The idea of promoting cultural diversity around the world sounds reasonable enough. It recognizes that everyone profits from the free flow of ideas, words and images. It encourages preservation of, say, indigenous traditions and minority languages. It treats the cultures of rich and poor countries as equals. And, most topically, it offers a healthy antidote to cultural homogeneity.

Try turning this seemingly straightforward idea into an international treaty, however, and things soon become complicated. Since October 2003, the 190 members of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization have been working on what is provisionally called the Convention on the Protection of the Diversity of Cultural Contents and Artistic Expression. It is meant to be approved by consensus this fall, but don’t count on it. There is still no agreement on the convention’s final name.

That, though, is a minor issue compared with more fundamental differences. Led by France and Canada, a majority of countries are asserting the right of governments to safeguard, promote and even protect their cultures from outside competition. Opposing them, a smaller group led by the United States argues that cultural diversity would best flourish in the freedom of the globalized economy.

A fresh bid to break the deadlock is under way at the headquarters of Unesco in Paris, where delegates and experts are wrestling with hundreds of proposed amendments to the convention’s first draft. Yet the more they advance toward concrete definitions, some delegates believe, the less likely they are to reach consensus.

The reason is simple: Behind the idealistic screen of cultural diversity, weighty economic and political issues are at stake.

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Miami-based Bela Broadcasting, a Spanish language television programmer and independent station operator, purchased former NBC affiliate KMOH-TV last month from Gannett Communications for $5.25 million to tap the growing Hispanic market in Las Vegas as well as Phoenix.

With Hispanics comprising 26 percent of the valley’s 1.7 million people and spending about $33 million weekly on goods and services, the latest entrant to local Hispanic media further demonstrates the demographic shift in the local market. It’s a shift that has forced advertisers and their agencies to accommodate the swelling niche by servicing it.

While KMOH and Bela are hoping to cash in on advertisers’ needs by betting that the local Hispanic population is large enough to support a station that specializes in family and children’s programming, the new owners have numerous steps to take before capitalizing on their investment.

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Lawmakers in new European Union member country Estonia have got bogged down when ratifying some pieces of EU legislation because of poor translation, a press report said Monday.

“Theres a huge web of problems in connection with translating (EU laws),” Rein Lang, chairman of the Estonian parliaments European affairs committee, said in the Eesti Paevaleht daily Monday.

“The government has to make sure the English and Estonian-language versions of the laws are identical.”

The ratification of several EU acts has stalled in the Estonian parliament because of mistakes spotted in their translation, which has resulted in the documents having to be retranslated.

Officials have said the quality of translation has been patchy because of the huge amount of acts that needed to be translated before May 1, 2004, when Estonia joined the EU.

More than 100,000 pages of text have been translated, often under pressure of very tight deadlines, said Hille Saluaar of the Estonian Legal Language Centre.

Today, with Estonia a member of the EU, most translation work is being done in Brussels.

About 100 translators have moved from Estonia to the EU institutions in Brussels, causing a shortage of translators at home in the Baltic state.

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English just about remains the prevalent language online, but making sense of some sites is tricky unless you’ve taken the time to learn a new language.

However, technology is on hand to help out with those moments when you find material online, in books and magazines or from far-flung friends or family that has you reaching for the language phrasebook.

Alternatively, there may be an important document from Europe or further abroad that you need to respond to quickly. Fear not, as the internet provides online language translators. It can even help you get on with things when you’re abroad if you have access to a handheld computer and know where to look.

Fishing for meaning
Babel Fish is the most famous online translator. Its name is taken from the novel The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams, who in turn borrowed it from the Bible. The Babel Fish lived in people’s ears and translated languages from all over the universe into English for the book’s hero.

Surprisingly, given its reputation as the original translation site, Babel Fish seems to have been slightly outdone by an upstart. Once again Google’s translation service picks up where others have left off and, although it makes no great strides toward perfect English, it does at least manage to pick up on some of Babel Fish’s omissions…

Online translators should not be relied on to provide the exact meaning of foreign words and phrases, but they can give a good idea of the gist of the meaning and when the alternative is knowing nothing at all, it’s not exactly a risk.

