Translators from English

Translation is the communication of the meaning of a source-language text by means of an equivalent target-language text. The English language draws a terminological distinction (which does not exist in every language) between ''translating'' (a written text) and ''interpreting'' (oral or 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 calques and loanwords that have enriched target languages. Translators, including early translators of sacred texts, have helped shape the very languages into which they have translated.

Because of the laboriousness of the translation process, since the 1940s efforts have been made, with varying degrees of success, to automate translation or to mechanically aid the human translator. More recently, the rise of the Internet has fostered a world-wide market for translation services and has facilitated "language localisation".

Etymology

The English word "translation" derives from the Latin word , which comes from ''trans'', "across" + '' 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.Christopher Kasparek, "The Translator's Endless Toil", p. 83.

Some Slavic languages and the Germanic languages (other than Dutch and Afrikaans) have calqued their words for the concept of "translation" on ''translatio'', substituting their respective Slavic or Germanic root words for the Latin roots. The remaining Slavic languages instead calqued their words for "translation" from an alternative Latin word, , itself derived from ("to lead across" or "to bring across")—from ("across") + , ("to lead" or "to bring").

The West and East Slavic languages (except for Russian) adopted the pattern, whereas Russian and the South Slavic languages adopted the pattern. The Romance languages, 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, .

The Ancient Greek term for "translation", (''metaphrasis'', "a speaking across"), has supplied English with "metaphrase" (a "literal", or "word-for-word", translation)—as contrasted with "paraphrase" ("a saying in other words", from , ''paraphrasis''). "Metaphrase" corresponds, in one of the more recent terminologies, to " formal equivalence"; and "paraphrase", to "dynamic equivalence".Kasparek, "The Translator's Endless Toil", p. 84.

Strictly speaking, the concept of metaphrase—of "word-for-word translation"—is an 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.

Theories

Western theory

Discussions of the theory and practice of translation reach back into antiquity and show remarkable continuities. The 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 equivalents, for the expressions used in the source language: