# Translationese in contemporary Arabic



## Ghabi

Hi. I’m curious to know what types of phrasing and structure are usually regarded as "translationese" in contemporary Arabic. The overuse of passive voice and prepositions? And what else? What are the more "outrageous" examples you've come across? Please share (or rant).


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## إسكندراني

من قِبَل is usually overused to replace 'by' instead of changing the sentence to a فاعل مفعول - I detest من قِبَل and never use it!


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## Ghabi

Is it something that teachers often tell their students to avoid?


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## Ustaath

using the form فعللة  is a pet-peeve of mine.


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## Sidjanga

Hi all,





إسكندراني said:


> من قِبَل is usually overused to replace 'by' instead of changing the sentence to a فاعل مفعول - I detest من قِبَل and never use it!


Could you give an example sentence where this would tend to occur, please?


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## cherine

Hi,

There's also the use of arabized words instead of Arabic word. Like الإمبريقي (empirical) instead of التجريبي or even the longer مبني على الملاحظة والاختبار , or the word سوسيولوجيا instead of علم الاجتماع ...etc.


Ghabi said:


> Is it something that teachers often tell their students to avoid?


I'm not sure about that. I don't even remember whether we faced this question while studying. But I can assure you that not all teachers think alike.


Sidjanga said:


> Hi all,Could you give an example sentence where this would tend to occur, please?


In general, when a sentence has "X was done by Z", many would translate it literally: س فُعِل مِن قِبَل ص .
Check my post # 5 in this thread.


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## Ghabi

Thanks everyone. By the way, do we have a word for "translationese" in Arabic, to describe the kind of writing that reads more like French/English than Arabic?


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## Ustaath

such a word would be translationese in it's own turn  - Arabic syntax doesn't work that way


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## rayloom

I'll steer a bit off-topic.
Regarding من قبل, or على يد, in a passive (or reflexive) construction,  or with a verbal noun (as in إطلاق النار على متظاهرين من قبل (على يد)  قوات الأمن). It's really difficult to say that these appear in Arabic as  a result of translation or due to the effect of European languages.
To make such a claim, one has to go through the corpus of Arabic literature. 
But a prelimenary search (on google, which was difficult given all the  recent & modern results, and lack of extensive online Arabic literature databases) shows that such forms were used in  Classical Arabic (at least pre-MSA).

I'll give some examples I found:

 القرآن مرتب من قبل الله تعالى ومن قبل  رسوله على الوجه الذي نقل, this is from FaKhr Al-Diin al-Raazi's  (Al-Qurashi, an 11th century AD scholar) Tafsiir التفسير الكبير.

"كانت هدايتنا من قبل الله تعالى" this is from Ibn Hajar Al-3asqalaani's (a 12th century AD scholar) commentary on SaHiiH Al-Bukhari.

Also you have:
إن فساد أمتي على يد غلمة سفهاء من قريش
which is actually a Hadiith. And here you can see the use of a verbal  noun, followed by its object (syntactically here a muDaaf ilayhi), then  followed by على يد and then the subject.
(Just like إطلاق النار على متظاهرين من قبل (على يد)  قوات الأمن)!


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## إسكندراني

rayloom said:


> I'll steer a bit off-topic.
> Regarding من قبل, or على يد, in a passive (or reflexive) construction,  or with a verbal noun (as in إطلاق النار على متظاهرين من قبل (على يد)  قوات الأمن). It's really difficult to say that these appear in Arabic as  a result of translation or due to the effect of European languages.


To my ears they just use it way too much on formal TV (news, docs, ...). Maybe I feel that way because we never use it in Egypt, but it's like they've replaced أكَلَ خالدُ الدجاجَ with أُكِلَ الدجاج من قبل خالد - sounds long-winded and noisy for no reason. But I understand they want the emphasis of the sentence to focus on the eaten not the eater, so it's not always translationese. 
But it is a common translation 'problem' I think. Berlin was built by the Germans, paid for by the Russians.***
بنيت برلين من قبل الألمان، ودفع ثمنها من قبل الروس.
برلين بناها الألمانُ، ودفع ثمنها الروس.ـ


 (Not really; just a sentence to play with).