Web of words
Many sites also provide the option to translate an entire web page from its native language into English. Altavista and Google both have a section where a web address can simply be entered into a box. From there it will automatically take you to a version of the site where all block text has been translated.

Again, expect varying results from this method and be aware that text in images will not be translated. The good thing about this is that any links you click on while looking at the translated site will also be translated into the language you requested.

If you’re looking for something a little more accurate, it is possible to buy software that considers the nuances of words and grammar to give a much better translation.

Try Systran as a starting point. The company provides the software that powers the Altavista site but also offers professional translation tools to home users. However, the company warns in its promotional literature that this software is mainly for getting the gist of what a document is trying to say and if you want to read or publish in any higher quality then a good degree of user input may be required.

Babylon Software also offers translation tools for Windows…

A roving eye
There may be times when it is essential that you get a very accurate translation of a foreign document but you don’t want to fork out huge amounts of money on software that may not necessarily provide you with the perfect answer.

Sometimes having a human eye run over it is the only possible alternative.

Don’t worry if you don’t know anyone that speaks or reads Japanese, Arabic or Spanish, because there are websites that can provide you with this service at a reasonable price. One reliable site is TransAction which does the whole thing online if you wish, including getting a quote and receiving and delivering the requested documents.

You may think that to get a foreign document translated you will first have to type in all the text for the software to analyse, along with all those unusual grammatical and punctuation marks. Not so, as a scanner and optical character recognition software can take the strain here.

The software recognises the shape of letters by scanning them in; each scanned letter or symbol is then converted to the character, number or symbol it represents. Occasionally it will mistake a letter, especially if the print quality of the document is poor but this can be solved with a bit of common sense and a spell checker.

Of course, the optical character recognition software has to feature support for the language you want to translate from. Readiris Pro… recognises 104 languages while FineReader… understands up to 107.

Verbal dexterity
If you find yourself dealing quite a lot with foreign documents or speaking to people from other countries online, you may decide that you’re ready to take the plunge and learn the language. If so, there are numerous pieces of software that can help you out.

Linguaphone courses now come on CD-ROM and as downloadable software…

Wordace (available at Amazon) is another useful tool as it helps the user get to grips with the complexities inherent in speaking like the natives, as well as having hundreds of thousands of word translations and verb conjugations, some of the building blocks of language.

If you’re simply looking for useful phrases to help you get around when you’re in a country, try Phrasebase. It’s a simple-to-use site with a whole range of phrases in many languages that have been categorised into easy to understand areas. Simply click on an area, find the phrase you’re looking for and away you go. It’s much cheaper and easier than buying and using a phrasebook, if you have online access while you’re away.

You can also buy software for handheld computers that contains hundreds of useful phrases for holidaymakers, and many will actually read out the translation so you can perfect your pronunciation and impress the locals with your efforts. Mobilearn covers French, German, Italian and Spanish…

Handy tools
If you’re staying in a foreign country, accessing the internet may not be as easy as it would be at home. Even then, would you know how to ask where the nearest cyber-cafe was? At such times, having a handheld PC with translation software installed may be the perfect solution.

One company that specialises in such software is Ectaco. It provides a range of different applications that can be used on your Pocket PC, Palm and even some advanced mobile phones.

You can even purchase software that will take a phrase you speak, translate it and then speak it back to the person you are talking to. However, this is expensive and for less… you can get a more basic phrasebook with translation capabilities.

If you’re looking to keep costs down, there are some free versions available. One example is Pocket Translator from Innersky for Pocket PCs. The website provides easy-to-follow instructions to get it up and running. But as with most things, the free versions won’t provide the same depth or ease of use as those you pay for.

Everything becomes clear
If you’re simply looking to find a way to read foreign text, and all you need to know is the basic gist of what’s being said, then the internet is the perfect place to start looking. There are lots of online translation tools that can change a slab of text, or even an entire foreign website, into English but don’t expect to understand everything that comes back using this method.

If you’re looking for more detailed translation, expect to pay for it. Generally, the better the quality of translation, whether through software or translation services, the costlier it is.

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Of course, Linguistic Solutions breaks down language and cultural barriers through translation, interpretation, foreign language instruction and cross-cultural training.

International cultures: Globalization and the offshoring of jobs to foreign countries require that we learn to work with and understand international cultures. The “American way” won’t always bring success in how we run our business or in how we develop and nurture our relationships.

