Medical and scientific terms in Maltese
As the medical world continues to redefine certain words, it is becoming ever more difficult to find a correct word in Maltese for certain technical ones in English. There is substantial debate going on whether technical terms should be kept in the original English or be translated into the Maltese vernacular. However, it is extremely hard to find alternatives in Maltese for some medical terms. Let’s start with a few examples:
Test kit: There is really no word in Maltese for the term test kit. A loose translation would be kit għat-testijiet. Ideally, this term should remain in English.
Rectum: Again, no word exists for this organ in Maltese although there are some words that can make up such as it-tarf tal-musrana. In this case, the English word can also be desirable here.
Carbohydrates: There is debate whether this word should be left in English or translated literally to karbo-idrati, which is derived from the Italian language, as is often done with many terms. Although this is technically correct, the English term sounds far better.
There are other words such as musrana il-kbira, which is a proper translation for colon.
Still, several other words of a much more technical nature struggle to provide a Maltese alternative.
Using Maltese words instead of English might make it easier for the ordinary patient to understand while medical matters are being explained to him/her besides making a better sounding conversation when medical professionals are talking about medical subjects in Maltese on television.
The National Council for the Maltese Language issued a document for discussion in 2008 where the subject of translation from English to Maltese was given a pretty detailed run-through with a large number of academics and authors voicing their views.
However, notwithstanding the many opinions brought forward, there are still no clear guidelines how this problem should be tackled.
The document also included an exhaustive list of words extracted from a Maltese newspaper over some months that were the literal translations of English words. Several were pretty obvious phonetic translations, which sound quite cheap and shabby – konkrit and kompjuterizzat come to mind immediately.
A translation source who works for the EU explained that, so far, they have only tackled chemical substances but there is a general tendency to use Italian as a base in this field (French is also very helpful). Other sources admitted it is not all that easy finding the correct term in Maltese.
More often than not, translators directly translate terms into the local written alphabet, thus eliminating their need to find a term in our language because the foreign word is understood by everyone and is assimilated in everyday life. A typical case in point is the word amphetamine, which, when translated into Maltese, is written amfetamini. Obviously, there is no such word in Maltese with that description so the meaning has to be taken directly from the English word.
With an army of Maltese translators in Brussels and Luxembourg turning huge volumes of technical terms into Maltese, the problem has undoubtedly only become bigger.
It is obvious that Maltese is an entirely unique language and it should be treated as such. All translation projects with Maltese as a target language should be carried out by native speakers.
However, proper guidelines for medical words should be introduced without delay as even professional article writers have no guidance when faced with a myriad of technical terms to use and write about. Of late, many drug companies have been translating the package inserts of medicines into Maltese language, which is a good step but highlights the problem of lack of guidelines in translating scientific jargon into Maltese.
Dr Grech is a family doctor.
7 Comments
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Paul Brincat
Mar 9th 2011, 22:08
Test kit = apparat ta' prova.
wally vella-zarb
Mar 9th 2011, 18:44
Why should we translate ‘carbon paper’ literally into ‘karta karbonika’ when we already have had the perfectly adequate ‘karta saħħara’ probably since the invention of this paper with seemingly ‘magical’ properties? Attempting to replace English terms with a new equivalent that is almost word-for-word when there is already an adequate word in Maltese that conveys the precise meaning seems to me an intellectual exercise in futility. A case in point is ‘save’; within the context of IT this refers to the storage of data for later retrieval. For some reason, this has been translated into the abomination ‘issejvja’ – when we could just as easily have used the Maltese imperative ‘aħżen’ which means, very precisely, ‘store’.
As for structuring neologisms on the Italian pattern one has to accept that, phonetically, Maltese is closer to Italian than it is to English. This is a fact that has nothing to do with being Anglophile or Italophile. We have come to the pitiful state that many people are even transposing words from Maltese into English without realising the mess that they are creating. How many times have we read that someone ‘is pretending’ when the writer means ‘qed jippretendi’?
v zammit
Mar 10th 2011, 11:17
re: 'karta karbonika' - if the reference is to my missive, I was indeed arguing that it is of no use replacing 'karta saħħara' with 'karta karbonika'. As much as we do not say 'mitjar' instead of 'ajruport' in everyday speech. I do not talk of poetry. The same holds for 'test kit' instead of 'apparat ta' prova' because 'kit' is not 'apparat' and 'test' may not be 'prova'. Each word/phrase has an intuitive orbit of reference and 'apparat ta' prova' does not evoke, by a quirk of native linguistic intuition, a 'test kit'.
