Ft=8mtygbcab.0.ksqvgbcab.ro78ttn6.33435&ts=S0250&p=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.clientsidenews.com%2Fdownloads%2FCSNV7I6.zip |url-status=dead |archive-date=28 September 2007}}</ref>

Unedited machine translation is publicly available through tools on the [[Internet]] such as [[Google Translate]], [[Almaany]],<ref name="Altarabin2020">{{cite book |last1=Altarabin |first1=Mahmoud |title=The Routledge Course on Media, Legal and Technical Translation: English-Arabic-English |year=2020 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-000-19763-1 |page=15 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9A4HEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA15}}</ref> [[Babylon Software|Babylon]], [[DeepL Translator]], and [[StarDict]]. These produce rough translations that, under favorable circumstances, "give the gist" of the source text. With the Internet, translation software can help non-native-speaking individuals understand web pages published in other languages. Whole-page-translation tools are of limited utility, however, since they offer only a limited potential understanding of the original author's intent and context; translated pages tend to be more erroneously humorous and confusing than enlightening.

Interactive translations with [[Pop-up ad|pop-up windows]] are becoming more popular. These tools show one or more possible equivalents for each word or phrase. Human operators merely need to select the likeliest equivalent as the mouse glides over the foreign-language text. Possible equivalents can be grouped by pronunciation. Also, companies such as [[Ectaco]] produce pocket devices that provide machine translations.

[[File:Claude Piron.jpg|thumb|upright|[[Claude Piron]]]]
Relying exclusively on unedited machine translation, however, ignores the fact that communication in [[natural language|human language]] is [[wikt:context|context]]-embedded and that it takes a person to comprehend the context of the original text with a reasonable degree of probability. It is certainly true that even purely human-generated translations are prone to error; therefore, to ensure that a machine-generated translation will be useful to a human being and that publishable-quality translation is achieved, such translations must be reviewed and edited by a human.{{efn|J.M. Cohen observes: "Scientific translation is the aim of an age that would reduce all activities to [[Technology|techniques]]. It is impossible however to imagine a literary-translation machine less complex than the human brain itself, with all its knowledge, reading, and discrimination."<ref>J.M. Cohen, "Translation", ''[[Encyclopedia Americana]]'', 1986, vol. 27, p. 14.</ref>}} [[Claude Piron]] writes that machine translation, at its best, automates the easier part of a translator's job; the harder and more time-consuming part usually involves doing extensive research to resolve [[ambiguity|ambiguities]] in the [[source text]], which the [[grammatical]] and [[lexical (semiotics)|lexical]] exigencies of the target language require to be resolved.<ref>[[Claude Piron]], ''Le défi des langues'' (The Language Challenge), Paris, L'Harmattan, 1994.</ref> Such research is a necessary prelude to the pre-editing necessary in order to provide input for machine-translation software, such that the output will not be [[garbage in garbage out|meaningless]].<ref name="NIST"/>

The weaknesses of pure machine translation, unaided by human expertise, are [[Logology (science of science)#Artificial intelligence|those of artificial intelligence itself]].<ref>[[Gary Marcus]], "Am I Human?: Researchers need new ways to distinguish [[artificial intelligence]] from the natural kind", ''[[Scientific American]]'', vol. 316, no. 3 (March 2017), pp. 58–63.</ref> As of 2018, professional translator Mark Polizzotti held that machine translation, by [[Google Translate]] and the like, was unlikely to threaten human translators anytime soon, because machines would never grasp nuance and [[connotation]].<ref>[[Emily Wilson (classicist)|Wilson, Emily]], "The Pleasures of Translation" (review of Mark Polizzotti, ''Sympathy for the Traitor: A Translation Manifesto'', MIT Press, 2018, 182 pp.), ''[[The New York Review of Books]]'', vol. LXV, no. 9 (24 May 2018), p. 47.</ref> Writes Paul Taylor: "Perhaps there is a limit to what a computer can do without knowing that it is manipulating imperfect representations of an external reality."<ref>Paul Taylor, "Insanely Complicated, Hopelessly Inadequate" (review of [[Brian Cantwell Smith]], ''The Promise of Artificial Intelligence: Reckoning and Judgment'', MIT, October 2019, {{ISBN|978 0 262 04304 5}}, 157 pp.; [[Gary Marcus]] and Ernest Davis, ''Rebooting AI: Building Artificial Intelligence We Can Trust'', Ballantine, September 2019, {{ISBN|978 1 5247 4825 8}}, 304 pp.; [[Judea Pearl]] and Dana Mackenzie, ''The Book of Why: The New Science of Cause and Effect'', Penguin, May 2019, {{ISBN|978 0 14 198241 0}}, 418 pp.), ''[[London Review of Books]]'', vol. 43, no. 2 (21 January 2021), pp. 37–39. Paul Taylor quotation: p. 39.</ref>

==Literary translation==
[[File:Performing Without a Stage - The Art of Literary Translation - by Robert Wechsler.pdf|thumb|upright|A 1998 nonfiction book by Robert Wechsler on literary translation as a performative, rather than creative, art]]
Translation of [[literature|literary works]] ([[novel]]s, [[short story|short stories]], [[theatre|plays]], [[poetry|poems]], etc.) is considered a literary pursuit in its own right. Notable in [[Canadian literature]] ''specifically'' as translators are figures such as [[Sheila Fischman]], [[Robert Dickson (writer)|Robert Dickson]], and [[Linda Gaboriau]]; and the Canadian [[Governor General's Awards]] annually present prizes for the best English-to-French and French-to-English literary translations.

Other writers, among many who have made a name for themselves as literary translators, include [[Vasily Zhukovsky]], [[Tadeusz Boy-Żeleński]], [[Vladimir Nabokov]], [[Jorge Luis Borges]], [[Robert Stiller]], [[Lydia Davis]], [[Haruki Murakami]], [[Achy Obejas]], and [[Jhumpa Lahiri]].

In the 2010s a substantial gender imbalance was noted in literary translation into English,<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.wordswithoutborders.org/dispatches/article/where-are-the-women-in-translation|title=Where Are the Women in Translation?|last=Anderson|first=Alison|date=14 May 2013|website=Words Without Borders|access-date=28 July 2018}}</ref> with far more male writers being translated than women writers. In 2014 Meytal Radzinski launched the ''Women in Translation'' campaign to address this.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://literarytranslators.wordpress.com/2016/07/25/women-in-translation-an-interview-witth-meytal-radzinski/|title=Women in Translation: An Interview with Meytal Radzinski|date=25 July 2016}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.thebookseller.com/tags-bookseller/meytal-radzinski|title=Meytal Radzinski - The Bookseller|website=www.thebookseller.com}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://biblibio.blogspot.com/2018/07/exclusion-is-choice-bias-in-best-of.html|title=Biblibio: Exclusion is a choice - Bias in "Best of" lists|first=Meytal|last=Radzinski|date=3 July 2018}}</ref>

===History===
The first important translation in the West was that of the [[Septuagint]], a collection of [[Jew]]ish Scriptures translated into early [[Koine Greek]] in [[Alexandria]] between the 3rd and 1st centuries BCE. The dispersed Jews had forgotten their ancestral language and needed Greek versions (translations) of their Scriptures.<ref>J.M. Cohen, p. 12.</ref>

Throughout the [[Middle Ages]], Latin was the ''[[lingua franca]]'' of the western learned world. The 9th-century [[Alfred the Great]], king of [[Wessex]] in [[England]], was far ahead of his time in commissioning [[vernacular]] [[Anglo-Saxon language|Anglo-Saxon]] translations of [[Bede]]'s ''[[Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum|Ecclesiastical History]]'' and [[Boethius]]' ''[[Consolation of Philosophy]]''. Meanwhile, the [[Christian Church]] frowned on even partial adaptations of [[St. Jerome]]'s [[Vulgate]] of {{Circa|384 CE}},<ref>J.M Cohen, pp. 12-13.</ref> the standard Latin Bible.

In [[Asia]], the spread of [[Buddhism]] led to large-scale ongoing translation efforts spanning well over a thousand years. The [[Tangut Empire]] was especially efficient in such efforts; exploiting the then newly invented [[block printing]], and with the full support of the government (contemporary sources describe the Emperor and his mother personally contributing to the translation effort, alongside sages of various nationalities), the Tanguts took mere decades to translate volumes that had taken the [[China|Chinese]] centuries to render.{{Citation needed|date=June 2008}}

The [[Arabs]] undertook [[Graeco-Arabic translation movement|large-scale efforts at translation]]. Having conquered the [[Ancient Greece|Greek]] world, they made Arabic versions of its philosophical and scientific works. During the Middle Ages, translations of some of these Arabic versions [[Latin translations of the 12th century|were made into Latin]], chiefly at [[Córdoba, Spain|Córdoba]] in [[Spain]].<ref name="Cohen13">J.M. Cohen, p. 13.</ref> King [[Alfonso X of Castile|Alfonso X the Wise]] of [[Kingdom of Castile|Castile]] in the 13th century promoted this effort by founding a ''[[Toledo School of Translators|Schola Traductorum]]'' (School of Translation) in [[Toledo, Spain|Toledo]]. There Arabic texts, Hebrew texts, and Latin texts were translated into the other tongues by Muslim, Jewish, and Christian scholars, who also argued the merits of their respective religions. Latin translations of Greek and original Arab works of scholarship and science helped advance European [[Scholasticism]], and thus European science and culture.

The broad historic trends in Western translation practice may be illustrated on the example of translation into the English language.

