The growing translation bill makes a mockery of the Government’s pledge that migrants wanting to settle in the UK must demonstrate a command of the language.
By the time newcomers are applying for a passport they will have already passed a citizenship test and are supposed to at least be able to answer basic questions.
But translators are still needed for some when they attend the new face-to-face interviews, designed to question applicants and cut down on identity fraud or bogus claims.
More than a quarter of a million pounds was spent on such services by the Identity and Passport Service (IPS) last year.
Matthew Elliott, chief executive of the TaxPayers’ Alliance, said: “It is absurd that interpreters are being provided for people who the rules say must be able to speak English to qualify for a passport.
“This suggests that the Government’s pledge to make sure a passport was conditional on being able to speak the language and integrate is simply hot air – leaving taxpayers to pick up the bill.
“We must have proper control of migration and citizenship, but the authorities seem more interested in talking tough and then leaving taxpayers to pay the price.”
Within the Iranian branch of indo-European languages, Persian is a member of the West Iranian group. The three main dialects of Persian consist of that spoken in Iran (also called Farsi), the Persian of Afghanistan (commonly known as Dari) and the Persian spoken in some of the ex-Soviet central Asian states including Tajikistan.
Iran is a multilingual country where although Farsi is the official language, there are large communities of speakers of other languages such as Arabic, Kurdish and Turkic dialects.
Origins of the Persian Language
The evolution of Persian as the culturally dominant language from Iran to Central Asia to north-western India began with the political domination of these areas by dynasties originating in the south-western province of Iran. Parsa, later Arabicised to Fars, was ruled by two dynasties: the Achaemenids (559-331bc) whose official language was Old Persian, then the Sassanids (225 -651 AD) who spoke middle Persian. Hence the entire country used to be called Perse by the ancient Greeks, a practice still continued by some today. The name Iran derives from Old Iranian aryanam ‘the realm of the Aryans’.
Standardisation of Persian
Persian appeared fairly standardised first in early poetic diction, which showed few dialectal variations by the tenth century. Nevertheless, the peculiarities of eastern poets led to the compilation of dictionaries explaining those in common Persian.
The formative period for prose writing lasted until the end of the twelfth century where religious, scientific, historical and philosophical texts paid less attention to high style than to reaching the public. By the thirteenth century the regionally marked features had largely disappeared in poetry and prose.
The dominance of classical Persian continued until the beginning of the nineteenth century when new political and cultural conditions brought about under European influence sponsored gradual simplification in style. This brought the acceptance in writing of standard educated speech developed in Tehran, first through journalism, followed by prose and finally poetry.
Colonial Persian
Persian was cultivated at the courts of the Ottoman rulers, several of whom are known for composing Farsi poetry. Urdu also developed under heavy Persian influence. Persian first entered India with the conquest of North West India by Ghaznavid armies in the eleventh century. Four centuries later, Persian was chosen as the court language by the Mogul rulers, who were major patrons of Persian literature, unlike the contemporary Safavids in Iran. It was at the courts of India and Turkey where many of the major traditional dictionaries of Persian were compiled from the mid tenth to the eighteenth centuries, simultaneously a Persian vernacular was developed in India and it was from here that the English officers of the East India company learnt Farsi before abolishing it as an official language of the Indian courts in 1837.
Thai (Siamese, Central Thai) belongs to the Tai language family, a subgroup of the Kadai or Kam-Tai family. All members of the Tai family derive from a single proto-parent designated as Proto-Tai. Linguistic research has shown the area near the border of northern Vietnam and south-eastern China as the probable place of origin for the Tai languages. Today the Tai family includes languages spoken in Assam, northern Burma, all of Thailand including the peninsula, Laos, northern Vietnam and the Chinese provinces of Yunnan, Guizhou and Guangxi.
Sukhothai, established in central Thailand in the early and mid-thirteenth century, represents the first major kingdom of the Thai. The system used here prevailed at the time of the creation of the writing system by King Ramkhamhaeng (1275-1317) in the latter part of the thirteenth century.
