[lg policy] Sri Lanka: Implementation of language policy gets a fillip

[Harold Schiffman]

Letter to editor:

Implementation of language policy gets a fillip

The official language policy of the government, that any person shall
be entitled to receive any document and transact business with any
government department in one of the languages of his choice, (Sinhala,
Tamil or English) evidently suffer due to the scarcity of competent
translators in the relevant languages.

All attempts by the authorities to recruit competent translators have
apparently not been successful. Even in the case of some officers, who
were recruited as translators, the quality of their translations seems
to be below expected standards judging by the syntax and grammatical
mistakes one sees in the English versions of some government notices
carried in the newspapers.

Translation is not a skill that one can acquire by the knowledge of a
language only. It is a talent that one has to acquire by long practice
and experience in the field. It is an art, one has to develop over
time.

The Official Languages Department which oversees the implementation of
language policy, has adopted a novel idea to overcome the problem of
the dearth of translators. The department has created a pool of
translators (Sinhala, Tamil and English) whose services are now
available to the government departments and institutions for their
translation work. As this pool translators is scattered across the
country, the departments or other institutions would be able to avail
of their services without much difficulty.

Pool translators are not government servants as such, but they serve
under the supervision and direction of the Official Languages
Department. There is no doubt that this arrangement would greatly
facilitate the implementation of language policy in government
departments and institutions which hitherto was hampered due to lack
of competent translators.

P.G.A. Henry

[...]

http://www.dailynews.lk/2011/11/28/main_Letters.asp

-- 
**************************************
N.b.: Listing on the lgpolicy-list is merely intended as a service to
its members
and implies neither approval, confirmation nor agreement by the owner
or sponsor of the list as to the veracity of a message's contents.
Members who disagree with a message are encouraged to post a rebuttal,
and to write directly to the original sender of any offensive message.
 A copy of this may be forwarded to this list as well.  (H. Schiffman,
Moderator)

For more information about the lgpolicy-list, go to
https://groups.sas.upenn.edu/mailman/
listinfo/lgpolicy-list
*******************************************

_______________________________________________
This message came to you by way of the lgpolicy-list mailing list
lgpolicy-list at groups.sas.upenn.edu
To manage your subscription unsubscribe, or arrange digest format: https://groups.sas.upenn.edu/mailman/listinfo/lgpolicy-list