[[File:Chaucer Hoccleve.png|thumb|upright|[[Geoffrey Chaucer]]]]
The first fine translations into English were made in the 14th century by [[Geoffrey Chaucer]], who adapted from the [[Italian language|Italian]] of [[Giovanni Boccaccio]] in his own ''[[Knight's Tale]]'' and ''[[Troilus and Criseyde]]''; began a translation of the French-language ''[[Roman de la Rose]]''; and completed a translation of Boethius from the Latin. Chaucer founded an English [[poetry|poetic]] tradition on [[Literary adaptation|adaptations]] and translations from those earlier-established [[literary language]]s.<ref name=Cohen13/>

The first great English translation was the [[Wycliffe Bible]] ({{circa|1382}}), which showed the weaknesses of an underdeveloped English [[prose]]. Only at the end of the 15th century did the great age of English prose translation begin with [[Thomas Malory]]'s ''[[Le Morte d'Arthur]]''—an adaptation of [[Arthurian romance]]s so free that it can, in fact, hardly be called a true translation. The first great [[Tudor period|Tudor]] translations are, accordingly, the [[Tyndale Bible|Tyndale New Testament]] (1525), which influenced the [[Authorized Version]] (1611), and [[Lord Berners]]' version of [[Jean Froissart]]'s ''Chronicles'' (1523–25).<ref name=Cohen13/>
[[File:Portrait of Marsilio Ficino at the Duomo Firence 2.jpg|thumb|upright|[[Marsilio Ficino]]]]
Meanwhile, in [[Renaissance]] [[Italy]], a new period in the history of translation had opened in [[Florence]] with the arrival, at the court of [[Cosimo de' Medici]], of the [[Byzantine]] scholar [[Georgius Gemistus Pletho]] shortly before the fall of [[Constantinople]] to the Turks (1453). A Latin translation of [[Plato]]'s works was undertaken by [[Marsilio Ficino]]. This and [[Erasmus]]' Latin edition of the [[New Testament]] led to a new attitude to translation. For the first time, readers demanded rigor of rendering, as philosophical and religious beliefs depended on the exact words of Plato, [[Aristotle]] and [[Jesus]].<ref name=Cohen13/>

Non-scholarly literature, however, continued to rely on ''adaptation''. [[France]]'s ''[[Pléiade]]'', England's Tudor poets, and the [[Elizabethan]] translators adapted themes by [[Horace]], [[Ovid]], [[Petrarch]] and modern Latin writers, forming a new poetic style on those models. The English poets and translators sought to supply a new public, created by the rise of a [[middle class]] and the development of [[printing]], with works such as the original authors ''would have written'', had they been writing in England in that day.<ref name=Cohen13/>

The Elizabethan period of translation saw considerable progress beyond mere paraphrase toward an ideal of [[Stylistics (linguistics)|stylistic]] equivalence, but even to the end of this period, which actually reached to the middle of the 17th century, there was no concern for [[Words|verbal]] [[accuracy]].<ref name="Cohen14">J.M. Cohen, p. 14.</ref>

In the second half of the 17th century, the poet John Dryden sought to make [[Virgil]] speak "in words such as he would probably have written if he were living and an Englishman". As great as Dryden's poem is, however, one is reading Dryden, and not experiencing the Roman poet's concision. Similarly, [[Homer]] arguably suffers from [[Alexander Pope]]'s endeavor to reduce the Greek poet's "wild paradise" to order. Both works live on as worthy ''English'' epics, more than as a point of access to the Latin or Greek.<ref name=Cohen14/>

[[File:Edward FitzGerald.jpg|thumb|left|upright|[[Edward FitzGerald (poet)|Edward FitzGerald]]]]
Throughout the 18th century, the watchword of translators was ease of reading. Whatever they did not understand in a text, or thought might bore readers, they omitted. They cheerfully assumed that their own style of expression was the best, and that texts should be made to conform to it in translation. For scholarship they cared no more than had their predecessors, and they did not shrink from making translations from translations in third languages, or from languages that they hardly knew, or—as in the case of [[James Macpherson]]'s "translations" of [[Ossian]]—from texts that were actually of the "translator's" own composition.<ref name=Cohen14/>

[[File:Benjamin Jowett - Imagines philologorum.jpg|thumb|upright|[[Benjamin Jowett]]]]
The 19th century brought new standards of accuracy and style. In regard to accuracy, observes J.M. Cohen, the policy became "the text, the whole text, and nothing but the text", except for any [[bawdy]] passages and the addition of copious explanatory [[footnote]]s.{{efn|For instance, Henry Benedict Mackey's translation of [[St. Francis de Sales]]'s "[http://www.ccel.org/ccel/desales/love.html Treatise on the Love of God]" consistently omits the saint's analogies comparing God to a nursing mother, references to Bible stories such as the rape of Tamar, and so forth.}} In regard to style, the [[Victorian era|Victorians]]' aim, achieved through far-reaching metaphrase (literality) or ''pseudo''-metaphrase, was to constantly remind readers that they were reading a ''foreign'' classic. An exception was the outstanding translation in this period, [[Edward FitzGerald (poet)|Edward FitzGerald]]'s ''[[Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam|Rubaiyat]]'' of [[Omar Khayyam]] (1859), which achieved its Oriental flavor largely by using Persian names and discreet Biblical echoes and actually drew little of its material from the Persian original.<ref name=Cohen14/>

In advance of the 20th century, a new pattern was set in 1871 by [[Benjamin Jowett]], who translated Plato into simple, straightforward language. Jowett's example was not followed, however, until well into the new century, when accuracy rather than style became the principal criterion.<ref name=Cohen14/>

===Modern translation===
As a language evolves, texts in an earlier version of the language—original texts, or old translations—may become difficult for modern readers to understand. Such a text may therefore be translated into more modern language, producing a "modern translation" (e.g., a "modern English translation" or "modernized translation").

Such modern rendering is applied either to literature from classical languages such as Latin or Greek, notably to the Bible (see "[[Modern English Bible translations]]"), or to literature from an earlier stage of the same language, as with the works of [[William Shakespeare]] (which are largely understandable by a modern audience, though with some difficulty) or with [[Geoffrey Chaucer]]'s [[Middle English|Middle-English]] ''[[The Canterbury Tales|Canterbury Tales]]'' (which is understandable to most modern readers only through heavy dependence on footnotes). In 2015 the [[Oregon Shakespeare Festival]] commissioned professional translation of the entire Shakespeare canon, including disputed works such as ''[[Edward III (play)|Edward III]]'',<ref>{{cite news |last1=Schuessler |first1=Jennifer |title=Translating Shakespeare? 36 Playwrights Taketh the Big Risk |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/02/theater/oregon-shakespeare-festival-play-on.html |access-date=11 August 2019 |work=[[The New York Times]] |date=30 September 2016}}</ref> into contemporary vernacular English; in 2019, off-off-Broadway, the canon was premiered in a month-long series of staged readings.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Schuessler |first1=Jennifer |title=A Shakespeare Festival Presents Modern Translations. Cue the Debate (Again). |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/03/theater/shakespeare-modern-english-play-on-festival.html |access-date=11 August 2019 |work=[[The New York Times]] |date=3 April 2019}}</ref>

Modern translation is applicable to any language with a long literary history. For example, in Japanese the 11th-century ''[[The Tale of Genji|Tale of Genji]]'' is generally read in modern translation (see "[[The Tale of Genji#Modern readership|''Genji:'' modern readership]]").

Modern translation often involves literary scholarship and textual revision, as there is frequently not one single canonical text. This is particularly noteworthy in the case of the Bible and Shakespeare, where modern scholarship can result in substantive textual changes.

[[Anna North]] writes: "Translating the long-dead language [[Homer]] used — a variant of [[ancient Greek]] called Homeric Greek — into contemporary English is no easy task, and translators bring their own skills, opinions, and stylistic sensibilities to the text. The result is that every translation is different, almost a new poem in itself." An example is [[Emily Wilson (classicist)|Emily Wilson]]'s 2017 translation of Homer's ''[[Odyssey]]'', where by conscious choice Wilson "lays bare the morals of its time and place, and invites us to consider how different they are from our own, and how similar."<ref>{{Cite web|last=North|first=Anna|date=20 November 2017|title=Historically, men translated the Odyssey. Here's what happened when a woman took the job.|url=https://www.vox.com/identities/2017/11/20/16651634/odyssey-emily-wilson-translation-first-woman-english|access-date=9 September 2020|website=Vox}}</ref>

Modern translation meets with opposition from some traditionalists. In English, some readers [[King James Only movement|prefer]] the [[Authorized King James Version]] of the Bible to modern translations, and Shakespeare in the original of {{circa|1600}} to modern translations.

An opposite process involves translating modern literature into classical languages, for the purpose of [[extensive reading]] (for examples, see "[[List of Latin translations of modern literature]]").

===Poetry===
[[File:Hofstadter2002B.jpg|thumb|upright|[[Douglas Hofstadter|Hofstadter]]]]
[[File:Roman Jakobson.jpg|thumb|upright|[[Roman Jakobson|Jakobson]]]]
[[File:Vladimir Nabokov 1973.jpg|thumb|upright|[[Vladimir Nabokov|Nabokov]]]]
Views on the possibility of satisfactorily translating poetry show a broad spectrum, depending partly on the degree of latitude desired by the translator in regard to a poem's formal features (rhythm, rhyme, verse form, etc.), but also relating to how much of the suggestiveness and imagery in the host poem can be recaptured or approximated in the target language. In his 1997 book ''[[Le Ton beau de Marot]]'', [[Douglas Hofstadter]] argued that a good translation of a poem must convey as much as possible not only of its literal meaning but also of its form and structure (meter, rhyme or alliteration scheme, etc.).<ref>A discussion of Hofstadter's otherwise latitudinarian views on translation is found in Tony Dokoupil, "[http://www.newsweek.com/id/195684 Translation: Pardon My French: You Suck at This]," ''[[Newsweek]]'', 18 May 2009, p. 10.</ref>

The [[Russia]]n-born [[linguist]] and [[semiotician]] [[Roman Jakobson]], however, had in his 1959 paper "[[On Linguistic Aspects of Translation]]", declared that "poetry by definition [is] untranslatable". [[Vladimir Nabokov]], another Russian-born author, took a view similar to Jakobson's. He considered rhymed, metrical, versed poetry to be in principle untranslatable and therefore rendered his 1964 English translation of [[Alexander Pushkin]]'s [[Eugene Onegin#Into English|''Eugene Onegin'' in prose]].

