Translation is more than a linguistic exercise; it often carries political, cultural, and social implications. As I'm glued to the television watching the Paris Olympic Games, I'm reminded of an Instagram Live I did three years ago about the importance of promoting inclusive language in translation. In the video, I talked about the new interpretation of the suffix "para-" in Paralympics from paraplegic to parallel, and how only in Taiwan the Chinese term was updated to reflect this change from 残疾人奥林匹克运动会 (Olympics for people with disabilities) to a more neutral term with the phonetic transliteration 帕拉林匹克运动会.
Country name changes are another area where translation reveals political sentiment. When Swaziland changed its name to Eswatini, its Chinese translation largely remained 斯威士兰. Again, only in Taiwan the name was changed to 史瓦帝尼. It might be helpful to note that Eswatini is one of the few remaining countries that have not cut ties with Taiwan to establish diplomatic relations with China.
When Turkey decided to rebrand itself as Türkiye to better reflect its local language and culture, the change was widely adopted in the English-speaking world. However, the Chinese translation did not change, remaining 土耳其. Similarly, in Chinese, there isn't a differentiation between Burma and Myanmar, as the country has been known as 缅甸 in Chinese since the Ming Dynasty. Incidentally, the U.S. government sticks with the old term Burma as a way to protest the junta regime, further showing how a name carries distinct political sentiments.
On the flip side, when the country formerly known as Ceylon changed its name to Sri Lanka in 1972, the Chinese name did change from 锡兰 to 斯里兰卡. The Chinese name for Côte d'Ivoire was also updated from the meaning-based translation of 象牙海岸 (Ivory Coast) to the phonetics-based 科特迪瓦.
These examples illustrate that translation is not just a mechanical process but one deeply embedded in cultural and political contexts. To make matters more complicated, the Chinese language has its own set of rules and conventions for transliterating foreign names, which can sometimes lead to variations. Whether it's the inclusive rebranding of the Paralympics or the geopolitical nuances of country names, translation is a powerful tool that shapes our understanding of the world.
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