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This article is consecrated to the English Arabic translation; it will lay the light on the definition of translation, the importance of English Arabic translation, the difficultness idioms impose to translators, the calibers of a good translator and the requisite for translation in general. Translation in Dr. Hasanuddin Ahmed’s words is: “the action or routine of delivering from one language into another. It is the expression or rendering of sense of words, sentences, and passages etc from one language into another.” Ulm-ul-Qur’an, Dr. Hasanuddin Ahmed, I.A.S. The Columbia Encyclopedia defines translation as the rendering of a text into another language. Katharine Barnwell (1986, p. 8).defines it as follows: Translation is re-telling, as precisely as possible, the meaning of the basi message in a way that is natural in the language into which the translation is being made. Translation is much more than the interpretation of the meaning of a text in one language and the production of a new, equivalent text in another language , or the substitution of the words of one language with the words of another language, or the rendering of meaning of a text or whatsoever in one language into another, it is the bridge of appreciation and understanding among persons of dissimilar cultural groups , it is the means of communication amongst dissimilar groups of people, the means of cultural exchange, the means of preserving cultural inheritance of any nation, the means of forming ties and friendships amongst dissimilar groups of people, and the means of understanding and peace. Human beings are after all not living alone and, each humane being has the need and desire to recognise regarding one another, man tries to learn what other humans are doing, how they are living, and how they have lived. We would like to know, detached from our dissimilar ethnicity, color, language, and culture, whether we share the same understanding of love, passion, sorrow, aspiration, sympathy, jealousy and galore other respects of humane nature. So as long as the desire to exists, translation will be the only bridge all over which our aims are reached and our desire realized. There has been debate as to whether translation is an art, a science, or a Skill. I think Translation is a combining of all of them. It is a science in the sense that it needs finish psychological result of perception learning and reasoning of the structure, grammar, semantics, and syntax and in frequent the make-up of the two languages concerned. It is an art since it requires artistic talent to reconstruct the introductory text in the form of a product that is presentable to the reader who is not supposed to be intimate with the original. It is also a skill, because it requires attention to detail the meaning and a exhaustive understanding of the kinship amidst syntax and semantics, coupled with spacious cultural background and the capacity to provide the translation of something that has no equivalent in the target language. Also being a humane skill, it enables humane beings to interchange ideas and thoughts irrespective of the dissimilar languages they use. Man is endowed with the capacity to convey his sensations and experience to others through language. For this procedure of communication man acquired both spoken language and the written language, but when humane beings disseminate over the earth, their languages differed and they necessitated a means through which they may commune and interact with each others. Thus requirement for translation to convey one’s sensations and experiences into the other language was felt. Sometimes we ask ourselves, why is translation amongst English and Arabic important? Both Arabic and English are of the world great languages, in the book ‘The Spread of English, on page 77 the writer says: “the great languages of today are languages of empire, past and present. Only two, Mandarin Chinese and Russian, carry on as languages of administration within single, ethno linguistically diverse states. The others -Arabic, English, French, and Spanish-are imperial legacies, having pulled through the disintegration of the empires that fostered them.” Arabic language is one of the great world languages. there have been outstanding languages of great empires that did not survive as a great language , like Turkish for instance, when we compare Turkish with Arabic, we find out that Arabic pulled through the disintegration of the Arab Islamic empire and it proceeds to be one of the great languages of the world till today, while the Turkish language which was the language of administration and authority in the middle east , Balkans, and dissimilar parts of the world that was underneath the Ottoman rule for a thousand years ,but Turkish in the words of Fishman on page 77 in the book ‘The Spread of English” ‘flowed back to Anatolia with the collapse of the ottoman empire’. But these words are not 100% precise because Turkish is spoken all over Turkey