To understand how complex our continent’s linguistic landscape is, we need to look beyond the ever-increasing, and increasingly controversial, figures on the number of languages spoken by one and a half billion Africans. A relatively new form of plurilingualism is emerging that, more than the weight of multilingualism, is pitting African languages against the ‘partners’ they inherited from colonisation. A polyglossia is forming that shows up in everyday communication in distinctive instances of intra- and interlinguistic translation. Homo africanus has thus become an ‘omnitranslator’, navigating between a multitude of languages representing a diversity of intermingling cultures. This intercultural backdrop is a major asset when developing translation skills, in many ways helping to produce interlinguistic communication that skilfully conveys cross-cultural dialogue. It is indeed a persuasive argument for the six valiant associations in Africa that are members of FIT.
This picture of the African translator, plural yet singular, has become firmly established in the continent’s vast language service markets. As a researcher and trainer in this area, I’ve been able to monitor this evolution in Burkina Faso, Benin, Cameroon, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Côte d’Ivoire, Gabon, Ghana, Kenya, Mali, and Senegal, and I’ve noticed more and more colleagues joining the profession who do not bring much else other than their urge to translate. Very often, the rationale for this urge is merely instinctive, dictated by their current situation rather than by established consistency in their career paths. People often enter the profession as and when opportunities to provide language services arise. With this as their motivation, many bilingual people have no qualms about trampling on translation ethics and claiming their place within the profession, when they are not just out to dictate their own vision of what translation should look like.
Let’s be clear: translation quality is not necessarily tied to translation degrees or to being a praiseworthy polyglot – and thank goodness, for the development of our profession in an environment where professional translation courses are few and far between. However, faced with the choice between science and art, rational and intuitive knowledge, there is no hesitation: in these artificial times dominated by new technologies everywhere they turn, translators will no doubt choose science, well aware that, while art may be beautiful, progress is even more so.
Aly Sambou, acting chair of the Ethics and Professional Conduct Committee, Association sénégalaise des traducteurs (ASTRA)