Reinas de los caminos y redes transeuropeas

Por Lourdes Ramírez, AIB

 

https://www.romasegreta.it/s-saba/piazza-di-porta-capena.html

En el centro de Roma, frente a la entrada principal de una conocida agencia de Naciones Unidas y a solo unos pasos de la imponente explanada del Circo Massimo se encuentran las ruinas de lo que fue la Porta Capena. De un fragmento de pared pende una placa de mármol donde a duras penas se puede leer “Inizio Via Appia”.

 

Baúl del Arte: LA VIA APPIA  baulitoadelrte.blogspot.com

La calzada que salía de la Porta Capena no era una carretera cualquiera, más bien la primera y principal. El poeta Estacio la llamó Regina viarum, la reina de los caminos (1). Se empezó a construir en el año 312. a.C. y comunicaba Roma con Capua. Cuando se terminó, en el siglo II a.C., llegaba hasta Brindisi, principal puerto del Adriático. A diferencia de otras vías, estaba empedrada con grandes losas de basalto y su anchura media era de 4,15 m, lo que permitía el paso de 2 carros a la vez circulando en sentido opuesto. Tenía aceras elevadas de tierra batida para peatones, un perfil ligeramente abombado en el centro y vierteaguas a ambos lados para que no se formaran charcos con la lluvia. Unos mojones de piedra llamados miliarios marcaban la distancia en millas (mil pasos dobles) hasta Roma. A lo largo de sus 540 km de recorrido encontramos numerosas tumbas y monumentos funerarios, estaciones de posta para el cambio de caballos y posadas para el descanso de pasajeros - llamadas mansiones -, villas patricias, un teatro y hasta un circo (2).

 

https//:www.enroma.com/appia-antica

Siendo la Via Appia una carretera única, no era la única. Desde Roma partían hacia todos los puntos cardinales muchas más calzadas que, enlazando con otras, cubrían toda la península itálica y conectaban entre si todas las provincias del imperio. Con el tiempo llegaron a formar un entramado tan tupido y extenso que se puede hablar de una verdadera gran Red Transeuropea - veinte siglos antes de que se inventara el concepto -. Roma sería el kilómetro cero de esa inmensa, compleja y eficiente red. Sólo que, en lugar de AP-7, N-340, E-15 o C-32, los nombres de sus principales ejes eran mucho más bonitos: por citar solo algunas, las vías Traiana y Popilia en dirección sur; la Tiburtina hacia el este; Aurelia y Aemilia Scaura rumbo al norte y en dirección nordeste Flaminia y Aemilia. Esta última enlazaba con la Via Iulia Augusta que ya penetraba en la Galia (3).

La red viaria que cubría el imperio de uno a otro confín desempeñaba múltiples funciones: permitía a las legiones romanas desplazarse rápidamente y conquistar nuevos territorios, facilitaba la administración de las provincias, comunicaba centros de población entre sí y con puntos estratégicos, favorecía el comercio y la propagación de la cultura. En el momento de máxima expansión territorial sumaba cientos de miles de kilómetros. Se trata de una obra de infraestructura e ingeniería impresionante con los medios disponibles entonces. Representó un enorme salto cualitativo en la logística de los desplazamientos ya que antes no había nada ni remotamente parecido. Mutatis mutandis, salvando el tiempo y las distancias, esa mejora sería comparable a la facilidad con que hoy cruzamos una ciudad en unos minutos con el metro o nos plantamos a cientos de kilómetros en unas pocas horas gracias a la red de Alta Velocidad.

Nadie ha contribuido a visualizarlo mejor que Alexander Trubetskoy, un estadístico y economista norteamericano de origen ruso, cuya pasión es la cartografía moderna. En 2017 presentó este diagrama de las vías romanas de todo el imperio como si fuera el plano del metro de una urbe moderna. Posteriormente ha hecho lo mismo para cada provincia romana (4).

 

http://sashamaps.net/docs/maps/roman-roads-index

En Hispania la reina de los caminos - por lo menos, en cuanto a longitud y fama - sería la Via Augusta. También llamada Heraclea, arrancaba en los Pirineos donde acababa la Via Domitia y pasaba por Gerunda, Barcino, Tarraco, Saguntum, Valentia, Cartago Nova, Corduba e Hispalis, acabando en Gades. Nada más ni nada menos que 1500 km de recorrido. Un auténtico Corredor del Mediterráneo de la época terminado en tiempo y forma, a diferencia del proyecto actual de casi idéntico trazado (5). La Via Augusta permitía pues ir desde Cádiz hasta la mismísima capital del Imperio cruzando la Galia y sin transbordo ¡hace 2.000 años! Dan fe de ello los famosos Vasos Apolinares o de Vicarello, donde están registradas todas las etapas del itineriario completo, con nombres y distancias, de Gades a Roma (6).

 

Wikipedia, la Enciclopedia Libre

Otras carreteras importantes de Hispania eran la Via Atlántica, muy pegada a la costa lusitana, que unía Onuba (Huelva) con Brigantium (La Coruña); la Via Delapidata que subía en línea recta desde Emerita Augusta (Mérida) hasta Asturica Augusta (Astorga) y la Vía del Norte, que partía de esa ciudad y que era clave para transportar el oro de las minas del Bierzo hasta el puerto de Tarraco.

Los ingenieros que planearon y construyeron esas arterias de comunicación eligieron el mejor emplazamiento posible en cada caso según la orografía del terreno. Por eso no es de extrañar que el trazado de tantas carreteras nacionales y autovías actuales, en España como en otros países europeos, coincida en gran medida con el de las antiguas calzadas romanas. Algunas autopistas están construidas literalmente encima de ellas, con la consiguiente pérdida irreparable de patrimonio.

 

La N-340, antigua Via Augusta, a su paso por el Arco de Bará. 

Desde aquí se tardaba un día en llegar a Tarraco a pie

Hasta los años 1970 la carretera todavía pasaba por debajo del arco (!)

Muchos siglos después de los días de gloria del imperio, la gran red de carreteras romanas no ha desaparecido. Ha sufrido una metamorfosis y está más transitada hoy que en los tiempos del emperador Trajano. A pesar del tiempo y los avatares de la historia, sigue siendo verdad que todos los caminos llevan a Roma.

 

Notas:
(1) Publio Papinio Estacio, poeta y maestro, s I a.D. Appia longarum teritur regina viarum
    https://www.biografiasyvidas.com/biografia/e/estacio.htm
(2) https://www.imperivm.org/la-via-apia-el-camino-a-roma/; http://www.enroma.com/appia-antica
(3) https://www.romanoimpero.com
(4) http://sashamaps.net/docs/maps/roman-roads-index/
(5) https://elcorredormediterraneo.com
(6) https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasos_Apolinares#Otras_fuentes_antiguas_para_el_estudio_de_las_calzadas_romanas

Referencias:
https://www.romanoimpero.com
Isaac Moreno: Ingeniería romana - Carreteras, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FFFnUM-cG14

Para saber más:
Proyecto Itiner-e, basado en las 3 fuentes clásicas sobre las vía romanas: Itinerario de Antonino, Vasos de Vicarello y Tabula Peutingeriana https://itinere.recerca.iec.cat/

Interpreters throughout History (part 2)

Por Martha Hobart, AIB

Bas-relief from the tomb of the Egyptian pharaoh Horemheb.
(Image credit: Rijksmuseum van Oudheden, Leiden)

We continue with our overview of interpreters and translators throughout history.

The early modern era

As history continued its long march through the ages, the role of interpreters and translators kept pace with developments. From about the 15th century onward, reference to interpreters in historical documents is common around the globe. It is interesting that much of the earlier documentation referred to “intermediaries”, sometimes distinguishing between “intermediaries” and “interpreters”, while the term “interpreters” gradually became dominant in describing the profession.

We now move into a period of exploration and much movement across the globe. More documentation is also available on many of the better-known interpreters and translators who accompanied expeditions or were found on site at the destinations. There is too much information for this period to go into detail here, so we will list the most outstanding events and personalities here. If any of those mentioned strike the reader’s fancy, an online search will turn up dozens of references, including a fair amount of legend.

Let’s start our journey in Africa.

The Guinea coast,  from the Senegal River to South Angola, was the target of numerous Portuguese expeditions in search of ivory, gold and slaves in the 15th and 16th centuries. The usual method was to capture likely individuals on arrival who could be taken back to Portugal, taught Portuguese and used as interpreters whenever complex situations arose that required more than gestures in exchanging goods.

This was not always successful since there were over 400 languages spoken on the African continent. In such cases, more captives were taken back to Europe to be trained as interpreters.

The Dutch, French and English superseded the Portuguese in the 17th century and adopted their methods. Moreover, the growing British presence in the Americas led to further expansion of trade of all sorts, which extended up to the Sahara desert. Often the most trusted interpreters became guides who assisted the Europeans in local customs and etiquette for meetings with African royalty. Some were so successful in their duties that they became true professionals.

The Ottoman Empire was the scene of a very special group of people who were both interpreters and diplomats: the Dragomans. At its height the empire occupied Central Europe, Crimea, the Middle East and Africa, encompassing a mixed population speaking a variety of languages. Multilingualism and use of a lingua franca largely obviated the need for interpreters, but they were necessary for official purposes when the authorities communicated with their own people and with foreigners. The Dragomans were specially trained to fill this need.

Felix Ordeig wrote about these interpreters and diplomats in an earlier post in our blog.

The Indian subcontinent was another site of intense activity by Europeans.

The French arrived on the subcontinent in the 17th century. They established a settlement called “Puducherry”, which in Tamil means “New Town” and is now known as Pondicherry. Portuguese was a lingua franca in the area and the new arrivals needed interpreters who could communicate in Portuguese with their French employer (the Compagnie des Indes) and in Tamil, Telugu and Persian with their local connections. The Compagnie created a special post and title for the official recruited from the community who represented them and acted for them with local traders and suppliers.