and in Northern Cyprus, not only in Anatolia which is only a part of Turkey. Also Turkish minorities in the former Soviet Union republics, Bulgaria, Russia, Greece, and Romania use Turkish as their mother tongue. Moreover the languages of Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, are all sectionalizations of the Turkic language family. Yet, no denying that Turkish language lost a lot of it is importance after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. Returning to Arabic, it is one of the six official languages adopted in The United Nations. Arabic is the language of a rich culture and civilization dating back a lot of centuries; it was the language of Muhammad, the Messenger and Prophet of Allah (Allah is the Arabic word for God), and it is the language of the Holy Qura’an. It has produced outstanding figures such as Averroes(Ibn-Roshd), the medieval Aristotelian philosopher; Ibn Khaldun, the primary social historian; and Khalil Jibran. Between the eighth and the fifteenth centuries, the volume of literary, scholarly and scientific book production in Arabic and the level of urban literacy among readers of Arabic were the most eminent the world had ever known to that time. Islamic artists have used Arabic script as their important art form for centuries; the beauty of their work will be revealed to any person through the study of Arabic. Arabic is a fellow member of the Semitic group of languages, almost related to Hebrew and Aramaic, the language the Christ spoke. Moreover, Arabic is widely spoken; total speakers of Arabic exceed 350 million. According to the Wikipedia encyclopedia, Arabic was also a major vehicle of culture, specially in science, mathematics and system of belief for the duration of the middle ages, that is why some European languages have likewise borrowed a good deal of words from it. Pamela J.Farris says in her book Language arts on page 99 Not only these words English borrowed from Arabic, but there are hundreds of other words borrowed from Arabic, there are galore hundreds of the words English borrowed from Arabic in Al Mawrid English-Arabic dictionary, such as typhoon which means in Arabic 7HA’F , Spinach 3(‘F. , and sesame which means in Arabic 3E3E. So Arabic being one of the world great languages makes translation from and into that language very important, specially English Arabic translation. No doubt that English is a world language; lately it is the language of science, aviation, computing, diplomacy, and tourism. It is listed as the official or co-official language of some countries .As well as Arabic, it is one of the six official languages in the United Nations Consequently, the noesis of the English language is one of the most crucial tools in achieving scientific and technical knowledge; furthermore it is a tool of communication amidst countries, dissimilar cultural groups, respective companies and organizations, communities and friends. Translation is the tool to make use of the new engineering and science. Science cognition coupled with multiple languages and cultures are progressively important in an expanding global economy and world welfare. It is clear that Britain and the USA are the forefront of new ideas in science and technology. USA has initiated in all fields of engineering science and science; attainments of Britain and US technology are in English, so it is very necessary to know English to make use of such technology and science. Also Political relationships, wars, and conflicts make translation so primary to have access to what is going on in dissimilar elements of the world, in particular Arabic English translation, as English is the language of the huge powers of the world, and the Arab region is the theatre, where critical events take place at present. No denying that English is the cornerstone of the world media, numerous important news origins are in English, on page 34 of the book The Spread of English the writer says: “English newsprints in non English mother-tongue countries are another indication of the world wide status of English”. If one knows English, one may read the news and points of views of assorted writers around the globe, by doing so one may exaggerate his knowledge, and get a broader outlook on the surroundings, and to look at issues with a broader perspective. In my opinion, knowing any language is an global passport quintessentially English. English is also the language of communication, with the disseminate of internet, English appeared to be the language of communication, hundreds of millions of dissimilar races commune with each others thru the internet in English, therefore English helps to beef up ties, and make friends among dissimilar cultural groups of humans on dissimilar spots of our planet. So being the language of science engineering and communication, in the age of the internet, English disseminate so widely, there has never been a language so widely disseminate in so short a time as English. As brought up above, both Arabic and English are