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The pace of change in China during the last 15 years has been extraordinarily fast; the pace at which its literature reaches us in translation, shamefully slow. Chinese dissident writer Ma Jian is known in the English-speaking world for his award-winning travel memoir of rural China in the 1980s, Red Dust.

Since the Chinese takeover of Hong Kong in 1997, he has been living with his partner and translator in London. The Noodle Maker, the first of Jian’s novels to appear in English, is set soon after the events of Tiananmen Square in 1989, already ancient history to today’s young entrepreneurs, artists and university students.

Reading The Noodle Maker has some of the blurred effect of a time-lapse photograph — it is a hard-hitting satire of a cultural moment that has come and gone. Only a reviewer intimate with today’s China could judge to what extent its critique is still sharp.

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Audiofy Corporation, a premier digital audiobook publisher, today announced a venture with Heinle & Heinle, the former owners and publishers of the Pimsleur Foreign Language Series. As part of this venture, Audiofy will operate the popular www.pimsleurdirect.com site as an e-commerce site for the sale of Audiofy’s Pimsleur Bookchips.

Audiofy also announced the availability of its popular audiobook products through new channels, including Amazon and www.bookchips.com, Audiofy’s new ecommerce site.

“We’re excited to be delivering Pimsleur foreign language instruction and Soundview’s bestselling audiobook management summaries to a broader audience,” said Peter D. Nalle, Audiofy’s CEO. “The Audiofy platform takes these premium products and makes them easier to use, wherever you are.”

Audiofy’s Bookchips are specially formatted SD Cards that allow customers to listen to their audiobooks on most devices that have an SD Card slot, like PCs, PDAs and smartphones. The Audiofy Player provides customers without those devices with a simple and satisfying way to listen to Bookchips. The inexpensive, pocket-sized player is easy to use, whether you are driving, commuting, exercising, or just on the sofa in your living room. All Audiofy products comply with the Audiobook Compatible standard established by the Audio Publishers Association and the Consumer Electronics Association.

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Note: I personally use and recommend the Pimsleur language instruction program.

Increasingly, writers, readers and publishers are turning to literature as a bridge between cultures, particularly Western and Arab societies estranged since Arab extremists attacked the United States on Sept. 11, 2001.

This in turn is driving a boom in translation.

Those involved in the push say the American University in Cairo Press is an inspiration.

AUC Press has been publishing Arabic literature in translation for 20 years – its backlist of some 100 novels represents one of the largest collections of modern Arabic literature in English in the world.

Its latest offering is The Yacoubian Building by Al Aswany, a bestseller since it appeared in Arabic in 2002.

It’s a provocative survey of the social and political pressures of the present that have many Egyptians looking nostalgically to their more tolerant and hopeful past.

Al Aswany says it may help the world understand the political stagnation and corruption that leads many Arabs to extremism and violence.

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A strong trend toward globalization of major museums is emerging as the 21st century unfolds with institutions establishing branches in their home countries and abroad or planning to do so in the near future.

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It’s a novel of sex, romance, power and religion.

And in a post-September 11 world looking for a window on the Middle East, it is significant that Alaa Al Aswany’s The Yacoubian Building is also a novel of Egypt that has just been translated into English.

Increasingly, writers, readers and publishers are turning to literature as a bridge between cultures, particularly Western and Arab societies estranged since Muslim extremists from Saudi Arabia, Egypt and elsewhere attacked the United States on September 11, 2001. Recent years have seen the arrival of a Web site devoted to translating fiction and new grants for literary translations. Last year, the Frankfurt Book Fair, the largest of its kind in the world, chose the Arab world as its “guest of honor,” giving several hundred Arab writers and intellectuals an unprecedented chance to exchange ideas with their Western counterparts and meet publishers and agents.

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When senior Jose Kafie lived in El Salvador, his parents were actively involved in his education. They hosted a parent reunion, met with his teachers regularly and made time to talk with Kafie about school. However, once his family moved to Silver Spring in search of more opportunities, everything changed.

Now, Kafie’s parents must work long hours at several jobs to support the family and are rarely available to talk with Kafie or his teachers about his schoolwork as they once could in El Salvador. The language barrier between Kafie’s family and the school makes active parental participation nearly impossible. “It was like there was this huge wall, and they couldn’t do anything. They couldn’t express themselves to my teachers like they used to,” Kafie says.