The first “Broker” was Thanappa Mudaliar, who was succeeded by his son, then a young Hindu named Nayiniyappa, and many others throughout the 17th and 18th centuries.

There are accounts of English travelers to the subcontinent on business for the East India Company (EIC) that include references to interpreters, such as that of Sir Thomas Roe, the first royal ambassador to the Mughal Court in the 17th century. He had been preceded by other Company representatives who were not diplomats but merchants and had little knowledge of proper etiquette at high-level meetings.

Roe himself appeared to put his own interests as a diplomat above those of the EIC. His attempts to present himself to the emperor Jahangir and his court were fraught with difficulties and obstacles, owing also to the mix of languages used by all the people involved. He frequently had to work with different interpreters for different interlocutors because of the limitations of his interpreters.

This situation endured in India until the 18th century, when EIC officials made the effort to learn the major languages needed to communicate in this part of the world. Nonetheless, more specialized multilingual brokers and interpreters were still needed to cover situations required by the various levels of communication between Indians and foreigners.

There are accounts of interpreters and translators accompanying diplomatic missions and explorers elsewhere in Asia and the Pacific.

One such interpreter was the Greek adventurer Constantine Phaulkon (also known as Constance). He was born in Cephalonia, largest of the Ionian islands, then under Venetian rule. He left his home at the age of 13, spent ten years in London and then in Java where he worked for the East India Company. Finally, he went to Siam, having been recommended as an interpreter to the minister of foreign trade there. He already spoke English, French, Portuguese, Malay and perhaps Italian and Greek.

Joao Rodrigues was a young Portuguese who accompanied a mission from Lisbon to Nagasaki in Japan and there decided to become a Jesuit priest. He lived in Japan for over 30 years, took his vows, learned Japanese and acted as interpreter at high-level meetings involving the Society and other Portuguese dignitaries visiting Japan.

He was known to the Japanese as “Rodrigues tsuji” (“Rodrigues the Interpreter”).

Captain James Cook’s explorations took him to numerous places in the southern Pacific where he came into contact with local inhabitants and attempted to communicate with them using gestures. Such methods naturally met with limited success and the expedition members were well aware that spoken language would be more useful.

In the course of Cook’s travels around the islands, they came into contact with Tupaia, a member of the ruling circle in Tahiti, a priest dedicated to Oro the god of war, a skilled navigator and highly knowledgeable about the geography of the islands. Tupaia assisted the expedition and eventually joined it on its return voyage to England. However, his health failed him as they visited regions such as modern New Zealand and Australia, and he died along the way. 

Enrique was a Malay speaker who was purchased as a slave by Magellan in Malacca. He was taken to Europe and accompanied Magellan in a meeting with the Privy Council of Seville. He became a trusted interpreter for the explorer and was included in Magellan’s will to be freed and receive a legacy on his master’s death.

Eventually Magellan reached what he thought was the Spice Islands but was actually what was to become the Philippines. Enrique was able to communicate with the island rulers because Malay was the lingua franca used there in diplomacy and trade.

Karma Paul was born in Lhasa in Tibet and raised by missionaries in Darjeeling after he was orphaned. He became fluent in English, Nepali and Tibetan and worked as a schoolmaster in Darjeeling and in an office in Calcutta.

When the British Himalayan Expedition was organized in 1922, its leader, General Charles G. Bruce, engaged Karma Paul as interpreter. More than merely linguistic concerns, Karma Paul was also of great assistance in smoothing relations between the British and the local population.

He was a man of two worlds: Karma the Buddhist and Paul the Christian.

The Americas

Centuries of travel between different regions of the world for exploration, trade and diplomacy had made it clear that linguistic assistance was essential for cross-cultural communication, and expeditions set out with interpreters versed in the languages that would most likely be needed.

Christopher Columbus’s experience was very different when he set sail for what he thought would be India. His expedition included Luis de Torres, a Jewish convert to Christianity who knew Hebrew, Chaldean and some Arabic, languages that were commonly used in the known world of the time. As we well know, his voyage ended in a place totally unknown to Europeans and his interpreter was of little use.

Columbus took several Caribbean people on his return to Spain from that first voyage with the intention of having them baptized and teaching them Spanish so they could interpret on subsequent voyages. Only one of them, known as Diego Colón, actually became an interpreter, but he was not of much help because the natives of the Caribbean did not share a language. It was not until his fourth voyage that Columbus succeeded in training a captive Caribbean native, known as Juan Pérez. Diego Colón, nonetheless, continued as an interpreter and was able to assist the Europeans in their exploration of the islands around Hispaniola and in making contacting with the Taíno people in Cuba. His own language was similar to that of the natives of this area.

There were other native people who were trained as interpreters but some of them ran away and many died. Apart from the European illnesses that killed many natives, Columbus’s own attitudes toward the natives and his refusal to accept that he had not reached Asia may have led to his difficulties in communication.

The 16th century was a period of numerous voyages of exploration and conquest from Europe to the Americas, and further discovery of the vastness of these lands. Plus the multitude of languages spoken there, which made communication a complicated enterprise.

The approach of these explorers tended to be improvisation. Sometimes they captured natives at one location and kept them on board as they traveled to others and took them back to Spain to learn Spanish, on the assumption that these captives would be able to understand the people the Spaniards encountered elsewhere.

But this was far from successful. Francisco Hernández de Córdoba led an expedition with some Cuban natives on board when he reached the Yucatan peninsula. However, the Maya language had no relation to the Taíno spoken by the Cubans. Hernández therefore took two local men, known as Melchor and Julián, with him when he left Yucatán, but this plan was also foiled. Melchor was a fisherman with limited knowledge of Mayan. Julián returned to Yucatán on a future expedition led by Juan de Grijalva; but because he was a Yucatec Maya, he was unable to communicate with the Chontal Maya speakers in northern Yucatán.

Grijalva resorted to the usual solution and seized four more natives to be trained as interpreters. One was renamed Pedro Barba. He spoke both Yucatec Maya and Chontal Maya, which made it possible to set up what we now know as a relay system: Grijalva spoke Spanish to Julián who interpreted in Yucatec Maya to Pedro who transmitted the message in Chontal Maya.

Gerónimo de Aguilar was a Spanish Franciscan friar sent to Panama as a missionary. He was shipwrecked on the Yucatán Peninsula and made his life among the Chontal Maya. When he heard of Cortés’s arrival in Yucatán Aguilar went to join him and helped out in his dealings with the local people.

Cortés soon acquired a second interpreter who was among the twenty women given him by a Chontal Maya leader. Her Christian name was Marina and she came to be known as La Malinche. She had the advantage over Aguilar in that she was the child of Nahuatl speakers and was bilingual in Nahuatl and Chontal Maya. Lourdes Ramírez told us her story earlier in the AIB blog.

England was also active in this New World but focused more on North America. There are accounts of the role of interpreters in attempts by England to establish colonies along the southeastern coast in what is now the United States. Some were of European origin who had acquired knowledge of local languages and others were native Americans.

Manteo was a werowance, or chief, of the Croatan tribe that lived on an island off the coast of modern North Carolina. He was taken to England along with Wanchese from Roanoke Island by an exploratory expedition to the area where the Roanoke colony was later founded.

The two men, both Algonquian speakers, were taught English and later accompanied the second expedition to Roanoke. Wanchese refused to collaborate with the Englishmen but Manteo acted as interpreter for the expedition’s leader, assisting in negotiations for establishing a colony on the island. The Algonquians made life impossible for the settlers and within a short time all but 15 of them returned to England with Sir Francis Drake, along with Manteo and two other natives. Manteo returned a year later with the governor John White, to find that all of those left behind, including Wanchese, had disappeared. White sought revenge and Manteo was involved in the fighting.

A second colony was founded and Manteo was given the dubious title of Lord of Roanoke. White returned to England for supplies but was unable to deliver them until three years later, only to discover that once again all the settlers, including Manteo, had vanished.

We end our tale with the Lewis and Clark expedition in the early 19th century, which lasted two years and covered some 13,000 km from St. Louis, Missouri, to the Pacific coast.

By this time there was a sizable population of people of mixed French-Canadian and native American descent around Camp Dubois in present-day Illinois where the expedition spent the winter. They were familiar with the Plains tribes and were hired for various duties, including interpreters who became vital intermediaries for Lewis and Clark.

George Drouillard was one of them. He was the son of a Frenchman settled in Canada and a Shawnee Nation woman and spoke English, French and Shawnee. He was also proficient in the Plains Indian Sign Language.

Lewis in The Journals of Lewis and Clark remarks that at first he thought this was a series of gesticulations among the tribes of the area. It was later learned it was a complete language that was actually a lingua franca among the peoples of the Plains from the Gulf of Mexico to Calgary, Canada. Drouillard was hired to interpret Lewis and Clark into Indian Sign Language and Native Americans into English.

Several more interpreters later joined the expedition. To quote Christine Adams in her article published in the “Interpreter Zero” series:

Cruzatte, along with François Labiche enlisted in May 1804; both of them were part Omaha.  In October 1804, we have Joseph Gravelines, described as “well-versed in the language of this [Arikari] nation.” A Frenchman, René Jusseaume, who had made his life with an Indian woman, was taken on as a temporary interpreter for Mandan in October 1804, when the expedition was at its winter quarters in Fort Mandan, in present-day North Dakota. Entries after November of that year refer to “our Minetaree interpreter”: Toussaint Charbonneau, a French-Canadian trapper who joined the expedition along with one of his two wives, Sacagawea.

There is much uncertainty and legend about Sacagawea and her life. A native speaker of Hidatsa, she also knew Shoshone. Her husband Charbonneau spoke the language of the Aaniiih Nation and Hidatsa.

