[lg policy] Kyrgyzstan: Lost in translation

[Harold Schiffman]

Lost in translation
21/10-2009 15:22, Bishkek – News Agency “24.kg”, By Bolotbek KOLBAEV

Kyrgyzstan marked the 20th anniversary of signing the state language
bill last fall. However, the Kyrgyz president admitted insufficient
state support of the Kyrgyz language. As to the leader, other problems
constantly pushed the issue to the sidelines. As a result, the
republic has a cohort of officials who do not speak Kyrgyz. Besides,
the state language teaching at local schools comes short of
satisfactory, specialists say.  Billboards visually demonstrate gaps
in the state language policy. A person with good knowledge of Kyrgyz
can not pass them by without a smile. It seems sometimes that the
state language of our republic is not Kyrgyz. If there is any state
agency, which is responsible for control over the advertising
business?

The news agency 24.kg has turned to the National State Language
Commission for comment. “Advertising campaigns constantly violate the
State language law and we can only apply to them administrative
measures which are not always effective. A recently-removed billboard
will be soon replaced with a similar one,” Azimjan Ibraimov, assistant
chairman of the commission said.  All the private property, including
billboards, is protected by the law and their owners can not be
punished even for the grossest violation of translation rules. “Weak
legal basis does not allow punishment of violators. All what the state
language commission can do is file a petition to the prosecutor’s
office,” Aaly Moldokanov, advertising and translation manager of the
National State Language Commission told the news agency 24.kg.

As to Moldokanov, the commission has already turned to the parliament
with initiative to bring violators of the Kyrgyz language norms to
responsibility. “Parliament deputies stood up for private property
protection and did not support our initiative. We have been working on
the problem already for ten years but only few people pay attention to
us,” he said.
At the beginning of September 2009 a member of parliament, Beishenbek
Abdyrasakov, suggested translation of all advertisement into Kyrgyz.
As to the deputy, there are too many billboards in English, Chinese
and other languages on the streets.

Therewith, competent agencies should pay more attention to translation
of texts into Kyrgyz. “Billboards have not only unaesthetic appearance
but plenty of grammar mistakes,” Gulnara Derbisheva, the deputy said.
More than a month has passed since the discussion started, but things
haven't got forward an inch. Advertisement is still riddled with
mistakes, as the lawmakers keep on discussing translation problems…

URL: http://eng.24.kg/community/2009/10/21/9412.html


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