TRANSLATING BLACK AUTHOR By Jessica Dunrod
Although at times we may feel as though the conversation about racism still has a long way to go, or that the new language which has been developed is still falling on deaf ears in our search for justice and equality.
As a multilingual translator from Wales, I can assure you that within the context of the English language, we ought to be proud of our progress so far, as in many languages which I speak or come into contact with, even the most basic language to account for the Black narrative or space is at times, unaccounted for.
Until very recently when my team embarked on such research, there had not even been an official translation for the term “Black author”. Whether this is because there have not been many in Wales or that they have never needed to talk about authors like myself in the Welsh language. Either way, the lack of language to account for our representation or identity in Wales, will naturally carry certain implications which will only serve to further exclude Black voices from the Welsh narrative.
In Wales, all public signs and notices must be presented in both the Welsh and English language. And although as an author, I would ideally like to one day be considered one day as simply an author, but at the moment, to identify as a “Black author” is to signal the extra obstacles Black authors often face when considering whether to write or publish a book. I, therefore, felt that it was necessary to render a Welsh translation of “Black author” in order for our work to be present and showcased on library shelves for example. Understanding the lack of language to account for the Black Welsh identity, I set this challenge to Ms. Cruddas, a valued member of the Lily Translates and Ambassadora translation teams, to embark on diversifying the Welsh
language to ensure that the Black identity and Black spaces are linguistically present within the Welsh language. The word for ‘Black’ in Welsh is ‘Du’ (pronounced ‘dee’) specifically written with a capital ‘D’. The Welsh word for ‘author’ is ‘awduron’. You would think that by placing both lexical elements together in Welsh, would render an accurate translation for “Black author” but “Du awduron” and “awuron Du” still render as inadequate and grammatically
incorrect translations, so how do we translate “Black author” into Welsh?
“AwDuron” became the official translation of “Black author”
“AwDuron” became the official translation of “Black author” by capitalising the ‘d’ within “awduron”, the Welsh word for author in order for the elements referring to the Black identity is present and remains grammatically correct within the element which referring to author in Welsh. As you can see, in Welsh, you can’ spell author without ‘Black author”, we have been there all along! This same translation strategy can also be applied to ‘newyddiadurwr’, the Welsh word for journalist, rendering “Black Journalist’ as ‘newyddiaDurwr’. We have come a long way in Wales despite the language available to account for us.
I hope that in the near future we will find in our libraries in Wales, a dedicated AwDuron shelf showcasing the important literature written by Black authors.
Get in touch with Jessica Dunrod today!