She is not mentioned often in the expedition journals but in 1902 was immortalized by novelist and feminist Eva Emery Dye in her book The Conquest: The True Story of Lewis and Clark. How this young Northern Shoshone woman became a legend in North American history is a fascinating story in itself.

More details on Sacagawea at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacagawea

Eva Emery Dye’s depiction of Sacagawea is rather fanciful and is considered to be the origin of the myth surrounding her. Many scholars agree that the author used the young Native American as a role model for later generations of women and a symbol of pioneer motherhood.
See: https://www.oregonencyclopedia.org/articles/dye_eva_emery/

And finally, a student of the University of Puget Sound wrote an interesting thesis that explores the creation of the Sacagawea legend: https://soundideas.pugetsound.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1004&context=honors_program_theses

Interpreters throughout History (part 1)

by Martha Hobart, AIB

Bas-relief from the tomb of the Egyptian pharaoh Horemheb. 

(Image credit: Rijksmuseum van Oudheden, Leiden)

The story of interpreters around the world through the ages is a fascinating thread that runs through history since ancient times. It is far too lengthy and complex to go into detail here so I will just give an overview and encourage you to look deeper into the practitioners of our profession who came before us.

In spite of my intentions, the “overview” became longer that I had expected, so I will post it in two parts. The history of interpreting and translating is a long one.

You can find much more in the impressive series of articles published on the AIIC website by Christine Adams starting in 2012 and still ongoing at its new home, Looking for Interpreter Zero. It was a major source of information for this article.

Interpreters in the Bible and ancient Egypt

Human groupings have been in contact with one another since the beginning of the historical record and long before. Indeed, interpreting is likely as old as language.

Interpreters have been present since biblical times, in the story of Joseph, who was sold into slavery in Egypt by his jealous brothers. He was eventually freed and became vizier to the Pharaoh.

When the Israelites’ harvest failed, the brothers travelled to Egypt to buy grain. There they encountered Joseph although they did not recognize him. However, Joseph recognized them and understood the conversation between the brothers, but spoke with them through an interpreter, as was customary in Egyptian trade relations.

In Genesis 42:23 we find this passage: “[The brothers] did not realize that Joseph understood them, since there was an interpreter between them.”

Trade was an important part of Egyptian life, as were diplomacy and captive taking, much of which was related to Egypt’s dealings in Africa and the Middle East. To this end, the ancient Egyptian bureaucracy included what they called “interlingual mediators”. Some of the earliest evidence of these interpreting practices comes from the tombs of the princes of the island of Elephantine, which date from the third millennium BCE. Their titles included “secret advisor of the southern lands of Upper Egypt” in reference to the location of the island on the border between Egypt and Nubia.

Communication with their non-Egyptian subjects and contacts was the responsibility of interpreters, whose duties were not limited to linguistic mediation but were more wide-ranging in their contacts with foreigners.

The importance of these linguistic mediators is immortalized in a bas-relief in the tomb of the pharaoh Horemheb, dating from the 14th century BCE (see the image at the top of this post). It shows an interpreter (in the middle) mediating between Horemheb (left) and foreign envoys (right). In this case the interpreter is depicted as if there were two individuals, while other archeological discoveries portray interpreters as having two heads.

Greece and Rome

Herodotus in his Histories speaks of the need for language intermediaries in ancient Greece. There was extensive contact between Greece and Egypt and there were Greek-speaking communities in Egypt. They were even entrusted by the Pharaoh Psammetichus with the teaching of the Greek language to certain Egyptian children, who subsequently became the parents of the entire class of interpreters in Egypt.

Although interpreters were essential in Greece, they were sometimes thought of as being treacherous. Herodotus recounts an incident during the Persian wars in which the Persian king Darius sent messengers to several Greek cities to demand earth and water as tokens of their submission to him. According to Herodotus, the messengers and the interpreter who accompanied them were thrown into a well to take the earth and water themselves. Plutarch, in his account, held the Athenian statesman and general Themistocles responsible for such treatment of “treacherous intermediaries” who dared to use the Greek language in the service of non-Greeks.

The Romans treated interpreters differently, perhaps because their empire covered a vast amount of territory that included many different languages. Interpreters were essential in the Senate since most of the ambassadors from far-flung territories did not speak Latin.

But interpreters are rarely mentioned in documentary sources, perhaps because they were simply taken for granted, or their presence was ignored by officials who mastered other languages but preferred to speak in Latin to mark the prestige of Latin. Even from its early days, Rome was surrounded by peoples who spoke different languages or Latin dialects; as the empire expanded to other nations, the need for linguistic assistance became greater.

Cicero’s letters and Julius Caesar’s The Conquest of Gaul often mention interpreters, especially in the Senate. They also commonly appear in contexts other than formal meetings and oratory. The term interpres included roles such as messenger, mediator, envoy or military adjuvant.

There are mentions of a few individuals who were sent by Caesar to replace what he called “ordinary interpreters” because he felt more the need for other skills in addition to language in particularly delicate situations.

The Middle Ages

The known world continued expanding and became more and more complex, as evidenced in documented accounts of the activities of interpreters after the Norman conquest in 1066. Prior to this period there is little information available.

One early event stands out: the Strasbourg Oaths of 842. The Frankish historian Nithard gives an account of three rivals for power in Carolingian Europe who competed for power in the 9th century. Charles the Bald and Louis the German fought against Lothar and won but Lothar would not concede defeat. After a bloody battle and much loss of life, Charles and Louis felt the need to ensure their followers’ loyalty in the lengthy war that was to follow. They gathered their forces in Strasbourg to renew their alliance in a highly structured event that became known as the Strasbourg Oaths.

It is not known exactly how the linguistic aspects were managed in the proceedings but what stands out is the recognition by all parties for absolute clarity in communication. Charles spoke to Louis the German’s men in Old High German (or Frankish) and Louis in regional Romance (or Proto French) to address Charles’s followers. The texts of the each lord’s oath were preserved in Nithard’s Historiae, which has survived until today.

If you are interested in details you can find more here.

The need for interpreters is rarely mentioned in accounts of the Norman Conquest but the linguistic situation in Britain at the time was already complex. English, Welsh, British, Scandanavian, Pictish, Scottish, Cornish and some Irish were spoken, while the clergy used vernacular and Latin. To this was added French by the Normans.

Old English literature gives clear evidence of professional interpreters who acted as intermediaries and translators between all the different linguistic groups. Because of the exclusive nature of their work, they were given a special name: Wealhstod.

Other records speak of latinarius (a corruption of “Latiner” which meant “interpreter”) and interpres.

The Byzantine Empire was another multilingual area characterized by sometimes fraught relations with surrounding peoples. It was a land that depended heavily on mercenaries in its military ventures and had a large immigrant community. Communicating with strangers was part of the structure of Byzantium. There was a body of interpreters who interpreted at diplomatic meetings and translated correspondence into and out of Greek. There were Nordic, Turkish and Frank contingents in the imperial army, plus guards, who needed intermediaries. Likewise, many foreigners served in the fleet that protected Constantinople and the naval bases in the Adriatic and Ionian Seas, whose commanders needed linguistic assistance.

Byzantium was constantly threatened by depredations and conquest by numerous peoples on all sides. The emperor Alexios I Komnenos was open to foreigners and willing to engage in diplomacy throughout his reign, in addition to dealing with the split between the eastern and western churches and conspiracies against Alexios in Constantinople. All this required the assistance of translators and interpreters.

After the death of Malik-Shah, Sultan of the Seljuk Empire, who had been his close ally, Alexios sent an embassy to Pope Urban II to appeal for Christian solidarity, cleverly focused on ways in which the Pope could help him rally support for the victims of Muslim incursions into the Holy Lands in a broad sense. Thus began the Crusades.

In western Europe the dominant group were the Latin Christians. Educated Christians used Latin and in this part of the world regional languages and dialects coexisted with elite vernaculars; the fighting men were divided into regional contingents with shared languages. There was no apparent need for interpreters as linguistic difficulties could be overcome by other means.

However, the elite Crusaders were accompanied by rank-and-file fighters who were peasants or townspeople who had never had need of communication outside their locality. Furthermore, when tensions arose between leaders, there was a natural tendency to support one’s own linguistic group. Much stress was laid on common purpose but this could be outweighed by regional affiliation and individual ambition.

It was during the siege of Antioch when the Latin Crusaders joined forces with the Byzantines. Alexios I had provided intermediaries for them but the stresses of the prolonged siege and the negotiations that followed the fall of the city made it necessary to find people who could communicate in the various languages involved.

The ultimate destination of the Crusaders was Jerusalem and along the way they recruited Christian intermediaries to negotiate with local Muslim rulers. They were also assisted by these impromptu interpreters during the siege of Jerusalem.

The Caliphate of Córdoba on the Iberian Peninsula was another scene of multilingual activity. The Umayyad Caliph of Cordoba, Abd ar-Rahman, worked extensively with intermediaries, who were mostly Jews or Christians, in the tangle of hostilities and alliances between Muslins and Christians in the politics of al-Andalus and the Christian kingdoms on the Iberian Peninsula and elsewhere.

The most common languages used in these exchanges were Hebrew, Arabic, Andalusi Romance (the dialect descended from Late Latin) and Latin. But now and then other languages were involved. On one occasion a delegation from Constantinople presented Abd ar-Rahman with a copy of a work on the medicinal properties of plants, On Medicine, by Dioscorides. It was written in Greek, which no one could read, so the Caliph appealed to Byzantium for help. A Greek monk was dispatched to translate the text, with the assistance of a Greek-speaker from Sicily who also spoke Arabic.

