双语 | “史诗级”飓风肆虐美国 翻译缺失也会死人

最近，美国天灾不断，飓风“哈维”在德州等地肆虐多日，造成50人死亡600万人受灾。现在“哈维”刚走，同等威力的飓风“厄玛”又逼近佛州及美国东海岸。

据外媒报道，9月10日晚，飓风厄玛登录美国佛罗里达州，目前已造成3人死亡。此前，“厄玛”已在加勒比海地区造成至少25人死亡。飓风到达前，佛罗里达州已有约630万民众进行撤离。美媒指出，这一人数占该州总人口四分之一，已成为美国史上最大规模的应急撤离。

▲国际空间站拍下的厄玛飓风画面

报道称，“厄玛”成为大西洋上有记录以来最强的飓风，其风力已升至“极度危险”级别，被媒体称为“大西洋怪兽”。

特朗普在推特上警告说，“‘厄玛’将是史诗级的，可能比我们以前所看到过的飓风都要更强大（Hurricane Irma is of epic proportion, perhaps bigger than we have ever seen）。”

▲特朗普推特截图

然而，当飓风来临时，人们除了应对天灾，另一个问题也显得至关重要，那就是翻译。在自然灾害和各大应急突发状况中，即时的信息翻译对于紧急救助起着非常关键性的作用。在美国近日连发的几起严重飓风灾害中，就发生了因救生信息翻译的缺失和不足，而导致人员伤亡的情况。译员不足等因素造成的这种现象的确引人深思。

In any crisis situation, there’s preparation and then there’s reality. First responders and government agencies can train volunteers, put an action plan into place, and get everything as ready as it can possibly be. But then the hurricane hits.

在灾害发生前，人们往往会做好准备，但也常常会遇到一些现实状况。现场急救人员与政府机构可以训练志愿者，通过实际行动发挥作用，并做好充分准备。但飓风说来就来了。

For many of Miami-Dade’s 2.6 million residents, one of Hurricane Irma’s very present realities is language. According to the most recent American Community Survey, 72.8 percent of the area’s population speaks a language other than English at home—for 64 percent, that’s Spanish.

迈阿密达德郡有260万居民，对于许多人来讲，飓风厄玛带来的一个实际问题就是语言问题。根据最新的美国社区调查，该地区人口中72.8%的人不说英语，而说其他语言，其中64%的人说西班牙语。

When a language community is this large, the easy answer to “How will they get lifesaving information in a language they understand?” is “From each other.” But while Spanish may be the language of choice in Miami, it’s not in Washington, D.C., where the American Red Cross, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), and other first-responder and aid organizations are based. These organizations operate in English first, which can be an added challenge to getting word out.

当一种语言群体如此庞大时，显而易见，诸如“他们如何通过自己的语言获取救生信息”之类的问题，答案就是“通过彼此”。在迈阿密，人们可能会选择说西班牙语，但在美国红十字会、美国联邦应急管理局（FEMA），及其他诸如急救人员与组织所在地华盛顿，情况就大不一样了。这些组织主要使用英语，要做到有效宣传可是个额外的挑战。

To communicate in Miami-Dade, the American Red Cross has partnered with Translators Without Borders, an international NGO based in Danbury, Connecticut. According to Amy Rose McGovern, Translators Without Borders’ director of External Affairs, 200 volunteers around the world are rapidly translating tweets and Facebook posts from English into Spanish, Haitian Creole, French, and both Brazilian and European Portuguese.

为了解决在迈阿密达德的沟通问题，美国红十字会与无国界译者协会进行了合作，该协会是一个位于康涅狄格州丹伯里市的国际NGO组织。据无国界译者协会的外事主管Amy Rose McGovern介绍，他们在全世界有200位志愿者，能够快速把推特和脸书上的英文内容译成西班牙语、海地克里奥尔语、法语、巴西葡萄牙语和欧洲葡萄牙语。

Translators Without Borders has been around since 1993, so the organization is well-prepared to help in any crisis. But they’re stretched thin right now, working with the British Red Cross to help Irma victims in the Caribbean, with the Mexican Red Cross to assist after last night’s earthquake, and with the International Federation of Red Cross (IFRC) for everywhere else.

无国界译者协会大约成立于1993年，因此，该组织对于应对任何紧急情况，都可以说是经验非常丰富了。但是他们眼下与英国红十字会一起在加勒比海帮助飓风厄玛的灾民时，与墨西哥红十字会一起对昨晚发生的地震灾害施以援助时，与国际红十字会一起在各地工作时，却仍会感到捉襟见肘。

All these recent disasters have also damaged the translation industry itself. Melissa Gillespie, a spokesperson for the translation-marketing research firm Common Sense Advisory, says between 6 and 10 percent of America’s translators and interpreters live in Irma’s path. And don’t forget about all the translators in Hurricane Harvey’s path—not just for Spanish, but for Haitian Creole and Brazilian Portuguese, as well—says Bill Rivers, the executive director of the Joint National Committee for Languages. When hospital workers, shelter volunteers, and others don’t speak someone’s language, they’re trained to work with on-site or telephone interpreters. But “the challenge is that local translators and interpreters are just as affected as everyone else,” Rivers says. “In major disasters, relief agencies need to find additional folks to help out.”

