Saturday, September 22, 2007
Iran's translation problems
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's apparently belligerant declarations continue to make trouble in the West. Doves, worried that the Bush administration is trying to build "excess demand" for military action against Iran, have argued that Ahmadinejad's various eruptions against the United States and Israel are not nearly as belligerant in Farsi as they sound when translated into English. They are allegedly much more akin to predictions than expressions of ambition or policy. Hawks, equally worried that George W. Bush, like all American presidents since Carter, does not want to be boxed into a very difficult confrontation, argue that Ahmadinejad's aggressiveness is the first genuinely candid expression of the Islamic Republic's policy since Khomeini died.
Against that backdrop, Charles Johnson's readers seem to have detected yet another translation controversy, this time relating to signs carried by the Iranian military during an official parade today. There is, one would think, a difference between "death to America" and "down with America" even in Farsi.
Gateway Pundit has full coverage of the offending festivities. Me, I just love the poster of Khomeini doing a fascist salute:
I hope I did not mistranslate the salute.
7 Comments:
By 
Dawnfire82, at
Sat Sep 22, 07:44:00 PM:
Charles Johnson's folks are correct.
I double checked on an English/Farsi translator (in case the words are different in Farsi and Arabic... it definitely means Death to America in Arabic) and sure enough, they say "Death."
http://www.farsidic.com/
The letters to push in are L, comma, and J (meem, wauw, and taa) in that order on the little keyboard.
By 
, at
Sun Sep 23, 09:10:00 AM:
In fairness (and I do not mean to suggest we should be cutting the Iranians any slack), even our "friends" in the ME Region make anti-American comments all the time and we don't call them on it. Example: the company I work for historically looked at some potential business deals in Saudi (we didn't consummate one). Anyhow, as it the custom with many governments, we received a lovely picture book about the country, which sat on a shelf. Until one day, I picked it up and started to read. When I got to the part about "the Jews" and all their nefarious ways, I read it aloud to my Jewish colleagues. And threw the book in the trash.
It is unfortunately the case that our detractors are quick to say very bad things about us in their language -- they sometimes translate it into English, but even when they don't, we figure it out anyway. Criticism of my country is fine. Vowing to destroy it, and its friends, is not.
By Andrewdb, at
Sun Sep 23, 12:29:00 PM:
TH - that picture is the traditional pose for dictators - it is also known as "The Great Leader Hailing a Cab"
By , at
Sun Sep 23, 08:01:00 PM:
Yes, you mistranslated the salute.
His fingers are spread too much and his elbow too bent for it to be the Hitler salute.
He is merely waving hello at his fellow followers from high atop his dictatorial balcony.
By , at
Sun Sep 23, 08:29:00 PM:
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