Hofstadter, in ''[[Le Ton beau de Marot]]'', criticized Nabokov's attitude toward verse translation. In 1999 Hofstadter published his own translation of ''Eugene Onegin'', in verse form.

However, a number of more contemporary literary translators of poetry lean toward [[Alexander von Humboldt]]'s notion of language as a "third universe" existing "midway between the phenomenal reality of the 'empirical world' and the internalized structures of consciousness."<ref>{{Cite book|last=Steiner, George.|title=After Babel: Aspects of Language and Translation.|date=2013|publisher=Open Road Media|isbn=978-1-4804-1185-2|pages=85|oclc=892798474}}</ref> Perhaps this is what poet [[Sholeh Wolpé]], translator of the 12th-century Iranian epic poem ''[[The Conference of the Birds]]'', means when she writes: <blockquote>Twelfth-century Persian and contemporary English are as different as sky and sea. The best I can do as a poet is to reflect one into the other.&nbsp;The sea can reflect the sky with its moving stars, shifting clouds, gestations of the moon, and migrating birds—but ultimately the sea is not the sky. By nature, it is liquid. It ripples. There are waves. If you are a fish living in the sea, you can only understand the sky if its reflection becomes part of the water. Therefore, this translation of ''The Conference of the Birds'', while faithful to the original text, aims at its re-creation into a still living and breathing work of literature.<ref>{{Cite book|last=ʻAṭṭār, Farīd al-Dīn, -approximately 1230|title=The conference of the birds|others=Wolpé, Sholeh|year=2017|isbn=978-0-393-29218-3|edition=First|location=New York|pages=24|oclc=951070853}}</ref></blockquote>Poet [[Sherod Santos]] writes: "The task is not to reproduce the content, but with the flint and the steel of one's own language to spark what Robert Lowell has called 'the fire and finish of the original.{{'"}}<ref>{{Cite book|last=Santos, Sherod, 1948-|title=A poetry of two minds|date=2000|publisher=University of Georgia Press|isbn=0-8203-2204-0|pages=107|oclc=43114993}}</ref>

According to [[Walter Benjamin]]:<blockquote>While a poet's words endure in his own language, even the greatest translation is destined to become part of the growth of its own language and eventually to perish with its renewal. Translation is so far removed from being the sterile equation of two dead languages that of all literary forms it is the one charged with the special mission of watching over the maturing process of the original language and the birth pangs of its own.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Benjamin, Walter, 1892-1940.|title=Selected writings|date=1996–2003|publisher=Belknap Press|others=Bullock, Marcus Paul, 1944-, Jennings, Michael William., Eiland, Howard., Smith, Gary, 1954-|isbn=978-0-674-00896-0|location=Cambridge, Mass.|pages=256|oclc=34705134}}</ref></blockquote>Gregory Hays, in the course of discussing [[ancient Rome|Roman]] adapted translations of [[ancient Greek literature]], makes approving reference to some views on the translating of poetry expressed by [[David Bellos]], an accomplished French-to-English translator. Hays writes:
{{blockquote|Among the ''idées reçues'' [received ideas] skewered by David Bellos is the old saw that "poetry is what gets lost in translation." The saying is often attributed to [[Robert Frost]], but as Bellos notes, the attribution is as dubious as the idea itself. A translation is an assemblage of words, and as such it can contain as much or as little poetry as any other such assemblage. The [[Japanese people|Japanese]] even have a word (''chōyaku'', roughly "hypertranslation") to designate a version that deliberately improves on the original.<ref>Gregory Hays, "Found in Translation" (review of [[Denis Feeney]], ''Beyond Greek: The Beginnings of Latin Literature'', Harvard University Press), ''[[The New York Review of Books]]'', vol. LXIV, no. 11 (22 June 2017), p. 58.</ref>}}

===Book titles===
Book-title translations can be either descriptive or symbolic. Descriptive book titles, for example [[Antoine de Saint-Exupéry]]'s ''[[Le Petit Prince]]'' (The Little Prince), are meant to be informative, and can name the protagonist, and indicate the theme of the book. An example of a symbolic book title is [[Stieg Larsson]]'s ''[[The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo]]'', whose original Swedish title is ''Män som hatar kvinnor'' (Men Who Hate Women). Such symbolic book titles usually indicate the theme, issues, or atmosphere of the work.

When translators are working with long book titles, the translated titles are often shorter and indicate the theme of the book.<ref>Jiří Levý, ''The Art of Translation'', Philadelphia, John Benjamins Publishing Company, 2011, p. 122.</ref>

===Plays===
The translation of plays poses many problems such as the added element of actors, speech duration, translation literalness, and the relationship between the arts of drama and acting. Successful play translators are able to create language that allows the actor and the playwright to work together effectively.<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Carlson |first1=Harry G. |year=1964|title=Problems in Play Translation |journal=Educational Theatre Journal |volume=16 |issue=1 |pages=55–58 [55] |doi=10.2307/3204378 |jstor=3204378}}</ref> Play translators must also take into account several other aspects: the final performance, varying theatrical and acting traditions, characters' speaking styles, modern theatrical discourse, and even the acoustics of the auditorium, i.e., whether certain words will have the same effect on the new audience as they had on the original audience.<ref>Jiří Levý, ''The Art of Translation'', Philadelphia, John Benjamins Publishing Company, 2011, pp. 129-39.</ref>

Audiences in Shakespeare's time were more accustomed than modern playgoers to actors having longer stage time.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Carlson |first1=Harry G. |year=1964 |title=Problems in Play Translation |journal=Educational Theatre Journal |volume=16 |issue=1|pages=55–58 [56] |doi=10.2307/3204378 |jstor=3204378}}</ref> Modern translators tend to simplify the sentence structures of earlier dramas, which included compound sentences with intricate hierarchies of subordinate clauses.<ref>Jiří Levý, ''The Art of Translation'', Philadelphia, John Benjamins Publishing Company, 2011, p. 129.</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Kruger |first1=Loren |year=2007 |title=Keywords and Contexts: Translating Theatre Theory |journal=Theatre Journal |volume=59 |issue=3 |pages=355–58 |jstor=25070054 |doi=10.1353/tj.2007.0146 |s2cid=191603013}}</ref>

===Chinese literature===
In translating Chinese literature, translators struggle to find true fidelity in translating into the target language. In ''The Poem Behind the Poem'', Barnstone argues that poetry "can't be made to sing through a mathematics that doesn't factor in the creativity of the translator".<ref>Frank Stewart, ''The Poem Behind the Poem'', Washington, Copper Canyon Press, 2004.</ref>

A notable piece of work translated into English is the ''[[Wen Xuan]]'', an anthology representative of major works of Chinese literature. Translating this work requires a high knowledge of the [[genre]]s presented in the book, such as poetic forms, various prose types including memorials, letters, proclamations, praise poems, edicts, and historical, philosophical and political disquisitions, threnodies and laments for the dead, and examination essays. Thus the literary translator must be familiar with the writings, lives, and thought of a large number of its 130 authors, making the ''Wen Xuan'' one of the most difficult literary works to translate.<ref>Eugene Eoyang and Lin Yao-fu, ''Translating Chinese Literature'', Indiana University Press, 1995, pp. 42–43.</ref>

===Sung texts===
<!-- Deleted image removed: [[File:Catherine Winkworth.PNG|thumb|left|100px|[[Catherine Winkworth]]]] -->
Translation of a text that is sung in vocal music for the purpose of singing in another language—sometimes called "singing translation"—is closely linked to translation of poetry because most vocal music, at least in the Western tradition, is set to [[Verse (popular music)|verse]], especially verse in regular patterns with [[rhyme]]. (Since the late 19th century, musical setting of [[prose]] and [[free verse]] has also been practiced in some [[art music]], though popular music tends to remain conservative in its retention of [[stanza]]ic forms with or without [[refrain]]s.) A rudimentary example of translating poetry for singing is church [[hymn]]s, such as the German [[chorale]]s translated into English by [[Catherine Winkworth]].{{efn|For another example of poetry translation, including translation of sung texts, see [http://vagalecs.narod.ru/ Rhymes from Russia].}}

Translation of sung texts is generally much more restrictive than translation of poetry, because in the former there is little or no freedom to choose between a versified translation and a translation that dispenses with verse structure. One might modify or omit rhyme in a singing translation, but the assignment of syllables to specific notes in the original musical setting places great challenges on the translator. There is the option in prose sung texts, less so in verse, of adding or deleting a syllable here and there by subdividing or combining notes, respectively, but even with prose the process is almost like strict verse translation because of the need to stick as closely as possible to the original prosody of the sung melodic line.

Other considerations in writing a singing translation include repetition of words and phrases, the placement of rests and punctuation, the quality of vowels sung on high notes, and rhythmic features of the vocal line that may be more natural to the original language than to the target language. A sung translation may be considerably or completely different from the original, thus resulting in a [[contrafactum]].

Translations of sung texts—whether of the above type meant to be sung or of a more or less literal type meant to be read—are also used as aids to audiences, singers and conductors, when a work is being sung in a language not known to them. The most familiar types are translations presented as subtitles or [[surtitles]] projected during [[opera]] performances, those inserted into concert programs, and those that accompany commercial audio CDs of vocal music. In addition, professional and amateur singers often sing works in languages they do not know (or do not know well), and translations are then used to enable them to understand the meaning of the words they are singing.