In 1350 the centre of power shifted from Sukhothai to Ayutthaya. The Ayyutthaya period (1350-1767) saw large numbers of Sanskrit and Pali words borrowed, although this phenomenon was not strictly limited to this period. These Indic loanwords comprise a large portion of the technical vocabularies of science, government, education, religion and literature. During the Ayutthaya period, Thai began to acquire other characteristics that have led the Thai to regard their language as highly complex and stratified, difficult to acquire even for the very educated. In part, this impression grew because of the Indic loanwords. But far more central to the creation of this image was the proliferation of titles, pronouns, royal vocabulary and royal kin terminology that reflected the growing stratification and complexity of the society.
This terminology and the emphasis upon its correct use began to be standardised during the reign of King Mongkut (1851-68). Valuing adherence to ancient patterns that produced correctness in the language, Mongkut issued decrees and proclamations that formalised place names and titles.
In Thailand, Thai serves as the official national language, It is the language taught and used in the schools, the one used by the media and the one used for all government affairs. Outside of Bangkok and the central plains, other dialects and languages of the Tai family coexist with the standard: Northern Thai (Kam Muang or Yuan) in the north, Southern Thai in the south and Lao or northeastern Thai in the north-east. Still other languages such as Lue, Phuthai and Phuan are spoken as small speech islands in various parts of the country. In addition, Thailand has many minority groups who speak languages that do not belong to the Thai family.
The quotes below are taken from a book called Disorder in the American Courts. These are actually outtakes of conversations had in court proceedings, taken down word for word by court reporters.
ATTORNEY: Are you sexually active?
WITNESS: No, I just lie there.
___________________________________________________
ATTORNEY: What gear were you in at the moment of the impact?
WITNESS: Gucci sweats and Reeboks.
______________________________________
ATTORNEY: This myasthenia gravis, does it affect your memory at all?
WITNESS: Yes.
ATTORNEY: And in what ways does it affect your memory?
WITNESS: I forget.
ATTORNEY: You forget? Can you give us an example of something you forgot?
____________________________________
ATTORNEY: What was the first thing your husband said to you that morning?
WITNESS: He said, ‘Where am I, Cathy?’
ATTORNEY: And why did that upset you?
WITNESS: My name is Susan!
______________________________________
ATTORNEY: Do you know if your daughter has ever been involved in voodoo?
WITNESS: We both do.
ATTORNEY: Voodoo?
WITNESS: We do.
ATTORNEY: You do?
WITNESS: Yes, voodoo.
______________________________________
ATTORNEY: Now doctor, isn’t it true that when a person dies in his sleep, he doesn’t
know about it until the next morning?
WITNESS: Did you actually pass the bar exam?
___________________________________
ATTORNEY: The youngest son, the twenty-year-old, how old is he?
WITNESS: Uh, he’s twenty.
_______________________________________
ATTORNEY: Were you present when your picture was taken?
WITNESS: Are you serious?
______________________________________
ATTORNEY: So the date of conception (of the baby) was August 8th?
WITNESS: Yes.
ATTORNEY: And what were you doing at that time?
WITNESS: Uh…. I was gett’in laid!
______________________________________
ATTORNEY: She had three children, right?
WITNESS: Yes.
ATTORNEY: How many were boys?
WITNESS: None.
ATTORNEY: Were there any girls?
WITNESS: Are you serious? Your Honor, I think I need a different attorney. Can I
get a new attorney?
______________________________________
ATTORNEY: How was your first marriage terminated?
WITNESS: By death.
ATTORNEY: And by whose death was it terminated?
WITNESS: Now whose death do you suppose terminated it?
______________________________________
ATTORNEY: Can you describe the individual?
WITNESS: He was about medium height and had a beard.
ATTORNEY: Was this a male or a female?
WITNESS: Guess.
____________________________________
ATTORNEY: Is your appearance here this morning pursuant to a
deposition notice which I sent to your attorney?
WITNESS: No, this is how I dress when I go to work.
______________________________________
ATTORNEY: Doctor, how many of your autopsies have you performed on dead people?
