Translation
Translation is the communication of the meaning of a source-language text by means of an equivalent target-language text.[1] The English language draws a terminological distinction (which does not exist in every language) between translating (a written text) and interpreting (oral or signed communication between users of different languages); under this distinction, translation can begin only after the appearance of writing within a language community.
A translator always risks inadvertently introducing source-language words, grammar, or syntax into the target-language rendering. On the other hand, such "spill-overs" have sometimes imported useful source-language calques and loanwords that have enriched target languages. Translators, including early translators of sacred texts, have helped shape the very languages into which they have translated.[2]
Because of the laboriousness of the translation process, since the 1940s efforts have been made, with varying degrees of success, to automate translation or to mechanically aid the human translator.[3] More recently, the rise of the Internet has fostered a world-wide market for translation services and has facilitated "language localisation".[4]
The English word "translation" derives from the Latin word translatio,[6] which comes from trans, "across" + ferre, "to carry" or "to bring" (-latio in turn coming from latus, the past participle of ferre). Thus translatio is "a carrying across" or "a bringing across" – in this case, of a text from one language to another.[7]
Some Slavic languages and the Germanic languages (other than Dutch and Afrikaans) have calqued their words for the concept of "translation" on translatio, substituting their respective Slavic or Germanic root words for the Latin roots.[7][8][a][9] The remaining Slavic languages instead calqued their words for "translation" from an alternative Latin word, trāductiō, itself derived from trādūcō ("to lead across" or "to bring across")—from trans ("across") + dūcō, ("to lead"or "to bring").[7]
The West and East Slavic languages (except for Russian) adopted the translātiō pattern, whereas Russian and the South Slavic languages adopted the trāductiō pattern. The Romance languages, deriving directly from Latin, did not need to calque their equivalent words for "translation"; instead, they simply adapted the second of the two alternative Latin words, trāductiō.,[7]
