I am at the airport
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salve Reader! Some people believe that because AI can translate and write texts for us, the future of translation studies is a bit bleak. The opposite is true. Let me show you what I mean with an example: Right now, I am at the airport waiting to take a flight to Spain. I have been invited to the launch of a new publishing house. They specialise in beautiful literary translations from Mandarin to Catalan, in physical format. Now, before you ask what the link is between the launch and Classics, I will just leave it here that the editorial linguistic advisor is a classicist and good friend of mine, but the email about careers after Classics is for another day! Back to the book launch, it is precisely because of AI that we should be exploring what translations are for. What constitutes a good translation? Why do we need translators? And indeed, what is the actual role of a translation? These are very complex questions, and they vary depending on what we aim to translate, but they are questions ChatGPT will not be answering any time soon, because this is as much about linguistic ability as it is about feelings, intercultural understanding and, ultimately, our human interest in art and beauty. Precisely this week I had a chat with a parent who was delighted their child has chosen Latin. They said that, in the age of AI, the best future-proofing involves developing an understanding of our place in the world, in history and how the languages we speak can shape it. Music to my ears! As you can see, interest in languages is far from waning, because languages and communicating are what makes us human. Well, this turned out to be a long post, and I need to head to my gate. I guess it goes to show how much joy we can find in words. I could have asked ChatGPT to write something to stay in your inbox, yet I chose to sit at the café (there is a Gail's at Gatwick now!) and share my thoughts with you. I will let you know how it goes, but if you are around Barcelona, come and say 'Hi' (or 'salve!'). By the way, what are you reading at the moment? Is it an original or a translation? And does it matter? Here is the information for the event, in case I have piqued your curiosity, and you would like to find out more:
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salve Reader! Who does not love spring? I guess whoever decided it was a good idea to place all final exams at this point in the year. The bees are buzzing, the plants are flowering, but our teenagers are going through knowledge organisers and sitting indoors revising for high-stakes exams. I do not have much time for a newsletter this week, but you can see below what I have been up to this month. However, I thought it would be a good idea to send a little reminder that breaks, walks, treats...
salve Reader, Did you know that my homeland's patron saint, Sant Jordi, is shared with England? I quite like the idea, although that does not stop me from missing the Catalan celebrations on the 23rd of April. You can read more about it in my book about the legend, but suffice it to say that we celebrate it by filling the streets with books and authors, and gifting each other roses. It is the perfect language lover's day! You may be wondering at this point what this has to do with Latin...
salve Reader! [For those wondering where my holiday photos are, just scroll to the bottom, where I have shared some. For everyone else:] A student has asked me today why Latin does not have an oral exam. Too right! Just what I had been thinking about in the last couple of days. It is not that I do not know why Latin does not have an oral exam... but if you are not weighed down by the burden of "traditionalists", it does not really make much sense, which is why younger students often ask. The...