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## Ustaath

the translation has been  agreed upon by Ustaath as it has been expressed by Iskandaranee.

Rayloom's examples are elegance to the ear, contemporary translationese are over-kill...


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## Mahaodeh

rayloom said:


> I'll steer a bit off-topic.
> Regarding من قبل, or على يد, in a passive (or reflexive) construction,  or with a verbal noun (as in إطلاق النار على متظاهرين من قبل (على يد)  قوات الأمن). It's really difficult to say that these appear in Arabic as  a result of translation or due to the effect of European languages.
> To make such a claim, one has to go through the corpus of Arabic literature.
> But a prelimenary search (on google, which was difficult given all the  recent & modern results, and lack of extensive online Arabic literature databases) shows that such forms were used in  Classical Arabic (at least pre-MSA).
> 
> I'll give some examples I found:
> 
> القرآن مرتب من قبل الله تعالى ومن قبل  رسوله على الوجه الذي نقل, this is from FaKhr Al-Diin al-Raazi's  (Al-Qurashi, an 11th century AD scholar) Tafsiir التفسير الكبير.
> 
> "كانت هدايتنا من قبل الله تعالى" this is from Ibn Hajar Al-3asqalaani's (a 12th century AD scholar) commentary on SaHiiH Al-Bukhari.
> 
> Also you have:
> إن فساد أمتي على يد غلمة سفهاء من قريش
> which is actually a Hadiith. And here you can see the use of a verbal  noun, followed by its object (syntactically here a muDaaf ilayhi), then  followed by على يد and then the subject.
> (Just like إطلاق النار على متظاهرين من قبل (على يد)  قوات الأمن)!



Actually, this is different, I don't find this one bad in any way. What Iskandarani means is using it to translate something like "the house was built by a contractor" into: بُني البيت من قبل مقاول. Generally speaking, in Arabic if you use the passive voice then you do not refer to the person who did the action in the verb, if you wanted to refer to him/her/them then just use the active such as: بَنَى مقاول البيت.  Your examples use nouns (or equivalents to nouns), not a passive voice verbs.

Another example I hate is using قام ب and then a maSdar instead of just using the verb. Example: قام الرجل بالصياح عاليا. I don't know why they do that, do they just want to add more words?! I don't even think it's correct semantically.


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## إسكندراني

Ghabi said:


> Thanks everyone. By the way, do we have a word for "translationese" in Arabic, to describe the kind of writing that reads more like French/English than Arabic?


Maybe تُرْجُماني but I just made that up.

قامت الأمم المتحدة برصد تحركات من قبل القوات الإيرانية
رصدت الأمم المتحدة تحركات لقوات إيرانية
Yeah it's kind of adding more words. 
Cluttering for a more confusing sentence.
And also slowing the pace of the whole thing down a little.

I think, though, that this is a phenomenon associated with newsreaders and MSA-coining formal writers across the board, that is independent of whether the ideas are being translated or not. It might just be what we could call pedantic - a human quality which is nothing to do with background.


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## clevermizo

Mahaodeh said:


> Another example I hate is using قام ب and then a maSdar instead of just using the verb. Example: قام الرجل بالصياح عاليا. I don't know why they do that, do they just want to add more words?! I don't even think it's correct semantically.



So this is just a modern/journalistic thing! I was always wondering why I would see that. It always seemed more complicated and I couldn't put my finger on what the stylistic nuance was between the two possibilities.


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## Interprete

Re 'qam bi' I think it is common in many languages (in UN-speak you tend to 'carry out/undertake/embark on' - an investigation, an assessment, etc. instead of simply 'assessing' or 'investigating' something. Same in French). It makes it sound like the doer is someone important who 'carries out' stuff, not just some small-time employee who actually DOES it on the ground.


