Translators: Making Culture Universal

Translators: Making Culture Universal

The profession of translators is as old as time and has always played various key roles in society. Early translations in Mesopotamia and Egypt, for example, served trading purposes among peoples who spoke different languages. Later on, in the 4th century, Saint Jerome, considered to be the patron of translators, translated the Bible from Old Hebrew into Latin, creating the Vulgata, the most read translated text in history. In more recent times, translations help spread out the availability of all kinds of literatures, which makes translators the valuable builders of bridges between languages and cultures.

Translators make it possible for people all around the globe to have access to numerous literary texts originally written in other languages. Thanks to this, the work of millions of authors is not restricted to a community who speaks a certain language and their possibilities of reaching a wider audience broaden. Many major Nobel-winning novelists, like Portuguese writer José Saramago, acknowledge that without translators they would not be able to connect with readers from different nations, and have publically thanked their translators for building that “bridge” between them.

Scientific development is also dependent on the work of translators. Sciences have always been an essential part of every culture and the main language in which scientific knowledge is written has varied through time: first Greek, then, for many centuries, Latin and nowadays, English. Progress made in all scientific fields would be confined to certain cultures if papers and essays were not translated into other languages and made available to more people. Thus, translation should no longer be considered to be a mere cross-linguistic activity but significant cross-cultural communication.

All in all, translators undoubtedly help build bridges between different cultures and languages. They connect people from all over the world despite the barriers that may divide them. This is why, as Saint Jerome said, two things are necessary for a good translation: an adequate understanding of the original language/culture and an adequate command and knowledge of the language/culture into which one is translating. In other words, translators must be not only multilingual, but also multicultural.

Gastón