WITNESS: All my autopsies are performed on dead people. Would you like
to rephrase that?
___________ __________________________
ATTORNEY: ALL your responses MUST be oral, OK? What school did you go to?
WITNESS: Oral.
_____________________________________
ATTORNEY: Do you recall the time that you examined the body?
WITNESS: The autopsy started around 8:30 p.m.
ATTORNEY: And Mr. Denton was dead at the time?
WITNESS: No, he was sitting on the table wondering why I was doing an autopsy on him!
____________________________________
And the best for last?
ATTORNEY: Doctor, before you performed the autopsy, did you check for a pulse?
WITNESS: No.
ATTORNEY: Did you check for blood pressure?
WITNESS: No.
ATTORNEY: Did you check for breathing?
WITNESS: No.
ATTORNEY: So, then it is possible that the patient was alive when you began the autopsy?
WITNESS: No.
ATTORNEY: How can you be so sure, Doctor?
WITNESS: Because his brain was sitting on my desk in a jar.
ATTORNEY: I see, but could the patient have still been alive,
nevertheless?
WITNESS: Yes, it is possible that he could have been alive and
practicing law.
An initial distinction should be drawn between Turkish which is the spoken language, and Turkic which is the family of languages to which Turkish belongs. The main geographic locations of Turkic languages are Turkey, Iran, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, The Caucuses and Siberia. In addition there are substantial Turkic speaking communities in North West China. In terms of linguistic structure, the Turkic languages are very close to one another.
Turkish is the official and dominant language of Turkey where it is the native language of 80 per cent of the population. The largest linguistic minority in Turkey is formed of Kurdish speakers mainly in South Eastern turkey. Turkish is also the co-official language of Cyprus (with Greek). But the largest number of Turkish speakers outside turkey is to be found in the Balkans, especially Bulgaria, but also Macedonia and Greece.
Modern Turkish is a standardisation of the Istanbul dialect of Anatolian. The first Anatolian Turkish documents date from the Thirteenth century show that the literary tradition of Central Asia was only very tenuously carried over by the Turkish tribes (who had converted to Islam earlier) after invading Anatolia from the East in the late Eleventh century. These tribes were influenced heavily by Persian and Arabic from the beginning of their settling in Anatolia because of the higher prestige and development of the culture and literature of those neighbouring Muslim nations.
From the beginning of its Anatolian period, Turkish was written in Arabic script, until the Latin script was adopted in 1928, one of the various reforms introduced after the founding of the Turkish Republic with the aim of westernising the country.
In the literature written for Scholarly, administrative and literary purposes, the Persian and Arabic components became so prevalent that Ottoman became a mixed language, having lost some of its characteristic Turkic properties to the point of not being usable as a medium of communication between al social classes. During the same time, however, there was also a considerable production of mystical literature and folk poetry which was written for the less educated classes, in the language used by those segments of the population, namely Anatolian Turkish as influenced very little by Persian and Arabic. These works are very close to the Republican Turkish of today and can be understood without much difficulty.
After Atatürk founded the Republic of Turkey, he founded the “Turkish Language Foundation” (Türk Dil Kurumu, TDK), which had the aim of “purifying” the language by replacing words of Arabic and Persian origin. By banning the these words in the newspapers, the foundation was successfull in removing hundreds of Arabic words from Turkish. While most of the words brought into the language by TDK are new, TDK also suggested using old Turkish words which had not been used in the language for hundreds of years.
Pashto belongs to the North-Eastern group within the Iranian branch of Indo-European languages. Pashto has long been recognised as the most important language of the North-West Frontier Province between Pakistan and India. The Pashto language is believed to have originated in the Kandahar/Helmand areas of Afghanistan. Dari often dominates over Afghan/Pashto in Afghanistan in everyday government use since the capital was moved to Kabul from Kandahar in the 18th century. Pashto was declared by royal decree in 1936 to be the national language of Afghanistan instead of Dari Persian, however today they both share this status and are still widely spoken across present day Afghanistan with most Afghanis being proficient in both languages. The areas of Afghanistan to which Pashto is native are those in the East, South, and South-West bordering on Pakistan. Indeed many inhabitants of the areas on the Pakistani side of the border with Afghanistan belong to the Pashtun ethnic group and are speakers of Pashto. In fact the name of the language, Pashto, also denotes the strong code of customs, morals and manners of the Pashtun people.
