The history of translation and interpretation and its beginning
There are times when I suddenly feel like that when I use a translator. How did people communicate in the days when there were no translators, before professional interpreters and translators came into existence? As I follow this question back in time, I think of the Tower of Babel incident in the Bible. The Tower of Babel incident, which often appears in movies and novels, is a story that a long time ago, humans built the Tower of Babel to become as tall as gods, and God, who saw people building the Tower of Babel, was angry and destroyed the Tower of Babel and scattered human languages into multiple parts. It's a theory () that as a result of this, humans were scattered all over the world and used different languages.
There are people who believe this story, and others who don't, but what is clear is that for a long time, human languages varied widely by nation, region, and country. Therefore, for effective communication between languages, interpretation and translation were always required. When I looked for related materials, I don't know the exact time, but it is said that the job of interpreting is a very old job among all occupations along with prostitution (the act of selling a body).
#1
History of sequential interpretation and simultaneous interpretation
Among foreign transportation stations, the birthplace of sequential interpreters, “conference interpreters” first appeared during negotiations to sign the Treaty of Versailles in 1917. “Modern History of Interpretation” says that some of the American and British delegations didn't know how to speak French, which was the language of international diplomacy at the time, so they began using interpreters who could speak both languages. It is said that the method of sequential interpretation, where the interpreter interprets in the first person after the speaker finished speaking at later meetings or formal meetings, was used, and it is said that this method of sequential interpretation was used a lot, especially in the League of Nations, the predecessor of the United Nations. Simultaneous interpreters, on the other hand, are said to have first appeared in the Nuremberg courts for war crimes trials after World War II. Since then, the meetings of the United Nations General Assembly were broadcast live on the radio, and simultaneous interpretation gradually became known to the public.
#2
<번역사 오디세이, 쓰지유미, 2008>In the book “From Another Perspective,” the author says that the history of translation began from the perspective of the Islamic Empire, which came from the perspective of Islam, which expanded its territory to all of Spain, Pakistan, and Asia, that translation began with the Umawiya dynasty (661-750), which was built by early Muslims through conquest activities. Among the contents of the book, Europeans did not directly inherit the intellectual heritage of ancient Greece, and the intellectual cultural heritage inherited from the Greek culture that developed around Athens to Alexandria Hellenism was translated into Arabic to gain a new life in the center of Alexandria It is recorded that it was The Umawiya dynasty left Baghdad and started again in present-day Cordova, Spain. Later, Baghdad and Cordoba grew into global academic centers at that time, and this book places the origin of translation on this. In addition, there are many other origins of translation and interpretation.
The history of interpreting in Korea
In the case of Korea, it is said that interpreter education institutions have existed since the Goryeo period. King Chungnyeol reorganized the customs office in 1275 to create an educational institution called Ministry Staff, which was responsible not only for research on translation and interpretation, but also for education. Goryeo also had a manager in charge called “Station Officer,” which is relatively well known today. An officer is an official who was in charge of interpretation and translation services, which existed not only in Goryeo but also during the Joseon Dynasty. Since both Goryeo and Joseon had frequent negotiations with neighboring countries, they studied and taught foreign languages based on “instigation.” In unavoidable cases where there was no duty, I used Chinese to share my writing, but the importance of an officer who is an expert in foreign languages was very important because there was a clear limit to writing. In the early days, people from the common people were appointed, but it is said that in the later years, people in the upper classes also often learned through customs officers. Becoming an inspector was also seen as a kind of shortcut to career advancement.
In the Joseon Dynasty, foreign language learning was encouraged through ministers and seungmunwon. The ministry taught the four major foreign languages of the time: Korean, Mongolian, herring, and Japanese. The training of interpreters continued during the Joseon Dynasty, and in 1393, during the Taejo period, ministers were established to be responsible for training in translation and interpretation. At first, only Korean studies were the target of translation/translation, but it gradually expanded to an institution that oversees a total of 4 languages by establishing Mongolian, Japanese, and Yeojin languages. According to records, there were 31 supervisors at the time, and it is said that there were a total of 80 students, including 35 Korean students, 10 Mongolian speaking Mongolian students, 15 Japanese speaking Japanese students, and 20 female students. Since 31 teachers taught 80 students, it can be assumed that group extracurricular education was conducted in the past.
In the past, foreign language learning was done orally, but if you look at records from the Joseon Dynasty in the 1800s and 1900s, you can see that the English proficiency of the Korean people at that time was quite high. At the time, rather than focusing on grammar, classes were conducted with native speakers coming in and doing free talk. I think I taught practical English because I should be able to use it in practice. Shinobu Junpei (1901), who was a Japanese manager, wrote in <한반도> his book, “Joseon people are the best linguists in the East, and Chinese and Japanese people wouldn't dare to follow them,” so I think they didn't speak English more beautifully than the large number of Koreans who are present-day. However, during the period of Japanese domination, education centered on speaking changed to focus on writing and grammar, which are the dominant English education today, and it is said that the evaluation of Korean people's English proficiency changed again as a result, so I feel a great sense of regret that the influence of this period seems to have had an impact until now.
#3
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Interpreting is the task of changing one language into another in words, and translation in writing. Beyond the difficulties and frustration of writing down kanji on the ground and communicating in the form of written words, I think there was a lot of trial and error until professional interpreters and translators were trained with responsibility. Today, due to the advancement of machine translation, there are more and more machines rather than humans in the history of translation, but I am curious about the future of interpretation and translation as to how humans will face the remarkable growth of machine translation that develops in the future and survive to become a part of the history page.
See you in the next post
reference
#1, #2 <외국어와 통번역> Choi Jeong-hwa (2005)
#3 <일제강점기의 조선 생활상> Englishman Henry Burgess Drake (1930)
*This content has been transferred from Gicon Studio to Letterworks.
