Hi.

Thanks, Vahid, for your helpful comment, and thanks to the founders of languageonthemove letting us enter into such discussions.

Dear Amir,

You have raised so many points that I really don’t know how to start! Some of the points you mentioned are to some extent right, in my opinion, but I don’t agree with the conclusions you draw out of them! You are right, we do not produce science and the language of every aspect of human life and behavior is born within that aspect and not out of it, and consequently the language of science is not Persian. But it does not mean we can not make our language prepared to meet the new demands. The fact that the Persian equivalents we find for the English terms do not work sometimes does not prove that our language doesn’t have any potentials, I think. The equivalents sometimes don’t work due to many reasons, and I think two of them are very important in our case:

1. There is usually a long time gap between the entrance of one technology to our country and the coinage of a Persian equivalent for it. So, when people have used a term for a long time and have accepted it as a part of their language it gets very difficult to change it, if possible at all.
2. We sometimes do not observe the principles governing word coinage like brevity, beauty, … . I like the image Veale and Butnariue use about this. They look at the new words as man-made objects, subjecting to the same design principles “as the consumer artifacts that compete for our attention in the marketplace.” Then, they identify two of these key principles as “visibility” and “mapping”.

Besides, I should admit that some of these equivalents have been proved to be successful! Daryoosh Ashouri believes:
“اگر دفتر واژه های نو فرهنگستان را که در سال ١٣١٩ چاپ شده است ورق بزنیم، می بینیم نود درصد واژه هایی را که آن ها آن روز پیشنهاد کردند، امروز جز زبان هر روزه یا زبان علمی ماست. اگر زمین شناسی جای معرفۃ الارض، فشارسنج جای میزان الضغطه، گذرنامه جای پاسپورت، … کتابخانه جاب بیبلیوتک، سنگواره جای فسیل، … رنگین کمان جای قوس و قزح … را گرفته است از برکات کار همان فرهنگستان است.”
One more recent example is the word رایانه. Although the word does not meet the first requirement (because of the time gap) and is not usually used in our every day talks, it is widely used in the media. What is even more interesting is the derivations made out of it. زبان شناسی رایانه ای/ رایانشی for “computational linguistics” is one example. So as you see when a coinage meets even the minimum requirements, it, on its own, paves the way for more inventions and no need to invent totally new words for all of the words coming into the language. The blendings people themselves have made out of this word is another sign of success, I think. رایامهر،رایا گستر، رایاپرداز and … as the name of computer related shops can be an evidence.

Amir, I think our language needs no eradication, and no fundamental changes. Here again Veale and Butnariue might help illuminate the point:
“Manufacturers place new kinds of ovens, televisions, and automobiles on the market all the time, but users do not need to relearn basic behaviours like baking, watching TV, or driving to work. These new products are usually variants of existing models, adding new functionality and subtlety to familiar forms that retain their underlying structure. Likewise in language, new coinages frequently borrow the form of existing phrases, allowing a user to reuse the same underlying conceptual model.”

Moreonver, if you believe we can not do anything “with all of these activities” like finding equivalents and …, as you said, I ask you just to look at the following lines from Ashouri:
“امروزه هر نویسنده و مترجم جدی فارسی زبان، در هر زمینه ای که سرگرم کار باشد، از ادبیات گرفته تا علم و فلسفه، این ضرورت را حس می کند که درباره ی زبان بیندیشد و در گزینش واژه ها سبک و پسند آگاهانه ای داشته باشد و به ویژه در حوزه ی دانش ها به چاره اندیشی در زمینه ی کمبودها بپردازد. اما این ذوق سنجی ها و چاره آزمایی ها، در عین حال، پراکندگی زبان ها و شیوه ی بیان ها را نیز در پی دارد که مایه ی سردرگمی است و نمایاننده ی روحیه ی زمانه ای که بنیانی استوار ندارد و بی بهره است از آن موهبت همزبانی که هر فرهنگ پخته و پابرجا از آن برخوردار است. ولی این راه جویی ها و راه گشایی های فردی نیز، بر روی هم، برآیندی دارد که سرانجام به غنای زبان می افزاید و امکانات کشف ناشده اش را نشان می دهد و امروزه هر نویسنده ای به نسبت توش وتوان خود پیشاهنگی است و پوینده و پژوهنده ای که از گشت و گذار تنهای خویش همیشه تهیدست باز نمی گردد.”

Finally, science and technology related areas are certainly the main sources of neologisms, and I didn’t deny it. I was just talking about the importance of the translation of neologisms in literature. Because as you know Shakespeare, Carroll, Joyce, Orwell and Vonnegut are famous word coiners in English literature. Some of their or other literary figures’ coinages are now an accepted usual part of English vocabulary, as far as I know. “catch-22”, “generation-X”, “cyberspace” and “politrics” are among them, I think. So, some of the neologisms have their roots in literature, especially sci-fi. Now, if in non-literary texts we try to recreate new words in the TL because of the concerns we feel for our own language and making use of its potentials, in literary texts this recreation serves one more purpose, and that is preserving the style of the writer, as style at micro-level consists of words and diction as well.