Vocabulary
The Pashto lexicon is fascinating as it contains side-by-side words going back to the dawn of Iranian, neologisms of all ages and loanwords from several languages acquired over two thousand years. The oldest of these loan words date from the Greek occupation of Bactria in the Third century BC. No special trace of a Zoroastrian or a Buddhist past remains, but the Islamic period has brought a great number of Arabic and Persian cultural words. Throughout the centuries everyday words also have been borrowed from Persian in the West and from Indo-Aryan neighbours in the East. The greater part of the basic vocabulary is nevertheless inherited from Eastern Iranian.
Script
The earliest authenticated records of Pashto as a literary language date from the late sixteenth century, at a time when the whole area was part of the Mogul empire. The language has always been written in the Perso-Arabic script with the addition of certain modified letters to represent the peculiar consonant phonemes of Pashto. In the earliest manuscripts there is a considerable variety in the representation of three consonants, but later a standard system emerged. Since the adoption of Pashto as a national language in Afghanistan a number of innovations have been introduced into the script which have aided clarity.
The Bengali language (Bangla), together with Assamese and Oriya, belong to the eastern group within the Magadhan subfamily of Indo-Aryan languages. The two main features of difference between the Magadhan languages and other Indo-Aryan languages are phonology and Grammar. There are several sounds that occur in Maghadan languages which are absent in other Indo-Aryan languages, while grammatical peculiarities of Bengali include an absence of gender and the lack of number as a verbal category. Bengali the official language of Bangladesh and one of the official languages in the Indian states of West Bengal and Tripura. There are approximately 200 million speakers of Bengali making it the fifth most spoken language in the world.
Literary Development
Writing and literature have played a significant role in the evolution of Bengali linguistic identity. A common script was in use throughout Eastern India centuries before the emergence of the separate Magadhan vernaculars. However even after the separation of the modern Magadhan languages from one another, literary composition in Eastern India seems to have reflected a common milieu regardless of linguistic boundaries. Although Vernacular writings appear in Eastern India by AD 1200, vernacular writings for several centuries after show a common inheritance in the whole Eastern area, regardless of language. An example of this is the collection of Buddhist hymns called the Caryapada, which although written in Old Bengali, has commentaries written on it in Assamese and Oriya, both treating the text as if it were a specimen of it’s own language.
One of the most crucial events in the formation of Bengali linguistic identity was the establishment of Islamic rule in the early Thirteenth century. This led to six hundred years of political unity in Bengal, under which it was possible for a distinctly national style to evolve. From the outset of their rule, the Muslim aristocracy did little discourage the composition of works on non Islamic religious themes such as the Ramayana Hindu religious epic. On the contrary, they often lent their patronage to the authors of such works, who were both Muslim and Hindu.
Diglossia and Dialects
Vertical differentiation, or diglossia, is a feature of the current standard Bengali language. The literary language (sadhu bhasa) shows greater conservatism in word morphology as well as lexis which is characterised by heavy borrowing from Sanskrit language. The spoken language (colti bhasa) is the everyday medium of informal discourse. In recent decades it has also gained more prominence in more formal discourse both in written and spoken from. There is an extensive existence of Bengali dialects both in terms of numbers and mutual difference between them. Some dialects (the extreme eastern dialect of Chittagong) are considered to be unintelligible to the wider Bengali speaking people.
Bengali Script
The Bengali script is known as Bangla alphasyllabary , a Brahmic script similar to the Devanagari alphasyllabary of Hindi and Sanskrit. The Bangla script has 12 vowel characters and 52 consonant characters.
