As Georgia’s Hispanic population continues to soar, more emergency-service providers are learning Spanish.

And buying into translation services to bridge language barriers that can easily pop up in a life-or-death situation.

From crash-course classes in “Survival Spanish” to pay-by-the-minute translators who work in tandem with 911 operators, Georgia’s first responders are seeking ways to assist the state’s fastest growing minority population during times of crisis.

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The Nebraska Supreme Court Friday reiterated that police do not have to give an exact translation when reading Miranda rights to Spanish-speaking suspects.

The high court cited earlier rulings that said Miranda rights do not have to be given verbatim.

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Big laughs erupted in Buenos Aires, as moviegoers heard a local radio sportscaster’s voice dubbed in as one of the animated characters in “The Incredibles,” the latest Disney/Pixar hit, reports Wailin Wong in a Dow Jones Newswires dispatch. The locally familiar voice was that of Matias Martin, in the role of “the villainous Syndrome,” as voiced by Jason Lee “in the original version.” Not only did Sr. Martin lend his well-recognized sportscaster’s pipes to the part, but also “some of his trademark sports expressions and inside jokes about co-hosts.” He actually was just one of a number of local actors, singers and other celebrities cast in the Argentine version of the film, and “throwing round local slang and referencing Buenos Aires locations.”

This extra Argentine effort was a first for Disney, which “began dubbing specific versions of its films for Mexico, its fifth largest market,” only two years ago. The studio also began dubbing “two additional versions in ‘neutral’ Spanish, one for Central America — including Colombia, Venezuela and Peru — and another for the Southern Cone countries of Argentina, Uruaguay, Paraguay and Chile.”

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Hat tip: Going Global

SelectWisely has expanded its food translation card offerings to address the needs of travelers who are lactose intolerant. Visitors to their Web site can create a card specific to their travel plans. Each wallet-size laminated card translates the phrases ,“I am allergic to milk and all milk products”; and “Does this food contain milk or any milk products?”, into any of 12 different languages, including both forms of Chinese, Portuguese and Greek

SelectWisely offers cards in:
– 12 different languages. (French, Italian, Spanish, Greek, German, Russian, Polish, 2 forms of Chinese, 2 forms of Portuguese and English)
– 40 different foods. (Meat, fish, shellfish, pork, poultry, etc., as well as common allergy-producing foods such as nuts, milk, shellfish, and eggs)
– 7 different types of cards. (Single language and multiple languages/foods per card)

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Another example is the development of instantaneous language translation devices, which Kurzweil predicted will be common on cellular telephones by the end of the decade.

“Within a few years, we will be able to talk to anyone, regardless of language,” he said.

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Hat tip: Language Technology Business

Churchill quipped that the US and the UK were two countries divided by a common language. Despite a two-way stream of mass media products and mutual exchanges, this divide is still a constant operational issue for readers, writers and translators.

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Among the unanswered questions of 9-11 is the part played by the FBI in handling the various tips and information pouring through its translation section at the Washington, D.C., field office. It is in this division that certified language specialists with top secret security clearances handle the most sensitive information, from wiretaps to face-to-face interview translations between an investigating agent and a suspect. The translators often have inordinate power. Because of their expertise (or rather, the limited number of languages spoken by their bosses), translators often make the decisions on which cases to fully translate and which not to bother with. Errors can creep in: Translators may misunderstand a dialect and thus lose the meaning or context of information. On occasion, some translators’ grasp of English is so poor that they cannot convey nuances of the speakers.

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Hat tip: Blogos

With the increasing use of RSS on blogs and other sites, feed aggregators are gaining in popularity. That’s why Bloglines has gone international, it announced Wednesday.

The Redwood City, Calif., company now includes language-specific versions of its Web site in order to accommodate the millions of bloggers and readers around the world who use RSS (define) feeds or search online for the latest news and opinions in the blogosphere.

Six languages are currently hosted on Bloglines.com — traditional Chinese, French, German, Japanese, Portuguese and Spanish. Founder and CEO Mark Fletcher said Italian and several other languages will soon make an appearance.