As to Italian being closer to Maltese than it is to English, that is neither here nor there in the current spoken language. For that matter then 'toothpaste' could have been 'pasta dentifricia'. Speech is a mix from both languages and from others, with no fixed pattern or determined variables other than contact, creative genius and a strange fancy for a particular saying. It is very empirical and descriptive. Like, to pick an example, the Russian 'sputnik', also in English, Maltese and presumably in all other languages.
wally vella-zarb
Mar 10th 2011, 14:57
While I agree that speech draws from both languages, I am also noticing a tendency to absorb English words in a badly pronounced form, For example ‘air conditioning’ is being translated as ‘erkondixin’, presumably because there are people who say that they have an ‘air condition’ at home. Another misguided decision, in my view, was the choice of ‘televixin’ for the English word ‘television’ when, had we opted for ‘televiżjoni’,(Italian?) we could have easily continued with the natural derivatives such as ‘xandir televiżiv’. If we are to write ‘telefown’ instead of ‘telefon’,(Italian?) do we now make a ‘telefownata’ instead of a ‘telefonata’?
The ‘sputnik’ example is a good one; should we say ‘kindergarden’ when the correct form is Kindergarten? Should we allow ‘alkaħol’ instead of ‘alkoħol’, ‘alkol’ or even the old word ‘spirtu’? Finally, should we tolerate the abominable ‘majkrafown’ (from the same popular TV presenter) instead of ‘mikrofonu’? Majkra- does not mean anything!
Paradoxically, such translations were less of a problem in the fifties. I still remember government announcements on the Rediffusion for vacancies of ‘Infermiera Skritti fl-Elenku’ (State Registered Nurses). Everybody understood what was meant and nobody batted an eyelid then.
v zammit
Mar 10th 2011, 19:19
Lest we digress, the point Dr Etienne Grech is making is about translation. Spelling (‘televixin’) and pronunciation ('telefown') are different matters. Spelling, like grammar, necessarily requires prescription. Pronunciaton is largely descriptive, but Received Pronunciation (RP) i.e. standard pronunciation (King’s or BBC’s English in the UK) is prescriptive. It is here and in other related matters that we need guidance from the national authority for Maltese, without the need to legislate or to open cans of words, but being flexible and cautious. Should a student be penalised for writing ‘toothpaste’ instead of ‘tutpejst’ or vice-versa? Who is to tell? His/Her teacher? What if teachers have different opinions? Come to think of it, we do not as yet this day and age have an authorised Maltese dictionary. Just imagine what it would have been like without Aquilina. And in some quarters he is denigrated. Indeed his is one of those rare monumental works and I think we need to built him a monument (isn’t there one already?) But I digress!
v zammit
Mar 9th 2011, 14:15
‘Test kit’ would remain as is, which is similar to eg. ‘toothpaste’. And so many others. It is of no use trying to prescribe an equivalent that will not be uttered. ‘Rectum’ is the technical name for ‘il-musrana d-dritta’. One could use either depending on the context. Carbohydrates is ‘karboidrati’. And so on with many others, e.g. the several gases. Briefly one has to distinguish between the prescriptive and the descriptive: the former is necessary where it is required for certain purposes and/or where equivalents do not exist or are insufficient or limited, eg. the sereral types of cloud formation. Otherwise it is of no use prescribing substitutions where there is no need or in order to repalce words already in use eg ‘pasta għas-snien’ instead of ‘toothpaste’ (‘tutpejst’, if at all); or replacing ‘karta saħħara’ with 'karta karbonika'. New words are not easily come by; or they can catch on like wild fire. The borderline between description and prescription is as thin or thick as language allows it, but description prevails.
j n ebejer
Mar 9th 2011, 13:02
One would already be much happy if patients at state hospital were to be respected, so have basic signage in both languages and be addressed by personnel, in the language they communicate best, in either english or maltese. The problem arises when a professional in his field does not find his profession counterpart who can communicate such specific information in maltese. Since not all maltese can understand english this ends up as a gross shortcoming.