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Translation errors can have dire consequences, there are very interesting film errors that we could talk about, but interesting as they are today, we are going to talk about errors that have influenced our history, whose tone combines both humour and the most categorical seriousness.
It is estimated that there are some 7,000 different languages worldwide and although 90% of them are spoken by less than 100,000 people and - according to Unesco - 2,500 are "endangered", they testify to the incredible human ability to communicate, but these figures also allow us to imagine the enormous potential for incommunicado detention. What happens when we want a message in our language to be understood in the other 6,999? History is full of examples where a translation error has had far-reaching consequences. Today we'll tell you 5 of them:
1. Alien life on Mars?
Late in the 19th century, astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli described the surface of the planet Mars as having channels.
Thirty years later, American astronomer Percival Lowell came to the conclusion that there was intelligent life on Mars, capable of building channels, since Canali, in Italian, refers to "artificial channels".
2. The Undertaker Buried
At the height of the Cold War, Russian politician Nikita Khrushchev gives a speech in Poland to all Western ambassadors, which ended with the following sentence: “Like it or not, history is on our side. We'll bury you!”.
Fortunately, the Soviet leader clarified his words and excused himself by claiming that he was paraphrasing a phrase from the Communist Manifesto, in which Karl Marx said that the bourgeoisie produced its own gravediggers.
3. Sexual desire for Poland?
In the 1970s, Jimmy Carter travels to Poland, a communist country at the time.
When translating his speech into Polish, all those present were astonished when the American President began his speech by saying: “I left America never to return' and in the same speech, he said that he was happy to see the private parts of Poland”, implying that he sexually desired the Polish people.
4. Do we despise it?
World War II, the Potsdam Declaration was published, the text of which dealt with the conditions for the surrender of the Japanese empire and stated that, if Japan did not surrender, it would face "prompt and complete destruction".
At a press conference, Japanese Prime Minister Kantaro Suzuki said "No comment, we still think so”. A mistake that, when mistranslated the word Mokusatsu, the Allies understood as "we ignore it and despise it". Ten days later, the Americans bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki, causing one of the most terrible massacres in the history of war.
5. The Treaty of Waitangi
Sometimes translation errors are unintentional, sometimes they are in the interests of those who want to change the real meaning of something. The latter group includes the Treaty of Waitangi, signed by the Maori of New Zealand in 1840, which transformed the island into a British colony.
British and Maori signed two versions of the treaty, one in English and one in Maori. Both copies are similar, except for what really mattered. The Maori version says that the natives accept the permanence of the British at the expense of permanent protection by the crown. The British version says that the Maori submit to the crown in exchange for British protection.
Do you know of other mistakes? We are waiting for you!
By Lucía Sánchez
