How Do We Trust Translation?

Book, translation trust.
Book, translation trust.
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How Do We Trust Translation?

Book, translation trust.
Book, translation trust.

A popular proverb says: “Those who see are not like those who hear”. And, those who speak about translation– in all its interrelated facts – from inside the translation world are not like those who speak irresponsibly and generally without references.

The translation efficiency is tightly linked to the source and target languages. Language is a framing structure that forms a base for our special view of the world. Arabs, for example, see the world in a different way than the English, French, German, Japanese, and Chinese people. Language carries this view, and every new language we learn is a reformulation of our view of the world driven by the reformulation of our brains on the biological level. There are fundamental differences that cannot be reduced to express one idea in different linguistic contexts, therefore, we should accept the existence of divergences among the translated texts. I don’t like to speak about the “inevitable infidelity in translation” because it’s not more than a dramatic expression of a basic fact. Therefore, we must emphasize the following facts:

1. Translation is a negotiation between languages (according to Umberto Eco) in which each language compromises a fraction of its expressional existence.

2. Every human being has their own emotional language that doesn’t resemble that of anyone else.

3. A person who doesn’t know more than one language ignores their mother language, because they lack references for comparison that usually enriches nontraditional grammatical and semantic contexts, according to Goethe.

4. Every translated text parallels the original one. The idea of matching in translation is a pure illusion for substantial reasons that aren’t linked to the skillfulness of the translator.

5. Every translated text carries the print of both the writer and the translator. A connection between the translated text and the translator cannot be dismantled.

Translation cannot be seriously discussed without reading the action of translation, and its connection with syntactic and semantic structures of the language. I believe that linguist and cultural anthropologist George Steiner was the best to cover this topic in his book After Babel Aspects of Language and Translation (1975). For the technical aspects of translation, the references and books are many including Dr. Mohammed Annani’s “Art of Translation”, late philosopher Paul Ricœur’s “About Translation”, and Dr. Safaa Khoulousi’s “Analytical Translation” and “Translation in Light of Comparative Studies”.

In the following, I will be discussing details that accompany every translation process, and all translators must have experienced them.

First, I must mention the trust of the translated material. How does this trust happen? I have two answers:

1. A general answer like when we ask, “How do you trust a dentist? a professor? a vendor”. We often say, “Experience is the greatest evidence”, so try and assess your result. Some of us might say that every profession has ethics and rules, but this is not sufficient because an active conscience and decency are valuable characteristics and a decisive factor in every human practice. Based on this, we can read translated texts recommended by a great number of readers, but recommendations alone are not enough, and a personal standard must be considered. And now comes the second answer.

2. Try to compare a translated text to its original reference, or it might be easier to compare a translated article to its original version. Assess all the aspects of the translation and audit the context the translator adopted, and how he structured his translated expressions. Study the grammar and the semantic context of the translated expression and compare it to the spirit of the original expression.

We should make efforts to verify the objectivity and credibility of any translated work. This procedural approach requires the reader to have a good knowledge of the language from which the translator had translated their text.

This view of translation requires the explorations of some topics:

· The uniqueness of literary translation and its difference from other types of translation, because it’s more complicated and requires more effort and patience. This is because literature focuses on the semantic value more than any other topics. But it’s worth noting that the technical indication here refers to literary texts and not literary studies.

· The need for geographic experience. It’s a trick that some slackers want to spread to break promising translators. Those argue that some works, especially the literary ones, use terms that are only recognizable by people who live in the geographic locations that use these terms.

· Translation from an interlanguage. The basic rule in translation is to translate the text from the original language in which it was written. But in some cases, we can use an interlanguage, why not? What harm could this cause? Why lose time waiting for the appropriate circumstances to translate the work from its original language.

· The translation specialization. Some believe that professional translation should only be practiced by translation graduates. But we also learned that passion is the first requirement for every work that needs personal immersion in detail. How can we guarantee a translation graduate would have this type of passion? And we should not forget that the best Arab translators were English literature graduates.

· Revenues of translation. Those who work in translation don’t wait for a great financial return or fame. This is the reality of translation in our Arab world. Passion is the first and last driver for every translator. We know many great, Arab translators who worked and died without award or appreciation.



To Get Their Own Cash, People in Gaza Must Pay Middlemen a 40% Cut

A destroyed branch of the Bank of Palestine in the Tal al-Hawa neighborhood of Gaza City is seen Wednesday, July 9, 2025. (AP)
A destroyed branch of the Bank of Palestine in the Tal al-Hawa neighborhood of Gaza City is seen Wednesday, July 9, 2025. (AP)
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To Get Their Own Cash, People in Gaza Must Pay Middlemen a 40% Cut

A destroyed branch of the Bank of Palestine in the Tal al-Hawa neighborhood of Gaza City is seen Wednesday, July 9, 2025. (AP)
A destroyed branch of the Bank of Palestine in the Tal al-Hawa neighborhood of Gaza City is seen Wednesday, July 9, 2025. (AP)

Cash is the lifeblood of the Gaza Strip’s shattered economy, and like all other necessities in this war-torn territory — food, fuel, medicine — it is in extremely short supply.

With nearly every bank branch and ATM inoperable, people have become reliant on an unrestrained network of powerful cash brokers to get money for daily expenses and commissions on those transactions have soared to about 40%.

