In The Event Of A Fire - Get The Hell Out!

14-11-2006

"Tell it like it is" they say - but in the multilingual Midlands, where more than half a dozen languages are spoken, that's sometimes easier said than done. Pete Millington explores the strange and bewilidering world of translations no one can understand.

Once again the fire brigade in Scotland have been in trouble with a brigade of a different sort, yes you guessed it… the esteemed and greatly feared Royal Highland Battalions of the Politically Correct

Following on just months after the boys from tartan-watch refused to show off their brightly-coloured helmets in the Glasgow Gay Pride Parade (Pride Scotia 2006), earlier this week the press reported yet another highly embarrassing gaff by the Strathclyde Fire and Rescue Service

This time though it was over a small matter of getting lost in the translation

The gaff came to light when thousands of fire safety leaflets were withdrawn because of a wrong translation in the Urdu version of the leaflet

Fire chiefs were left fuming and local officials hot under the collar when some bright spark pointed out that the word ‘gadha' (donkey) had been mistakenly used instead of ‘gadda' (cushion)

The leaflet, titled 'Fire Kills - You Can Prevent It', was produced by the Scottish Executive and has been available to the public for five years.

The English version of the leaflet reads: “Never jump straight out of a window. Lower yourself on to cushions”

But bungling language experts who had translated the leaflet into Urdu had written: “Never jump out of a window straight. Put yourself on a donkey”

When the mis-translation was brought to the attention of Strathclyde Fire and Rescue Service they were left with no alternative but to recall the leaflets for an impromptu bonfire round at HQ

As might be expected, the affair has angered local luminaries of the politically correct persuasion who have been busily stoking the coals of righteous indignation, utter repugnance and downright contempt

Bashir Ahmad, a Scottish Nationalist Party councilor for Glasgow Shawlands, which has a high proportion of Urdu speakers, said: "How can you mix up cushions with a donkey? My constituents will be laughing that such a silly translation has been made."

Urdu expert Bassneem Kareem, told the local media: "The Urdu word for donkey is 'gadha', while the word for cushion is 'gadda'. It is a very big error - ridiculous and stupid."

A Scottish Executive spokesperson apologised for the error and said: "Since this leaflet was translated in 2001, quality control on translated material has been improved by running a system that includes proof-reading."

This being so, a point which occurs to me in all of this is this…

If the terribly offensive leaflets were produced and circulated in 2001, five years ago, then why has it taken someone from the community so long to spot the error?

And I have my own theory on this based on professional experience.

The answer is because very few Urdu speakers can actually read Urdu script and the same is true for most other community languages from the South East Asian sub-continent

Those that do read the script are usually elders, particularly scholars, but the majority of Asian people living in the UK, even people whose first language is something like Urdu, Punjabi, Gujarati, Bengali, Arabic or Hindi, do not read the script form of their own language on a regular daily basis

The reason I feel so bold to say this, as if I have some sort of authority, is because I once attempted exactly the same well-meaning process as Strathclyde Fire service and came up against exactly the same pitfalls

In the mid-1990s I was working for a community organization and part of my job was to purchase and set up an information and advice van which traveled around the West Midlands providing information to the public

On the side of our advice bus we had the words “Disability Information” and we decided that it would be a good idea to get these two very simple words translated into about 7 community languages which were widely spoken in the West Midlands and have them painted on the side of the vehicle

We thus commissioned not one, but to be on the safe side, two translation services, one of which was referred to us by none other than Birmingham City Council to translate the seemingly straight forward aforementioned phrase

Whilst this process was under way I also ordered thousands of leaflets from (as was) the Benefits Agency in a similar number of different languages. This was one advice worker who was determined to be prepared for all eventualities

Thus, the two sets of translations came back from the two companies and…to our dismay, virtually every translation looked completely different to it's counterpart

I therefore phoned up half a dozen advice centres around the city which represented different sections of the South East Asian community and went around them all to try to get the phrases verified and reach some kind of consensus about their accuracy

I would not be exaggerating to say that it took me weeks and in the end I was never absolutely convinced about more than a few of them

A worker at the Arabic Resource Centre told me, “don't put that on your bus, it reads - knowledge for impotents”

A Punjabi expert at the Asian Resource Centre said “There isn't really a generic word for disability, I think what you've got there is along the lines of Information for Amputees”

A Bengali expert said a similar thing, that there was no word for disability in Bengali but he took it away to consult a higher authority who had a more extensive dictionary and this gentleman conferred that there wasn't a word.

These were just the examples that stick in my mind, I'm certain there were various other deliberations and cultural cul-de-sacs.

Eventually I think we felt reassured enough that people would at least recognize that the effort had been made. After all, on the basis of very few people being able to read it anyway, there is arguably still value in the gesture.

But it didn't end there because as I went around the community like Postman Pete in me little white bus, I eagerly began to offer my translated benefit leaflets to anyone who looked like they might benefit

“and what language do you speak sir? Bengali, well it just so happens that I can give you a complete set of the latest leaflets in your chosen language…

…oh, I see, you don't read Bengali.. Punjabi.. Hindi…Urdu…etc… etc… etc.

Leaflets in community languages? I couldn't give them away and that was exactly what I was supposed to be doing.

I think the best response I ever got was “well granddad is the only person on the street who can read it but he won't bother because we youngsters tell him everything he needs to know anyway…”

It was starting to feel suspiciously like a case of the Emperors new clothes, a whole industry of thousands of translation services churning out what the heck they feel is a vaguely close translation, no one ever checking any of it and very few people ever able to read the stuff

Now convinced that the spoken word was far more relevant and of far greater value, I therefore enrolled in a couple of really excellent terms of spoken Urdu Hindi at Bournville College , following a course originally developed by Anita Balla and friends on the BBC and eventually ended up clearing out my cupboards of ‘Incapacity Benefit for Amputees and Impotents'.

Incidentally, a year or two later I followed up my course in spoken Urdu Hindi with an O level course in spoken and written Punjabi script at Handsworth Wood adult education classes

Having started to get to grips with the Punjabi alphabet and grammar, I once attempted to translate a poster produced by Birmingham Social Services containing Punjabi script back into English

To my complete incredulity, I quickly discovered that the Punjabi paragraphs had never actually been translated into proper Punjabi grammar and sentence construction at all, but merely changed from the English, letter by letter, for example the word ‘neighborhood office' still read exactly the same but was made up of a Punjabi ‘n' followed by ‘e' followed by Punjabi ‘i', etc. The same followed throughout the entire poster and I have no doubt also applied to the other languages on the same poster.

I believe it's called transliteration as opposed to translation

To my great shame I was probably too busy to bring it to anyone's attention at the time and have just fostered a personal cynicism about the whole business ever since

So perhaps we shouldn't be too contemptuous of the Scottish Fire brigade on this occasion, they should actually be applauded for their efforts towards inclusion in my opinion

The more pertinent question that councilor Ahmad and his colleagues need to be asking is this:

Does anyone in the community actually benefit from the expensive production of Asian languages in script form apart from the charlatans who fraudulently and incompetently produce it and the clever ass scholars who take five years to discover it?

Had the leaflet been produced in spoken form on cassette or CD, it is unlikely the error would have occurred, more people would have benefited from it and the translation companies, presumably from Mr Ahmad's own community (the good folk who are only now laughing at the ridiculous translation five years after it was distributed) would have had to do a competent day's work for a flipping change

The King is in the altogether and his courtiers appear to be donkeys!