===Religious texts===
{{Further|Bible translations|Quran translations}}

[[File:Domenico Ghirlandaio - St Jerome in his study.jpg|thumb|left|upright|[[Jerome]], [[patron saint]] of translators and [[encyclopedia|encyclopedists]]]]
An important role in history has been played by translation of religious texts. Such translations may be influenced by tension between the text and the religious values the translators wish to convey.<ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Tobler|first1=Stefan|last2=Sabău|first2=Antoaneta|date=1 April 2018|title=Translating Confession, Editorial RES 1/2018|url=https://content.sciendo.com/view/journals/ress/10/1/article-p5.xml|journal=Review of Ecumenical Studies Sibiu|volume=10|issue=1|pages=5–9|doi=10.2478/ress-2018-0001|s2cid=188019915|doi-access=free}}</ref> For example, [[Buddhist]] [[monk]]s who translated the [[India]]n [[sutra]]s into [[Chinese language|Chinese]] occasionally adjusted their translations to better reflect [[China]]'s distinct [[culture]], emphasizing notions such as [[filial piety]].

One of the first recorded instances of translation in the West was the 3rd century BCE rendering of some books of the biblical [[Old Testament]] from Hebrew into [[Koine Greek]]. The translation is known as the "[[Septuagint]]", a name that refers to the supposedly seventy translators (seventy-two, in some versions) who were commissioned to translate the Bible at [[Alexandria]], Egypt. According to legend, each translator worked in solitary confinement in his own cell, and all seventy versions proved identical. The ''Septuagint'' became the [[source text]] for later translations into many languages, including Latin, [[Coptic language|Coptic]], [[Armenian language|Armenian]], and [[Georgian language|Georgian]].

Still considered one of the greatest translators in history, for having rendered the Bible into Latin, is [[Jerome]] (347–420 CE), the [[patron saint]] of translators. For centuries the [[Roman Catholic Church]] used his translation (known as the [[Vulgate]]), though even this translation stirred controversy. By contrast with Jerome's contemporary, [[Augustine of Hippo]] (354–430 CE), who endorsed precise translation, Jerome believed in adaptation, and sometimes invention, in order to more effectively bring across the meaning. Jerome's colorful Vulgate translation of the Bible includes some crucial instances of "overdetermination". For example, [[Isaiah]]'s prophecy announcing that the Savior will be born of a virgin, uses the word '''almah'', which is also used to describe the dancing girls at [[Solomon]]'s court, and simply means young and nubile. Jerome, writes [[Marina Warner]], translates it as ''virgo'', "adding divine authority to the virulent cult of [[sex]]ual disgust that shaped Christian moral theology (the [Moslem] ''[[Quran]]'', free from this linguistic trap, does not connect [[Maryam (name)|Mariam]]/[[Mary, mother of Jesus|Mary]]'s miraculous nature with moral horror of sex)." The apple that [[Eve]] offered to [[Adam]], according to Mark Polizzotti, could equally well have been an [[apricot]], orange, or banana; but Jerome liked the [[pun]] ''malus/malum'' (apple/evil).<ref name="This Little Art 2018 p. 22"/>

[[Pope Francis]] has suggested that the phrase "lead us not into temptation", in the [[Lord's Prayer]] found in the [[Gospel of Matthew|Gospels of Matthew]] (the first Gospel, written {{circa|80}}–90 CE) and [[Gospel of Luke|Luke]] (the third Gospel, written {{circa|80}}–110 CE), should more properly be translated, "do not let us fall into temptation", commenting that God does not lead people into temptation—[[Satan]] does.{{efn|MJC Warren, Lecturer in Biblical and Religious Studies, [[University of Sheffield]], points out (more explicitly than Charles McNamara) that Luke gives a shorter version of Jesus's Lord's Prayer, leaving off the request that God "deliver us from evil"; that (as Charles McNamara also says) accurate translation is not the question here; and that the Bible records a number of incidents when God commands evil actions, such as that [[Abraham]] kill his only son, [[Isaac]] (whose execution is canceled at the last moment).<ref>MJC Warren, "‘Lead us not into temptation’: why Pope Francis is wrong about the Lord’s Prayer", ''[[The Conversation (website)|The Conversation]]'', 8 December 2017 [https://theconversation.com/lead-us-not-into-temptation-why-pope-francis-is-wrong-about-the-lords-prayer-88886]</ref>}} Some important early Christian authors interpreted the Bible's Greek text and [[Jerome]]'s Latin Vulgate similarly to Pope Francis. A.J.B. Higgins<ref>A.J.B. Higgins, "'Lead Us Not into Temptation': Some Latin Variants", ''[[Journal of Theological Studies]]'', 1943.</ref> in 1943 showed that among the earliest Christian authors, the understanding and even the text of this devotional verse underwent considerable changes. These ancient writers suggest that, even if the Greek and Latin texts are left unmodified, something like "do not let us fall" could be an acceptable English rendering. Higgins cited [[Tertullian]], the earliest of the Latin [[Church Fathers]] ({{circa|155|240 CE}}, "do not allow us to be led") and [[Cyprian]] ({{circa|200}}–258 CE, "do not allow us to be led into temptation"). A later author, [[Ambrose]] ({{circa|340}}–397 CE), followed Cyprian's interpretation. Augustine of Hippo (354–430), familiar with Jerome's Latin Vulgate rendering, observed that "many people... say it this way: 'and do not allow us to be led into temptation.'"<ref>Charles McNamara, "Lead Us Not into Temptation? Francis Is Not the First to Question a Key Phrase of the Lord's Prayer", ''[[Commonweal (magazine)|Commonweal]]'', 1 January 2018. [https://www.commonwealmagazine.org/lead-us-not-temptation]</ref>

In 863 CE the brothers [[Saints Cyril and Methodius]], the [[Byzantine Empire]]'s "Apostles to the Slavs", began translating parts of the Bible into the [[Old Church Slavonic]] language, using the [[Glagolitic script]] that they had devised, based on the [[Greek alphabet]].

The periods preceding and contemporary with the [[Protestant Reformation]] saw translations of the Bible into [[vernacular]] (local) European languages—a development that contributed to [[Western Christianity]]'s split into Roman Catholicism and [[Protestantism]] over disparities between Catholic and Protestant renderings of crucial words and passages (and due to a Protestant-perceived need to reform the Roman Catholic Church). Lasting effects on the religions, cultures, and languages of their respective countries were exerted by such Bible translations as [[Martin Luther]]'s into German (the [[New Testament]], 1522), [[Jakub Wujek]]'s into Polish (1599, as revised by the [[Jesuits]]), and [[Tyndale Bible|William Tyndale's version]] (New Testament, 1526 and revisions) and the [[King James Version]] into English (1611).

[[File:Moses (Michaelangelo - San Pietro in Vincoli - Rome).jpg|thumb|left|upright=0.8|Mistranslation: [[Michelangelo]]'s [[Horns of Moses|horned Moses]]]]
Efforts to translate the Bible into English had their [[martyr]]s. [[William Tyndale]] ({{circa|1494}}–1536) was convicted of [[heresy]] at [[Antwerp]], was strangled to death while tied at the stake, and then his dead body was burned.<ref>{{Citation |last=Farris |first=Michael |title=From Tyndale to Madison |year=2007 |page=37}}.</ref> Earlier, [[John Wycliffe]] ({{circa|mid-1320s}} – 1384) had managed to die a natural death, but 30 years later the [[Council of Constance]] in 1415 declared him a heretic and decreed that his works and earthly remains should be burned; the order, confirmed by [[Pope Martin V]], was carried out in 1428, and Wycliffe's corpse was exhumed and burned and the ashes cast into the [[River Swift]]. Debate and religious [[schism]] over different translations of religious texts continue, as demonstrated by, for example, the [[King James Only movement]].

A famous ''mistranslation'' of a [[Biblical]] text is the rendering of the Hebrew word {{lang|he|קֶרֶן|rtl=yes}} (''keren''), which has several meanings, as "[[Horns of Moses|horn]]" in a context where it more plausibly means "beam of light": as a result, for centuries artists, including sculptor [[Michelangelo]], have rendered [[Moses|Moses the Lawgiver]] with horns growing from his forehead.

[[File:Chinese quran.jpg|thumb|upright=0.8|[[Chinese language|Chinese]] translation, verses 33–34 of ''Quran'''s [[Ya Sin|''surah'' (chapter) 36]]]]
Such fallibility of the translation process has contributed to the [[Islamic]] world's ambivalence about translating the ''[[Quran]]'' (also spelled ''Koran'') from the original Arabic, as received by the prophet [[Muhammad]] from [[Allah]] (God) through the angel [[Gabriel]] incrementally between 609 and 632 CE, the year of Muhammad's death. During prayers, the ''Quran'', as the miraculous and inimitable word of Allah, is recited only in Arabic. However, as of 1936, it had been translated into at least 102 languages.<ref name="fatani">{{cite encyclopedia |first =Afnan|last = Fatani|title =Translation and the Qur'an|editor-link =Oliver Leaman|editor-first = Oliver| editor-last = Leaman|encyclopedia=The Qur'an: An Encyclopaedia|publisher = Routledge|date = 2006|pages = 657–669|isbn = 978-0415775298}}</ref>

A fundamental difficulty in translating the ''Quran'' accurately stems from the fact that an Arabic word, like a Hebrew or Aramaic word, may have a [[Polysemy|range of meanings]], depending on [[Context (language use)|context]]. This is said to be a linguistic feature, particularly of all [[Semitic languages]], that adds to the usual similar difficulties encountered in translating between any two languages.<ref name = fatani/> There is always an element of human judgment—of interpretation—involved in understanding and translating a text. Muslims regard any translation of the ''Quran'' as but one possible interpretation of the [[Classical Arabic|Quranic (Classical) Arabic]] text, and not as a full equivalent of that divinely communicated original. Hence such a translation is often called an "interpretation" rather than a translation.<ref>[[Malise Ruthven]], ''Islam in the World'', Granta, 2006, p. 90, {{ISBN|978-1-86207-906-9}}.</ref>

To complicate matters further, as with other languages, the meanings and usages of some expressions have changed ''over time'', between the Classical Arabic of the ''Quran'', and modern Arabic. Thus a modern Arabic speaker may misinterpret the meaning of a word or passage in the ''Quran''. Moreover, the interpretation of a Quranic passage will also depend on the historic context of Muhammad's life and of his early community. Properly researching that context requires a detailed knowledge of ''[[hadith]]'' and ''[[Prophetic biography|sirah]]'', which are themselves vast and complex texts. Hence, analogously to the translating of [[#Chinese literature|Chinese literature]], an attempt at an accurate translation of the ''Quran'' requires a knowledge not only of the Arabic language and of the target language, including their respective evolutions, but also a deep understanding of the two [[culture]]s involved.