Any way, if I couldn’t put my thoughts into words appropriately, and if it wasn’t persuasive enough to you, just have a look at these references:
– آشوری، د. (١٣٧٥). بازاندیشی زبان فارسی. ویرایش دوم. تهران: نشر مرکز.
It is Vahid’s first reference, I think. The book (the 2nd edition) consists of ten articles, each addressing one aspect of Persian language.
– Vaele, T & Butnariu, C. (2010). Harvesting and Understanding On-Line Neologisms, in W. Bisang, H. Henric Hock & W. Winter (Eds.), Cognitive Perspectives on Word Formation. Berlin/New York: Walter de Gruyter

P.S. Amir, being too inexperienced, i’m not a “word inventor”!!! i have neither the knowledge nor the expertise! i wish to be one, but i’m not really!

All the best,
Zohreh

Salam Amir,

Delighted to see that old Persian posts are still being enthusiastically read!

Thank you for your comment. Zohre (if she reads this) may have her own comments regarding the points you mentioned. I just mention a couple of points, in my humble opinion of course:

a. Do you know where the power of English in coining new words comes from? It comes from the great number of affixes and prefixes it has, across time, borrowed from Greek and Latin.
b. If someone coins a Persian word which is not widely accepted on the part of the populace, this does not question the power of Persian. The point is that we should spend more money and energy and time on rethinking our language. I think Rethinking is the best thing I can say.
c. If you want to see how this may work, you may have a look at the following books:
1. Zabaane Baaz
2. Bazandishiye Zabaane Farsi
3. Vazhenaameye Oloome Ensaani
The books may drastically change your current opinion regarding the power of Persian.
d. No one wants to fight with English! The argument is this: Leave some small room for other languages to breathe!
e. Science is not produced in English! I know top scholars who write in their own mother tongue. The sad fact is that you have to publish in English to be well-known.

Health Peace

Hello Zohreh. BUT I disagree with you about the potentials of our language. When some one talks about the potentials and power of some languages like Farsi I think he/she is daydreaming.What do you mean when you say we don’t use the potentials of our language properly? Which potentials? Look at the equivalents that we make for specialized scientific words. They don’t work because no one use them. If our language had potentials we could prepare it for expressing new needs. Like it or not, English is the dominant language and language of power and even if you or others want to fight with it nothing will change. The only thing you can do with all of these activities and and the activities that are done in languageonthemove is that you can say we KNOW about the hegemony of English, we are aware but you can’t do any thing for it and I know you don’t like my view.
As a matter of fact science is produced there and because of that every day they produce a lot of new words. When science is produced there its language is certainly English. So when the original language of science is English even if you can make an artificial language for conveying that thigs you won’t be successful. How many words you or other word inventors can invent to compete with all of those words which enter to Farsi every day and the English words that are now in Farsi? Perhaps we should eradicate our language and make a new language with fundamental changes. And I don’t understand why do you talk about coinage in literature and literary texts and its translation while science and technology are sources of new words? I hope that you answer to my questions.

omg!

!!!!وجتبلا رو بذار تو پارچه بعد بذار تو یخچال!!!!

Did this really happen?!!!!

LOL!

Thank you for sharing!

Thank you for your interest in the website. I do AGREE with you! “Transliterated brand names” is a very good article, which should be translated.

I do believe that there is no point arguing over one “word”! Of course sometimes some invaluable information will emerge out of such discussions. A case in point is the good list of references Zohreh has provided the readers with.

Best wishes,
vahid

به نظر من اصلا جای چنین نظراتی این جا نیست. نه این که افراد این آزادی را نداشته باشند که نظرات خود را ابراز کنند، نه، این طور نیست. اما آیا این نظرات نباید هدفی سازنده را به دنبال داشته باشند؟ این ترجمه به بهترین شکل مفهوم را منتقل می کند، اصلا ترجمه بودنش مشخص نیست. با وجود اینکه به متن اصلی وفادار است، آن قدر روان است که انگاراز همان ابتدا به فارسی نوشته شده است.

من واقعاً به خاطر وضع موجود متاسفم. امیدوارم اتفاقی که در مورد ترجمه ی قبلی افتاد تکرار نشود.

Sorry for not providing the sources in the previous comment.
When I was writing it I was in a hurry, and had no access to my sources:
Newmark, P. (1998) A Textbook of Translation, New York: Prentice Hall.

There are a veriety of sources about translation theories. One which can give a general view toward translation is:
Munday, J. (2001) Introducing Translation Studies. Theories and Applications, New York:
Routledge.
Chapter 10 of the book is about philosophical theories of translation.

A more recent interesting book is:
Pym, A. (2010) Exploring Translation Theories, London and New York: Routledge.
Chapter 6 of the book which is called Uncertainty is very interesting. It discusses the principle of uncertainty, deterministic and indeterministic views of language and translation. Hope to be useful!

&
Dear Yeganeh,

Thank you for your kind comments. I, like you, think we can use the potentials of our language – word formation processes in this case – more efficiently, and translation can help. One example is the case of inventive translation of SL neologisms, especially in literary texts. Regarding your suggestion about the use of Persian here, I do agree. But this time please accept my apologies.

منبع:فرهنگ کامل انگلیسی فارسی تالیف :دکترعباس آریانپور کاشانی