Babel 57: 4 (2011), 443451.

Fdration des Traducteurs (fit) Revue Babel

doi 10.1075/babel.57.4.05qur issn 05219744 e-issn 15699668
Constraints on Arabic translations
of English technical terms
MohammadAhmad Al-Quran
Yarmouk University
Introduction
Arab purists believe that Arabic is the language of derivation. In its simplest form,
derivation comes from existing Arabic roots that are not changed in any way, but
are derived from and build upon. For example, many words can be derived from
the verb form kataba, meaning to write such as as yaktubu (he writes), katibun
(writer), maktubun (written), kitabatun (writing), just to mention a few of
them. In these examples, the sequence of the consonants ktb in the verb form ka-
taba, which is analogous to the radical root consonants faala (to do), is main-
tained. According to Rifai (1998), this simple method of derivation is the most
natural way of growth for Arabic and remains operative afer the formative stage
of the Arabic language.
However, the massive translation movement in the nineteenth century and
the proliferation of journalism forced upon the modern Arabic language a food
of more or less rapidly coined terms that are not susceptible to derivation in its
simplest form. As a rule, these compound neologisms are the product of straight
translations or calques of the models provided by European languages. Acalque
is deemed here as the introduction of a new term into the target language through
translation e.g., natihat al-Sahab (skyscrapers), which is a compound neologism
that comes to exist through translation. As for naht, Arabic composite words are
coined in such a way as to create one single word out of two diferent, otherwise
unrelated words, which are conveniently shortened. Tis could be illustrated, for
example, in al-masriwayah, a combination of the mixed genre between theater
masrah and novel riwayah. While the former compound neologism is not suscep-
tible to naht in that it cannot be reduced to one lexical word that is created out of
the two-term concept natihat and sahib, the latter case seems to be susceptible to
naht and there is little objection to its applicability. However, it is not clear when
these two principles can be applicable; or, put diferently, what makes one prin-
ciple acceptable in one case rather than another? In other words, there seems to
444 MohammadAhmad Al-Quran
be no solution for this problem, because it is not determined by a pre-set criterion
that can be subjected to absolute verifcation.
Tis paper thus intends to look into the constraints that make the creation of
adequate Arabic equivalents for Western technical terms somehow inefective.
Constraints on composite neologisms
Te classical Arabic tends to favor a single-word term over a two-word term when-
ever necessary, simply because the former can be both derivative and attributive as
being based only on the root-pattern system Tis tendency has been recognized
by many modern Arabic philologists as one means of lexical creation to accom-
modate both foreign terms and modernize Arabic. However, attempts at translat-
ing some foreign terms into Arabic by one-word terms have failed. For example,
the one-word term irziz, an archaism meaning sound of rain, of thunder, and to
which the purist Ahmad al-Iskandarani gave the modern meaning of telephone,
became a proverbial object of ridicule. Actually, irziz is not conveniently pleasing
in its pronunciation and thus does not suit the taste of people, though highly rec-
ommended by Arab philologists. Another limitation on the use of irziz is the fact
that this word is not easily manipulative with diferent personal pronouns, since it
is hard to fgure whether or not it derives from an existing Arabic verb root. Tis
shows that, although one-word term is preferable to a two-word term, how well a
one-word translation is received by people has an impact on its acceptability.
In similar veins, the archaic word tirbal, meaning high building, was recom-
mended by Arab linguists to be used as adequate translation for skyscrapers (Stet-
kevych 1970: 33). Tis one-word term, which is preferable to a two-word term
natihat al-sahab from a grammatical point of view, is not well-received by average
people, not even by some linguists who rejected it as being etymologically of non-
Arabic origin. Although the Arab linguists opted for the word sarh as equivalent
for skyscraper on grounds of its being etymologically of Arabic origin, this alter-
native is taken beyond its physical sense and the use made of sarh with reference
to a skyscraper is purely metaphoric in the poetic sense.
To avoid such pitfalls, linguists, generally speaking, have drawn their attention to
the creation of composite words to render the delicate diferences of the source
language terms, which one-word equivalents seem incapable to convey precisely.
