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Simon Phipps's personal commentary

FISL: In Translation

While the actual travel gets old pretty quickly, I still count it a privilege to be able to tour the world as part of my job. Last week I was in Brazil at FISL, this week I am in Prague at Systems Integration 2004. It's said that travel broadens the mind and I absolutely believe that. In fact, there's one aspect that has particularly struck me this month.

The FISL conference was conducted mostly in Brazilian Portuguese, which I struggle to read and cannot speak at all. The conference had amazing translators who were rarely more than one word behind the speaker with their English translations. The Prague conference is mainly in Czech and also has simultaneous translation graciously provided for the one or two non-native-speakers in the room. When everyone has to speak my language it's easy for me to feel in control and even superior, but listening in translation puts everything into perspective.

On Slashdot one poster said "at last the third world is getting it" in connection with Brazil and F/OSS, yet it was clear as I sat listening in Porto Alegre that such a statement is condescending and ignorant - the writer needs to travel more. The speakers in translation are erudite, witty, informed, expert. Freed from the shackles of having to accommodate my linguistic weakness they humble me with their insight and wisdom. More than that, I am exposed to new linguistic games, new cultural allusions, new ways of looking at the world. My insight into F/OSS is hugely enhanced by my encounter with the Brazilian understanding, and my intellect is strengthened by new metaphors, ideas and images.

It's not enough just to travel. The experience of being forced to be the user of a second (or absent) language is one that every English-speaker should regularly encounter as a cure to imperialism and ignorance. For the lack of it, wars are fought.

[Other Brazil posts: Java Everywhere, A Government That Gets It, WIPO, Smooth, Drinks]

posted at 8:37 PM (UK) | |