After the fall of the Córdoba Caliphate there was a period of some two centuries in which culture and politics were in constant flux as succeeding rulers ascended and fell, until by the mid-thirteenth century only the Muslim kingdom of Granada remained, along with a few Muslim communities in the Christian kingdoms. Throughout the entire period of Muslim, Jewish and Christian coexistence on the Iberian Peninsula, there was an ongoing demand for translators, interpreters and intermediaries, and today we have a legacy of many words of Arabic origin in the Spanish language.


Part 2 of this series will cover what is generally described as the early modern era and take us up into the 20th century.

Traducción a la vista

Por Guiomar Stampa, AIB

Traducción a la vista,
Sight Translation,
Stegreifübersetzung,
Traduction à vue

Que levante la mano quien no se haya visto en una cabina, con un folio delante, haciendo una TAV a toda velocidad mientras el orador va leyendo su discurso a la velocidad de la luz, eso sí, con sus paréntesis, saltos, chascarrillos añadidos y una entonación que no coincide con lo que mandan los signos de puntuación que vemos en el papel.

Y si, además, nuestro orador lee su discurso en una lengua que no es la suya, tenemos un buen cisco armado.

En esas situaciones esta intérprete hace su trabajo lo mejor que puede, con la sensación de ir subida a espaldas del orador con la lengua fuera, intentando que no se me oiga demasiado la respiración cuando cojo aire para no ahogarme.

Una TAV es una traducción a la vista. Puede ser una traducción a primera vista, en la que no se ha visto antes el texto, puede ser una traducción a la vista preparada, en la que se ha podido leer el texto con tiempo para prepararlo, puede ser una traducción a la vista en interpretación consecutiva o una simultánea con texto. (Hurtado Albir: Jiménez Ivars, 2003).

La que describo más arriba es la simultánea con texto. El intérprete reformula el discurso oral que escucha con apoyo del texto que lee el orador. En el mejor de los casos habrá recibido el texto con antelación suficiente y se encontrará ante un orador que lee a ritmo pausado y con una buena entonación. En el peor, le habrán llevado el texto a cabina unos instantes antes de la intervención y se encontrará ante un orador que lee a toda velocidad y con una entonación que no respeta las pausas de la puntuación.

En ambos casos el texto será de gran ayuda en la interpretación de las cifras y los nombres propios.

Todo esto viene a colación, porque creo que en la formación de intérpretes la TAV desempeña un papel muy importante en las diferentes fases de la adquisición de las técnicas de interpretación, especialmente de la simultánea.

Las socias de AIB que formamos intérpretes en distintas universidades recurrimos a esta modalidad de traducción-interpretación en nuestras aulas.

En una primera fase ayuda al estudiante a resolver los posibles problemas de traducción (terminología, estructura) antes de enfrentarse a un discurso oral sobre el mismo tema.

En una segunda fase, una TAV sin preparación, reformulando el texto sin pausas a medida que se lee, ayudará al estudiante a desarrollar estrategias similares a las que necesitará en cabina con el discurso oral. Es el caso de la anticipación del verbo en alemán al interpretar al español. También es una gran aliada a la hora de generar los famosos automatismos, como el famoso last but not least, y, por último, aunque no por ello menos importante.

En una última fase, ayudará a gestionar mejor en cabina la situación descrita al principio. Claro que los ejercicios de simultánea con texto deben introducirse una vez dominadas las diferentes técnicas que necesitamos en cabina. Con una progresión adecuada en cuanto a dificultad del discurso escrito, la velocidad de lectura y la entonación.

Hay que aprender a hacerlo, la realidad en nuestro trabajo es así. Oradores que leen, mejor o peor, con texto en cabina o sin él. Si dominamos la técnica de la TAV, resultará algo más llevadero.

Tengo la impresión de que con la interpretación a distancia o interpretación remota el discurso leído es una tendencia que irá a más.

Eso sí, yo prefiero, sin duda, a los oradores espontáneos que dominan el tema y que hablan con pasión de lo suyo.

Estoy segura de que los escuchantes también.

La intérprete de conferencias en otoño de pandemia

Por Pilar García Crecente, AIB

¿Os cuesta la vuelta al trabajo tras las vacaciones estivales? ¿Habéis notado alguna diferencia entre el retorno antes de la dichosa pandemia y ahora? A mí me está costando quizá más que el verano pasado. Me cuesta concentrarme, me noto cansada y algo falta de energía, leo hasta altas horas porque me cuesta conciliar el sueño, tengo la sensación de que este arranque de otoño, que se presenta movidito, ¡se me hace cuesta arriba!

Yo no sé si estoy sufriendo el llamado síndrome o estrés postvacacional o si lo que tengo es cansancio consecuencia de la pandemia, la verdad.

Leyendo sobre esta cuestión, me he encontrado con un consejo de la psicóloga Mireia Navarro en que nos dice: fíjate en lo bueno, te sentirás afortunado por lo que ya tienes y centrará tu mente en lo positivo. Desde luego puede ayudar, porque efectivamente cuantas más vueltas le damos a nuestros sentimientos negativos peor nos sentimos, así que ¡a quitar de en medio el mal rollo! y a llenar la mente de lo bueno que sí tenemos.

Antes, en los viejos tiempos no creo haber tenido nunca el llamado síndrome o estrés postvacacional, en realidad regresaba a un ritmo de vida que me encantaba, a una profesión que me apasionaba y no me costaba nada reincorporarme. Vuelta a comprar billetes, a reservar hoteles y hacer maletas, vuelta a estudiar y a preparar reuniones y vuelta ilusionada a coincidir con los compañeros en cenas estupendas después del trabajo, y vuelta a las clases y a una nueva promoción de jóvenes estudiantes ansiosos por conocer la interpretación. Mi adaptación solía ser rápida y feliz, o así la recuerdo ahora…

Y después llegó la pandemia….

El final del verano de 2020, en plena pandemia, tras un durísimo confinamiento, traía consigo la gran pregunta de ¿Seguirá el parón? ¿Acabará de una vez esta situación, ya no debería prolongarse mucho más…? ¿Trabajaremos algo? ¿Cuánto podremos aguantar? Nos daba igual cómo, ¡necesitábamos trabajar como fuese! Así que el alivio fue enorme cuando constatamos que toda la preparación y aprendizaje al que nos dedicamos en los arduos meses de sequía extrema daban sus frutos. Nuestros estimados y fieles clientes confiaron en nosotros y en la tecnología, y juntos nos pusimos en marcha para hacer de las reuniones en línea nuestro pan de cada día. Y así pudimos ir enderezando nuestras cuentas bancarias mínimamente y seguir pagando la hipoteca o el alquiler.

El final de este verano de 2021 ha venido acompañado del hartazgo: ¡esta historia de la COVID 19 no se acaba nunca! Las medidas cambian de un día para otro, viajar no se parece a lo que era, tenemos unas ganas inmensas de ver a los compañeros y a la vez sentimos inquietud y nos preguntamos si nos sentiremos seguros o no en un congreso con multitud de gente o incluso en un avión… Reina cierta incertidumbre ¿no?

Incertidumbre porque el cliente no acaba de saber si su reunión podrá ser presencial, si a los intérpretes nos quiere in situ o no, porque ya vemos la luz al final del túnel pero no nos atrevemos a creérnoslo y, en mi caso, cierto desasosiego porque no tengo claro si me apetece viajar o no, si depende del destino o de la duración del contrato, ¿cambiarán las medidas mientras estoy de viaje? ¿Y si me encuentro mal por allá y tengo que quedarme? Ansío recuperar el terreno conocido pero a la vez me embarga la inquietud porque lo percibo incierto.

No estoy sola, afortunadamente parece que no me pasa solo a mí, mal de muchos… Si alguno de vosotros también se ve reflejado en lo que cuento, a ver si poniendo en práctica algunos consejos de los que nos proporciona el Colegio de Psicología de Madrid al final de este artículo conseguimos estar al cien por cien cuanto antes.

¡Feliz otoño!

Interpreters in Literature

 By Hugo Pooley, Aib

Reading Antonio Muñoz Molina's magnificent early - 1991 - novel “El Jinete Polaco” recently prompted me to undertake a modest, non-exhaustive, survey of novels involving interpreters and perhaps share a few musings on how realistic, or not, their treatment has been.

As most of our readers will know, the distinction between translators and interpreters is that the former work in writing and the latter orally; but in practice interpreters often get called “translators” in error. Some of us have been quite exercised about this confusion in the past. But surely the time has now come to give this little battle up as lost - how important is it? 

Thus the protagonist of Muñoz Molina's book is an Andalusia-born “traductor simultáneo” working inter alia in the US; although for the purposes of the plot he might as well have been in any other peripatetic occupation, for example, an airline pilot. 

This particular fictional colleague seems at times to be regrettably subservient to the agency for which he works on the private market in Spain. But where the author mainly shows an unrealistic view of our activity is in his repeated insistence on the importance of words, the challenge of processing all the words in the original:

“a veces, cuando he pasado todo el día trabajando, me duermo y sueño que no he salido de la cabina de traducción, y las palabras me empujan, me envuelven, me arrastran en cenagales de caligrafía, de discursos fotocopiados, de libros que se van escribiendo a medida que yo los leo e intento traducirlos. En Bruselas llueve y no hay nadie por la calle, en un salón de actos se ha prolongado interminablemente una conferencia sobre aranceles agrícolas o sobre las normas de fabricación de preservativos y los traductores soñolientos miran por el cristal de sus cabinas y buscan equivalencias instantáneas para las palabras absurdas que escuchan en los auriculares pensando en otra cosa”

“el zumbido tenue en los auriculares, las primeras palabras, lentas todavía, protocolarias, previsibles, fotocopiadas en la carpeta que me entregaron cuando vine, la urgencia ávida de atraparlas en el instante en que suenan y convertirlas en otras unas décimas de segundo después, el miedo a perder una sola, una palabra clave, porque entonces las que vienen tras ella se desbordarán como una catarata y ya no será posible restituirles el orden”

It may be true that words are the building blocks of the languages that we learn and of the material on which we work. In a deeper sense, however, they are actually irrelevant, for we really deal in sense. After all, when the substance of any message is remembered, whether by an interpreter or not, surely the actual words are often forgotten, undetermined? The three stages (in interpreting) of comprehension, deverbalization and reformulation go a little further than merely eschewing literal translation. This is the nub of the Interpretive Theory of Translation (of interpreting) researchers' théorie du sens, encapsulated in the immortal Seleskovitch's triangle.