=== Experimental literature ===
Experimental literature, such as [[Kathy Acker]]’s novel ''Don Quixote'' (1986) and [[Giannina Braschi]]’s novel ''[[Yo-Yo Boing!]]'' (1998), features a translative writing that highlights discomforts of the interlingual and translingual encounters and literary translation as a creative practice.<ref name=fisher>{{Cite journal|last=Fisher|first=Abigail|title=These lips that are not (d)one: Writing with the 'pash' of translation|url=http://www.textjournal.com.au/oct20/fisher.pdf |journal=TEXT: Journal of Writing and Writing Courses |volume=24 |number=2 |date=October 2020 |pages=1–25 |quote=Braschi and Acker employ certain techniques to produce writing that eschews fixed meaning in favour of facilitating the emergence of fluid and interpermeating textual resonances, as well as to establish a meta-discourse on the writing and translation process.}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|last=Moreno Fernandez |first=Francisco |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1143649021 |title=Yo-Yo Boing! Or Literature as a Translingual Practice (Poets, Philosophers, Lovers: on the writings of Giannina Braschi)|publisher=U Pittsburgh |others=Aldama, Frederick Luis; Stavans, Ilan; O'Dwyer, Tess |year=2020 |isbn=978-0-8229-4618-2|location=Pittsburgh, Pa.|oclc=1143649021|quote=This epilinguistic awareness is apparent in the constant language games and in the way in which she so often plays with this translingual reality and with all the factors with which it contrasts and among which it moves so liquidly.}}</ref> These authors weave their own translations into their texts.

Acker's [[Postmodern literature|Postmodern]] fiction both fragments and preserves the materiality of [[Catullus]]’s Latin text in ways that tease out its semantics and syntax without wholly appropriating them, a method that unsettles the notion of any fixed and finished translation.<ref name=fisher />

Whereas Braschi's trilogy of experimental works (''[[Empire of Dreams (poetry collection)|Empire of Dreams]]'', 1988; ''Yo-Yo Boing!'', 1998, and ''[[United States of Banana]]'', 2011) deals with the very subject of translation.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Stanchich|first=Maritza|title=Bilingual Big Bang: Giannina Braschi's Trilogy Levels the Spanish-English Playing Field (Poets, Philosophers, Lovers)|publisher=U Pittsburgh|location=Pittsburgh|pages=63–75|quote=Carrión notes, the idea of an only tongue ruling over a considerable number of different nations and peoples is fundamentally questioned.}}</ref> Her trilogy presents the evolution of the Spanish language through loose translations of dramatic, poetic, and philosophical writings from the Medieval, [[Spanish Golden Age|Golden Age]], and [[Modernismo|Modernist]] eras into contemporary Caribbean, Latin American, and Nuyorican Spanish expressions. Braschi's translations of classical texts in Iberian Spanish (into other regional and historical linguistic and poetic frameworks) challenge the concept of national languages.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Carrión|first=María M.|date=1 January 1996|title=Geography, (M)Other Tongues and the Role of Translation in Giannina Braschi's El imperio de los sueños|journal=Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature|volume=20|issue=1|doi=10.4148/2334-4415.1385|issn=2334-4415|doi-access=free}}</ref>

===Science fiction===
[[Science fiction]] being a [[genre]] with a recognizable set of conventions and literary genealogies, in which language often includes [[neologism]]s, neosemes,{{clarify|date=April 2019}} and [[invented languages]], techno-scientific and [[Pseudoscience|pseudoscientific]] vocabulary,<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZVYxl5ued-oC|title=The Seven Beauties of Science Fiction|last=Csicsery-Ronay|first=Istvan Jr.|date=2008|publisher=Wesleyan University Press|isbn=9780819568892|pages=13–46}}</ref> and fictional representation of the translation process,<ref>{{Cite book|title=Transfiction: Research into the Realities of Translation Fiction|date=2014|publisher=John Benjamins Publishing Company|others=Kaindl, Klaus., Spitzel, Karlheinz.|isbn=9789027270733|location=Amsterdam|pages=345–362|oclc=868285393}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal|last=Mossop|first=Brian|date=1 April 1996|title=The Image of Translation in Science Fiction & Astronomy|journal=The Translator|volume=2|issue=1|pages=1–26|doi=10.1080/13556509.1996.10798961|issn=1355-6509}}</ref> the translation of science-fiction texts involves specific concerns.<ref name=":0">{{Cite journal|last=Iannuzzi|first=Giulia|date=2 November 2018|title=Science fiction, cultural industrialization and the translation of techno-science in post-World War II Italy|journal=Perspectives|volume=26|issue=6|pages=885–900|doi=10.1080/0907676X.2018.1496461|issn=0907-676X|hdl=11368/2930475|s2cid=69992861|url=https://zenodo.org/record/2652301|hdl-access=free}}</ref> The science-fiction translator tends to acquire specific competences and assume a distinctive publishing and cultural agency.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Iannuzzi|first=Giulia|date=2017|title=Traduttore, consulente editoriale, intellettuale: Riccardo Valla e la fantascienza angloamericana in Italia|journal=Rivista Internazionale di Tecnica della Traduzione: International Journal of Translation|doi=10.13137/2421-6763/17363 |url=https://www.openstarts.units.it/handle/10077/17363|language=it|issn=1722-5906}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|title=Un laboratorio di fantastici libri. Riccardo Valla intellettuale, editore, traduttore. Con un'appendice di lettere inedite a cura di Luca G. Manenti|last=Iannuzzi|first=Giulia|year=2019|isbn=9788833051031|location=Chieti (Italy)}}</ref> As in the case of other mass-fiction genres, this professional specialization and role often is not recognized by publishers and scholars.<ref>{{Citation|last=Milton|first=John|chapter=The Translation of Mass Fiction|date=2000|chapter-url=https://benjamins.com/catalog/btl.32.21mil|volume=32|pages=171–179|editor-last=Beeby|editor-first=Allison|publisher=John Benjamins Publishing Company|doi=10.1075/btl.32.21mil|isbn=9789027216373|access-date=6 April 2019|editor2-last=Ensinger|editor2-first=Doris|editor3-last=Presas|editor3-first=Marisa|title=Investigating Translation|series=Benjamins Translation Library}}</ref>

Translation of science fiction accounts for the transnational nature of science fiction's repertoire of shared conventions and [[Trope (literature)|tropes]]. After [[World War II]], many European countries were swept by a wave of translations from the English.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Gouanvic|first=Jean-Marc|date=1 November 1997|title=Translation and the Shape of Things to Come|journal=The Translator|volume=3|issue=2|pages=125–152|doi=10.1080/13556509.1997.10798995|issn=1355-6509}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=OFB9kQEACAAJ|title=The Cultural Transfer of Science Fiction and Fantasy in Hungary 1989-1995|last=Sohár|first=Anikó|date=1999|publisher=Peter Lang|isbn=9780820443485}}</ref> Due to the prominence of English as a source language, the use of [[pseudonym]]s and [[pseudotranslation]]s became common in countries such as Italy<ref name=":0" /> and Hungary,<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Sohár|first=Anikó|date=August 2000|title=The speech bewrayeth thee: thou shalt not steal the prestige of foregin literatures Pseudotranslations in Hungary after 1989|journal=Hungarian Studies|volume=14|issue=1|pages=56–82|doi=10.1556/HStud.14.2000.1.3|issn=0236-6568|url=http://real.mtak.hu/56813/1/hstud.14.2000.1.3.pdf}}</ref> and English has often been used as a [[vehicular language]] to translate from languages such as Chinese and Japanese.<ref name="Iannuzzi">{{Cite journal|last=Iannuzzi|first=Giulia|title=The Translation of East Asian Science Fiction in Italy: An Essay on Chinese and Japanese Science Fiction, Anthological Practices and Publishing Strategies beyond the Anglo-American Canon|journal=Quaderni di Cultura|doi=10.5281/zenodo.3604992|year=2015|volume=12|pages=85–108}}</ref>

More recently, the international market in science-fiction translations has seen an increasing presence of source languages other than English.<ref name="Iannuzzi"/>

==Technical translation==
{{main|Technical translation}}
Technical translation renders documents such as manuals, instruction sheets, internal memos, minutes, financial reports, and other documents for a limited audience (who are directly affected by the document) and whose useful life is often limited. Thus, a user guide for a particular model of refrigerator is useful only for the owner of the refrigerator, and will remain useful only as long as that refrigerator model is in use. Similarly, software documentation generally pertains to a particular software, whose applications are used only by a certain class of users.<ref>{{cite book|last=Byrne |first=Jody|year=2006 |title=Technical Translation: Usability Strategies for Translating Technical Documentation |publisher=Springer |location=Dordrecht}}</ref>

