Translation and Globalization
editThe efforts spent on globalization have caused a critical change in many fields. This have caused an increased demand on translation to fulfill this goal. However, the relatively high costs and time cosumption associated in the process are considered a primary obstacle in the path for internationalization. Yet, many efforts have been centered on faciliating translations and exchange of information between different groups of people worldwide. This included the development of the internet as a worldwide town that gathers all the people of the world and allows them to easily communicate and exchange information, in addition to other benefits including commercial and economical ones.
For instance, Wikipedia has appeared to be a primary player in the field. Being the largest online free encyclopedia has gave it several appealing advantages. First, it allowed gigantic amounts of information to be stored and exchanged freely without any virtual cost. Second, it has become a primary library where the visitors feel comfortable in getting what they need without the interference of bothering advertisements and popups in their (the visitors') educational approach. Third, Wikipedia has become a global resource which has allowed the translation of once restricted information (especially in the fields of nuclear technology, data security, robotics and rocket technologies...) into most of the world's minor languages, without any virtual costs. This has made Wikipedia an essential part of our lives, or at least of the lives of those who are seeking knowledge, the numbers of whom are sharply increasing day after another.
However, there's still a great leak in the field of translation at the level of the Wiki-community. Although you will find more than a million article in English in the Wikipedia alone (without considering its sisters and brothers), you will find less than 20,000 dedicated articles in languages which are considered international and among the most spoken worldwide. These languages include Arabic, among the first ten well-recongnized languages in the world. Arabic is also one of the standard languages in the United Nations, and is spoken by approximately 300 millions in the Middle East (I am not sure of the number). It's also considered a second language in many other countries, especially Islamic ones (e.g. Iran, Malaysia, Indonesia, Pakistan...). This leak is mainly caused by decreasing interest of the Native speakers of such languages in their native languages. It is expressed in the fact that most natives are learning other languages (English, French, German...) and accomplishing their academic studies in that languages, which means no interest in reading scientific, technical and economical articles written in their mother tongue.
These reasons have called me to do my duty and start my road to reviving my tongue language. I've decided to start my hard work in translating articles mainly written in English to my native language, Arabic. However, I believe that I'm just a tiny particle in the large project I'm working to accomplish. I think it's a must on most of the natives of the different languages to start a similar approach to revive their mother languages and return them to life.