The Battle For Language Supremacy In New Brunswick

The government's hiring policy in the Canadian province of New Brunswick has sparked two online petitions. 

The first, started by Joyce Wright, aims to halt the passing over of applicants who are only able to speak English.  The counter-petition, started by "three francophone New Brunswickers," wants to maintain the hiring policy of a 50 percent bilingual workforce in the government.

Wright started the petition because she claims, "It's affecting my friends and family members in a way it never has before."  At noon of July 31, 2013, her petition has 5,113 signatures since its creation a month ago.  Her petition can be accessed here.

The other petition's purpose is to protect the provinces' bilingualism which is viewed as part of the area's wealth.  This petition has gathered 1,100 signatures to date. 

As of March 31, 2012, 40 percent of government employees were bilingual, 50 percent could only speak English and 5 percent could only speak French according to The Department of Human Resources. 

A census from 2011 showed that English was the primary language for 65.4 percent of New Brunswickers compared to 32.3 percent who claimed French as their primary language.

New Brunswick is the only province in the Canadian federation that is constitutionally bilingual.  To read the original article, please visit here.

Poor Translation of Miranda Rights Leads to Aquital

Jeronimo Botello-Rosales was convicted of conspiracy to manufacture marijuana and possession of a firearm by an illegal immigrant before his case was handled by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Botello-Rosales told detectives under the disputed Miranda rights translation that he had been transporting supplies for the marijuana growers in California and expected to make $20,000.  The Miranda warning was read by the Yamhill County Sheriff's Detective Brandon Bowdle.

Bowdle read the Miranda rights to Botello-Rosales in English as he arrested him.  The rights were then translated by McMinnville Police Detective Jose Salas.  Salas is a native Spanish speaker.

Botello-Rosales' lawyers argued that Salas' translation of the Miranda rights were inaccurate.  The center of their claim revolved around the use of the word "libre," which in Spanish, can be interpreted to mean either free in the sense of 'no cost' or simply available.

The defendant originally pleaded guilty after the motion of a poor translation was denied by  Senior Judge James Redden.  He was sentenced to 10 years in prison on the condition that he could appeal the Judge's finding.

In February 2012, Judge Anna Brown, who had taken over Judge Redden's position after his retirement, determined that Salas' Miranda warning was inadequate but Botello-Rosales should have been able to understand the interpretation of the warning from context.

The appellate panel disagreed and threw out the conviction.  A follow-up case will occur back in the U.S. District Court in Portland for another trial.

For more information, visit the original article.

$250,000 Grant Awarded For 16 Literature Translations

The National Endowment of the Arts has approved a $250,000 grant for 16 separate translators who will transcribe works of their language of expertise into English.  The NEA received and reviewed 82 eligible applications for 2014.

Every application was reviewed by a panel of experts and a working literary translator.  The literary translator provided information to the panel regarding "how well the original text was rendered into English, how well it reads in English, how important the original author and work are in his or her own country, and how well-represented the author is in the United States."

The NEA's reasoning for the grant is, "For the art of literary translation is not simply the act of converting an author's words from one language into another; rather, it requires difficult choices and creative thinking in order to fully convey images and meaning."

The 16 translations will span 13 languages from 15 countries. The NEA has awarded 355 translation fellowships for works in 62 languages from 78 countries since 1981.  The languages of Bulgarian, Haitian Creole and Macedonian are experiencing first-time translations via the grant.

To read the original article and view each individual grant, please visit here.

Patients Protest At UCSD Medical Center

A protest was recently held outside of the UCSD Medical Center because of alleged poor translation/interpretation services.  The rally took place because more and more patients are coming forward with their own unique stories about receiving poor language services or none at all.

Mohamed Mohamed, a senior at San Diego High School, missed school days and his high school's exit exam because he was required to translate for his father's medical appointments.  The hospital's major language category gaffs seem to center in either Swahili or Somali.

The protest is just a part of the statewide effort to improve interpretation/translation in medical settings.  The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), Interpreting for California and nonprofit Mid-City CAN’s Access to Healthcare group have "been collecting stories from East African, Burmese, Latino and Chinese patients who say poor communication with doctors has but them at risk."