==Survey translation==
A [[Survey (human research)|survey]] [[questionnaire]] consists of a list of questions and answer categories aimed at extracting data from a particular group of people about their attitude, behavior, or knowledge. In cross-national and cross-cultural [[Survey methodology|survey research]], translation is crucial to collecting comparable data.<ref>{{Cite web |date=21 August 2018 |title=Special Issue on Questionnaire Translation |url=https://wapor.org/special-issue-on-questionnaire-translation/ |access-date=21 October 2023 |website=World Association for Public Opinion Research |language=en-US}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Behr |first1=Dorothée |last2=Sha |first2=Mandy |date=25 July 2018 |title=Introduction: Translation of questionnaires in cross-national and cross-cultural research |url=https://www.trans-int.org/index.php/transint/article/view/937 |journal=Translation & Interpreting |language=en |volume=10 |issue=2 |pages=1–4 |doi=10.12807/ti.110202.2018.a01 |issn=1836-9324 |doi-access=free}}</ref> Originally developed for the [[European Social Survey]]s, the model TRAPD (Translation, Review, Adjudication, Pretest, and Documentation) is now "widely used in the global survey research community, although not always labeled as such or implemented in its complete form".<ref>{{Cite web |title=Quality in Comparative Surveys |url=https://aapor.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/AAPOR-WAPOR-Task-Force-Report-on-Quality-in-Comparative-Surveys_Full-Report.pdf |access-date=2 October 2023 |website=Task Force Report, American Association of Public Opinion Research (AAPOR)}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Quality in Comparative Surveys |url=https://wapor.org/resources/aapor-wapor-task-force-report-on-quality-in-comparative-surveys/ |website=Task Force Report, World Association of Public Opinion Research (WAPOR)}}</ref><ref name=":02">{{Cite book |last=Harkness |first=Janet |title=Cross-cultural survey methods |publisher=[[Wiley (publisher)|Wiley]] |year=2003 |isbn=0-471-38526-3}}</ref>

A team approach is recommended in the survey-translation process, to include translators, subject-matter experts, and persons helpful to the process.<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Behr |first1=Dorothe |url=https://methods.sagepub.com/book/the-sage-handbook-of-survey-methodology |title=The Translation of Measurement Instruments for Cross-Cultural Surveys (Chapter 19) in The SAGE Handbook of Survey Methodology |last2=Shishido |first2=Kuniaki |date=2016 |publisher=SAGE Publications Ltd |isbn=978-1-4739-5789-3 |language=en}}</ref> For example, even when project managers and researchers do not speak the language of the translation, they know the study objectives well and the intent behind the questions, and therefore have a key role in improving the translation.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Sha |first1=Mandy |last2=Immerwahr |first2=Stephen |date=19 February 2018 |title=Survey Translation: Why and How Should Researchers and Managers be Engaged? |url=https://www.surveypractice.org/article/3248-survey-translation-why-and-how-should-researchers-and-managers-be-engaged |journal=Survey Practice |language=en |volume=11 |issue=2 |pages=1–10 |doi=10.29115/SP-2018-0016 |doi-access=free}}</ref> In addition, a survey-translation framework based on [[sociolinguistics]] states that a linguistically appropriate translation cannot be wholly sufficient to achieve the communicative effect of the source-language survey; the translation must also incorporate the social practices and cultural norms of the target language.<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Pan |first1=Yuling |url=https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/mono/10.4324/9780429294914/sociolinguistics-survey-translation-yuling-pan-mandy-sha-hyunjoo-park |title=The Sociolinguistics of Survey Translation |last2=Sha |first2=Mandy |date=9 July 2019 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-0-429-29491-4 |location=London |doi=10.4324/9780429294914|s2cid=198632812 }}</ref>

==See also==
{{div col|colwidth=15em}}
* [[American Literary Translators Association]]
* [[Applied linguistics]]
* [[Back-translation]]
* [[Bible translations]]
* [[Bilingual dictionary]]
* [[Bilingual pun]]
* [[Bilingualism]]
* [[Bridge language]]
* [[Calque]]
* [[Certified translation]]
* [[Chinese translation theory]]
* [[Code mixing]]
* [[Communication accommodation theory]]
* [[Contrafactum]]
* [[Contrastive linguistics]]
* [[Dictionary-based machine translation]]
* [[Diglossia]]
* [[European Master's in Translation]]
* [[Example-based machine translation]]
* [[False cognate]]
* [[False friend]]
* [[First language]]
* [[Homophonic translation]]
* [[Humour in translation]] ("howlers")
* [[Hybrid word]]
* [[Indirect translation]]
* [[International Federation of Translators]]
* [[Internationalization and localization]]
* [[Interpreting notes]]
* [[Inttranet]]
* [[Language brokering]]
* [[Language industry]]
* [[Language interpretation]]
* [[Language localisation]]
* [[Language professional]]
* [[Language transfer]]
* [[Legal translation]]
* [[Lexicography]]
* [[Lingua franca]]
* [[Linguistic validation]]
* [[List of translators]]
* [[List of women translators]]
* [[Literal translation]]
* [[Machine translation]]
* [[Medical translation]]
* [[Metaphrase]]
* [[Mobile translation]]
* [[Multilingualism]]
* [[National Translation Mission]] (NTM)
* [[Neural machine translation]]
* [[Paraphrase]]
* [[Phonaesthetics]]
* [[Phonestheme]]
* [[Phono-semantic matching]]
* [[Postediting]]
* [[Pre-editing]]
* [[Pseudotranslation]]
* [[Register (sociolinguistics)]]
* [[Rule-based machine translation]]
* [[Second language]]
* [[Self-translation]]
* [[Semantic equivalence (linguistics)]]
* [[Skopos theory]]
* [[Sound symbolism]]
* [[Statistical machine translation]]
* [[Syntax]]
* [[Technical translation]]
* [[Transcription (linguistics)]]
* [[Translating for legal equivalence]]
* [[:Category:Translation associations|Translation associations]]
* [[Translation criticism]]
* [[Translation memory]]
* [[Translation-quality standards]]
* [[:Category:Translation scholars|Translation scholars]]
* [[Translation services of the European Parliament]]
* [[Translation studies]]
* [[Translation-quality standards]]
* [[Transliteration]]
* [[Untranslatability]]
* [[Vehicular language]]
{{div col end}}
{{Portal|Languages}}

