The terrible power of misinformation

A number of Farsi-speakers called a radio show the other day to note that Ahmadinejad was mis-translated during Q&A at Columbia University last week.  When asked about homosexuals in Iran, his answer was translated as something like, "There are no homosexuals in Iran the way there are in the US."  Which got a guffaw, boos, and  hisses.  What he in fact said was something like this: "There is no homosexual social movement in Iran like the one in the US."  Which may seem like a small difference to many, but it's an important one culturally.  Better to translate more knowledgeably and behave with more tolerance and understanding when interpreting one cultural landmass to another.

That misunderstanding/mistranslation came to mind this morning when I listened to a lovely interview/discussion with Jennifer Michael Hecht whose book "Doubt: A History" about the long tradition and grace of skepticism.  At one point she marveled at the rise of mystic Christianity at a time when skepticism and doubt prevailed. 

Given the ability of the human race to doctor information, to propagandize, to invent, to wrongly translate (and don't forget, there were a lot of languages in a small space in Asia Minor and the Middle East two millenia ago, just as there are now) we might want to look at vast assumptions often based on "facts" as reliable as those we're left with at the tail end of a round of the game "telephone."

So, okay.   Try to imagine the slight mistranslation that would be responsible for two thousand years-worth of misunderstanding over "his mother was a virgin," or the whole loaves and fishes bit, or "he arose from the dead."  Just a few words in the wrong place, just a few guys wanting to sell an idea, or maybe a translator just trying to make a living out of half-knowledge of a language, and what have you got?  Well we've got "no homosexuals in Iran" and we've got "Adeste fidelis" coming out of loudspeakers for two months starting the day after Halloween .

You can measure your own level of doubt here.

Comments

[Ron G]

Yes, mistranslation is a real problem. Granted. "No homosexual movement" is clearly more likely true than "no homosexuals".

But mistranslation is at most a minor issue in the history of manuscripts, especially religious manuscripts. There are many things that contribute to poor transmission of the written word: personal and institutional agendas, attempts at error correction (correct or mistaken), incomplete knowledge, poor sources, poor maintenance of sources, etc. And none of that says anything at all about the accuracy of the orginal source(s)!