最近发生的一连串灾害也对翻译行业造成了打击。翻译市场调查公司Common Sense Advisory发言人Melissa Gillespie表示，美国有6%-10%的译员住在厄玛飓风受灾区。美国语言联合全国委员会常务理事Bill Rivers说，不要忘了哈维飓风受灾地区的所有译员，不仅是西班牙语译员，还有海地克里奥尔语、巴西葡萄牙语译员。当医务工作者、收容所志愿者和其他人员不会讲对方的语言时，他们就要采用现场口译或电话口译。但“问题是当地的译员和其他人一样，也正在受到灾害的影响。”里弗斯说，“在重大灾害发生时，救援机构需要找到更多的增援力量，帮助灾民度过困境。”

Fortunately, even if Houston and Miami’s translators are out of pocket, their work still contributes to the plan. “As part of our preparedness measures,” McGovern says, “we are gathering what hurricane-relief content we already have in our repository that can be repurposed, while the teams are translating simple messaging on hurricane preparedness.”

可喜的是，尽管休斯顿和迈阿密的译员比较紧缺，他们的工作依然有助于救援计划的推进。麦戈文说：“作为防范措施的一部分，我们正在搜集我们的知识库里现有的可以重新利用的飓风救援内容，有些团队也在翻译一些简单的应对飓风的信息。”

In the translation industry, this is called “translation memory”: prior words and phrases that a computer program remembers from work you’ve translated before. When the program finds overlap with a new document, tweet, or post, it provides existing translations. During Hurricane Matthew, Translators Without Borders translated information about flooding and aftermath disease into Haitian Creole, and has since shared these translations with IFRC. From Matthew and Typhoon Haiyan, there’s translation memory for flooding, rebuilding, and landslides. From the 2015 earthquake in Nepal, there’s a Nepali crisis-terms database for first responders with phrases like “Are you okay?”, “What hurts?”, and “Do you need help?” Translators Without Borders is currently expanding this database into other languages.

这在翻译行业被称为“翻译记忆”，即电脑程序记录下你之前翻译过的词语和句子。当电脑程序在一份新的文档、推文或帖子中发现有与之前相重合的内容，就会自动提供之前的翻译。飓风马修发生时，无国界译者协会将关于洪水和后续灾害的信息翻译成海地克里奥尔语，并将译文分享给了国际红十字会。飓风马修和台风海燕发生后，建立了关于洪水、重建和滑坡等信息的翻译记忆。2015年尼泊尔地震发生后，为现场急救员建立了尼泊尔语应急词汇数据库，如“你还好吗？”“你受了什么伤？”“你需要帮助吗？”无国界译者协会目前正在将其他语言扩充进数据库。

While translation memory helps first responders with recurring concerns, everyone in Irma’s path still needs to know where to go, when to go, and how to go. With past mass evacuations, a lack of translation has cost lives. During Hurricane Katrina, the National Council of La Raza, now UnidosUS, claims that in Gulfport, Mississippi, evacuation updates never went out in Spanish or in Portuguese. As a result, 70 to 80 limited-English-proficient people didn’t know that they needed to leave and died.

翻译记忆帮助现场急救员解决人们重复关心的问题，而飓风厄玛的受灾人员仍然需要知道去哪儿，什么时候离开，怎样离开。由于翻译的缺失，导致之前的几次大规模撤离中一些人员的丧生。飓风卡特里娜灾害期间，拉美裔全国委员会（现称UnidosUS）称，在密西西比州格尔夫波特市，撤退信息的更新没有翻译成西班牙语或葡萄牙语。结果，有七八十位英语不太好的灾民不知道他们其实应该呆在原地，因此丧失了性命。

Again, the fact that Spanish is so widely spoken in Miami may prevent a similar occurrence here: Univision and Telemundo are disseminating information. For Haitian Creole, in-language radio stations are doing the same. But the problem isn’t that the people of Miami don’t understand each other. The language barrier is between Miami and everybody else.

同样，西班牙语在迈阿密很常用，因此可能会避免这类惨剧的发生：西班牙语环球电视台和Telemundo电视台都在传播信息。海地克里奥尔语电台也在同时发布信息。但问题不在于迈阿密人之间的沟通，而在于迈阿密人和其他人之间的沟通障碍。

To bridge any barrier with the State of Florida itself, FloridaDisaster.org, the Florida Division of Emergency Management’s website, has weather updates in English, French, Spanish, and German. But try to find a shelter, and it’s English only: Somehow, the current translations have left Florida’s shelter-location list out. The site’s non-English versions are also riddled with broken links. Systran, a Seoul-based company that has translated FDEM’s site since 2006, says the problem comes from the site’s use of iFrame, a common HTML-coding method used to layer information on a page.

为了在佛罗里达州内部打破交流屏障，佛罗里达应急管理司的官网（FDEM）FloridaDisaster.org，已经提供了英语、法语、西班牙语和德语实时天气更新。但当你要找一个避难所的时候，就只能看到英语标记了——不知什么原因，关于当前的佛罗里达避难所情况没有相关翻译。而网站上的许多非英语网页的链接，也都变成了死链。从2006年开始即为FDEM官网提供翻译的一家名为Systran的首尔企业称，问题出在对iFrame的应用上，它是一个常用的HTML代码程序，用于跳转信息网页。

To Systran’s credit, iFrame is common but difficult for any automated translation software to take words from. The industry is looking for a fix, but it won’t be here before Irma. As with the diminished supply of translators, what people plan for before a crisis and what reality looks like during one can’t always align—no matter how hard translators and responders try.

Systran公司所说的iFrame，虽然很常用，但对于任何自动翻译软件来说，却很难从中获取文字信息。行业目前正在解决这个问题，但厄玛到来之前肯定办不到了。随着译员供给的减少，不论译员和救援人员怎么努力，人们在灾难来临之前所做出的准备计划和真实的现实状况也会大相径庭。

英文来源：CITYLAB

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