Rahmati: Western texts translated randomly
26 Feb 2012 13:09
Iranian philosophy professor and author Inshaallah Rahmati says:" Western philosophy texts are randomly selected by Iranian translators and publishers."
IBNA: Rahmati told IBNA that currently we are in need of a process similar to the translation movement of Islam's first centuries. Some talk about the movement's formation in Iran since the last few decades, while we can't accept it easily.
Talking about the features of the translation movement, which can be made in any period, he added: "The translation movement should be counted as a cultural aspect, while if one day we decide to determine the history of Iran's thoughts we can include the movement as one of the era's features."
Unfortunately such a movement hasn’t been set up in Iran. During the past years we have frequently heard that translation in Iran fails to hold a specific program, he added.
He added: "Sometimes some professional translators left their work since they weren’t sure about their future."
Some institutes claim that they are supporting translation and translators but in fact such a thing isn’t fulfilled. Many precious translations are due to the translator's personal interests and their responsibility. For instance Mohammad Hassan Lotfi renders Greek's philosophical works into Persian which is indeed useful for the scientific society.
He went on to say that translation holds the lowest points for academic works which indeed is true for theses as well; which proves that we haven’t decided to organize translation in Iran.
He added: "At least when such a movement doesn’t exist in the field of philosophy, naturally professional translators will not exist as well. A translator of philosophical works should spend his life for researching, studying and learning but when support doesn’t exist, the translator will naturally turn towards another job."
The numbers of translated works are important but their quality is more significant. The books should be handy and useful and in order to receive such translations, we should raise translators which will be in par with authors, Rahmati added.
Moreover he added that western philosophical texts should be localized and added:" Many western philosophical texts will be useful for Iranians when they are localized. This doesn’t mean that the context should be changed but the work should be in line with the Iranian's needs. A good translator should be able to write an introduction and analysis for the text."
He finally said that the field of philosophy needs group translations. Thus we need to form translation groups and support them as well.
