Intercultural Communication and Translation News

The localisation company, Translate.org.za, have launched a year long project called Decathlon to translate ten computer programs into various international languages.

The company recently received generous funding from the international grantmaking foundation, the Open Society Institute to help volunteers in those countries help make computer programs available in their own languages.

During the project, which is named the Decathlon project, volunteer translators from all over the world will be assisted to translate ten computer applications into their own languages. The Decathlon
project is a continuation of Translate.org.za’s efforts to promote the creation of translation communities by volunteer native speakers in all countries.

According to Samuel Murray, the Decathlon project leader, many world languages face an uphill struggle in countries where computer programs are in English despite the fact that few people speak English fluently. People who are passionate about their own languages do not always have the technical expertise to help make more software available in their languages, he says.

The Decathlon project was designed to bridge the gap between volunteer translators and developers of opensource software. The project makes use of a web-based translation tool, Pootle, which was created by Translate.org.za specifically to help volunteers do translation without requiring any programming expertise.

Read more > Press Release 

BMC Group, Inc., a leading provider of information management support services for the legal, financial, corporate and medical industries, today announced the introduction of its internationalized multi-language VDR capability. This represents an important user experience enhancement and addition to BMC Group’s VDR offering. The first phase of this release will allow clients to now have their virtual data room configured in Japanese and Cyrillic in addition to English. With the rise of cross border transactions and growing number of multi-national clients and users, BMC Group has responded by providing an internationalized VDR platform and has led with the Japanese language interface, launched in December 2007. The internationalized capability allows the users and clients to easily administer and manage their preferred language, add/edit languages or countries, and receive alerts and emails in their preferred language.

“These enhancements to our technology have been made in response to increasing demands internationally and specifically in Japan and Russia for a local language platform which can offer file names and indexing in that language and full text search within the data room. Cyrillic became the third official alphabet of the EU following the accession of Bulgaria in January, 2007. So, in addition to Russia, we see many opportunities with the growth of many of the other former Soviet Union countries such as Ukraine and Belarus,” said Sean Allen, CEO of BMC Group Inc.

“The Japanese language VDR has proved to be a great success with our clients. We expect significant growth in Japan using this internationalized platform and we will also introduce a Chinese language version early in 2008,” Allen added.

Read more > BMC 

Were you aware that British Sign Language is the second most widely used language in the UK?  Despite this however, British Sign Language still fails to have the same legal recognition afforded to those using other indigenous UK languages, such as Scottish Gaelic and Welsh.

Deaf members of our community face such discrimination on a daily basis and are often precluded from participating in society as fully contributing members. Take for example, the recent well publicised case of Mr McWhinney who was told that he could not serve on a jury due to his need to have a sign language interpreter present for deliberations.

The desire to help further improve services for the Deaf Community and to help publicise the cause makes Kwintessential extremely happy to be able to launch their new British Sign Language Interpreter Service.

In addition to providing interpreting services for the majority of world spoken languages, Kwintessential now seek to address the interpreting needs of those within the community who require sign language interpreting services.

“We have regular requests from clients for the provision of British Sign Language interpreters and we are now seeking to bridge that gap.  Focusing on fully qualified sign language interpreters only, we have built an excellent team of individuals who will be engaged for assignments. As with our spoken language interpreting services, we will invest all our efforts into ensuring that an excellent level of service and professionalism is provided and delivered. We will also help promote the campaign to have BSL recognised as a legal language,” explains Nikki Johnson, who will be overseeing the service.

The British Sign Language Interpreting service forms a significant part of our strategy in gaining recognition as the UK leader in setting and delivering excellence in the provision of language services.

Please visit the service at > British Sign Language Interpreters

Business globalization and localization industry research and consulting firm, Common Sense Advisory (http://www.commonsenseadvisory.com), has released its technology and business model predictions for the language services and software industries for 2008. From machine translation to the impact of the shrinking U.S. dollar, the analysts include the following as globalization and localization trends for the coming year:

1. Foreign exchange drives more translation and shifts production centers. The shrinking U.S. dollar signals an opportunity for companies in markets with strong currencies to get more translation for less money. Meanwhile, the same euro-dollar exchange rates will cause pains for language service providers billing in dollars but paying for staff and utilities stronger currencies; many LSPs will bill even their American customers in euros and look for translators they can pay in dollars. While they’re shopping for bargain-basement iPods and Hermès scarves in New York and Chicago, non-American LSPs will look to buy U.S. vendors. Meanwhile, a weak dollar may translate into more exports for American companies - thus increasing the need for translation services in the United States. But with U.S. rappers flashing euros instead of Benjamins, it’s time to hedge your dollar-denominated investments.

2. Technology from new sources breaks traditional translation molds. The wave of new language technology that started in 2005 will continue, productizing new approaches from East and South Asia, Eastern and Central Europe, and the Middle East. Besides the switch in geography, firms closer to the corporate mainstream like acrolinx and MadCap will add multilingual functions, thus enabling cross-border marketing, CRM, and customer service applications. Open source devotees will add even more options to the multilingual support mix. Meanwhile, mash-ups will plant the seeds for a gmail-like translation memory software as a service.