==Notes==
{{NoteFoot}}
{{notelist}}

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==Bibliography==
* Armstrong, Rebecca, "All Kinds of Unlucky" (review of ''The [[Aeneid]], translated by [[Shadi Bartsch]]'', Profile, November 2020, {{ISBN|978 1 78816 267 8}}, 400 pp.), ''[[London Review of Books]]'', vol. 43, no. 5 (4 March 2021), pp.&nbsp;35–36. 
* {{cite book|last1=Baker |first1=Mona |last2=Saldanha |first2=Gabriela |title=Routledge Encyclopedia of Translation Studies |publisher=Routledge |location=New York |year=2008 |isbn=9780415369305 }}
* {{cite book|editor-last1=Balcerzan |editor-first1=Edward |editor-link1=Edward Balcerzan |title=Pisarze polscy o sztuce przekładu, 1440–1974: Antologia |trans-title=Polish Writers on the Art of Translation, 1440–1974: an Anthology |year=1977 |publisher=Wydawnictwo Poznańskie |location=Poznań |language=pl |oclc=4365103}}
* {{cite book|last=Bassnett |first=Susan |author-link=Susan Bassnett |title=Translation studies |year=1990 |publisher=Routledge |location=London & New York |isbn=9780415065283}}
*{{cite book|last=Berman|first=Antoine|author-link=Antoine Berman|title=L'épreuve de l'étranger: culture et traduction dans l'Allemagne romantique: Herder, Goethe, Schlegel, Novalis, Humboldt, Schleiermacher, Hölderlin|publisher=Gallimard, Essais|location=Paris|year=1984|language=fr|isbn=9782070700769}} Excerpted in English in {{cite book|last=Venuti|first=Lawrence|author-link=Lawrence Venuti|title=The translation studies reader|publisher=Routledge|location=New York|year=2004|orig-year=2002|edition=2nd|isbn=9780415319201}}
* {{cite book|last=Berman |first=Antoine |author-link=Antoine Berman |title=Pour une critique des traductions: John Donne |year=1995 |publisher=Gallimard |location=Paris |language=fr |isbn=9782070733354}} English translation: {{cite book|last1=Berman|first1=Antoine | translator-last = Massardier-Kenney | translator-first = Françoise |author-link1=Antoine Berman|translator-link=Françoise Massardier-Kenney|title=Toward a translation criticism: John Donne|year=2009|publisher=Kent State University Press|location=Ohio|isbn=9781606350096}}
* {{citation|last=Billiani |first=Francesca |contribution=Ethics |editor-last=Baker |editor-first=Mona |title=Routledge Encyclopedia of Translation Studies |publisher=Routledge |location=New York |year=2001 |isbn=9780415255172 |postscript=.}}
* [[David Bromwich|Bromwich, David]], "In Praise of Ambiguity" (a review of [[Michael Wood (academic)|Michael Wood]], ''On Empson'', [[Princeton University Press]], 2017), ''[[The New York Review of Books]]''), vol. LXIV, no. 16 (26 October 2017), pp.&nbsp;50–52.
* [[J.M. Cohen|Cohen, J.M.]], "Translation", ''[[Encyclopedia Americana]]'', 1986, vol. 27, p.&nbsp;14.
* {{Cite journal|last=Darwish |first=Ali |title=Towards a theory of constraints in translation |date=1999 }} {{Self-published inline|date=February 2015}} [http://www.translocutions.com/turjuman/papers/constraints_0.1.pdf Work in progress version (pdf).]
* [[Lydia Davis|Davis, Lydia]], "Eleven Pleasures of Translating", ''[[The New York Review of Books]]'', vol. LXIII, no. 19 (8 December 2016), pp.&nbsp;22–24. "I like to reproduce the word order, and the order of ideas, of the original [text] whenever possible. [p. 22] [T]ranslation is, eternally, a compromise. You settle for the best you can do rather than achieving perfection, though there is the occasional perfect solution [to the problem of finding an equivalent expression in the target language]." (p.&nbsp;23.)
* {{cite web|last1=Dryden|first1=John|title=Preface to Sylvae|url=http://www.bartleby.com/204/180.html|website=Bartelby.com|access-date=27 April 2015|author1-link=John Dryden}}
* Fatani, Afnan, "Translation and the Qur'an", in [[Oliver Leaman]], ''The Qur'an: An Encyclopaedia'', Routledge, 2006, pp.&nbsp;657–69.
* {{Cite journal |last=[[Jonathan Galassi|Galassi]] |first=Jonathan |title=FEATURE: Como conversazione: on translation |journal=[[The Paris Review]] |volume=42 |issue=155 |pages=255–312 |date=June 2000 |url=http://www.theparisreview.org/back-issues/155 }} Poets and critics [[Seamus Heaney]], [[Charles Tomlinson]], [[Tim Parks]], and others discuss the theory and practice of translation.
* {{Cite journal |last=Godayol |first=Pilar |title=Metaphors, women and translation: from les belles infidèles to la frontera |journal=[[Gender and Language]] |volume=7 |issue=1 |pages=97–116 |doi=10.1558/genl.v7i1.97 |date=February 2013 }}
* [[Michael Gorra|Gorra, Michael]], "Corrections of Taste" (review of [[Terry Eagleton]], ''Critical Revolutionaries: Five Critics Who Changed the Way We Read'', Yale University Press, 323 pp.), ''[[The New York Review of Books]]'', vol. LXIX, no. 15 (6 October 2022), pp.&nbsp;16–18.
* {{cite book |last=Gouadec |first=Daniel |author-link= Daniel Gouadec |title=Translation as a profession |year=2007 |publisher=John Benjamins |location=Amsterdam |isbn=9789027216816}}
* [[Stephen Greenblatt|Greenblatt, Stephen]], "Can We Ever Master King Lear?", ''[[The New York Review of Books]]'', vol. LXIV, no. 3 (23 February 2017), pp.&nbsp;34–36.
* Hays, Gregory, "Found in Translation" (review of [[Denis Feeney]], ''Beyond Greek: The Beginnings of Latin Literature'', Harvard University Press), ''[[The New York Review of Books]]'', vol. LXIV, no. 11 (22 June 2017), pp.&nbsp;56, 58.
* Kaiser, Walter, "A Hero of Translation" (a review of Jean Findlay, ''Chasing Lost Time: The Life of [[C.K. Scott Moncrieff]]: Soldier, Spy, and Translator'', Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 351 pp., $30.00), ''[[The New York Review of Books]]'', vol. LXII, no. 10 (4 June 2015), pp.&nbsp;54–56.
* {{Cite journal|last=Kasparek |first=Christopher |author-link=Christopher Kasparek |title=The translator's endless toil (book reviews) |journal=[[The Polish Review]] |volume=XXVIII |issue=2 |pages=83–87 |date=1983 |jstor=25777966}} Includes a discussion of [[European language|European-language]] [[cognate]]s of the [[terminology|term]], "translation".
* [[Christopher Kasparek|Kasparek, Christopher]], translator's foreword to [[Bolesław Prus]], ''[[Pharaoh (Prus novel)|Pharaoh]]'', translated from the Polish, with foreword and notes, by Christopher Kasparek, [[Amazon Kindle]] [[e-book]], 2020, ASIN:BO8MDN6CZV.
* {{cite book|last=Kelly |first=Louis |title=The true interpreter: A history of translation theory and practice in the West |year=1979 |location=New York |publisher=St. Martin's Press |isbn=9780631196402}}
* [[Perry Link|Link, Perry]], "A Magician of Chinese Poetry" (review of [[Eliot Weinberger]], with an afterword by [[Octavio Paz]], ''19 Ways of Looking at [[Wang Wei (Tang dynasty)|Wang Wei]] (with More Ways)'', New Directions, 88 pp., $10.95 [paper]; and Eliot Weinberger, ''The Ghosts of Birds'', New Directions, 211 pp., $16.95 [paper]), ''[[The New York Review of Books]]'', vol. LXIII, no. 18 (24 November 2016), pp.&nbsp;49–50.
* [[Gary Marcus|Marcus, Gary]], "Am I Human?: Researchers need new ways to distinguish [[artificial intelligence]] from the natural kind", ''[[Scientific American]]'', vol. 316, no. 3 (March 2017), pp.&nbsp;58–63. ''Multiple'' tests of artificial-intelligence efficacy are needed because, "just as there is no single test of [[Athletics (physical culture)|athletic]] prowess, there cannot be one ultimate test of [[intelligence]]." One such test, a "Construction Challenge", would test perception and physical action—"two important elements of intelligent behavior that were entirely absent from the original [[Turing test]]." Another proposal has been to give machines the same standardized tests of science and other disciplines that schoolchildren take. A so far insuperable stumbling block to artificial intelligence is an incapacity for reliable [[disambiguation]]. "[V]irtually every sentence [that people generate] is [[ambiguity|ambiguous]], often in multiple ways." A prominent example is known as the "pronoun disambiguation problem": a machine has no way of determining to whom or what a [[pronoun]] in a sentence—such as "he", "she" or "it"—refers.
* McNamara, Charles, "Lead Us Not into Temptation? Francis Is Not the First to Question a Key Phrase of the Lord's Prayer", ''[[Commonweal (magazine)|Commonweal]]'', 1 January 2018. [https://www.commonwealmagazine.org/lead-us-not-temptation]
* {{cite book|last1=Miłosz |first1=Czesław |author-link1=Czesław Miłosz |title=The history of Polish literature |year=1983 |publisher=University of California Press |location=Berkeley |edition=2nd |isbn=9780520044777}}
* [[Ange Mlinko|Mlinko, Ange]], "Whole Earth Troubador" (review of ''The Essential W.S. Merwin'', edited by [[Michael Wiegers]], Copper Canyon, 338 pp., 2017), ''[[The New York Review of Books]]'', vol. LXIV, no. 19 (7 December 2017), pp.&nbsp;45–46.
* [[Anka Muhlstein|Muhlstein, Anka]], "Painters and Writers: When Something New Happens", ''[[The New York Review of Books]]'', vol. LXIV, no. 1 (19 January 2017), pp.&nbsp;33–35.
* {{Cite book |title=Introducing Translation Studies: theories and applications (4th ed.) |last=Munday |first=Jeremy |publisher=Routledge |year=2016 |isbn=978-1138912557 |location=London/New York |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/introducingtrans0004mund}}
* {{Cite book|last=Najder|first=Zdzisław|title=Joseph Conrad: A Life|publisher=Camden House|year=2007|isbn=978-1-57113-347-2}}
* {{Cite web|last=North|first=Anna|date=20 November 2017|title=Historically, men translated the Odyssey. Here's what happened when a woman took the job.|url=https://www.vox.com/identities/2017/11/20/16651634/odyssey-emily-wilson-translation-first-woman-english|access-date=9 September 2020|website=Vox}}
* {{cite book |last=Parks |first=Tim |author-link=Tim Parks |title=Translating style: a literary approach to translation - a translation approach to literature |year=2007 |publisher=Routledge |location=New York |isbn=9781905763047}}
* {{cite book |last=Pei |first=Mario |author-link=Mario Pei |title=The story of language |year=1984 |publisher=New American Library |location=New York |isbn=9780452008700}} Introduction by [[Stuart Berg Flexner]], revised edition.
* {{cite book |last=Piron |first=Claude |author-link=Claude Piron |title=Le défi des langues: du gâchis au bon sens |trans-title=The language challenge: from chaos to common sense |year=1994 |publisher=L'Harmattan |location=Paris |language=fr |isbn=9782738424327}}
* Polizzotti, Mark, ''Sympathy for the Traitor: A Translation Manifesto'', MIT, 168 pp., 2018, {{ISBN|978 0 262 03799 0}}.
* {{cite book |last=Rose |first=Marilyn Gaddis (guest editor) |title=Translation: agent of communication: an international review of arts and ideas (volume 5, issue 1, special issue) |date=January 1980 |publisher=Outrigger Publishers |location=Hamilton, New Zealand |oclc=224073589}}
* [[Malise Ruthven|Ruthven, Malise]], Islam in the World, Granta, 2006, ISBN 978-1-86207-906-9.
* [[Malise Ruthven|Ruthven, Malise]], "The Islamic Road to the Modern World" (review of [[Christopher de Bellaigue]], ''The Islamic Enlightenment: The Struggle between Faith and Reason, 1798 to Modern Times'', Liveright; and Wael Abu-'Uksa, ''Freedom in the Arab World: Concepts and Ideologies in Arabic Thought in the Nineteenth Century'', Cambridge University Press), ''[[The New York Review of Books]]'', vol. LXIV, no. 11 (22 June 2017), pp.&nbsp;22, 24–25.
* {{citation |last1=Schleiermacher |first1=Friedrich | translator-last=Bernofsky | translator-first=Susan | contribution=On the different methods of translating (Über die verschiedenen Methoden des Übersetzens 1813) |editor-last=Venuti |editor-first=Lawrence |editor-link=Lawrence Venuti |title=The translation studies reader |pages=43–63 |publisher=Routledge |location=New York |year=2004 |orig-year=2002 |edition=2nd |isbn=9780415319201 |postscript=.}}
* {{cite book |last=Simms |first=Norman T. (guest editor) |title=Nimrod's sin: treason and translation in a multilingual world (volume 8, issue 2) |date=1983 |publisher=Outrigger Publishers |location=Hamilton, New Zealand |oclc=9719326}}
* [[Mary Snell-Hornby|Snell-Hornby, Mary]]; Schopp, Jürgen F. (2013). [http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:0159-2013012902 "Translation"], ''[[European History Online]]'', [[Mainz]], [[Institute of European History]], retrieved 29 August 2013.
* {{cite book |last1=Tatarkiewicz |first1=Władysław | translator-last=Kasparek | translator-first=Christopher |author-link1=Władysław Tatarkiewicz |translator-link=Christopher Kasparek |title=A history of six ideas: an essay in aesthetics |publisher=Martinus Nijhoff |location=The Hague, Boston, London |year=1980 |isbn=978-8301008246}}
*[[Władysław Tatarkiewicz|Tatarkiewicz, Władysław]], ''O doskonałości'' (On Perfection), Warsaw, Państwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe, 1976; English translation by [[Christopher Kasparek]] subsequently serialized in ''Dialectics and Humanism: The Polish Philosophical Quarterly'', vol. VI, no. 4 (autumn 1979)—vol. VIII, no 2 (spring 1981), and reprinted in [[Władysław Tatarkiewicz]], ''On Perfection'', Warsaw University Press, Center of Universalism, 1992, pp.&nbsp;9–51 (the book is a collection of papers by and about Professor Tatarkiewicz).
* Taylor, Paul, "Insanely Complicated, Hopelessly Inadequate" (review of [[Brian Cantwell Smith]], ''The Promise of Artificial Intelligence: Reckoning and Judgment'', MIT, October 2019, {{ISBN|978 0 262 04304 5}}, 157 pp.; [[Gary Marcus]] and Ernest Davis, ''Rebooting AI: Building Artificial Intelligence We Can Trust'', Ballantine, September 2019, {{ISBN|978 1 5247 4825 8}}, 304 pp.; [[Judea Pearl]] and Dana Mackenzie, ''The Book of Why: The New Science of Cause and Effect'', Penguin, May 2019, {{ISBN|978 0 14 198241 0}}, 418 pp.), ''[[London Review of Books]]'', vol. 43, no. 2 (21 January 2021), pp.&nbsp;37–39.
* {{cite journal | last1=Tobler | first1=Stefan | last2=Sabău | first2=Antoaneta | title=Translating Confession: Editorial RES 1/2018 | journal=Review of Ecumenical Studies | publisher=Walter de Gruyter GmbH | volume=10 | issue=1 | date=1 April 2018 | issn=2359-8107 | doi=10.2478/ress-2018-0001 | pages=5–9 | s2cid=188019915 | url=https://content.sciendo.com/view/journals/ress/10/1/article-p5.xml| doi-access=free }}
* {{cite book|last1=Vélez |first1=Fabio |title=Antes de Babel. Una historia retórica de la traducción |publisher=Comares |location=Granada, Spain |year=2016 |isbn=978-8490454718}}
* {{cite book|last=Venuti |first=Lawrence |author-link=Lawrence Venuti |title=The translator's invisibility |year=1994 |publisher=Routledge |location=New York |isbn=9780415115384}}
* [[Marina Warner|Warner, Marina]], "The Politics of Translation" (a review of Kate Briggs, ''This Little Art'', 2017; Mireille Gansel, ''Translation as Transhumance'', translated by [[Ros Schwartz]], 2017; Mark Polizzotti, ''Sympathy for the Traitor: A Translation Manifesto'', 2018; [[Boyd Tonkin]], ed., ''The 100 Best Novels in Translation'', 2018; [[Clive Scott (linguist)|Clive Scott]], ''The Work of Literary Translation'', 2018), ''[[London Review of Books]]'', vol. 40, no. 19 (11 October 2018), pp.&nbsp;21–24.
* [[Emily Wilson (classicist)|Wilson, Emily]], "A Doggish Translation" (review of ''The Poems of [[Hesiod]]: Theogony, Works and Days, and The Shield of Herakles'', translated from the Greek by [[Barry B. Powell]], [[University of California Press]], 2017, 184 pp.), ''[[The New York Review of Books]]'', vol. LXV, no. 1 (18 January 2018), pp.&nbsp;34–36.
* [[Emily Wilson (classicist)|Wilson, Emily]], "Ah, how miserable!" (review of three separate translations of ''[[The Oresteia]]'' by [[Aeschylus]]: by [[Oliver Taplin]], Liveright, November 2018; by Jeffrey Scott Bernstein, Carcanet, April 2020; and by David Mulroy, Wisconsin, April 2018), ''[[London Review of Books]]'', vol. 42, no. 19 (8 October 2020), pp.&nbsp;9–12, 14.
* [[Emily Wilson (classicist)|Wilson, Emily]], "The Pleasures of Translation" (review of Mark Polizzotti, ''Sympathy for the Traitor: A Translation Manifesto'', MIT Press, 2018, 182 pp.), ''[[The New York Review of Books]]'', vol. LXV, no. 9 (24 May 2018), pp.&nbsp;46–47.
* [[Michael Wood (literary scholar)|Michael Wood]], "Break your bleedin' heart" (review of [[Marcel Proust]], ''Swann's Way'', translated by [[James Grieve (Australian translator)|James Grieve]], NYRB, June 2023, {{ISBN|978 1 68137 6295}}, 450 pp.; and [[Marcel Proust]], ''The Swann Way'', translated by [[Brian Nelson (literature professor)|Brian Nelson]], Oxford, September 2023, {{ISBN|978 0 19 8871521}}, 430 pp.), ''[[London Review of Books]]'', vol. 46, no. 1 (4 January 2024), pp. 37–38. 
* {{Cite journal|last1=Zethsen |first1=Karen Korning |last2=Askehave |first2=Inger |title=Talking translation: Is gender an issue? |journal=[[Gender and Language]] |volume=7 |issue=1 |pages=117–134 |doi=10.1558/genl.v7i1.117 |date=February 2013 }}

