NATO forces Lost in Translation
Posted by admin on June 20th, 2008As Nato-led forces try to establish security in Afghanistan, another lesser-known mission is happening – to make sense of the place names for English-speaking people.
As Nato and Afghan forces try to overcome the Taleban, with help from Afghan forces, western officials behind the scenes are also trying to standardise the names of every town and village.
At a conference in London, US and UK officials discussed how important it was that western translations of Arabic place names in the country should be consistent.
The process of transliteration – translating from one alphabet to another, such as Greek to Russian – has so far happened in a rather ad hoc way in Afghanistan and can leave the English-speaking armies and NGOs a little confused.
Although the well known cities and regions – such as Kabul, Kandahar and Helmand – have a clear and common translation in the western Roman alphabet, many Afghan villages have multiple spellings, even in their original forms, and many villages in different areas are called the same thing.
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