great world languages, so translation amongst this pair of languages is important and necessary because of the galore reasons brought up previously. Translation has been and proceeds to be the means of cultural and noesis interchange amidst humans allround history, and the means of preserving cultural heritage. As the Islamic Arabic Empire spread, the Arabic language and, indeed, culture was enriched by contacts with other civilizations: Greeks, Persians, Copts, Romans, Indians and Chinese. During the ninth and tenth centuries, a great translation movement, centered in Baghdad, was in force, in which a heap of ancient scientific and philosophical tracts were transposed from ancient languages, exceptionally Greek, into Arabic. Many were intensified by the new wisdom suggested by Arab thinkers; other texts were plainly preserved, only to re-emerge in Europe for the duration of the Renaissance. By the means of translation cultural inheritance is preserved and new civilizations evolved and flourished; the western civilization for instance, was conventional on the Arabic and Islamic civilization; scientific books were translated from Arabic into dissimilar European languages, and it was the core for the current western civilization. In the book of “Muslim Contributions to World Civilization” On page 118 we will find that, “From 1154 AC to the sixteenth century, Jewish, Christian, and Muslim scholars from Western Europe and Spain translated books from Arabic into Latin in the Toledo Academy traditionalisti by Alfonso, Sabio the Wise. The translations were then circulated to academic centers in Europe, where they became the basis of the Renaissance, the revival of noesis in Europe.” Stanwood Cobb says:” Europe was indebted for all of it is beginnings in alchemy and alchemy to the chemical science of the Arabs, which reached them through translation of Arabic works into Latin. In this science, as in other arts and sciences which they practiced, they developed an goal to be attained and experimental method as opposed to the strictly speculative method of the Greeks.” “In addition to the volumes of Greek science, a heap of scientific works of the Arabs-Avicenna, Averroes, and Rhazes in particular-were translated.” So English-Arabic translation has been and proceeds to be of outstanding importance, the causes in the past and present are only different. Currently, it is well known that English Arabic translation is more and more getting a topic of much concern and importance these days. Oil, strategic location, history of the Islamic and dissimilar other civilizations that took place in the Arabic region, and the current events in the Middle East on the Arab side and the western desire to possess the oil and dominate the region on the Western side, bestow to this importance. This paper highlights the importance of English Arabic translation, primarily the translation of the two word English idioms into Arabic; as English language is full of idioms native speakers of English use a lot of idioms and expressions in every day conversations, books, newspapers, magazines, TV shows on the Internet because idioms add color to the language, but at the same time, idioms are difficult to comprehend because their meaning is not what it appears to be at basi sight. This imposes a major difficultness to translators from English into Arabic. For example in the Telegraph newspaper dated 19/09/2006 one of the headlines reads “Police patrols at churches stepped up in Pope Row” The Idiom ‘step up is used in this article, the Idiom Connection defines the idiom’ step up ‘as follows “rise to a higher or more crucial position, be promoted” Al Mawrid dictionary translates the idiom ‘step up’ as J2J/- J6’9A- J2/’/- J*6’9A- JF/A9- J*B/E A Second example in The Sunday Times dated April 30, 2006, the Idiom ‘back down’ is used in the following articles: Iran’s psychopath in chief, by Israel “Britain, France, Germany and America hope to pass a solution at the United Nations Security Council this week mandating Iran to suspend it is work on uranium enrichment. If Iran refuses to back down, the security council could impose purposed sanctions.” Also in the Mail guardian online dated 07 November 2005 we will find the headline ‘Blair to back down on anti-terror laws’ British Prime Minister Tony Blair reluctantly accepted on Monday that he would have to back down on proposed anti-terror laws that would enable police to hold people for up to 90 days without charging them. Home Secretary Charles Clarke, announcing what amounts to a climbdown, said, however, that the new time limit would not be as short as the 28 days sought by critics of the new Terrorism Bill, which faces a parliamentary vote on Wednesday. “We do not want to compromise on the 90 days at all. It will be a compromise with this nation’s security,” said Blair at his per month Downing Street press conference, where he kept out hope that he could yet minimise the impact. American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms – defines