The Bangla spelling system comes from an older version of the language, not taking into acount some sound mergers that have occurred in the spoken language. For example, the alphabet has two letters for the sound [dʒ] and three for the sound [ʃ]. Conversely, a number of letters now have more than one pronunciation. Furthermore, many letters and diacritics have become “silent letters” in the spoken language.
Arabic is a semitic language closely related to Hebrew and Aramaic. It is spoken as an official language in a total of 28 countries in the Middle East (such as Lebanon, Syrian, Iraq, Kuwait, Qatar, Yemen, etc) and across North Africa (such as Egypt, Libya, Algeria, etc). Because of the special status accorded to Arabic in Islam, due to the Quran being written in Arabic, Muslims all over the world are expected to receive some formal instruction in the language to enable reading of the holy scripts. Modern Standard Arabic (MSA)
Modern standard arabic is best charecterized as the form which resembles closest the classical (fus-ha) Arabic of the Quran, which is devoid of any regional accent and intelligble to all Arabic speakers. Modern Standard Arabic and Classical Arabic are infact grammatically and sytanctically the same, the difference lies primarily in the extensive vocabulary of classical Arabic much of which is rarely used in Modern Standard Arabic. This is generally recognized as being the most eloquent variety of arabic. While Modern Standard Arabic is the only written form used across the entire Arab world, it’s spoken counterpart is usually confined to the media, used in news broadcasting , factual programs and to a lesser extent talk shows. In contrast, spoken Arabic differs greatly throughout the Arab world with every country possesing its own dialect, which are sometimes so different that they are mutually unintelligable.
The vast majority of spoken Arabic takes place in dialect all over the Arab world, however all educated Arabs ar expected to be able to converse in standard arabic when the need arises. This is particularly likely when two Arabs from different countries meet and the dialect of each is unfamiliar to the other.
Arabic and Islam
As the Quran is written in Arabic and much of it’s meaning is bound to the cultural context of 8th century Arabia , it is often deemed impossible to produce translations of words or phrases without losing some of the significance and poetic eloquence these same phrases hold in arabic. Because of this, Arabic has maintained it’s position of primacy as the language of Islam and despite the fact that the majority of the worlds Muslims are not Arabs , religious instruction in the texts of Islam still takes place in Arabic in all Muslim countries. This accounts for the knoweldge that many non-Arab Auslims have of the Arabic language although this is usually confined to a memorizing of a few phrases. Although Arabic and Islam are closely linked, there are non-Muslim communities of Arabs (Christians and Jews) throught the Middle East and North Africa who are not only native Arabic speakers but perform their worship and read their holy scripts in the Arabic language.
Foreign players will have to talk a good game under new immigration rules that are due to come into force in the autumn. Players from outside the European Union will have one year to learn English and to pass an exam to prove that they have mastered the basics. If they fail, they will be forced to pack up their boots and head home.
The measures are part of the new points-based visa system that the Government is introducing, which has been backed by Arsène Wenger, the Arsenal manager. “Personally, I am for the rule,” Wenger said. “I believe that if you go to a foreign country you have to have the ambition to speak the language. If you want to understand the culture of a country, it is very difficult if you do not speak the language.”
President-elect Barack Obama’s speeches are proving a best-seller in Japan — as an aid to learning English.
An English-language textbook, “The Speeches of Barack Obama,” has sold more than 400,000 copies in two months, a big hit in a country where few hit novels sell more than a million copies a year.
Japanese have a fervor for learning English and many bookstores have a corner dedicated to dozens of journals in the language, many of them now featuring the new U.S. leader’s face.
“Speeches by presidents and presidential candidates are excellent as listening tools to learn English, because their contents are good and their words are easy to catch,” said Yuzo Yamamoto of Asahi Press, which produced the best-selling text book.
“Obama’s is especially so. His speeches are so moving, and he also uses words such as ‘yes, we can,’ ‘change’ and ‘hope’ that even Japanese people can memorize,” he said.
Speeches by President George W. Bush and former nominee John Kerry’s four years ago did not have the same appeal, however, and nor do those made by Japanese politicians, Yamamoto said.
Entries (RSS)