Tradiling

Brussels

A whole host of things can go wrong in a translation project. Translators accept that occasional mistakes are hard to avoid and hope they go undetected. After all, if nobody notices, who is to say that a mistake has been made? Was it even a mistake? Perhaps just a ripple, rather than a wave.

But there are occasions when an unintended translation mistake can have alarming consequences. David Bellos, in his breath-taking survey of translation, Is That a Fish in Your Ear? (2011), relates the diplomatic confusion resulting from a translation error that ratcheted up the tension between France and Germany prior to the outbreak of war in 1870. Apparently, Bismarck sent an open message from the King to the French Ambassador by the hand of the “Adjutant of the day” (Adjutant vom Dienst), a high-ranking regal court official. In Paris, the message was translated and distributed to the newspapers by the services of the Havas news agency, but “Adjutant” was not translated, since it is also a word in French. But in French it refers to a low military rank, the lowest kind of officer. The French were outraged by this snub, the act of sending such a lowly messenger. How bad were the consequences? We will never know, but only six days later, war broke out.

I was reminded of this incident recently, when I read about a mistake in translation in the documents that Carles Puigdemont’s lawyers submitted to a Belgian court in proceedings against the Spanish Supreme Court investigating judge Pablo Llarena.* Continue reading →