The UCSD Medical Center is being accused by the coalition of protesters of using interpreters under the age of 18 which is illegal.

Aaron Byzak, spokesman of UC San Diego, said, "The hospital has five Spanish-language interpreters, a 24-hour phone service that offers interpretation in 200 languages and a teleconferencing program in 150 languages."

This is certainly an issue that must be addressed because one in five patients will be non-native English speakers once the Affordable Care Act is initiated.  And of course, all of this could have been avoided with the use of a reputable translation/interpretation company such as World Services.

It is crucially important that interpreters are certified to handle medical terms because if they are not, information relayed from the medical professional to the patient may be misleading.  This opens the door to all kinds of liability issues.

To read the original story about the protest, visit here.

Jerusalem Creates New Translation Project

The Health Ministry in Jerusalem, Israel has coordinated a new service that aims to connect doctors, nurses, social workers and patients who speak Arabic, Russian or Amharic.

The new service will be open 24 hours a day besides Shabbat and holidays.  During the trial period of the project, it will only be available in the following locations: Wolfson Medical Center in Holon, Western Galilee Hospital in Nahariya and the Barzilai Medical Center in Ashkelon.

The project will aim to contact native speakers of the language needed via hospital intermediaries.  They will then relay the information from the care provider to the patient as necessary.  If the project is deemed a success, the services will expand to other locations.

The translators/native speakers have completed a medical translation course and have been provided with basic medical dictionaries.  This issue came to the light following a survey conducted in 2011 by the Central Bureau of Statistics which claimed 17 percent of people who cannot speak Hebrew have experienced difficulties in receiving medical care.  This percentage increased to 23 percent among persons 65 years of age or older.

For the original article, visit the Jerusalem Post.

Ancient Markings Found In Eastern China

Markings on a stone slab found at an excavation site in eastern China date back 5,000 years, per archaeologists.  Chinese scholars are deciding on whether the markings are actual writing or simply a precursor to words expressed through symbols.

The potential Chinese writing is 1,400 years older than the oldest Chinese writing that has previously been discovered.  That writing was found on animal bones during the Shang dynasty. 

Xu Xinmin, the lead archaeologist, claims there is evidence of symbols on two separate broken pieces of an axe.  One of the pieces boasts a segments which contains six symbols written in succession that could be interpreted to indicate a simple sentence.

The individual pieces have all been excavated between 2003 and 2006 from the Liangzhu relic site south of Shanghai.  Up to this point, Chinese scholars have decided to simply call the discovery "primitive writing" until experts from outside of the country are able to investigate the markings.



The original article from MSN News.

Interpretation Lawsuit In New York

5 Hispanic women have filed a federal lawsuit against the NYPD after reporting cases of abuse only to be refused proper translation services. 

The women, led by Wendy Garcia, are seeking an undisclosed amount of money based on charges "that the police refused access to an interpreter to people with limited English, contrary to city policies that say officers must offer linguistic assistance to those who need it. The suit also argues that the police 'degrades, ridicules and otherwise mistreats limited-English-proficient individuals who request interpreter services, actively demeaning them for their lack of English proficiency.'"

In Garcia's case, she called 911 after being shoved and having a door slammed on her by her boyfriend.  The police arrived but did not provide a Spanish interpreter for Garcia to tell her side of the story.  Her boyfriend, who was able to speak English, informed the police what was going on from his point of view which resulted in a near arrest of Garcia.

The NYPD responded to the lawsuit by identifying their "thousands of Spanish-speaking police officers" and a "volunteer  translator program [who] assist the public and police in investigations and for other needs."  Paul Brown, the chief spokesman for the NYPD also stated that the department has more than 1,400 volunteers that speak a total of 64 languages.

The five women also accuse the NYPD of mocking them and in certain cases, only speaking to the man's version of events because he could speak English. 

2 of the women, Arlet Macareno and Yanahit Padilla, were arrested after they called the police although Macareno claims her husband pushed her down a flight of stairs and Padilla claims her boyfriend beat her.

The plaintiffs in the case are supported by Legal Services NYC and The Violence Intervention Program.  According to the lawsuit, almost 25 percent of New York City residents over the age of five have limited English proficiency.

To read the article in its entirety, click here.