This model states that the interpreter transfers the meaning from the original words into (non verbal) sense and then from that sense into other words in the target language.

The great Lewis Carroll was, as always, (talking of the uselessness of literal translations) “on the money” when he wrote in “Alice's Adventures in Wonderland”, “Take care of the sense and the sounds will take care of themselves”. 

Thus also the longstanding slogan coined in and for AIB: “We say what you mean” - our very own creation, despite subsequent plagiarism!

The main character in “Corazón tan blanco”, by the extraordinary contemporary Spanish writer Javier Marías, is also an interpreter. Prior to its publication a dear colleague of ours interpreted him on the legendary French television programme “Apostrophes” and was extensively quizzed over apéritif at the studio afterwards about the way the profession works. Again, however, the result in the book seems somewhat distant from real life. And not just in the hilarious, mythical, scene where the interpreter deliberately, mischievously, progressively, subverts an interview between the thinly disguised Felipe González and Margaret Thatcher by consistently corrupting its content. Jaime Deza, the protagonist of Marías's tour de force trilogy “Tu Rostro Mañana”, is never really quite an interpreter: rather, his occupation combines facets of academic, translator, spy, and seer… But throughout it Marías is, as so often, concerned with linguistic, cultural and historical communication between English- and Spanish-speaking ambits.

All these writers are absolutely recommended, irrespective of whether they depict interpreters or not!

There is, furthermore, a category of interpreters who have become writers but did not include any interpreters among their characters.

The peerless Argentinian writer Julio Cortázar, who was born in Brussels and of whom one may see a statue next to Place Brugmann there, worked as a translator and interpreter for organisations such as UNESCO. He refers to the mental fatigue brought about by a day in the simultaneous interpreter´s booth, the overwhelming sensation of processing so much information; and alludes to the virtues of wine as a remedy.

The admirable Eduardo Mendoza was a true-life interpreter at the United Nations and also on the private market who later chose a career transition, becoming a writer (of such marvels as the Barcelona-based “La ciudad de los prodigios”).

José Ovejero was an interpreter for the European Commission in Brussels for over a decade at the end of last century. He has covered a range of genres, notably fine travel writing, and is best known for his award-winning novel “La invención del amor”.

In these last cases interpreting's loss was clearly literature´s great gain!

Other novels featuring interpreters include “The summer before the dark” by Doris Lessing, “The Mission Song” by John Le Carré, “Travesuras de la niña mala” by Mario Vargas Llosa, and “The hundred-year-old man who climbed out the window and disappeared” by Jonas Jonasson.

On the whole, then: is our professional practice generally misunderstood? - oh, the irony! But does it matter?

Also, is there possibly a gap on the literary market for a more realistic creation? But it would take considerable skill to make our little concerns interesting to a broader audience?

The Dragomans

by Felix Ordeig, AIB

 

This post is a brief introduction to the DRAGOMANS – not a class of élite warriors nor an extinct animal, but the name given to interpreters in the Ottoman Empire, which collapsed in 1922, after its defeat in the First World War. Its successor state is the modern Republic of Turkey. I am indebted to Elvin ABBASBEYLI, an Azeri colleague who has written and researched on the subject, and several Turkish interpreters who mentioned them during informal conversations. If I recall correctly, they are also briefly mentioned in the evocative novel, Birds Without Wings, by Louis De Bernières.

When two States wish to establish relations with each they almost always require the assistance of individuals fluent in languages who can help diplomats accomplish their mission. In the Ottoman Empire these interpreters and translators were called “dragomans”. Their history is linked to the beginning of regular relations between Western countries and the Ottoman Empire, and beyond the sphere of specialists the Dragoman are little known, even amongst interpreters, and yet they were very important in the history of Europe in the Eastern Mediterranean

The history of diplomatic translation and interpretation in the Ottoman Empire is tightly linked to the Dragoman, and they could be considered to be the founding fathers of the translation and interpretation profession in the Ottoman Empire and later in Turkey. This history began with the first contacts and the first treaties signed with Western powers.

In 1454, one year after the Ottomans seized Constantinople, turned it into their capital and later renamed it Istanbul, the Republic of Venice, at the time an important power in the Eastern Mediterranean, sent an ambassador to the Ottoman court (known as the Sublime Porte, or Sublime Gate; the Emperor was known as the Sultan). After Venice and up to 1615, Poland, the Russian and Austrian Empires, France, England and a newly independent Holland also sent ambassadors to establish relations with the Ottoman Empire.

Before looking at who they were, their background and what their duties consisted of, let us look at the origin of the word “DRAGOMAN”.

Several theories exist as to the origin of the word “dragoman”. This ancient word of Syriac origin, was borrowed by Arabic (tardjumān) and then by Turkish (tercüman), and then made its way into Latin (turchimannus) and romance languages, such as Italian (drogmano), French (drogman, truchement), Spanish (truchimán), and even Catalan (torsimany) plus also Slavic and Germanic tongues. (A Turkish synonym was dilmaç, from where the German word dolmetscher may come). Although the word tercüman was used in Ottoman documents to refer to interpreter-translators from embassies and consulates, it was the word dragoman which was used in nearly all European languages although its spelling and pronunciation varied from one language to the next.

The Ottoman Empire and the Western diplomatic missions in Istanbul needed individuals fluent in both Western and Oriental languages who also mastered the cultural differences and codes of behavior of both Ottomans and Westerners. In Europe, such individuals were known as “DRAGOMANS” or increasingly “DROGMANS”. Their tasks were very varied: political and commercial translation and interpretation between the Sublime Porte and the ambassadors and consuls of Western powers. Veritable dragoman dynasties appeared in the Levant – the historical/geographical name given to the Eastern mediterranean – passing the skills from one generation to the next. They were present in the areas under Ottoman control and continued to carry out their tasks until the end of the Empire after the end of WW 1. Within the Ottoman Empire two main categories of dragomans existed:

* First of all, the Dragoman of the Sultan’s Imperial Court, who were civil servants of the Ottoman Empire and were also known as “Grand Drogmans” in the West. They held very high posts (with which also came very high risks!). During certain periods, they held the second most important position after that of the Minister of Foreign Affairs. The Grand Drogmans of the Sublime Porte were a sort of head interpreter-translators overseeing a team of translators and interpreters. They could be compared to translators and interpreters working for presidents and ministries in the modern world.

The Grand Drogman’s work included:

• Interpreting meetings between foreign envoys and the Grand Vizier (equivalent to a Prime Minister).
• Participating in the Grand Vizier’s meetings with foreign envoys and drafting summaries of such meetings.
• Taking part in Ottoman delegations sent abroad.
• Interpreting during bilateral negotiations.
• Drafting and translating any correspondence sent to and received from Western powers.
  

The power of the Grand Drogmans grew with time; from the 18th century onwards they took part in actual negotiations. Thus, all diplomatic activity in the Ottoman Empire was concentrated in the hands of the Grand Drogmans. In this way, they became the most important civil servants in Ottoman diplomacy.

In the 16th and up to the end of the 17th centuries, as Ottoman power spread not just in the Eastern Mediterranean, but also in large parts of Central Europe, Grand Drogmans were chosen from among the German, Hungarian, Italian and other communities in territories under Ottoman domination, which included all the Balkans stretching almost as far as Vienna. In 1660, with the appointment of Panayotis Nicousios as Grand Drogman, it was the Greeks who began to hold this prestigious post and would continue to do so until the Greek War of Independence of 1821. It should be pointed out that members of the Christian community, both Orthodox and Roman Catholic, often shared until the mid-17th century the roles of Grand Drogman of the Empire and Grand Drogman of the Imperial Fleet and Army. Though non-Muslims (with names such as Pisani or Timoni) in a state where Islam was the majority religion, they wielded great power, influence and enjoyed wealth and prestige.

* Secondly, the Western powers which established missions – embassies or consulates – in the Ottoman Empire needed people who spoke their own language as well as the language used by Ottoman authorities. These drogmans acted as secretary-interpreters who translated documents as well as meetings with representatives of the Ottoman administration. They accompanied diplomats and lived in embassies or consulates. 

At first, foreign missions recruited them from among the families of minority Christian communities in several historical neighbourhoods in Istanbul, inhabited by Orthodox Greeks and by Latins as mentioned above. However, soon Western countries began to train their own drogmans since they did not trust local ones. “Local” drogmans were subjects of the Sultan and as such their loyalty was sometimes questioned. Their imperfect knowledge of French – at the time the universal language of diplomacy – also constituted a risk during negotiations.

One of the reasons why at first Westerners chose their drogmans from among these families was due to the fact that, according to Ottoman traditions based on Islam, it was frowned upon for Muslim subjects of the Empire to learn European languages or to spend too much time in the West; westerners were considered to be infidels, and Christian states were seen as inferior to Muslim ones. Ottomans also had a superiority complex, and Sultans, grand viziers and top officials often demeaned emissaries of Western countries. All of the above may be among the reasons that, until the second half of the 19th century, the Ottoman Empire had never opened an embassy in any Western country.

