Cultures and information disseminate all around the world due to the ever-increasing impacts of globalization, so does the translation demand for source texts about the knowledge of these cultures and information. With the high demands in the translation industry, translators are now facilitated with automated translation machines, such as Google Translate or DeepL to get efficient working quality.
For those who are looking for a more accurate translation of a source text, there are also plenty of professional translators available for hire, thanks to the development of the industry itself and social media.
With how commonly translation is used nowadays, it is quite difficult to imagine that translation has developed by leaps and bounds today compared to how it was used back then during its conception. In its earlier years, translation was only used for religious textual materials, such as the Christian Bible; and several notable literary works, such as the “Epic of Gilgamesh” poem.
However, as translation became more commonplace, the industry has experienced significant changes. Translation is getting popular for various texts outside religious and literary works, in which the techniques are refined by considering socio-cultural aspects besides the literal meaning conveyed by the text. Several translation machines have also been developed, making automated translations catch the interest of many.
The development of the translation industry itself is not a simple process. It took a significant amount of time and effort from many individuals to reach its current state. Not to mention, during the era before globalization, translation was considered a dangerous line of work.
For example, a mistranslation of religious texts might result in the execution of the translator. Due to the conventional social rule, many translators opted out of remaining anonymous and avoiding the lethal risk. Among many of these translators, the following list presents several notable individuals who have significantly contributed to the development of translation knowledge, which is still acknowledged as the bases of the industry development:
1#: Eusebius Hieronymus a.k.a. St. Jerome
Eusebius Hieronymus or who is well-known as St. Jerome (347 – 420 AD) is one of the pioneers of biblical translation. He is the person responsible for one of the most famous and widely used Latin translations of the Christian Bible. In the field of translation, St. Jerome coined the term dynamic equivalence, signifying a phenomenon where translations should be equal not only in meaning but also style, which he called Vulgate.
However, the idea regarding the translation of the Christian Bible during that period was considered controversial. The translation of religious texts in a sense-for-sense fashion was viewed as “tainting” the religion by many Christian scholars due to the necessary cross-reference to the original Hebrew texts.
Nevertheless, Vulgate is still considered the standard Latin translation of the Christian Bible to this day. This translation technique proposed by St. Jerome paved the pathway towards the movement from just literal translations to a more sense-for-sense translation.
2# John Dryden
Jumping to around the 17th century, many translation theorists began to surface. One of the most influential and well-known theories of translation was given by John Dryden (1631 – 1700). He divided three different kinds of translation methods, including metaphrase, paraphrase, and imitation.
Metaphrase is a kind of translation that people usually refer to as literal translation, which is a word-for-word translation that follows the source texts. On the other hand, the paraphrase is a kind of translation that follows the sense of the author, as the words used for the translation may not have equal meaning, but they can give the same amount of sense as the delivery of the source texts. Imitation also differs from metaphrase and paraphrase.
This ultimate technique deviates from the original texts, resulting in the construction of new meanings and senses based on the source texts. Among the three types of translation divisions, Dryden rejected the extremes of metaphrase and imitation.
He instead went for a middle ground in paraphrasing due to how the result of translations might not be as restricted as it could be in metaphrase without disregarding the original sense from the source texts. In hindsight, it is evident that his views ring true. Nowadays, paraphrasing is one of the most commonly used writing techniques, not only for translation but also academic writing.
3# Alexander Fraser Tytler
Approaching the 18th century, translation studies became more systematic. One of the results of this systematic change that significantly affected translation history was the treatise by Alexander Fraser Tytler (1722 – 1783). Through this treatise, he proposed that a translation should completely represent ideas, style, and practicality in facilitating the reading of the source texts. I
n the modern era, such an idea may go without saying. However, during the 18th century, there were still many practices of omitting information that translators considered irrelevant, boring, or incomprehensible. This treatise caused a reduction of such practices. During the end of the 18th century, translators were encouraged to have contemporary readers in mind and arrange their translations in a way to convey particular meanings that authors originally intended more naturally.
4# Gregory Rabassa
Translation constantly grew as a more common practice. A lot of translators began to acknowledge the development of translation techniques and methods. Gregory Rabassa (1922 – 2016), for instance, produced numerous considerable works of translations, in which the significant ones consist of Odyssey Review (the 1960s), Hopskotch (1966), Leaf Storm and Other Stories (1972), The Autumn of the Patriarch (1976), The Green House (1968), and Conversation in the Cathedral (1975). Not to mention, one of his translations, One Hundred Years of Solitude (1970) was highly praised by the general public and commended by the original author García Márquez, as a piece that surpassed the original work.