3. Terminology pushes to the forefront. Terminologists will start to be seen as the druids of the translation process in 2008. Early adopters at IBM, Medtronic, and SAP will feel vindicated in their long-term, systematic attention to terminology. Companies at the third and fourth level of the Localization Maturity Model will begin paying for full-time terminologists. In fast-moving companies, Wiki technology and other collaboration tools will move terminology from a fervent hope to more of a mainstream function. Vendors of terminology management tools will feel pressure to open their product’s application programming interfaces.

Read more> Common Sense Advisory 

HOUSTON, TX, December 12, 2007 – Expatriate families know it’s not always easy when your family is relocated by a corporate move, a military transfer, a missionary or diplomatic assignment or an overseas educational opportunity.

In fact – more often than not – it’s a huge challenge for parents and children alike which requires support.

That’s the topic of the 10th Annual Families in Global Transition International Conference at the Omni Houston Hotel, March 6-8. The conference theme is: “Supporting the Family: Accomplishing the Assignment”. (www.figt.org)

The conference is a grass-roots “think tank” for internationally mobile families.

“Expatriate families and their needs are often overlooked. This is the only conference in the world that brings together representatives of the corporate, military, missionary, diplomatic and educational sectors,” said Joyce Blake, executive director of the nonprofit organization that sponsors it.

Human resources personnel, relocation experts, educators and counselors attend to discuss the challenges and benefits of living abroad and returning home. Recertification credits are offered through the Human Resource Certification Institute.

Five pre-conference, skill-building workshops are offered, which include:

• “Welcome Aboard YOUR Cultural Transition Journey: A Family Resiliency-Building Program

• Navigation Tools for Successful Expatriate Transitions

• “Could You be an Expat Entrepreneur?”

• “International Marriage Mentoring: 12 Conversations”

• “Wise as Doves and Innocent as Serpents: Promoting Organizational Health in International Settings”

Concurrent sessions focus on:

• Third Culture Kids (TCK’s)

• Family and organizational transitions

• Repatriation, HR, ROI and educational transition

• Cross-sector best practices

• Concerns of expatriate teenagers and spouses

Space is limited for the 3-hour, pre-conference workshops. Visit www.figt.org to register and learn more about the sessions and presenters. For information about conference fees, registration and schedules, visit www.figt.org or call 317-888-9678.

# # #

About Families in Global Transition

Families in Global Transition (FIGT) is a 503c3 nonprofit organization that offers conferences and year-round benefits through its Associates Program and expanding educational websites. Sandy Thomas, Director of USA Girl Scouts Overseas, of Girl Scouts of the USA, is president of the FIGT 11-member board of directors. Information can be obtained about the organization at www.figt.org or by calling 317-888-9678.

In the market for an English dictionary - or a translation dictionary for Spanish, French, or German? Ultralingua’s Winter Sale is usually limited to current users, but this year it’s open to everyone. Savings of over 20% (through December 31, 2007) apply across the board.

To take advantage of the Winter Sale discounts, just go to www.ultralingua.com, choose the products you want and enter the discount code ULTW7 in your shopping cart. The discount will be automatically applied.

Sale pricing applies to Ultralingua’s flagship Windows and Macintosh Dictionary/Thesaurus products as well as other multiplatform, multilingual dictionaries: the regular price of $29.95 is now only $23.95. This covers platforms like Windows, Macintosh, Palm OS, Windows Mobile, Windows Smartphone and Symbian. The Collins line of dictionaries, and the Grammatica spelling and grammar checkers are also on sale.

Online dictionary subscriptions are also sale-priced: just $23.95 for a year of high-quality dictionary and translation access for more than a dozen common language pairs (even Latin and Esperanto), including advanced features for most languages, like stemmed searches and verb conjugations for all tenses. The Winter Sale applies to the new iPhone and iPod touch versions as well.

Read more> Ultralingua 

AOL today announced the next steps in its ambitious global expansion effort with the launch of new local language versions of the AOL India portal, http://www.aol.in, and the launch of Truveo’s popular video search engine serving eight countries, including India.

“India is a very important market for AOL, and these announcements show our commitment to serving online consumers here with a robust portal and industry leading video search tools,” said Ron Grant, President and COO of AOL. “These are also important steps in our ongoing efforts to make AOL a truly global company. We started this year with three international portals in Europe, and we will end 2008 with a presence in 30 countries around the world.”

AOL.in is launching content channels in the Hindi and Tamil languages, improving the breadth of AOL’s offerings at a time when the online audience in India is skyrocketing. The number of Internet users in urban India has grown by 28% in the past year, and about 60% of all active online Indians (30 million) prefer to read in local Indian languages.* The Hindi and Tamil language portals will have language sections in News, Cinema and Astrology.Read more> AOL 

Monday 22nd October - Book launch - The Fisherman and the Cat: A Tail to Help Fight Poverty!