==Further reading==
* {{Cite journal |last=Abu-Mahfouz, Ahmad |year=2008 |title=Translation as a Blending of Cultures |url=http://pnglanguages.org/siljot/2008/1/51140/siljot2008-1-01.pdf |url-status=dead |journal=Journal of Translation |volume=4 |issue=1 |pages=1–5 |doi=10.54395/jot-x8fne |s2cid=62020741 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120309034908/http://pnglanguages.org/siljot/2008/1/51140/siljot2008-1-01.pdf |archive-date=9 March 2012}}
* [[Pamela Crossley|Crossley, Pamela]], "We possess all things" (review of [[Henrietta Harrison]], ''The Perils of Interpreting: The Extraordinary Lives of Two Translators between Qing China and the British Empire'', Princeton, 2022, {{ISBN|978 0 691 22545 6}}, 341 pp.), ''[[London Review of Books]]'', vol. 44, no. 16 (18 August 2022), pp.&nbsp;31–32. "Historians have fastened their attention on the letters that passed from [[George III]] to the [[Qianlong emperor]] and back again. But... written texts are not so fixed as one might assume. Neither the Chinese nor the British officials read the originals of the messages from the other side; they were content to receive translations... In such circumstances... meanings become elusive. More than king, emperor or ambassador, the translators decided the substance of the exchange. Historians have tended to attribute meaning to the speakers and not to their humble interpreters. But... it was the intermediaries – ambassadors, negotiators, translators – who delivered the meanings. The important persons in this process were those in between." (p.&nbsp;32.)
* [[Rudolf Flesch|Flesch, Rudolf]], ''The Art of Clear Thinking'', chapter 5: "Danger! Language at Work" (pp.&nbsp;35–42), chapter 6: "The Pursuit of Translation" (pp.&nbsp;43–50), Barnes & Noble Books, 1973.
* [[Kenna Hughes-Castleberry|Hughes-Castleberry, Kenna]], "A Murder Mystery Puzzle: The literary puzzle ''[[Cain's Jawbone]]'', which has stumped humans for decades, reveals the limitations of natural-language-processing algorithms", ''[[Scientific American]]'', vol. 329, no. 4 (November 2023), pp.&nbsp;81–82. "This murder mystery competition has revealed that although NLP ([[natural-language processing]]) models are capable of incredible feats, their abilities are very much limited by the amount of [[context (linguistics)|context]] they receive. This [...] could cause [difficulties] for researchers who hope to use them to do things such as analyze [[ancient language]]s. In some cases, there are few historical records on long-gone [[civilization]]s to serve as [[training data]] for such a purpose." (p.&nbsp;82.)
* {{cite book |title=Found in Translation: How Language Shapes Our Lives and Transforms the World |last1=Kelly |first1=Nataly |last2=Zetzsche |first2=Jost |publisher=TarcherPerigee |year=2012 |isbn=978-0399537974}}
* {{cite magazine |last1=Nabokov |first1=Vladimir |title=The Art of Translation |magazine=The New Republic |date=4 August 1941 |url=https://newrepublic.com/article/62610/the-art-translation |access-date=19 January 2020}}
* Ross Amos, Flora, "Early Theories of Translation", ''Columbia University Studies in English and Comparative Literature,'' 1920. At ''[http://www.gutenberg.org/files/22353/22353-h/22353-h.htm Project Gutenberg]''.
* {{cite journal |title=Translation and Translation Studies |url=https://www.academia.edu/36609128 |last=Sharma |first=Sandeep |journal=There's a Double Tongue |publisher=HP University |year=2017 |page=1 }}
* [[Judith Thurman|Thurman, Judith]], "Mother Tongue: Emily Wilson makes Homer modern", ''[[The New Yorker]]'', 18 September 2023, pp.&nbsp;46–53. A biography, and presentation of the translation theories and practices, of [[Emily Wilson (classicist)|Emily Wilson]]. "'As a translator, I was determined to make the whole human experience of the poems accessible,' Wilson said." (p.&nbsp;47.)
* Wechsler, Robert, ''[[:File:Performing Without a Stage - The Art of Literary Translation - by Robert Wechsler.pdf|Performing Without a Stage: The Art of Literary Translation]]'', Catbird Press, 1998.
* [[Garry Wills|Wills, Garry]], "A Wild and Indecent Book" (review of [[David Bentley Hart]], ''The New Testament: A Translation'', [[Yale University Press]], 577 pp.), ''[[The New York Review of Books]]'', vol. LXV, no. 2 (8 February 2018), pp.&nbsp;34–35. Discusses some pitfalls in interpreting and translating the [[New Testament]]

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