From all of his contributions in translation, he received many prestigious rewards, such as the first PEN/Ralph Manheim Medal for Translation in 1982 and the National Medal of Arts in 2006. His achievements brought him to be the most prominent figure in the translation industry until he passed away in 2016. His works were complemented and have shed inspiration for many future translators.
5# Al-Kindi
The use of automated translations has been considered a convenient strategy for many people who want to produce simple translations in a very short period. However, the process of reaching the efficiency of the machine-generated translations that we have today once actually required many years of development and initiatives from several people. Al-Kindi (801 – 873) was one of the important figures responsible for kickstarting the development of automated translations.
To proceed with the development of translation machines, a mastery of cryptanalysis, a way of recovering meaning from an encrypted message, is necessary to make sure that certain translation machines can translate any sort of text. During his period, his Risala fi ‘Istikhrag Al-Mu’amma, a manuscript containing the details on cryptography and cryptanalysis appeared as one of the most influential manuscripts beyond the vast improvement of automated translation.
Written in the ninth century or around 500 years before the idea regarding cryptology was discovered in the West, this manuscript served as inspiration for many Arabic cryptologists and advanced their knowledge on the subject further than in the West.
Al-Kindi’s manuscript inspired the productions of many new manuscripts from Arabic cryptologists that contained diverse and progressive sets of cryptology-related terminologies with precise analytical distinctions. One of the examples of these terminologies explains the difference between encryption and cryptanalysis, respectively called at-ta’miya and at-targama. The terminology encouraged the production of more modern distinctions, including but not limited to such as plaintext, ciphertext, nulls, code, keys, steganography, n-grams, and many more.
Aside from providing the groundwork for cryptology study, Al-Kindi also provided some significant insight on cryptanalysis. He recommended that those who made use of his techniques should only use them when the texts are of statistically significant size.
He also described a number of techniques based on alphabetical frequency analysis to not only find probable plaintext within ciphertext but also find parts of the text that might be considered “encoded”. Through his study, he was able to understand patterns and features in his own and other languages.
With his repertoire in cryptanalysis, Al-Kindi developed three principal cryptanalysis techniques that are significant to the development of machine translations. The first, and arguably most prominent of the three, is the use of alphabetical frequencies, where the most frequently occurring letters are tabulated and compared against normal plaintext.
The second technique makes use of presumptions of underlying linguistic rules in order to come up with a combination that could form an appropriate text. Last, but not least, the third technique makes use of the “probable word” method, where some common words or phrases within a text could be used as guidance for the cryptogram.
6# Warren Weaver
The research for modern machine translation started around 1949 by Weaver’s distribution of a memorandum titled “Translation”. From his memorandum, Weaver (1894 – 1978) offered two descriptions for the idea of “cryptographic-translation”. First, he described language as a code. His second description concerned a method to determine the statistical semantic character of a language that he assigned the basic probability value of N.
This basic value would then change according to the language that was about to be translated, including the specific genre of writing. Weaver argued that each text has differing probable N values, indicating a text’s semantic character. To make the translation process easier, it is also possible to calculate the value of N against adjacent words for each word.
This would mean that other than the word itself, other parts of a text, as well as its grammar, are also considered within the calculations to produce a translated text. These descriptions by Weaver were then used as one of the foundations for the programming of automated translations.
7# Georges B. Artsrouni
One of the figures who patented machines for translation is Georges B. Artsrouni (1933). Although still not making use of cryptanalysis, Artsrouni’s machine was capable of encrypting and decrypting texts. This would mean that his machine was capable of word-for-word translation.
The way his machine worked was that it contained a number of bands within, all holding a certain amount of selected “contents” to process. When used for translating, the bands would hold both source and target languages. To use the machine, users would have to input letters on a keyboard and it would cause the bands to move according to a search mechanism. After the bands matched the entered search criteria, a set of comparable source and target languages would be shown by the machine. At this stage, the translation was still in the form of unrefined word-for-word style, yet Artsrouni’s machine served well as a building block for further development in automated translation.
It is important to note that the figures mentioned here are only some of many of those who provided great strides in translation. Throughout the years, many people, known or anonymous, have contributed to the translation industry. As we observe how translation works are becoming more efficient and accurate throughout all time, it is important for prospective translators to know, learn, and get inspired by these prominent figures who contributed to the industry.
Upholding the value of facts and truth, Linguwiz’s translators are also inspired by the consistent and persistent works of those prominent figures. Besides reputable education backgrounds, our translation experts comprehend the urgency to develop all time, as the dynamics of language never ceases to present the ecosystem with the growth of social changes and needs.
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