According to the Computer Industry Almanac, there are nearly 935 million Internet users. The predominantly English-speaking counties make up little more than one-quarter of the total Internet user population. For the rest of the world, countries like China (10.68 percent), Japan (8.35 percent) and Germany (4.48 percent), English isn’t the native tongue.

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Note: Bloglines is my RSS aggregator of choice.

Caveat emptor! (Buyer beware!)

Half of the world either can’t speak English or they prefer to search the web in their own language. If your website is not multilingual these people are never going to find you. Translingo provides dynamic translation ( real time, on the fly translation, without additional page or storage requirements ) of your website to and from over 30 languages.

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Note: Before you buy, try using Translingo to do a back translation of the translation it provides and see what you get. (You’ll get a “real time, on the fly” lesson on the limits of machine translation.) For human translation, call Linguistic Solutions.

Language Weaver, Inc., a software company developing statistical machine translation software (SMTS) for the automation of human language translation, today announced general availability of its application software upgraded to version 2.4. The significant improvements in this version provide greater functionality for users, as well as more flexibility and the ability to customize additional options for developers and integrators.

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Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has a history of using alternatives to mainstream media to get his message out – but he’s now breaking new ground by writing a monthly column for exclusive distribution by ethnic news organizations.

The column is translated into multiple languages by New California Media, an association of more than 700 ethnic news outlets that is holding its sixth annual awards banquet in Sacramento tonight.

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C’est mon opinion, et je la partage.

It’s not often you see French in American newspapers, unless it’s a conservative rail against our longtime ally France. Little of that would be printable in a family newspaper, though.

But what about, “nom de guerre”? Do you know what it means?

Reader John Appeldorn of Akron called recently after an article involving Yasser Arafat referred to him as Abu Ammar, his “nom de guerre.”

Appeldorn suggested the Akron Beacon Journal stick to words and phrases that regular people can understand. He had seen the phrase before in the paper and always wondered what it meant.

Indeed. A close reader of the Beacon Journal would have seen that French phrase three times in the past year and 57 times in the last 20 years. It’s been used in a variety of ways, but never has it been defined.

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In the field of law, Japan certainly cannot yet be said to be sufficiently open vis-a-vis other countries. In order to improve this situation, a law-and-ordinance translation group set up within the government’s Office for Promotion of Justice System Reform has unveiled a project to translate legislation into English, with priority given to basic laws such as the Civil Code.

At present, government ministries and agencies and private organizations engage in the translation of some legislation, but separately and without any consistency. The working group proposes, through government involvement, to formulate and unify the basic rules of translation, such as what terms and expressions should be used, to ensure that translations are both accurate and easy to understand.

The translation of laws and ordinances into foreign languages would facilitate international business and promote investment by foreign companies. It would also help support the establishment of legal systems in developing countries, especially those in Asia, introduce and increase knowledge of Japanese legislation in other countries, and familiarize foreign residents with life in Japan.

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The Fresno County Coroners Office is promising to change its procedures after an Action News investigation revealed an English-only policy.

Action News obtained an internal memo to coroner staff, stating they should no longer provide translation for non-English speakers.

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The main case pivots around the long-running dispute over the use of the name Budweiser. The Czech Republic, a newly incorporated EU member, is seeking geographic indication (GI) status for the name of its ancient and prized lager.

Most of the world knows the name Budweiser from the giant American brand owned by Anheuser-Busch, which has sold its product under that name since 1876. The US company sold 9.9 million hectoliters of lager last year, compared to the Czech group’s 1.2 million.

The United States went to the WTO in April 2003 complaining that Anheuser-Busch had lost sales because some European countries had allowed the Czech beer to be sold under the Budweiser name. The Czechs argued that they were entitled to the name, and that their beer should be protected as a GI product because it is the only one still brewed in Budweis.

Since Budweis is the German name for Ceske Budejovice, the Czech brewer would not be able to claim protection for its Budweiser brand should this ruling become official.

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