Students all over the county must deal with this lack of communication between their parents and their teachers. MCPS has over 16,000 international students representing 154 countries and 120 languages. More than 74 percent of these families speak a primary language other than English, according to a 1999 issue of MCPS’ The Bulletin. Although MCPS has made attempts to make translations available to families who need them, their efforts have not been effective enough to prevent the alienation of non-English speaking families. As a result, these families know very little of what goes on at school and in their children’s education.

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In the eyes of foreign visitors and residents, Taiwan is a friendly and democratic country and visitors are most impressed with Taiwan’s culture, people’s friendliness and beautiful scenery, according to a survey released by the Government Information Office (GIO) yesterday.

The poll also found that visitors are least impressed with the nation’s environmental protection, internationalization and tourism facilities.

The survey, conducted between Oct. 26 and Dec. 31 last year, questioned about 1,000 foreign visitors and over 500 foreign residents, found that the dominant impression of Taiwanese people was of their friendliness, followed by diligence, politeness, reliability, openness, flexibility and high quality of life.

Foreign tourists and residents agreed that Taiwanese society is family-centered. The tourists also stressed Taiwanese society’s competitiveness, safety, fast-pace, ethics, modernization, internationalization, efficiency, freedom, order and diversity.

When asked about their impressions concerning Taiwan’s government, more than 55 percent of the foreign residents said that they were most impressed with the freedom of the media and about 53 percent cited democratic development.

More than 80 percent of foreign visitors and 85 percent of foreign residents agreed that Taiwan is better than China in terms of its democratic development and economic, cultural, social and technological development, as well as in terms of internationalization and quality of life.

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Eagan resident Maureen White Eagle watched a conversation without words dissolve all language barriers during a trip last year to Mexico.

“Neither woman spoke the other’s language but they were communicating and laughing,” White Eagle said. “They managed to make a connection through gestures and it was just amazing to see that.”

When White Eagle made her trip in October 2004, she didn’t visit the usual tourist destinations such as Cancun or Mazatlan, but instead took an opportunity to get a taste of the lifestyle of one native Mexican community.

White Eagle made the trip with Global Citizens Network, a St. Paul-based nonprofit organization. She spent more than a week working with the Totonac people of the east-central Mexico state of Puebla.

It’s those types of cross-cultural experiences like White Eagle described that GCN wants to foster through its one-to-three-week trips to 10 indigenous communities across the world.

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Known as Exam Hell, school entrance exams are notoriously stressful in Japan, but students in their droves are turning to what they believe is one very lucky charm -– a bar of Kit Kat.

As well as being a favourite lunchtime snack, students are now bringing the Nestlé chocolate bar into the exam room because the phrase “kitto katsu” means, “If I try, I will win.”

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This past weekend’s Iraqi election — held in Nashville as well as Baghdad — was an inspirational reminder of our city’s growing diversity and role in the wider world. Nashville was one of only five U.S. cities hosting the overseas voting for Iraq’s first free election in 50 years, chosen due to its Kurdish population — which at an estimated 8,000 is the largest in the country.

The Athens of the South is also home to large groups of Mexicans, Vietnamese and Somalis, among others. In fact, from 1990 to 2000, Nashville’s foreign-born population more than tripled from 12,662 to 39,596. In the five years since the last U.S. Census, it’s safe to say that it has continued to grow at a good clip — witness our ever-expanding dining choices on Nolensville Road.

About this time last year, Metro completed a yearlong study “looking at how immigrants are adjusting and contributing to life in Nashville and Davidson County,” and recommending ways to help them adapt to the local culture and economy.

It’s a commendable start, but only half of our responsibility. Globalization is a two-way street; as we welcome immigrants and their contributions to our city, we should also share our experience and expertise with the world.

Tennessee State University is one institution that’s made global exchange a priority by partnering over the past few years with universities in Malawi, Thailand, Ukraine, and now Tunisia. In September, the school’s Office of International Business Programs received a $194,000 grant from the State Department to share faculty, students and expertise with the University of Tunis el Manar — with the overarching goal of increasing U.S. understanding of Islamic societies.

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