That is how the idea came about to recruit young children in order to teach them Oriental languages from an early age. Also with the increase in relations between the Ottoman Empire and Western powers, there were no longer enough drogmans to fulfill demand.

Beginning in the mid-sixteenth century, Venice sent young children to Istanbul to train them as drogmans. Soon other countries followed suit; in the early seventeenth century a French religious order set up a school in the city to teach French, Turkish, Latin, Italian and Vulgar Greek. The school trained the first group of drogmans to serve France, and shortly afterwards the French Government set up the “School for young linguists” to train drogmans there. Tuition was free, subsidized by the French state and French Chambers of Commerce, the goal being to avoid having to recruit drogmans only from local families.

So young children from Western countries and from the territories of the Ottoman Empire received an education and learned Turkish, Arabic and Persian; after their training, they were known as “language children”. 

As time went by, these students, once graduated, made up an integral part of diplomatic links by becoming not only translators and interpreters between the Sublime Porte and emissaries of Western powers, but also specialists in Oriental civilizations, having to translate ancient Turkish, Arabic and Persian manuscripts as mandatory exercises. This policy of translation was part of a wider movement of acquiring Oriental works in a well-planned and orderly fashion. Most of these translations are currently kept at the National Library of France.

The British also tried to train drogmans specifically for the British embassy in Constantinople. The school of Greek at Oxford University was to receive young Greeks into the Anglican religion, to ensure their loyalty; however this proved problematic with both the Greek Orthodox Church and Ottoman imperial authorities.

To conclude: through their familiarity of Muslim civilization, and the Ottoman Empire and its languages, Drogmans/Dragomans played a key role in the transfer of knowledge and ideas between the Ottomans and the West. An interesting and little known tale about the importance of interpreters, who at the time enjoyed much prestige – unlike now, some might argue

Los intérpretes, como los músicos, deben practicar sus escalas y arpegios

 Por Anabel Pérez Real, estudiante del MUIC 

Existe una relación profunda entre el lenguaje y la música; al menos, así lo he vivido yo hasta la fecha. Soy alumna del MUIC, el Máster Oficial en Interpretación de Conferencias de la Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona. En el momento de escribir estas líneas, dejo atrás el primer curso y aún me queda por afrontar la recta final de segundo.

No obstante, dentro de mí no solo llevo idiomas y culturas diferentes, sino un profundo bagaje artístico. Empecé a cantar y a estudiar música desde muy pequeña y poseo el Título Superior de Música en Interpretación del Canto Clásico y Contemporáneo ofrecido por la ESMUC (Escuela Superior de Música de Cataluña).

Cuando finalmente me decidí a cursar el MUIC no me pasó desapercibida esa «coincidencia»: soy intérprete cuando canto sobre el escenario y también cuando estoy en la cabina aprendiendo a transmitir el mensaje de un orador. Así que en eso quisiera centrarme a lo largo de esta reflexión: en las similitudes entre el aprendizaje de la música y el de la interpretación.

Para empezar, estudiar música e interpretación requiere tener buen oído y agilidad mental. Los músicos controlamos constantemente nuestra propia producción mientras realizamos otras tareas: debemos asegurarnos de que el sonido sea correcto, afinado; que el ritmo sea el adecuado en todo momento, sin permitir que fluctúe (a no ser que el compositor lo especifique); debemos mantenernos fieles a la partitura, sin cometer errores de lectura; expresar las ideas y los sentimientos de la pieza (en mi opinión, ahí es donde empieza a aparecer la parte verdaderamente interpretativa de la música), y un largo etcétera. Por no hablar de cuando tocamos en grupo (algo que sucede casi siempre): entonces se ponen en marcha otros mecanismos para escuchar también al otro, para empastar y afinar, para comprender qué nos dice a través de la música y así establecer un diálogo sonoro, etc. Todo esto mientras sentimos cómo el público acoge nuestro trabajo y si le está llegando el mensaje o no.

Cuando interpretamos nos ocurre algo similar: debemos escuchar el original en todo momento, asegurarnos de que lo entendemos y lo expresamos correctamente en la lengua meta, de que vamos más allá de las palabras y trasladamos el tono y los sentimientos del orador, etc. Todo ello mientras cuidamos la fluidez de la interpretación para que no haya silencios abruptos que entorpezcan la comprensión, para que nuestras frases tengan principio y fin sin un ritmo entrecortado; cuidando a la vez la articulación y el tono de voz para que sea lo más agradable posible para el oyente. Además, ¡nos comunicamos en silencio con el compañero de cabina!

Nuestro objetivo como intérpretes es transmitir el mensaje y los sentimientos del orador, como si el discurso fuera nuestro, de la misma forma que el músico intenta transmitir las emociones de la pieza, ese mensaje sin palabras. La diferencia es que normalmente una interpretación musical está muy estudiada y tras ella se esconden muchísimas horas de análisis y trabajo; el objetivo es que en el momento del concierto parezca espontánea, como si hubiera surgido en la magia de ese momento. En cambio, como es bien sabido, el intérprete se enfrenta siempre a algo nuevo e inesperado, cambiante. Puede prepararse conociendo el tema, el vocabulario, y debe ser capaz de confiar en las técnicas de interpretación que domina, pero se enfrenta a lo desconocido.

Ambas disciplinas requieren mucho estudio y dedicación, así como tenacidad y disciplina. Los músicos empezamos a aprender nuestro instrumento desde muy pequeños y nos pasamos toda la vida estudiando muchas horas al día. Lo mismo ocurre durante el estudio de la interpretación de conferencias; todos hemos oído la misma cantinela: «practicad, practicad, es muy importante que practiquéis…». Necesitamos pasarnos horas practicando y, además, como en la música, es muy importante plantearse siempre un objetivo: mejorar nuestro registro, aumentar o reducir el décalage, evitar falsos inicios de frase…

Gracias a mi formación musical entiendo a la perfección la insistencia de las profesoras; sé que hay cosas que solo pueden aprenderse a base de repetición y trabajo, aplicando siempre la reflexión y la lógica. A simple vista puede parecer que un pianista repite el mismo fragmento o la misma escala sin parar, de forma mecánica, pero si está haciendo bien su trabajo se trata de un ejercicio consciente, con un objetivo concreto; no se trata de insistir porque sí. De la misma forma, creo que un intérprete se beneficia de realizar sus ejercicios de forma consciente, con un objetivo y comprendiendo lo que está sucediendo. Al principio puede parecer difícil, pero, como ocurre con cualquier habilidad, se va adquiriendo si prestamos suficiente atención. 

Asimismo, en mi opinión ese hábito de práctica debería prolongarse más allá de la formación del intérprete. Un músico profesional dedica muchas horas al día al estudio, no solo durante su formación o cuando se presenta a una audición para entrar en la bolsa de una orquesta, cerrar un contrato con una agencia o conseguir un rol en un teatro (algo similar a la preparación para pasar un examen de acreditación como el de las Instituciones Europeas). El intérprete profesional también puede plantearse rutinas que le permitan mejorar su prestación.

El dominio de las técnicas aplicadas en la interpretación consecutiva o la simultánea podría equipararse a los arpegios y las escalas diarias del músico. Durante nuestra vida profesional seguimos formándonos con clases magistrales y privadas porque para mejorar necesitamos a alguien que «nos escuche desde fuera»; el intérprete profesional también necesita seguir formándose activamente para no caer en la rutina y en los errores, y a un compañero de prácticas que también «lo escuche desde fuera» y le dé su opinión.

Otra herramienta eficaz durante la práctica es grabarnos para escucharnos y detectar errores o aspectos que debemos mejorar; de esta manera evitamos malos hábitos. Como los músicos, si no nos escuchamos a menudo para controlar nuestra producción desde fuera es fácil caer en malos hábitos. Es muy importante trasladar correctamente el mensaje, controlar que no volvamos a empezar la misma frase varias veces, que nuestra entonación no suene extraña, que no haya pausas en medio de frases… Se trata de aspectos que no detectamos en el momento de la interpretación, solo al escucharnos, y que pueden dañar el mensaje dando como resultado una interpretación que no tendrá la calidad a la que podemos aspirar.

Finalmente, llega el momento tan esperado: el día del concierto o del trabajo de interpretación. En ambas disciplinas la gestión de los nervios es clave; estamos sobre el escenario o en nuestra cabina para comunicarnos, para asegurarnos de que el público recibe el mensaje y lo comprende. Debemos ser profesionales en todo momento y dar lo mejor de nosotros mismos, a pesar de los errores y las dificultades. No importa si nos enfrentamos a un pasaje especialmente difícil desde un punto de vista técnico, o si nos hemos quedado sin aire antes de tiempo; no importa si el orador va demasiado rápido o tiene un acento que nos cuesta entender: nuestro objetivo es que el público reciba el mensaje sin mostrarle lo difícil que es nuestra tarea.

Estas son algunas de las similitudes principales entre la música y la interpretación. No me cabe duda de que hay más y sé que las iré descubriendo con el paso del tiempo (por nombrar algunas: higiene auditiva y vocal, relaciones interpersonales, etc.).

Se han llevado a cabo muchos estudios acerca de la relación entre el lenguaje y la música; algunos de ellos se centran en realizar un estudio comparativo en términos de sistemas cognitivos. Quién sabe, quizás en el futuro se realicen investigaciones que arrojen más luz sobre la relación entre el ámbito musical y el de la interpretación de conferencias desde un punto de vista cognitivo. En mi opinión, sería un campo de estudio sumamente interesante.

Learning and working online as a visually impaired interpreter (Part 2)

 By Michelle Hof, AIB

An interview with Nadia Gouy (Part II)

Last week, we heard from visually impaired interpreter Nadia Gouy about how interpreting trainers can make their classrooms more accessible. This week, she talks to Michelle Hof about her experience working with online interpreting tools for distance interpreting, terminology management and computer-assisted interpreting, and gives some essential accessibility tips for platform developers.