"The people are crying blood because of this," said Ayman al-Dahdouh, a school director living in Gaza City. "It’s suffocating us, starving us."

At a time of surging inflation, high unemployment and dwindling savings, the scarcity of cash has magnified the financial squeeze on families — some of whom have begun to sell their possessions to buy essential goods.

The cash that is available has even lost some of its luster. Palestinians use the Israeli currency, the shekel, for most transactions. Yet with Israel no longer resupplying the territory with newly printed bank notes, merchants are increasingly reluctant to accept frayed bills.

Gaza’s punishing cash crunch has several root causes, experts say.

To curtail Hamas’ ability to purchase weapons and pay its fighters, Israel stopped allowing cash to enter Gaza at the start of the war. Around the same time, many wealthy families in Gaza withdrew their money from banks and then fled the territory. And rising fears about Gaza’s financial system prompted foreign businesses selling goods into the territory to demand cash payments.

As Gaza’s money supply dwindled and civilians’ desperation mounted, cash brokers' commissions — around 5% at the start of the war — skyrocketed.

Someone needing cash transfers money electronically to a broker and moments later is handed a fraction of that amount in bills. Many brokers openly advertise their services, while others are more secretive. Some grocers and retailers have also begun exchanging cash for their customers.

"If I need $60, I need to transfer $100," said Mohammed Basheer al-Farra, who lives in southern Gaza after being displaced from Khan Younis. "This is the only way we can buy essentials, like flour and sugar. We lose nearly half of our money just to be able to spend it."

In 2024, inflation in Gaza surged by 230%, according to the World Bank. It dropped slightly during the ceasefire that began in January, only to shoot up again after Israel backed out of the truce in March.

Cash touches every aspect of life in Gaza

About 80% of people in Gaza were unemployed at the end of 2024, according to the World Bank, and the figure is likely higher now. Those with jobs are mostly paid by direct deposits into their bank accounts.

But "when you want to buy vegetables, food, water, medication -- if you want to take transportation, or you need a blanket, or anything — you must use cash," al-Dahdouh said.

Shahid Ajjour’s family has been living off of savings for two years after the pharmacy and another business they owned were ruined by the war.

"We had to sell everything just to get cash," said Ajjour, who sold her gold to buy flour and canned beans. The family of eight spends the equivalent of $12 every two days on flour; before the war, that cost less than $4.

Sugar is very expensive, costing the equivalent of $80-$100 per kilogram (2.2 pounds), multiple people said; before the war, that cost less than $2.

Gasoline is about $25 a liter, or roughly $95 a gallon, when paying the lower, cash price.

Bills are worn and unusable

The bills in Gaza are tattered after 21 months of war.

Money is so fragile, it feels as if it is going to melt in your hands, said Mohammed al-Awini, who lives in a tent camp in southern Gaza.

Small business owners said they were under pressure to ask customers for undamaged cash because their suppliers demand pristine bills from them.

Thaeir Suhwayl, a flour merchant in Deir al-Balah, said his suppliers recently demanded he pay them only with brand new 200-shekel ($60) bank notes, which he said are rare. Most civilians pay him with 20-shekel ($6) notes that are often in poor condition.

On a recent visit to the market, Ajjour transferred the shekel equivalent of around $100 to a cash broker and received around $50 in return. But when she tried to buy some household supplies from a merchant, she was turned away because the bills weren’t in good condition.

"So the worth of your $50 is zero in the end," she said.

This problem has given rise to a new business in Gaza: money repair. It costs between 3 and 10 shekels ($1-$3) to mend old bank notes. But even cash repaired with tape or other means is sometimes rejected.

People are at the mercy of cash brokers

After most of the banks closed in the early days of the war, those with large reserves of cash suddenly had immense power.

"People are at their mercy," said Mahmoud Aqel, who has been displaced from his home in southern Gaza. "No one can stop them."

The war makes it impossible to regulate market prices and exchange rates, said Dalia Alazzeh, an expert in finance and accounting at the University of the West of Scotland. "Nobody can physically monitor what’s happening," Alazzeh said.

A year ago, the Palestine Monetary Authority, the equivalent of a central bank for Gaza and the West Bank, sought to ease the crisis by introducing a digital payment system known as Iburaq. It attracted half a million users, or a quarter of the population, according to the World Bank, but was ultimately undermined by merchants insisting on cash.

Israel sought to ramp up financial pressure on Hamas earlier this year by tightening the distribution of humanitarian aid, which it said was routinely siphoned off by militants and then resold.

Experts said it is unclear if the cash brokers’ activities benefit Hamas, as some Israeli analysts claim.

The war has made it more difficult to determine who is behind all sorts of economic activity in the territory, said Omar Shabaan, director of Palthink for Strategic Studies, a Gaza-based think tank.

"It's a dark place now. You don't know who is bringing cigarettes into Gaza," he said, giving just one example. "It's like a mafia."

These same deep-pocketed traders are likely the ones running cash brokerages, and selling basic foodstuffs, he said. "They benefit by imposing these commissions," he said.

Once families run out of cash, they are forced to turn to humanitarian aid.

Al-Farra said that is what prompted him to begin seeking food at an aid distribution center, where it is common for Palestinians to jostle over one other for sacks of flour and boxes of pasta.

"This is the only way I can feed my family," he said.