Every month I receive a couple of requests from school districts to translate education materials into Creole. This inevitably leads to a discussion about which Creole the school district needs. What many folks don’t realize is that Creole is a rather ambiguous term. The definition provided by the online Merriam-Webster dictionary:
a language that has evolved from a pidgin but serves as the native language of a speech community
In it’s true form a creole is an amalgamation of two or more languages that evolve over time to become the primary language of a region. I frequently run across three dominant Creoles in the United States.
The first is Haitian Creole, also commonly known as French Creole, which is spoken by almost ½ million people in the United States primarily in Florida, New York and Massachusetts . The second Creole is Cajun or Cajun French which is almost exclusively found in Louisiana. According to the 1990 census there were almost 700,000 Cajun speakers in the United States . Both Haitian Creole and Cajun French are French based Creoles. Whereas the third commonly requested Creole, Cape Verdean Creole, is derived from Portuguese. Although I don’t have an exact statistic on how many Cape Verdean Creole speakers overall reside in the United States there are almost 30,000 Cape Verdean natives living in the Eastern United States who most likely speak Cape Verdean Creole fluently.
As you can see, knowing that you need a Creole translation isn’t quite enough information for your language service provider. You will also need to provide the type of Creole and, if you are in a pinch, knowing which state it is spoken in may be the key to knowing which Creole it is.
Keep Learning!
Maggie
K12Translate
K12Translate.com Home
Get in touch
1-800-737-8481
info@k12translate.com
Archive for July, 2009
Cajun, French/Haitian and Portuguese Creoles in Education Language Translation
Monday, July 27th, 2009What’s the Difference? Simplified or Traditional Chinese in Education Translation
Wednesday, July 22nd, 2009
If you have ever requested a translation into Chinese, you’ve probably already had the conversation about whether you would like Simplified or Traditional Chinese. But, if not, let me explain that Chinese has two standard written forms, Simplified and Traditional. Traditional was the dominant written language for centuries in China up until the 1950’s when the government introduced a “simplified” version to increase literacy across the country.
This sweeping mandate was very effective within mainland China. However it fell short of a complete conversion because of the sizeable populations of Chinese readers outside of mainland China, who were not affected by the switch, such as Hong Kong and Taiwan. To make things even more complicated, there are still pockets of Traditional Chinese readers within mainland China and vice versa. This is due to a variety of factors such as the age when an individual emigrated. If they left China before the 1950’s there is a pretty good chance that they still read and write in Traditional Chinese.
As you can imagine, determining what the written style of your Chinese speaking ELL audience can be rather tricky. The best way to determine what the writing preference is would be to ask your audience directly. However, the next best thing might be to find out exactly where they are from and make an educated guess.
Keep Learning!
Maggie
What is best for your education language translation — Arabic or Eastern Arabic numbers?
Monday, July 13th, 2009
When providing education language translation services for multiple languages it can be quite challenging to maintain style and formatting consistency. Obviously, the language itself is always unique but have you ever thought about the myriad ways that numbers can be presented?
Nowhere is this linguistic diversity more startling than when working with non-Arabic numerals. To explain, Arabic numerals are the 10 digits most commonly used in English (e.g., 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, etc.). The Arabic numeric style is used in English as well as many other languages such as French, Somali and Vietnamese. However, there is a whole host of languages that use completely different character sets for numbers. In the Middle East, they use what is referred to as the Eastern Arabic numeric system (e.g., ٠.١.٢.٣.٤.٥). To minimize confusion, I will refer to Arabic numerals as English language-style and Eastern Arabic numerals as Arabic language-style.
When undertaking language translation for an Arabic-speaking audience, you should consider whether the Arabic (English language-style) or Eastern Arabic (Arabic language-style) numeric system should be used. If you used the English language-style of numbers would that actually decrease comprehension for your Arabic-speaking audience?
Or, imagine if you received a translated document and you were expecting English language-style numbers. Perhaps your Spanish and Russian translators used English language-style numbers, whereas your Arabic translator used Arabic language-style numbers. Not recognizing the Arabic language-style numbers, you might think that the Arabic translator completely missed the mark and didn’t include any numbers at all!
Being aware of unique language attributes such as numbering systems can minimize confusion and make your documents more readable for your English Language Learning (ELL) audience.
Keep Learning!
Maggie
K12Translate
Targeting Language Translation Services to Ethiopians and Their Language Diversity
Wednesday, July 8th, 2009
Ethiopian immigrants and refugees have been arriving on U.S. shores for the past 20 years, bringing with them a wealth of cultural, ethnic and linguistic diversity. In fact, the U.S. Department of State indicates that Ethiopia has 77 different ethnic groups, each with its own language! Of those 77 ethnic groups, three-fourths are ethnic Amhara, Oromo and Tigreans whose primary languages are Amharic, Oromifa (Oromo) and Tigrinya, respectively. Sizeable populations also speak Arabic, Somali and English.
For those of you with Ethiopian populations in your school district, the question you may have asked yourself is “Which language(s) should my school district translate into?” With limited school budgets, sometimes it is cost prohibitive to provide education language translation services for all three primary languages. So, without a doubt, your best bet is to always ask your audience which language is most widely spoken in their community.
However, if this is not a possibility, Amharic may be the second best solution. Amharic is the official language of Ethiopia. Most Ethiopian elementary schools teach Amharic and it is, according to the CIA Factbook, the most widely spoken language in Ethiopia. If you have Ethiopian families in your district, keep this in mind when undertaking your next language translation services project.
Keep Learning!
Maggie
K12Translate
Literacy Level: A Key for Effective Language Translation Services
Monday, July 6th, 2009
We all know that K-12 students have different reading levels based on their individual reading comprehension. In the same manner, English Language Learning (ELL) parents also have literacy levels that should be taken into account when applying language translation services to writing and translating outreach materials.
Literacy level is an individual’s ability to read, write and speak in English and is typically measured in grade-level equivalents. We recommend a sixth grade literacy level for general public information.
Of course, people’s literacy levels may vary widely depending on several factors such as the country they are from, education level, affluence and natural aptitude. A good question to ask when determining literacy level is “Who am I writing for?” Are you writing language access notifications for Iranian PhD political asylees that contain complex legal content? Or are you creating basic school closure announcements for an audience that hails from Burkina Faso, which has a 26 percent literacy rate among adults?
Armed with literacy level knowledge, educators and staff can adjust the grade level of outreach materials or work with language translation service providers to achieve the greatest comprehension.
Keep Learning!
Maggie
K12Translate