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## WadiH

clevermizo said:


> So this is just a modern/journalistic thing! I was always wondering why I would see that. It always seemed more complicated and I couldn't put my finger on what the stylistic nuance was between the two possibilities.



In my dialect there is a distinction between قام الرجّال يصيح and صاح الرجّال.  But قام here is more like أفعال الشروع in Classical Arabic, so it would be like saying أخذ الرجل يصيح or أخذ الرجل بالصياح.


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## إسكندراني

To add another point; a common mistranslation is 'technique' as تقنية rather than أسلوب


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## AndyRoo

I think sometimes قام ب sounds better than just using the verb, e.g.:

وأنها قامت بتحريك قوات باتجاه الجولان السوري المحتل،

and

قامت السلطات المصرية بإعدام نحو عشرة آلاف من الطيور في ثلاث محافظات


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## Outlandish

Illustrating more on the use of من قبل, some believe it is totally  unacceptable, and many translators have been taught to avoid it, but as  rayloom has explained, that is not true. What should be avoided is  overusing it. It is usually used in formal contexts and in the news.



Ghabi said:


> The overuse of passive voice...



Here is this interesting misunderstanding. Many teachers tell their students to translate the passive using تمّ,  like for example  تم بيع المنزل، تمت مناقشة الموضوع وهكذا.  After checking this with professionals, I learned that it is wrong to  do so. The previous examples should be  بيع المنزل ، نوقش  الموضوع .  It (تمّ) could be used when it is hard to put awzaan such as  "tafaa3al": تفاوض، تناول in the passive, or use it occasionally to  lessen the use of passives. Perhaps using تمّ was kind of a modern  solution in MSA to the huge presence of passive forms when translating  from English to Arabic.



Ghabi said:


> By the way, do we have a word for "translationese" in Arabic



If translationese involves literal rendering of purport and structure, I  would call it ترجمة حرفية or at least, it is one of the results of  الترجمة الحرفية. However, being uncreative when translating structures  is the real problem, because literal translation (from English to  Arabic) has gone far beyond all limits, so much that it has become  commonplace. And because reconsidering the chosen vocabulary is much  easier than reconsidering structure problems. 

This topic is pertinent in a way to the area of "say this and do not say that."  If interested, there are many books downloadable from the internet about this. You will  find entire expressions that you must drop or replace, but mostly  corrections of the tashkeel of words: 

أمثلة:

(قل ولا تقل) لمصطفى جواد
 (معجم الأخطاء الشائعة)
أمثلة: قل كتب الصحيفة ولا تقل حرر الصحيفة
قل شديد الحساسية ولا تقل شديد الإحساس
قل فلان يُحتَضَر ولا تقل فلان يَحْتَضِر
(معجم الأغلاط اللغوية المعاصرة) للعدناني
(معجم أخطاء الكتاب) للزعبلاوي
الكلمات النافعة في الأخطاء الشائعة 
 للشيخ وحيد عبدالسلام بالى
 (منقول)
هناك بعض المراجعات والتحفظات التي نشرت عن بعض ما ورد في هذه الكتب


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## Ustaath

in a way it is a lost battle already, as these become more and more common place, it will become the norm and acceptable, while purists cringe  ....


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## Ghabi

Ustaath said:


> using the form فعللة is a pet-peeve of mine.


You mean you don't like words like رقمنة? But isn't it a handy way for coining new words for new ideas, when an existing _wazn_ has already been occupied? (By the way, does this _wazn_ exist in classical Arabic?)


cherine said:


> There's also the use of arabized words instead of Arabic word. Like الإمبريقي (empirical) instead of التجريبي or even the longer مبني على الملاحظة والاختبار , or the word سوسيولوجيا instead of علم الاجتماع ...etc.


Wow, these are real ugly ones!



