Babelfish to the rescue? - 04/30/04 03:04 PM
From the folks at Plain English Campaign:
With the expansion of the European Union tomorrow (1 May), the list of official languages used by politicians and civil servants will rise from 11 to 20. This takes the number of potential combinations of languages to 190. In practice, the translators use a relay system to cover all possibilities. A speech in English may be dealt with first by a translator who speaks English and German, and then passed on by a second translator who speaks German and Swedish. The expansion led to one of the least-expected sentences ever to appear in the Guardian:
"If you know anybody who can translate from Maltese to Finnish," says [translation] head Karl-Johann Loennroth, "please let us know."
With the expansion of the European Union tomorrow (1 May), the list of official languages used by politicians and civil servants will rise from 11 to 20. This takes the number of potential combinations of languages to 190. In practice, the translators use a relay system to cover all possibilities. A speech in English may be dealt with first by a translator who speaks English and German, and then passed on by a second translator who speaks German and Swedish. The expansion led to one of the least-expected sentences ever to appear in the Guardian:
"If you know anybody who can translate from Maltese to Finnish," says [translation] head Karl-Johann Loennroth, "please let us know."