International Translation Day

International Translation Day is celebrated every year on September 30 -- the feast of St. Jerome, the Bible translator who is considered the patron saint of translators. The celebrations have been promoted by FIT (the International Federation of Translators) ever since it was set up in 1953. In 1991 FIT launched the idea of an officially recognized International Translation Day to show solidarity of the worldwide translation community in an effort to promote the translation profession in different countries (not necessarily only in Christian ones). This is an opportunity to display pride in a profession that is becoming increasingly essential in the era of progressing globalization.

Since I have had several translations published over the years -- check out, for example, Jerome Gratian: Treatise on Melancholy --  and worked as an editor for other translators, I am happy to encourage appreciation of this important work.

I am grateful that I had the opportunity to learn Spanish fairly well and also to learn to read, sometimes with effort, Latin, French, Greek and German as well. I know a smidgen of Kiswahili, but not enough to count. 

We shortchange children and our culture when we do not encourage study of other languages. Not everyone needs to have the skills to be a translator, but everyone would profit by knowing how to be polite to a foreigner in his or her own language.