Lost in Translation
The movie Lost in Translation was translated in Russian as “Difficulties of Translation.” The Russian translators could have used the phrase “потеряно при переводе” (the direct equivalent of the English), but for some reason they didn’t, which caused some discussion among linguists.
I came up with a Kazakh translation of the phrase: аударғанда адасқан. I think that the Kazakh language needs this term badly. If native speakers of English have fun with the English mistranslations they encounter around the world (click here), Kazakhs face a more serious issue: the lost-in-translation advertisements, billboards and street signs in their own country. Kazakhstan’s law on state language requires that all advertisements, billboards and street signs should be translated into the country’s official language, Kazakh. The Russian-speaking advertising agencies that dominate the market appear to feel no need to double-check the Kazakh translations that appear in their ad campaigns, no matter how ridiculous or nonsensical the result may be. In a by-now famous instance, the Russian-speaking ad people managed to translate their advertisement for a new cell phone as follows: “Relationship gives you heating. Fill in your balance and don’t lose your opportunity to get 20% off.” ( Қарым- қатынас жылу береді. Балансыңды толтыр да, шотыңа 20% алу мүмкіндігін жіберіп алма.)
Upset with this abuse of their language, Kazakh journalists have used bitter words: mistranslations into Kazakh, they have said, “are as freely breeding as head lice.”
Earlier in 2009 the chief of Kazakhstan’s language fund came up with a new way of fighting Kazakh mistranslations: he announced a photo-competition that would put on display the most egregious cases and result in the humiliation and punishment of those responsible for them. It was announced that photos would be published every three months in the newspaper Aikyn, but no news so far.
Perhaps it would be better to follow Charlie Croker’s English-language example and start collecting all the Kazakh mistranslations that clutter the streets of Kazakhstan on the Web. Feel free to give examples of bizarre or nonsensical translations that you have come across during your travels in Kazakhstan in the comments section (preferably in the Kazakh-language version of this blog).
