Despite being the fifth most spoken language globally, with some 280 million native speakers, Arabic translation lags well behind most of the lesser-spoken languages, including Russian, Greek, Polish and Czech.

According to the UNESCO Index Translation, Arabic translation has been so low to the extent that, out of top 50 languages it is the 17th language being translated to other languages, and 29th target language (translations to Arabic).

A one-day workshop, organized in cooperation with the EU Literature Across Frontiers (LAF) organization, was held to explore the reasons behind this huge gap. Translators, publishers and supporting organizations discussed the challenges facing the trade and brainstormed solutions to move forward with the translations into and from Arabic.

The main reasons given behind the poor conditions in the field of Arabic translation were the translator’s lack of proficiency in the language, the poor quality of contracts leading to unfair remuneration, and how these discourage many talented young people from making this their life career.

Alexandra Buchler, representing LAF at the workshop, offered the following observation.

"Regarding translation grants, covering costs of translation and sometimes production costs and promotion costs, the rules expected are related to quality, copyright holding, marketing and distribution plan and contracts, plus proof of payment, for the translator."

Workshop panelists further concluded that in order for Arabic to reach a higher stage in translation, much more work and funding is required.

The average publisher or translator cannot be expected to handle this all on their own. Instead more public support is required, starting with increased education and resources, including enhanced business expertise and market knowledge.

See Also

• More about translation
  Using a 3-step process ensures that your documents are rendered seamlessly and accurately into or from Arabic to preserve every bit of the original meaning and nuance.
• Why Arabs translate a small fraction of publications relative to other languages?
  Translators and publishers speak on the challenges along the way to getting Arab translations up to speed with other languages, concluding that a one-man solution is impossible.