Posted on Jan 13, 2023
FEMA fires group for nonsensical Alaska Native translations
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After tidal surges and high winds from the remnants of a rare typhoon caused extensive damage to homes along Alaska’s western coast in September, the U.S. government stepped in to help residents — largely Alaska Natives — repair property damage.
Residents who opened Federal Emergency Management Agency paperwork expecting to find instructions on how to file for aid in Alaska Native languages like Yup’ik or Inupiaq instead were reading bizarre phrases.
“Tomorrow he will go hunting very early, and will (bring) nothing,” read one passage. The translator randomly added the word “Alaska” in the middle of the sentence.
“Your husband is a polar bear, skinny,” another said.
Yet another was written entirely in Inuktitut, an Indigenous language spoken in northern Canada, far from Alaska.
Residents who opened Federal Emergency Management Agency paperwork expecting to find instructions on how to file for aid in Alaska Native languages like Yup’ik or Inupiaq instead were reading bizarre phrases.
“Tomorrow he will go hunting very early, and will (bring) nothing,” read one passage. The translator randomly added the word “Alaska” in the middle of the sentence.
“Your husband is a polar bear, skinny,” another said.
Yet another was written entirely in Inuktitut, an Indigenous language spoken in northern Canada, far from Alaska.
FEMA fires group for nonsensical Alaska Native translations
Posted from abcnews.go.com
Native Americans
Canada
Posted >1 y ago
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PO1 William "Chip" Nagel good day Brother William, always informational and of the most interesting. Thanks for sharing, have a blessed day!
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PO1 William "Chip" Nagel
..."They clearly just grabbed the words from the document and then just put them in some random order and gave something that looked like Yup’ik but made no sense,” he said, calling the final product a “word salad.”
He said it was offensive that an outside company appropriated the words people 80 years ago used to memorialize their lives.
“These are people’s grandparents and great-grandparents that are knowledge-keepers, are elders, and their words which they put down, expecting people to learn from, expecting people to appreciate, have just been bastardized,” Holton said.
KYUK Public Media in Bethel first reported the mistranslations.
“We make no excuses for erroneous translations, and we deeply regret any inconvenience this has caused to the local community,” Caroline Lee, the CEO of Accent on Languages, the Berkeley, California-based company that produced the mistranslated documents, said in a statement.
She said the company will refund FEMA the $5,116 it received for the work and conduct an internal review to ensure it doesn’t happen again.
Lee did not respond to follow-up questions, including how the mistaken translations occurred."
..."They clearly just grabbed the words from the document and then just put them in some random order and gave something that looked like Yup’ik but made no sense,” he said, calling the final product a “word salad.”
He said it was offensive that an outside company appropriated the words people 80 years ago used to memorialize their lives.
“These are people’s grandparents and great-grandparents that are knowledge-keepers, are elders, and their words which they put down, expecting people to learn from, expecting people to appreciate, have just been bastardized,” Holton said.
KYUK Public Media in Bethel first reported the mistranslations.
“We make no excuses for erroneous translations, and we deeply regret any inconvenience this has caused to the local community,” Caroline Lee, the CEO of Accent on Languages, the Berkeley, California-based company that produced the mistranslated documents, said in a statement.
She said the company will refund FEMA the $5,116 it received for the work and conduct an internal review to ensure it doesn’t happen again.
Lee did not respond to follow-up questions, including how the mistaken translations occurred."
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I am not surprised, what's so hard about going and finding elders or speakers who speak the proper dialect or language?
Many indigenous languages in the USA among the native tribes have disappeared because they were forced to learn English. The residential school system did that.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Indian_residential_school_system
Many tribes don't have people who are proficient enough to teach the kids who don't speak it anymore. My wife understands some Cree but she can't really speak it. Her mother and grandmother speak it. There's a lot of discrimination against teaching cree and it's usually taught by a white person who may not even know the right dialect.
Chip, I'm not surprised to read something like this.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Indian_residential_school_system
Many indigenous languages in the USA among the native tribes have disappeared because they were forced to learn English. The residential school system did that.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Indian_residential_school_system
Many tribes don't have people who are proficient enough to teach the kids who don't speak it anymore. My wife understands some Cree but she can't really speak it. Her mother and grandmother speak it. There's a lot of discrimination against teaching cree and it's usually taught by a white person who may not even know the right dialect.
Chip, I'm not surprised to read something like this.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Indian_residential_school_system
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