the idiom’ ‘back down as ‘Reverse one’s upward course, descend. For example, When she saw the wasps’ nest on the roof, she hastily backed down the ladder. This literal usage normally refers to something one has climbed, such as a ladder or mountain. [Mid-1800s] Al Mawrid dictionary translates the idiom ‘back down’ as –J*F’2D 9F E7D( In the former articles, it may be translated as 9F J*.DJ 9F – J*1′,9, and it is the translation of the meaning of the idiom. Idioms are one of the elements that makes translation stay a humane activity; altho attempts have been made to automate and computerize the translation of natural language texts, or to use computers as an aid to translation, but translation remains principally a humane action that needs skill, intelligence, humane sentiment that keeps the life and spirit of the initial language to the translated text, idioms pose a challenge to any translation program. Since a lot of idioms cannot be translated literally. The right understanding of Idioms is the key to have a good translation from English into Arabic. English is full of idioms; native speakers of English use a lot of idioms and expressions in their speech and writing, in other words, native speakers of English use idioms all the time. Idioms are the grease that makes language flow, but at the same time idioms are difficult to comprehend because an idiom is “An expression whose significations can not be inferred from the significances of the words that make it up.” Webster’s Online Dictionary, but galore are posing no difficulty to guess when they have galore association with the introductory meaning of the person words. So the translator must be conscious of the idioms. The idiom ‘cold feet’ which the Cambridge Advanced Learners Dictionary defines as:”to of a sudden become too afraid to do something you had planned to do, exceptionally something primary such as getting married” , whereas the American Heritage Dictionary defines the idiom ‘cold feet’ as It is employed in an article in the guardian newspaper on Saturday March 25, 2006 as follows: ‘Iraq hostages ‘were saved by rift amid kidnappers’ o Guards got cold feet after American was shot o Returning Kember ‘failed to say thanks to rescuers’ Jonathan Steele in Amman, Ewen MacAskill and Richard Norton-Taylor Saturday March 25, 2006 The Guardian The British hostage Norman Kember and his two Canadian colleagues owe their freedom to a rift amid their Iraqi kidnappers, a western security source close to the rescue operation said yesterday. This idiom applied in the former article may be translated as AB/’F ‘D-E’3 DA9D 4& E’- FB5′F ‘D4,’9G #H ‘D+B) DA9D 4& E’, the translation is the paraphrase of the idiom according to definitions given above. So the right understanding of idioms is the key to translate well. An idiom is learned and applied as a single unit of language; and must be translated in the same way. To translate idioms the translator , basi of all needs to recognize idioms , understand them, recognise the culture from which the idiom comes, the origin, the atmosphere in which it is employed , then the translator will have to do his/her best, at basi to find an equivalent or a sameness idiom in the target language that keeps the flavor of the original, if there is not such sameness idiom or phrase the translator analyzes the idiom and translates the meaning of the idiom in words that keep the color and flavor of the idiom in the source language Every language is idiomatic; each language has a sure set of rules that govern the way words are put together to express facts, ideas and feelings. The rules and their exclusions are distinguishable to the language, in spite of possible correspondings with other languages. In this sense, a language is always idiomatic. Within this usual consideration, we commonly think of ‘idioms’ as distinctive phrases: we use them to express something that other, more popular sentences can’t express just as well. It is primary to learn idioms to be capable to commune well. They are also interesting to study because of the clear or deep perception they give us into the language and the people who use them. These expressions originate in the history, literature, religion, and traditions typical of a sure community. For this reason, idioms disclose much of the way of thinking of a community. Since idiomatic expressions are so many times ran into in both spoken and written discourse, they require particular attention in translation Based on the former definition in Cambridge innovative Learner’s Dictionary, the suitable translation for this idiom is #4.’5 EDJ&) (‘D7′B) H ‘D-JHJ) H ‘D#AC’1- ‘AC’1 H 7′B’* ,/J/) .The translation here is a paraphrase. As a matter of fact, the literal translation of an idiom is many times ludicrous or comical. The idiom ‘Back burner ‘ in a literal sense translates into Arabic as ”D-’1B ‘D.DAJ’ The literal translation in Arabic sounds comical. The Dictionary of English Idioms & Idiomatic Expressions defines it as follows: If an issue is on the back burner, it is being given low priority is ‘ then the right translation is -’D EF 9/E ‘D’G*E’E-BDJD ‘D’GEJ) Here is an example of English idioms that may be effortlessly understood from the images they evoke. The English idiom double faced translates in a literal sense in Arabic as 0H H,GJF- (with two faces) in Arabic. So the effigy produced by this idiom helps us to do not forget and comprehend it. So we may translate it as EF’AB ‘hypocrite’ in Arabic- or -E.’