Translation statistics

Cultural diversity is now an important issue in European cultural policy. In the field of literary translation, there are three major problems:

• a lack of translations into English (reportedly only 3% of all books published in English are translations);
• a surfeit of translations from English (especially in smaller countries, where the number of translations from English can reach an incredible 80% of all translations);
• a very small number of translations from ‘minor’ languages into other ‘minor’ languages.

Several organizations are already working on diversity statistics, mainly taken from UNESCO’s Index Translationum (http://portal NULL.unesco NULL.org/culture/en/ev NULL.php-URL_ID=7810&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201 NULL.html) (with its known limitations). An important study in this field is Rüdiger Wischenbart (http://www NULL.wischenbart NULL.com/diversity/)’s Diversity Report (latest edition 2010 (http://www NULL.wischenbart NULL.com/translation/)). Literature Across Frontiers (http://www NULL.lit-across-frontiers NULL.org) is preparing another diversity report. For the Mediterranean region, Traduire en Méditerranée (http://www NULL.transeuropeennes NULL.eu/fr/42/le_projet) is working on translation statistics.

CEATL will collect national translation traffic data for the next issue of our Working Conditions survey.