Michelle Hof: In the first part of this interview, we talked about accessibility in training. Let’s talk now about the other main question, leaving the classroom behind and moving the conversation over to professional interpreting platforms. A lot of the work that I do on my course at Glendon involves exploring different interpreting platforms, different types of software that have been developed to help interpreters deliver their services remotely, and generally various aspects of interpreting technology. Working through that with you has helped me understand some of the things that these platforms have to keep in mind when they are developing their product to make sure that visually impaired interpreters aren’t getting left behind. 

I want you to tell me about your experience with the different technologies that we worked with this year. Here I am thinking about both the platforms that deliver interpreting services – your typical RSI platform – and other types of technology, including terminology management and computer-assisted interpreting (CAI) tools. What was your experience with those tools?

Nadia Gouy: For the RSI platforms, it really varied, all the way from sheer frustration to a good level of satisfaction and ease with the platform. As for the CAI tools or interpreting banks, they were really not very accessible at all. One exception was Interpreter’s Help, which I did manage to use. Even though I wasn’t able to use the extraction feature, I was still able to use parts of it, like the glossary features, so I could read, create and share glossaries. Other tools are really not helpful. InterpretBank, for instance, is out of the question, as it is inaccessible on all levels. 

MH: You said your experience with the interpreting platforms ranged from sheer frustration to satisfaction. Let’s talk about that, and how it feels for you in the classroom. Obviously, every student is going to have a slightly different experience when learning about these platforms. But how does it feel when you see you are being completely blocked from even trying to explore a platform because it simply hasn’t occurred to the developers that a visually impaired interpreter might want to access it? I really felt for you in class sometimes, because it seemed you were being completely left out of the conversation. Let’s talk about that frustration for a minute before we look at possible solutions.

NG: I have to say, when I saw that your course was going to be about interpreting technologies and platforms and whatnot, I really thought I would hate it! I thought it was going to be a series of frustrating experiences. One of the main reasons why I started seriously considering interpreting over translation has to do with how machine translation and CAT tools have moved the translation industry in a direction that has made it less accessible for visually impaired professionals – especially SDL, which is completely inaccessible.

MH: Really? One of the market leaders, after all these years? They’ve had 20 years to get their act together.

NG: No, they never wanted to collaborate or make it accessible. Same with memoQ and MemSource. Fluency is the only one that’s being used by blind translators, but it’s not widely used on the market. So as a blind translator, you feel disadvantaged because of a tool that has been introduced on the market.

MH: So you were basically being forced out the market because of the adoption of CAT tools that weren’t accessible? Was there no receptivity on the part of developers? Did you not even try to go there?

NG: I read reviews by other blind translators who had tried it and said it didn’t work out. We are a minority, very few and far between, so who listens to a minority?

MH: But that doesn’t give them the right to ignore you.

NG: No, I am not justifying their actions, I am just stating the bitter realities here. 

MH: Going back a bit, you said that when you heard I was going to give a course on interpreting technologies, you shuddered because you thought it was just going to be a repeat of all those frustrating moments with user-unfriendly translation tools?

NG: Exactly. I thought it would be the same frustrating experience and it would remind me of how unequal the playing field is. When I get onto an inaccessible RSI platform, like WebSwitcher or VoiceBoxer, all I can think is, “Okay, here is another lost opportunity for me, another chance that is not equal.” So I am not even going to be judged on my interpreting skills, I am just out of the game, completely excluded.

MH: Please tell me there is some good news at the end of this, that it is not all terrible.

NG: Not at all, that’s why I said it ranged from sheer frustration to satisfaction. There are other, very accessible platforms, such as KUDO and QuaQua. What I liked about them is how responsive they were. I remember testing KUDO in November of last year, and they didn’t have sound cues for when I needed to do the handover. So I wrote to them and told them about it. Then, when we tested it again in March, that feature was there. There are now sound cues, a slight, non-distracting beep that will alert me to a handover request or that my boothmate has accepted my handover request. 

The same happened with QuaQua. When we tested it for the first time in March, I couldn’t use the handover feature, as I had to keep interpreting and also watch out for any messages from my boothmate. There was no way I could tell otherwise, I had to keep reading with my screen reader to find out if I had to switch or accept or deny a request. Later, we tested their beta version, scheduled for release in May, and they had added sound cues for the handover. I thought that was really amazing. I love how they take the time to listen to my comments and those of other visually impaired interpreters. 

MH: That’s good news. It seems that in the translation world, you felt shut out, that didn’t feel you had any agency, that there was nothing you could do to make sure your voice was heard, while in the very much smaller world of interpreting, your voice does carry some weight. 

I have to say, in a perfect world, anybody who develops a new platform or software should not have to first develop it and then be told by people that it is not accessible. In a perfect world, accessibility would be baked in right from the beginning. 

NG: Yes. Take Zoom as an example. At least it has all the basics. It will tell me, once I am in the booth, that I am being assigned to Arabic, and it will use voice prompts to tell me which shortcut to use to switch between English and Arabic. This accessibility has been built in from the start, from the early versions of Zoom.

MH: Is the difference between Zoom and some of these smaller companies just one of sheer size? Big companies will have a department that deals with accessibility, staffed by people who know the rules and standards, whereas smaller companies might not have those resources? Or where does this difference come from?

NG: Well, Zoom will have a wider community of users who are visually impaired or partially sighted. 

MH: Of course, Zoom isn’t “just” an interpreting platform. I mean, the entire world lives on Zoom these days! So there is a large user community. 

NG: Yes, and there is the Americans with Disabilities Act that they have to comply with. And as a bigger company, they are more likely to be sued than a small, specialized platform.   

MH: Let’s talk about what these providers can do right. What are three tips that you can give them? It would seem to me that one would be that they must be aware of the existing standards and legislation. What do they need to be pointed towards?

NG: Well, there’s the World Wide Web Consortium on accessibility. They have clear guidelines that any web developer should be familiar with and I don’t think they are that complicated. Basically, it is about labelling buttons, putting in alternative text, etc. For instance, on an interpreting platform, as a sighted interpreter you may know that you are broadcasting because there is a light flashing or a colour change alerting you to that, but I wouldn’t know that if it’s not written “Nadia broadcasting”, so I would just keep trying to find out if I am broadcasting or not. 

MH: These are existing accessibility standards that web developers have to keep in mind, and yet they don’t always do so. It’s like your typical architect who is designing conference rooms with interpreting booths who is supposed to consult the ISO standards for booths, and yet obviously we know that some of them don’t bother – and then we have to live with the results! 

NG: The second thing I would ask for is shortcuts, shortcuts, shortcuts, please! It just makes life easier for me. For instance, to mute myself, I could look for the mute button, but that entails doing two things at once, and that is a workaround. If there is no shortcut for mute, what I have to do, while I am interpreting, is hit Ctrl+F, type in “mute”, then press ENTER to go to the mute button, and then press ENTER on the mute button for it to work! And that is even assuming the button is labeled “mute”.

MH: And by that time, you’ve already coughed up half a lung on a live mic!

NG: Exactly! But if there is a Ctrl+M or Alt+M shortcut, it changes everything. Does it really cost you that much to add it? This brings us to the idea of universal design – something that not only works for me, but works for you, too. It benefits all of us, sighted or otherwise.

MH: Shortcuts as an example of universal design – they are good for everybody, but in particular they are good for you. What other tips do you have?

NG: Well, let’s look at an example of best practice now. If you could configure your platform to work with hard consoles, that would help us. 

MH: We’re talking about the type of hard console that you can order in the post and then plug into your computer and it will give you access to all the functions of the platform’s soft console but with the dials and buttons of a conventional console. That would also be high up on your wish list? 

NG: Yes, very high up!

MH: There are a few platforms that offer that already.

NG: Yes, there is KUDO, for instance. I say this because I tried KUDO with a colleague and we did a comparison of KUDO with a hard console and KUDO with its soft console with all of the accessibility features and shortcuts – because they do have shortcuts – and I found that I can work faster with a hard console. So I gain time and I am also just more comfortable using a hard console, and I am also more confident that I have pressed the right button. 

MH: This also seems to be in the spirit of universal design – I know of many sighted interpreters who are happy to work remotely, but who would really love to use a hard console, even when working from home. So you’re not the only one with that at the top of your wish list!

NG: That’s good news!

MH: Well, it has been very interesting to hear your insights, as a visually impaired interpreter, into online training and best practice in the online classroom and in particular to learn about your experience working with interpreting technologies. If I were to ask you to wrap it all up in a takeaway message, what would that be?

NG: It would be that accessibility is not costly, and it doesn’t harm anyone. If you can do it for us from the very beginning, and just follow the standards and the benchmarks, it will help everybody in the long run. Also, accessibility is not a luxury for some people, it is a must. For me, if there is no accessibility built into a virtual space, I can’t be there. I may not even be able to log in to begin with!

MH: That is a very important message to wrap up with: that accessibility isn’t a luxury, or an add-on, or an afterthought. It’s not something that you do because somebody reminds you that it needs to be done. It’s a must.

NG: And it’s not costly!

MH: Accessibility should come at the beginning of the design process. What’s probably more costly is having to fix things after the fact instead of building them in right from the start. 

NG: Yes, SDL keeps saying that they cannot go back to the drawing board because it would be too costly for them to build in accessibility features at this point. I think it is easier for interpreting platforms because they are web-based, so it’s less of an issue. But still, you want to get it right from the start.

MH: Thank you so much, Nadia! These are questions I’ve been meaning to ask you for a very long time. Thanks for sharing your ideas with me and with the readers of our blog.

NG: Thank you for inviting me, and for getting me to do a bit of reflection on my daily life. It was great, I enjoyed it! 