/9 deceiver (in Arabic), which will be an adequate translation. The effigy devised by the idiom double faced may make us think of a person with two faces , which means hypocrite .Even even though using the images of the literal translation is an effective and fun way to learn English idioms, the literal translation alone is deceiving in a lot of cases The real meaning of the English idiom has to be learned in context to be correctly understood. It is necessary to study idioms within sentences. A proper example makes the meaning and the use clear. For example the idiom sitting duck which means ‘an easy target’, when we learn this idiom in a sentence as in “His arguments were so simple, she was capable to knock them down like sitting ducks.” It will be easy to perceive that the idiom means ‘an easy target’ and translate it into Arabic adequately, if we translate it in a literal sense in Arabic it would be (7) ,’D3) which does not make sense in Arabic, but the adequate translation is a paraphrase translation of the idiom which is G/A 3GD Translation of ideas and meaning from one language to another leaves much freedom to the translator , but translation of idioms does not need only translation of ideas and meaning , the translator will have to keep the effect idioms give to the language as possible as the translator can. To translate idioms word-for-word” translation is inadequate and confusing, To translate idioms well, the translator ought to recognize idioms to be idioms, the translator must understand the goals and purposes of the author of the initial work; and the context in which idioms are used, then s/he must grasp the meaning of the idioms, s/he will have to look it up in dictionaries, search on the web , ask native speakers, and perceive the massage of the idiom and in what context it is employed . It is good to find a similar idiom in Arabic that carries the same meaning of the English idiom, if the translator cannot find so it is good to parse the idiom detached into it is meaning and translate the meaning. Katharine Barnwell says: The task of the translator is to translate the meaning of the message, rather than the words. Bible Translation, Katharine Barnwell, 1986, p. 12. In order to have a good translation, there must be a good translator, who will have to be fluent in the two languages he seeks to translate between. He ought to understand the language which he is translating from, as well as the language in which he is translating the work into. Moreover, a good translator will have to specifically be a good communicator in the target language. A good translator must have the knowledge, skill and experience in this business; In fact the translator has a very severe obligation not to alter the meaning in any way. He ought to be careful not to add anything to the meaning, or to leave any part of the meaning. Actually the task of translator is more difficult than the writer himself, the writer is free to express his ideas and views in the way he sees suitable and in the vocabulary he likes, but the translator confines himself to the words the writer applied and he must be careful not to add anything to the meaning, or to leave any portion of the meaning. Conclusion: From what has been cited above, it is apparent that translation is the bridge of appreciation, love and friendship amidst nations, it is necessary for progress and successfulness .By the means of translation new civilizations evolved, the western civilization was traditionalisti on the Arabic and Islamic civilization; scientific, books were translated from Arabic into Latin, and it was the basis for the western civilization. English Arabic translation has been and proceeds to be of great importance, because both languages are great world languages, furthermore current events, wars, conflicts and struggles in our world add to this importance ; English is the language of big powers and Arabic is the language of the region where conflicts take place for a heap of reasons brought up previously Idioms pose a challenge to translators from English into Arabic. English is full of idioms which cannot be understood from the person words .A translator of English idioms into Arabic needs good cognition of the two languages and a good noesis of both cultures .Idioms reflect culture traditions ,cultural identities and history of any nation. They give us clear or deep perception into history , culture , traditions, and values, morals. So idioms reflect our mutual humanity through language.
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