Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Translation services make the world so much smaller

Living here in Holland and being a native English speaker can have it's drawbacks. I can speak Dutch (badly I have to admit, but I can still have a conversation, read official documents). However I do have to admit that translation services do make life a whole lot easier.

I am also involved in network marketing, and there are times when I want to place advertisements in lands where English is not the native language or in some cases not the only language.

Although it's worth mentioning that Hindi is the official language of India. Hindi translation to English is very common.

If you were to type India Translation into a search engine you can find online automatic translation services, however they don't usually translate languages grammatically correct.


I recently discovered an interesting fact, and that is: There are more English speakers in India then on any other continent. I thought this was fascinating. So when I check it out these are SOME of the languages I found that are spoken in India

1. Assamese/Asomiya Assam
2. Bengali/Bangla Andaman & Nicobar Islands, Tripura, West Bengal
3. Bodo Assam
4. Dogri Jammu and Kashmir
5. Gujarati Dadra and Nagar Haveli, Daman and Diu, Gujarat
6. Hindi Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Arunachal Pradesh, Bihar, Chandigarh,
Chhattisgarh, the national capital territory of Delhi, Haryana, Himachal
Pradesh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand.
7. Kannada Karnataka
8. Kashmiri Jammu and Kashmir
9. Konkani Goa, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Kerala
10. Maithili Bihar
11. Malayalam Kerala, Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Lakshadweep,Puducherry
12. Manipuri (also Meitei or Meithei) Manipur
13. Marathi Maharashtra, Goa, Dadra & Nagar Haveli, Daman and Diu,
Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka
14. Nepali Sikkim, West Bengal, Assam
15. Oriya Orissa
16. Punjabi Chandigarh, Delhi, Haryana, Punjab
17. Sanskrit Primary liturgical language of Hinduism. Also declared a
"Classical Language of India"
18. Santhali Santhal tribals of the Chota Nagpur Plateau (comprising the
states of Bihar, Chattisgarh, Jharkhand, Orissa)
19. Sindhi Sindhi community
20. Tamil Tamil Nadu, Andaman & Nicobar Islands, Puducherry (Also designated a
classical language)
21. Telugu Andaman & Nicobar Islands, Andhra Pradesh
22. Urdu Jammu and Kashmir, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Andhra Pradesh, Muslim
community in Karnataka

This list doesn't include other smaller languages or dialects. Isn't that fascinating. Can you imagine the administration that goes on the coordinate all these languages. You would have for example Farsi translation of official documents for all of the farsi speaking communities. Some documents could have all official languages printed but think of the cost of printing. I think that it would be farsi for farsi communities and Arabic translation for arabic communities and so on.

So I really do have complete respect for the people responsible for translation, India and it's languages are so much more intriguing that first thought.

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