Monday, August 18, 2008
On the same page, but in what language?
From the RoundTable blog
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John Freivalds
Freivalds runs an international communications firm in Lexington.
Democratic presidential candidate Barak Obama says that we need to intensify our fight against terrorism in Afghanistan. He said, "We all need to be on the same page." But I wonder if all the coalition forces fighting terrorism there can read the same page. We are still facing the same issues now as we did six years ago.
By my count, 13 languages and dialects (Russian, Uzbek, Arabic, Chinese, Tajik, Krgyz, Pashto, Dari, Urdu, Farsi, Turkmen, and American and British English) are actively used by coalition members. When asked, a Defense Department spokesman said coalition communications won't be a problem since everyone speaks English.
"Everyone speaks English" used to be the argument for not localizing documents of American corporations selling their goods and services overseas. People understand concepts and instructions in their own language, and I would suggest the coalition borrow some ideas from American business to assure that no miscommunications occur due to language alone.
U.S. companies making sales overseas are regularly asked to provide operating manuals and other materials in the language of the buyer. Even finding a common form of English is an issue. British commandos are now working side by side with the U.S. But they use words like air screw, lorry and accumulator to mean things we understand as propeller, truck and battery. Daniel Webster realized the difference in 1776, when he published his famous dictionary of American English that we still use today.
While it is true that most coalition members speak some English, this might not be enough. Even the most fluent English speaker would have trouble with the sometimes impenetrable commands. To wit, this was taken from a munitions storage manual:
"It is necessary for technical reasons that warheads should be stored upside down, with the top at the bottom and the bottom at the top. In order that there be no doubt as to which is the bottom and which the top for storage purposes it will be seen that the bottom of each warhead has been labeled with the word 'top.'"
So what can the coalition command do to make sure each of the coalition members knows exactly what is going on? The first thing would be for the U.S. militia command to develop a virtual glossary, in all of the languages involved, of key terms and phrases that relate to the conflict. The second would be to appoint one person to assure and manage the consistency.
The glossary is essential because it defines terms in a manner in which they can be understood by all. "Flyover" is something most American English speakers would understand in a militia context. But can the same be said of a Tajik speaker, fighting for the Northern Alliance or would he consider this relating to airborne insects? Similar terms like "friendly fire" (accidental shooting on your own troops) need to be clarified so they don't relate to an inviting campsite. And Navy aviators now flying missions over Afghanistan state that they like to "walk early." In their lingo, walking means suiting up for battle, not a stroll down the road.
American military English is very specific and precise, but it needs to be translated and back-translated into the coalition languages on an ongoing basis. In recent years, the translation industry has developed tools like rapid globalization methodologies, which allow companies to simultaneously launch products and their documentation almost simultaneously in English and in multiple languages. This sort of language speed is needed now to defeat terrorism, which wears many faces and uses many languages.
The second requirement, to assure miscommunication-free language management, would be to have a single language manager to assure consistency -- that when a change is made in one place, it is made in all others. Similarly, a wide variety of language documentation technologies exist to handle this.
Superior weaponry, which we already have, will not be enough to win the war on terrorism we are waging today on the battlefields of Afghanistan. We will win if we receive and give better information in languages that all partners understand. Then, indeed, everybody will be on the same page.
