The history of translation

Translation is one of the oldest human activities. Even Cicero, who translated the works of Plato and Demosthenes, and Horace in the treatise "The Science of Poetry" used the word interpres in the sense of "translator", "interpreter". The same name is used by the translator of the Bible, St. Jerome (IV century AD). And in the Middle Ages, the monks-translators used the names interpres and hermeneuma. However, already at the end of that era, this terminology becomes little used.

In the emerging Romance languages, the concept of "writing in the vernacular", i.e. in vernacular Latin, was conveyed by the same verbs as the concept of "translating from Latin into the vernacular": enromacier( French), romancar( Spanish), romanzare and vulgarizzare (Italian). After the 12th century, the translator was called droguement (drugement) and trucheman (truchement) in France, and drogomanno (and trucimanno) in Italy, borrowed from the Syriac targmana and the Byzantine dragoumanos (compare in Russian "tolmach" from Turkic sources).

At the same time, the words translation and translateur were formed in French from the Latin translatio (meaning transference, metaphor) and traslator (conveying something to someone), meaning "translation" and "translator", which were also mastered by other European languages.

The emergence of book printing stimulated translation activities. It was then that modern terms appeared. The appearance of the verb traduire is attributed to 1539, and in 1540 the French humanist and translator e.Dole includes traduction and traducteur in one of his treatises. In Spain, the neologisms traducir and traduccion arise, and in Italy, tradurre and traduzione. In school practice, the term version continues to be used, denoting the translation into the native language from Greek and Latin.

At one time, the countries of the former USSR occupied one of the first places in the world in terms of the number and circulation of annual translations, primarily of fiction. Many translators have reached the heights of literary skill in their works. The impressive achievements of translation practice could not but lead to the development of translation theory. At its origins is A.M. Gorky. The great writer deeply and correctly understood the relationship between the practice and the theory of translation in the literary process.

Translation has performed its most important function for a long time, but only in the XX century did people come to realize its importance and its special place. It is no accident that the XX century was proclaimed in 1955 in the first issue of the magazine "Babel" as the century of translation. Scientists from different countries note the special role of translation in the formation of national cultures.

A modern person enjoys the fruits of the work of a translator when he reads the instructions for a foreign-made washing machine, when he learns on TV about what is being written in French newspapers today, when he needs to negotiate with a foreign partner, when he picks up an interesting novel. To this we can add the work of the translators of the past centuries, because we read the Bible and many works of art in the old translations.

The trend towards globalization, which is observed at the turn of the XX-XXI centuries, is prepared by the dedicated work of translators, and globalization itself is possible only if a well-organized translation process is carried out.

The work of translators contributes to the openness of society. It is no accident that all dictatorial regimes have placed translation activities under the strictest control, and modern "closed" states, such as Iran, organize persecution of translators.

Today, the greatest need for translators is observed in technical areas, more than 70% of translators in the world work in them. According to London Computer Integrated Translation GmbH in 1987, the volume of translation in the world per year was 200 million pages, and the need for it increased by 15% per year. The same trend, with a slight increase, has continued in recent years. The largest volume of translated texts is business correspondence, followed by consumer information texts of various kinds (instructions, brochures, etc.), then scientific and technical texts, contractual texts, technical descriptions.

Master`s degree student I course Botakoz Yergaliyeva; Scientific adviser, professor Danat Zhanatayev,  Al-Farabi Kazakh National University, Almaty

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