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by Asiff Hussein

The International Conference on Translation will be held from 3rd-5th July at the Sri Lanka Foundation Institute, Colombo. It is sponsored by the National Integration Programme Unit of the Ministry of Justice, Law Reform and National Integration and funded by the Norwegian agency NORAD.

Among the speakers will be Professors Rajendra Singh and Otto Iccome from the University of Montreal, Paul St.Pierre from the University of Quebec and Prabath Das Gupta from the University of Hyderabad, all well known international experts in translation. The three-day conference will be followed by an intensive training programme for 25 university personnel, mostly staff of the University of Peradeniya, who will be instructed in the theory and practice of translation by the visiting lecturers. The workshop will be conducted for five hours a day, five days a week for five weeks from 8th July to 9th August.

It will be followed by the offering of a one-year Post-Graduate Diploma Programme by the Faculty of Arts of the University of Peradeniya, thus laying the foundation for the emergence of a professional community of translators in the country who would serve as a vital link in the transfer of information not only between the national and international intelligentsia but also between the literati belonging to the country's various ethnic groups.

Mother tounge

That language constitutes the lifeblood of a nation there can be no doubt. As a tool of communication, it plays a central role in our day to day life. It gives us a sense of identity, shapes our perception of reality and moulds our worldview. Despite the fact that our indigenous languages, Sinhala and Tamil constitute the 'mother tongue', so to say, of well over 95 per cent of our population, the lackadaisical attention they have received from the state is a cause for concern.

Although it is imperative that English be promoted as a means of international communication and perhaps as a link language, whether this should be so at the expense of our national languages is open to question. Our dilemma of course is that we have never had a proper language policy. It has often been arbitrary and lopsided and has verged on one extreme to the other, initially giving a pre-eminent place to the Sinhala of the majority to the detriment of the Tamil of the minorities, and now English, a so-called international language, to the detriment of both, even to the extent of imposing it as a medium of instruction in national schools in spite of the fact that the vast majority of children are best educated in the vernacular as has been pointed out by eminent educationists now and then.

Indeed, we may ask ourselves have we even done enough to promote and cultivate the Sinhala language which was the sole official language of the country for three decades and is presently a co-official language along with Tamil. Indeed, in browsing through old Sinhala lexicons and literature one often comes across a variety of terms we do not use today whether in our day to day speech or in our literary activity. Even works by European scholars such as Rev.B.Clough's Sinhalese-English Dictionary published in the nineteenth century furnish a wealth of material on old Sinhala usages that could be revived or adopted into the modern language without much difficulty.

More recently, a number of neologisms relating to modern technology and IT terminology based solely on Elu or pure Sinhala forms have been coined by Aelian Silva whose proposed glossaries of technical terms ought to be given serious consideration by the state and academics alike. The adoption of neologisms by the native speakers of a language it is truly said extends their range of thought and exposes them to a host of new experiences. The Tamil language likewise is an extremely rich language that has developed over the years to a very high standard due to its cultivation by erudite savants not only in Jaffna, but also in Tamil Nadu where Tamil is the state language and receives much patronage.

But here too one feels that the language has not received adequate attention, especially in its more modern aspects such as the coining of neologisms and preparation of technical glossaries. Thus there remains an urgent need to develop the national languages and make them viable media of modern communication, both from a national as well as an international perspective.

All this however is largely connected to and dependent on an area of study which we have not paid enough attention to in the past, and that is translation, the process through which ideas are communicated by the speakers of one language to another, thus exposing them to the culture and outlook of the other so essential for the diversity of the human experience.

It is here that one feels the need for a professional body of translators who would serve as a vital link between the country and the outside world and between the country's various ethnic groups. In the vanguard of this struggle is Prof. Thiru Kandiah, Professor of English at the University of Peradeniya and an expert in linguistics and literature who favours a pragmatic post-colonial approach to the language problems facing our country.

It is under his direction that the first ever International Conference on Translation is being held in Colombo next week. Prof. Kandiah is hopeful that the three-day conference and the workshop to follow where a good many academics from the University of Peradeniya will receive intensive training on the theory and techniques of translation, would result in the formation of a community of qualified translators catering to the needs of our vernacular-educated indigenous intelligentsia and paving the way for greater understanding between the country's various ethnic groups.

This pioneering teacher training programme organised by the departments of Sinhala, Tamil and English of the University of Peradeniya is expected to result in a one-year Diploma course in translation which would be accesible intially to university graduates from all disciplines and perhaps later to non-graduates as well. Prof. Kandiah contends that it is extremely important that translation studies be seriously pursued in developing post-colonial countries such as ours with a diversity of cultures and languages. He avers that translating across cultures and languages in multi-ethnic societies is an extremely crucial factor for practical reasons as well as for larger reasons of national integration and mutual understanding. He cites three reasons as to why translation studies should be developed in Sri Lanka. Firstly, the country's constitution requires it.

The Official Language Act makes it clear that a citizen of the republic has the right to correspond with the state and in all official communications in any language he or she chooses. However, the law is not implemented, not because the state chooses to ignore it, but for the simple fact that there is a desperate shortage of translation personnel in government service. This sorry situation has resulted in much frustation and a sense of alienation not only amongst Tamils in Sinhalese majority areas, but also amongst Sinhalese in Tamil majority areas, he pointed out.

Secondly, when we talk of globalization, we often think in terms of information technology and other developments where we are the recipients.

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