This brings us to the end of our interview with visually impaired interpreter Nadia Gouy. If you are a visually impaired interpreter and would like to join Nadia and other colleagues in promoting accessibility in our profession, or if you would like to know more about how to teach and work with interpreters with visual impairment, please reach out to us at gouy.nadia@gmail.com and m.hof@aibcnet.com.

Learning and working online as a visually impaired interpreter (Part 1)

 By Michelle Hof, AIB

An interview with Nadia Gouy (Part I)

Have you ever wondered what it is like to work with online platforms as a visually impaired interpreter? Do you want to know how to improve accessibility for students and interpreters with a visual impairment? In this two-part interview, Nadia Gouy, a senior interpreting student at the Glendon Master of Conference Interpreting, shares with AIB member Michelle Hof her top accessibility tips for interpreting trainers and online platforms. 

In Part I, Nadia tells us of her experience as a visually impaired student of interpreting and offers guidance on how to ensure an accessible, inclusive classroom experience. Part II next week will contain accessibility tips for developers of online platforms and tools. 

Michelle Hof: We are speaking today with Nadia Gouy, a student of conference interpreting at the Glendon MCI in Toronto. Nadia and I have been working together this year on a course I teach there on interpreting technologies. Welcome, Nadia! Why don’t you start by introducing yourself?

Nadia Gouy: Thank you. I am Nadia Gouy from Morocco. I have been a translator for over 12 years and also an interpreter – mainly liaison and diplomatic interpreting for the Minister of Parliamentary Relations in Morocco – for five or six years. I also did a bit of freelance conference interpreting in Morocco. In 2017, when I arrived in Canada as a newly landed immigrant, I didn’t have a network and the luxury of choosing what to do, so I worked for the government public services here. When the Covid-19 pandemic hit and the MCI program went entirely online, I decided to sit the advanced entry exam (I was actually going to do it in 2018 but didn’t, for personal reasons).

MH: Why did you decide to pursue formal training? Was it because you had practical experience with interpreting and you wanted to know more about it, or was it that you had a lot of time on your hands due to Covid-19? What was the draw?

NG: This is actually something that has been lingering in my mind for years. In 2006, when I  graduated from a school of translation in Morocco, I was awarded the Fulbright Scholarship and was accepted to the Middlebury Institute (MIIS). However, they didn’t offer Arabic, and so for that and a few other reasons, I ended up changing degree tracks and instead I did a master’s in international development and public administration – the world of NGOs and the like. That was really good, as what I learned through that program helped me expand my work opportunities while working as an interpreter for the ministry back in Morocco and helped me understand the conferences I worked at as an interpreter.  

MH: It sounds like an interesting profile for a conference interpreter to have, and this somewhat wandering trajectory seems to have brought you right to where you need to be right now! Which brings me to my next question: you said you joined the Glendon MCI in the year that it went fully online due to Covid-19 restrictions. Now, we haven’t said this yet, but you are student with visual impairment and this may mean that your experience with online learning might be different from that of your sighted classmates. What has your impression been of this past year of online learning at Glendon?

NG: Well, it has been very interesting, because before joining the MCI, I didn’t use Zoom. Even at work we used to hold our meetings on Teams, so moving to Zoom involved a learning curve for me, even though Zoom is very accessible. It’s a lot of things to juggle at the same time – my screen reader talking to me, the instructor talking, the chitchat going on between students in the chat box, and in the beginning I found it really annoying. I didn’t know how to stop the notifications and it was too much to juggle. There was lots going on at the same time, with so many voice feeds. But then I got used to it, I learned the shortcuts, and actually started enjoying writing and chatting while listening to the instructor and doing so much else at the same time!

MH: Well, we always talk about interpreters having to cultivate split attention, so I guess you had a bit of a head start! I sometimes think that students in an online classroom have a lot of demands on their attention. They are asked to pay attention to what the instructor is saying, they are asked to pay attention to the task, and in the world of online learning, they are often paying attention to the chat box as well. I know many of your sighted classmates have difficulties organizing their attention in such situations, and end up dedicating it either to the chat or to what is going on in the main room. Trainers often have to make a similar choice as well. Have you ever been tempted to just turn off the chat, or do you make a conscious choice to try to incorporate it into your online classroom experience?

NG: Both! It depends on my attention span, and on whether the chat is going to be useful – for instance, in your classes, I do follow the chat a lot, as students ask a lot of questions that are complementary to the main discussion. But sometimes I don’t even read the chat because it distracts me from the class, especially if we are interpreting or doing other exercises that require my attention.

MH: Did your classmates ever consider refraining from that idle chitchat, knowing that it might be drawing away some of that much needed attention for you? Sighted interpreters might take a quick glance at the chat box and decide there is nothing interesting going on there, but in your case, you have to wait until your screen reader tells you what’s being said, and then you have to decide, after you’ve heard it, whether it’s interesting or not. Did it ever change the dynamic in class, where your classmates said, “C’mon guys, Nadia has to put up with all of our nonsense, it must be really annoying, let’s hold back for her”?

NG: I never really brought it up. At the start of term, when I attended the induction session, I logged in on my phone and it was a mess, because my phone just kept reading out everything and I thought “This is going to be hell on earth! I am not going to survive!” And I thought that if it were to continue like that, I would have to bring it up. But then I started using my computer, where I have the choice of ignoring the chat completely or just checking it occasionally, and so I didn’t say anything. I didn’t want to limit people’s choices, it felt like too much to ask. Yes, I need to read everything to get the information I need, but at the same time, I have gotten used to it in many ways, so now I just scroll down quickly to what I need to read. 

MH: So you can scan as well and pick out what’s most important? 

NG: Yes.

MH: Did your experience with other online conferencing platforms like Teams help you with that, or was this a new skill set that you had to learn?

NG: I had to learn it at Glendon, because at work we didn’t have side chats. 

MH: Now I want to ask you for some tips. As trainers of interpreters, we sometimes work with students with visual impairment, either in person or online. I have worked with you and other blind students at Glendon over the years and we do receive guidance for that, but it’s not every day that we get to ask the students themselves. So what are the main things that are really important for instructors to keep in mind when working with you in a classroom?

NG: I would like to start by saying that all my Glendon instructors have been really careful with this – for instance, they take care to read out their PowerPoints. They don’t just say “this here” or “that there”, as I have had to deal with in other learning situations – this is my third master’s degree, so I’ve been in school for a long time and seen a bit of everything! And I think Glendon’s is the most accessible program I have attended, all in all. 

But I did have some unpleasant experiences with invited guests. In one of my courses, there were a few guest speakers, and nobody told them beforehand that there would be a visually impaired student. I still remember one presentation on accounting – thankfully, I had taken a graduate course on accounting so I knew what it was about – but still, I just needed the speaker to explain what he was referring to, because he just kept saying “this and that, this and that…”. I kept asking him in the chat to refrain from doing so, but he wasn’t reading the chat, nor did he see my raised hand. So one of my classmates had to step in and explain what I needed him to know.

MH: That’s a good point. Guest speakers or visiting professors need to be told there will be someone with different requirements at the lecture, and they also need to be given the guidance on best practice – for instance, don’t say “this” and “that”, always describe what is on the PowerPoint, don’t just assume everybody has had a look at it, and so on. We will have to keep that in mind at Glendon. It just becomes second nature to do these things because we work with you on a regular basis, so we forget that others may not know it. It’s the lack of communication that gives rise to these uncomfortable situations for all involved.

NG: Another thing has to do with exercises involving interpretation with text, that is, sight translation of a text straight of the page. It’s very complicated for me to do as a user of a screen reader. We did a lot of that on one of my courses. I really tried my best, but the instructor thought that my processing was too slow. I did explain once that I was using a screen reader, but I didn’t want him to think I was seeking a pretext. So instead of insisting, I just let him think that it was me trying to find the right word and not that I was being slowed down by my screen reader. Mostly, when I am slow, it’s because I can’t read ahead.

MH: So your screen reader was holding you back. Were any accommodations made for that? A few years ago, we were told we could give visually impaired students the full text in advance of such an exercise so they could scan it with their screen reader. 

NG: No, I got it at the same time as the others. I don’t mind, it’s just that you need to understand that I am going to take longer, obviously.

MH: So, another tip would be that there are particular exercises that trainers need to know are going to feel different for you working through a screen reader.

NG: Yes. Also, if any materials are going to be used in class, they need to be sent beforehand and in an accessible format: PowerPoint presentations, or documents in .pdf format, etc. If I get a .pdf at the last minute, it will take time to convert – especially if it’s in Arabic! Those are very hard to convert.

MH: Screen readers work best with .doc format, right?

NG: Screen readers can actually work with some .pdf  files. There are two types of .pdfs. Some are accessible because they are scanned documents, not images, and these are fine. Others are scanned images and they need to be run through OCR software to be converted to text. In English, that is pretty easy and I can do it in a split second. But in Arabic, it’s complicated. Just generally, .pdf files are pretty horrible for Arabic. In one of my classes, we had to go over some UN documentation and I couldn’t do the exercise because my screen reader couldn’t read the Arabic written in the .pdf. 

MH: So the problem is with the document format? And if you get it in advance, you aren’t struggling during class time with converting files and having to adapt on the fly. You need extra lead time to prepare class materials.

NG: Exactly. 

MH: Those are some very good tips! And they are in line with the guidance we receive at Glendon on working with visually impaired students. It’s good to get it from the horse’s mouth, to hear that these things really do make a difference for you. We try at Glendon to make sure that visually impaired students have the same sort of access as other students and it’s heartening to hear that it has that effect.

NG: Truly, that is the case.

And that’s the end of Part I on fostering accessibility in training. Please check in next week for Nadia’s accessibility tips for developers of online platforms and tools for interpreters.