Author: Keya Ashraf, Translator: Bhadra Patel, Illustrations by: Shirley Puiyan Cheung

Bilingual storybook & CD from Chadpur Press helps tackle poverty with ActionAid. Price £17.99, Hardback

Book launch:

ActionAid and Chadpur Press are holding the official book launch event for ‘The Fisherman and the Cat’ at Stanford’s, Covent Garden. Members of the public are welcome to come and meet the author and translator. For every copy of the book sold during the event, Stanford’s have kindly offered to donate all proceeds to ActionAid.

Come and meet the writer, translator and illustrator!

Date: Monday 22 October 2007

Time: 5.30pm – 6.30pm

Address: Stanford’s, 12- 14 Long Acre Road, Covent Garden London, WC2E 9LP

“The Fisherman and the Cat” is an enchanting tale for all ages which aims to unite communities and raise global issues by highlighting the need for communities to work together. It tells the story of a small village in India where traditional fishing has been supplanted by the arrival of corporate fishing trawlers.

Author and Director of Chadpur Press, Keya Ashraf has written the story to encourage the learning of Indian languages in Britain, as well as to spread the message that poverty is the result of unfair trade systems.

The audio CD features Bhadra Patel, an award-winning librarian of 25 years who has made significant contributions in the field of library services to minority communities. Music is by Jonathan Mayer, son of the renowned Indo-Jazz musician, John Mayer.

Chadpur Press will donate 5% of the sale price of the book (£17.99) to ActionAid. The publishing house will also publish the story in Punjabi and Bengali later on this year.

“The Fisherman and the Cat” (ISBN 978-0-9556312-0-7) is available to buy online from www.chadpur-press.com via a booking form or by telephone ordering calling 0207 100 1692. It can also be purchased from Stanford’s, Amazon or the Arthur Probsthain bookshop

Please contact:

Keya Ashraf on 0207 100 1692 or 07745050 200 / keya@chadpur-press.com

For more information about the “Taking the Fish” Campaign

Please contact:

Beatrice Cooke on 020 7561 7646 or beatrice.cooke@actionaid.org

About Chadpur Press

Author and Director of Chadpur Press, Keya Ashraf founded Chadpur Press in 2003 with the aim to create and publish bilingual books, to make great Asian literature accessible to an English speaking population. By using storytelling, Chadpur Press aims to encourage bilingualism in British Asian communities and encourage the English community to learn Indian languages to bridge the gap between communities. The aim of the Fisherman Series is to raise awareness of global economic and environmental issues.

About ActionAid

ActionAid works in Africa, Asia, Europe and the Americas to fight global poverty and tackle the injustice and inequity that cause it.

Multilingual Search has released the latest “Global Search Report,” an annual compilation of search engine usage and PPC statistics from countries around the world. The aim of the report is to raise the profile of markets outside the usual well reported US/UK sphere and should provide essential information to those interested in multilingual marketing.

Each report also provides a snapshot of search engine usage and activity around the world, which can be compared against for the following year. This should help identify growth or decline for the search engines in each local market.

Download the report here > Report 2007 

Cultural Diversity Forum - Call for the fourth thematic e-Conference

Deadline: 31st October 2007

This is the call for the launch of the fourth thematic e-Conference in the Cultural Diversity Forum.

The Cultural Diversity Forum is part of the network of excellence SUS.DIV, “Sustainable Development in a Diverse World”, 2005-2010, www.susdiv.org . SUS.DIV focuses on cultural diversity as a key element of a new strategy for sustainable development. It integrates European research capabilities across disciplines and countries to provide our society and polity with the instruments for managing it. The network is co-ordinated by Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei (FEEM) under the scientific lead of Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (K.U.Leuven).

The Cultural Diversity Forum aims at creating enduring dialogue between actors interested in cultural diversity at different levels. Actors from varying geographical locations and professional backgrounds are brought together in dedicated virtual spaces called “E-Conferences”.

Each e-Conference is issue-specific and is designed to create room for lively interaction on a topic linked to sustainable development in a diverse world. The fourth E-Conference should investigate about cultural dialogue and its role as a mechanism leading to knowledge creation and social capital and as a process promoting social cohesion.

How to propose your topic. If you are interested in proposing a topic for the fourth e-Conference, please send an e-mail to elena.lanza@feem.it by 31st October 2007 (subject: SUS.DIV Cultural Diversity Forum - Fourth thematic e-Conference) specifying your name and affiliation and providing a short description of your topic (max length: 500 words). Academics, stakeholders, NGOs, local authorities and governmental audiences, students and lay people all over the world are welcome to contribute.

The final decision will be taken by SUS.DIV Executive Committee by 15th November 2007, when the fourth e-Conference will also be launched on the web site.