Presentation

In a report written by Xabier Mendiguren in 1981 for the Euskara magazine (XXVI year, 2^nd issue), he foresaw a Basque Translators’ Association. He wrote:

“Something in the form of a Basque Translators’ Association or Organisation would be necessary or interesting:
-For the translators’ profession as a whole.
-To standardise tariffs.
-To meet a growing demand.
-For the existence of more professional translators, specialised in different fields.
-In order to have the information centralised, so that information and initiatives can be readily spread.
-To organise training and recycling courses.
-So that the Translators’ School (both at basic and specialised levels) might have an experienced environment where teachers can meet and other tasks carried out.
-For the publishing of some sort of periodical bulletin.
-To discuss the need for membership cards.”

Now, this is a declaration of intentions which could cover the overall planning for a Translators’ Association.

Some of the things thus proposed five years ago are being achieved (classes, this very magazine), perhaps because the Translators’ School has taken on the task and put in place the means to carry it out.

Other things, though, and not the least important, haven’t been achieved, and will hardly be unless translators are organised better than they are at present.

To tell the truth, the Translators’ School has often been a reference for many translators, a place to turn to. But the School has not, and cannot have, the weight of an Association.

Perhaps the time has come for translators in the Basque Country to create an Association, and to start thinking seriously how such an Association should operate. The specific conditions to create a Basque Country’s Translators’ Association are present. It is obvious that Basque translators have many specific problems, from many points of view.

From the linguistic and sociolinguistic point of view:

- The standardisation level of the language used.
- Specific situations regarding fields where translation is used (administration, science, etc.).
- Few receivers in communication in Basque.
- The chaotic and non-standardised linguistic training translators often receive.

From the point of view of work and organisation:

- Being an unregulated working activity.
- The very isolated nature of professionals.
- Being a profession with low social perception.

From the academic point of view:

- Degree homologation problems.
- Problems of entering the profession.

As a result of all this, translators do not agree with the translation policy being implemented (since, there not being a planned policy, it always happens to be a de facto policy when decisions regarding translation are taken).

But Basque translators have no say in the decisions that might be taken regarding translation, apart from the odd autarchic and alone translator who is isolated from society.

More often than we think, the translator is ordered by someone else what to translate and how to translate: “use an easy to understand Basque … so that normal people understand”; sometimes the person in charge (who is not going to do the translation) going so far as to suggest “always placing the verb at the end of the sentence” or imposing tariffs. The least likely people treat the translator in a mean way; recently, some publishers wanted to protest formally to the Basque Government and started organising a petition because, in their opinion, the government tariffs for translation were too high.

The decisions being taken are terribly dispersed, and the lack of coordination is equally bad. We have been amazed to learn that the city of Gasteiz has ceded terrains to the University on condition that a Translators’ School be installed there, and other similar news.

The name of the translator is hidden (who knows who translates TV films? Where do we have to look for the translator’s name in many books?). On the other hand, there’s a feeling that a few translators are getting into the profession through the back door, and that they are betoken to the “porter” (anonymity is sometimes the best defence).

The demand for quality is of the utmost urgency in the world of translation. However, together with this demand for quality, the translator will have to organise ways to attain that quality.

To put it in a nutshell, translation and translating activity undertaken in Basque will need the participation of the translators themselves.

As a basis and help for reflection, we publish in this issue the results of a survey recently carried out among translators. Besides, there are news items about the associations set up by groups of translators close to us and who are in a similar situation (from Galicia, Catalonia and Spain as a whole), because we are convinced they can be useful models for us.

Besides these, we discuss other topics that, although not so related to this almost monographic issue, we find of the highest interest.