This week has been an exciting one for Veritas, as we won the regional Lloyds TSB Best Enterprise Award! Please tell us what you think of this week’s articles!

MONDAY

What does it take to offer a professional legal interpreting service?

Megan muses on what exactly makes a truly professional legal interpreting service.

TUESDAY

Post-editing and document translation services.

We talk about the rising popularity of post-edited machine translations, and why we don’t provide this type of translation.

WEDNESDAY

The ease of telephone interpreting.

Estrella explains some of the benefits of telephone interpreting as opposed to traditional face-to-face methods.

THURSDAY

Award winners!

Veritas became the winner of the Welsh regional heat of the Lloyds TSB Best Enterprise Award this week. Wish us luck for the finals!

FRIDAY

About sign language interpretation.

Here, we share some interesting facts about sign language interpreting. How much do you know about it?

Here at Veritas we are firm believers in keeping minority languages alive, and the Irish language is one which we have a particular fondness for. We feel that minority languages should get the official recognition that they deserve, but in this age of austerity we can’t help but ask if the costs involved in the translation of documents into minority languages such as Irish Gaelic is really worth the cost?

There has recently been much controversy over translation costs in the public sector, especially after the recent outcry over NHS document translation costs reaching £60,000 a day. Now with the Education sector coming under fire for the same reasons, many feel that something has to change in the way that document translation into the Irish language is handled.

The Irish exam board CEAA has recently published rising costs of translation of exam papers for Gaelic students, showing that the cost of translating from English to Irish has risen by a startling £500,000 since 2006.

There are some who argue that document translation into the Irish language is a waste of public funds as nobody speaks the language. We disagree. In fact, a 2006 census reported that there are more than 85,000 people in the Republic of Ireland who use Irish Gaelic (not to mention those in Northern Ireland). On top of that, it is also reported that over a million people speak the language, even if they aren’t using it on a regular basis.

So what do you think – ...

This week out blog articles have covered a wide range of topics, but have mostly focused on language in the news. Here’s our weekly round-up of blog articles for you to take a look and let us know what you think!

MONDAY

Learning a Language Makes You Smarter

Agata takes a look at recent evidence showing that learning a language keeps your brain functioning at its full potential for longer!

TUESDAY

Andaman Dictionary Published: Minority Languages Preserved!

A look at the story behind the publication of the first dictionary of the rare and extinct group of Andamanese languages.

WEDNESDAY

How Far Would You Go To Save Your Language?

Elfie discusses the Saunders Lewis story and the methods he employed in preserving the Welsh Language.

THURSDAY

Language Translation in History: How it changed the world

An article on how translation has changed the course of history from bible translation to Harry Potter.

As a translation company we’re well aware of the need to provide high-quality language translation services to our clients, and we’ve worked on all kinds of subject areas, and into a multitude of languages. What we often don’t think about however, is the effect of sharing knowlege between cultures, and the wealth of new information has been spread across linguistic boundaries thanks to the translation process. So just how important are translations to unlocking the secrets of a culture, and has translation really managed to shape the world as we know it?

A good starting point to broach this subject would be the translations of religious scriptures. Throughout history, translated religious texts have allowed for religion to spread across linguistic boundaries and across the world. Take the Qur’an for example. Originally the Qur’an was written in Arabic, and its contents were available only to those who could read the language. As translators worked on the scriptures, they made them accessible to people from other cultures, and allowed for the spread of Islam to people in other cultures speaking different languages.

The same can be said for the spread of western Christianity. Our very own Saint of Translation, St. Jerome, was the first to translate the bible into Latin in the 4th Century. The political power of Latin at the time of the Romans opened the bible up to a much wider audience, and where the Romans went, Christianity seemed ...

As a Swansea-based Company we’d like to talk about the achievements of one of Swansea’s most well-known literary figures and promoters of the Welsh language. Saunders Lewis, a renowned author and political activist, has arguably done more for the preservation and promotion of the Welsh language than any other figure throughout history. However, although his passion for the Welsh language and culture cannot be doubted, his extreme viewpoints and violent methods have been criticised by many. Today we’re asking: how far should you go to save a language?

Saunders Lewis was born into a Welsh-speaking family in 1893 and grew up among the Welsh community in Merseyside. In 1922 he moved to Swansea after having been appointed as lecturer in Welsh at Swansea University, and it was then that he began to be recognised for his literary talents. He wrote plays, poetry, novels and essays – mainly in Welsh but also sometimes in English – and in 1970 was nominated for the Nobel Prize for Literature, having become one of the most celebrated Welsh writers.

Lewis was passionate about preserving the Welsh language, and became actively involved in politics as a means of doing so. In 1925 he co-founded Plaid Genedlaethol Cymru (Welsh National Party), which would become the modern-day Plaid Cymru. The main aim of the party was to promote a Welsh speaking Wales, and Lewis insisted that all party business was ...