Interprete said:


> Re 'qam bi' I think it is common in many languages (in UN-speak you tend to 'carry out/undertake/embark on' - an investigation, an assessment, etc. instead of simply 'assessing' or 'investigating' something. Same in French).


Yeah, and I often wonder whether it's a universal pompousness in modern writing (as you might expect, in contemporary Chinese we _naquum bi_ everything), or we've to point the finger at the West ... as usual.



Outlandish said:


> Illustrating more on the use of من قبل, some believe it is totally  unacceptable, and many translators have been taught to avoid it, but as  rayloom has explained, that is not true. What should be avoided is  overusing it.


Yeah, I think translationese are by definition native structures, which have their natural places in the language, and the problem is their overuse and misuse.



> Here is this interesting misunderstanding. Many teachers tell their students to translate the passive using تمّ,  like for example  تم بيع المنزل، تمت مناقشة الموضوع وهكذا.


I'm glad you mention this (in fact I was going to ask about this), since تمّ is one the most prominent structures in newspaper Arabic.


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## Ustaath

@outlandish: yes it is a good way to transliterate western norms which normally would be closer to quadlateral Arabic roots, but the problem is that it has become the easy way out, and Lebanese media use this literary approach _ad nauseum _
فعللة من مصادر فعلل

example: دَلْوَرَة الاقتصاد


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## إسكندراني

I like this one where a technical term is actually required. دَلْوَرَة seems unnecessary - though I might disagree if I worked in finance - so maybe I only like رقمنة because I'm into the technical side of things.

Another feature: الخاص بـ instead of iDaafa or بتاع etc


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## Outlandish

Ustaath said:


> example: دَلْوَرَة الاقتصاد



For God's sake, what does it stand for? Trading in US dollar?


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## Ustaath

Outlandish said:


> For God's sake, what does it stand for? Trading in US dollar?



An economy based on the Dollar. I agree it's horrible !


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## Outlandish

Ustaath said:


> An economy based on the Dollar. I agree it's horrible !



I bet!


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## Interprete

Em, excuse my ignorance, but why is this one especially horrible? What about سعودة


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## Mikael84

Ustaath said:


> An economy based on the Dollar. I agree it's horrible !


 
Does it mean an economy based on the USD or more specifically the dollarization of the economy (ie, the process)?


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## Ustaath

'dollarization' of ,,,
this form is normally how they translate ';ation;' words   in 'translationese'


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## Mikael84

How would you translate "dollarization of the economy" in proper Arabic in the most synthetic way possible? (ie not something like تحويل العملة الى الدولار). Could a form 2 verb be created on "dollar"?


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## Xence

About the use of سوسيولوجيا instead of علم الاجتماع , I personally can understand that resorting to this term may be legitimate in some cases, especially when adjectives are involved (ex: _sociological approach_, I prefer مقاربة سوسيولوجية to مقاربة في علم الاجتماع or any other construction). Also, I would be more inclined to render _sociology of education_ as سوسيولوجية التربية than علم الاجتماع التربوي or علم اجتماع التربية .

As for دلورة , I think it's a typo. The commonly used word is rather دَوْلرَة . So, to answer Mikael's question, _dollarization of economy_ should be translated as دَوْلرة الاقتصاد . This may give the quadriliteral root د-و-ل-ر and then the verb دَوْلرَ - يُدَوْلِرُ , but I am not aware of such use.

In a close perspective, we have the arabization of the word _privatization_, which is differently rendered in Arab countries. For example in the Mashreq, people tend to say خصخصة while in the Maghreb it's rather خوصصة . And I have even come across  تخصيص ...


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## إسكندراني

I found a new common literal translation:
first time in months -> أوّل مرّة فى شهور
rather than أوّل مرّة منذ شهور.
And in 'broken Egyptian' spoken by some bilingual kids here in the UK, this is common as well:
see you in 5 minutes -> ح اشوفك ف خمس دقايق rather than ح اشوفك بعد خمس دقايق


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## londonmasri

I like this ya-skandaraany! If you can think of anymore please share!


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