Te creation of composite words is, however not governed by a pre-set criteria that
indicate how many or which letters are to be omitted in the process of creating
composite neologism. For example, the creation of al-masriwayah, a word coined
out of two words, masrah (theater) and riwayah (novel), shows that the last two
Constraints on Arabic translations of English technical terms 445
letters of masrah have been omitted, whereas the letters of the word riwayah have
all been maintained. Te component al-dar-amah (science college), by contrast, a
word coined out of dar (college, faculty) and ulum (science), shows that the let-
ters d, a, and r of the frst word have all been maintained, whereas the second word
amah is a completely diferent word. Likewise, there is no reason why it is accepta-
ble to render the English term center of gravity by Arabic paraphrased translation
markaz al-Tiqal rather than by reducing the source words into a shortened single
composite. With this in mind, the principle of naht seems somehow inefective in
creating adequate Arabic equivalents for Western technical terms.
One basic reason for such failure, according to Holes (2004: 312), is that Arab-
ic is poorly equipped with afxes (prefxes & sufxes), which makes building a
standardized and internally coherent technical and scientifc vocabulary almost
impossible. Unlike Arabic, English and other European languages are character-
ized by their agglutinative characteristics of conveniently building blocks such as
the Greco-Latin un, infra, ultra, sub, supra, proto, hypo, etc. to meet the needs of
science. Arabic has no morphological analogs like these. Instead, Arabic exploits
free- standing prepositions that have similar meanings to these afxes in forming
composite words (e.g., tahta under for sub, fawqa above for ultra) with content
words. Tus we would have tahshuuri for subconscious and fawsawi for above-
normal(al-Husari 1988: 51).
Although these prefx-formations are, in many ways, simplifying and enrich-
ing modern Arabic vocabulary, they are not welcome as being essentially non-Ar-
abic, and as a characteristic feature of the indo-European. According to Mazhar
(1955), some Arab purists such as Ahmad al-Iskandarani claim that Arabic is the
language of ishtiqaq (derivation) alone and that, in spite of the classical evidence
as in, for example, hamdala, meaning to say al-hamdu liLahi (praise be to God),
the possibility of naht is now exhausted, its time past, and its door closed. Tis in-
dicates again that Arabic, to purists, is not seen as an essentially agglutinative lan-
guage.
Arab academicians have been more pragmatic in their eforts to assimilate for-
eign technical words. Tese eforts have been unsuccessful in many cases, due to
the fact that there are no clear-cut criteria as to which letters of the source words
should be omitted in the process of creating a new composite. Tat being said, one
might say that the acceptability of composite constructions has to do with the ex-
tent of reduction in the contributing words. Composites with substantial abbre-
viations of the contributing words seem to have gained acceptance and proved
productive. For example, the composite barr (land) and maa plus the relational
adjective iyy, which gives barmaaiyy (amphibious), is generally accepted since all
446 MohammadAhmad Al-Quran
the letters of the two contributing words have been maintained. Whereas compos-
ites that involve substantial reduction of the components, such as nazwarah (de-
foliation), which is a combination of naz (removal) and waraq (leaves) has not
generally found favor because of the difculty of linking the shortened compon-
ents to their source words. In cases like these, Holes maintains that loan transla-
tion of the source word into a multi-Arabic paraphrase is the preferred solution of
purist philologists and practical scientists alike.
Tere are cases where composite constructions have gained general scientif-
ic acceptance and are productive despite purists objections. According to Holes
(2004), some Arabic composites, in which the all-purpose preposition is pre-fxed
to a content word without reduction, such as shibh gharawiyy for colloidal, have
gained acceptance.Whereas other word coinages such as tahbahriyy (submarine),
consisting of tahta (under) and bahriyy (marine) and gibjalidiyy (postglacial)
which involves gibba (afer) and jalidiyy (glacial) are not as much acceptable as
the former example.
Although modern Arab philologists such as al-Magribi (1947) and al-Husari
(1988) recognize the applicability of naht in the feld of technology, the possibility
of exploiting it productively remains limited. Much focus has been laid on the pos-
sibility of exploiting the prefx la (not) in forming compound words. As evidence
that Arabic is capable of this, al-Husari cited several older forms such as la mutan-
ahi (infnite); la daruri (unnecessary); la tanazuri (asymmetrical) etc. Whereas
the prefx formations with la are capable of receiving the defnite article al (the),
which makes them fexible such as al-Latanazuriyyah (asymmetry), other pre-
fxes suggested by al-Husari such as qabla (before) and gibba (afer) are not sus-
ceptible to the defnite article, and thus the prefx formations such as qabtarikh
(prehistory) and gibmadrasi (post-scholarly) are not fexible in their use. Add
to this, the coined term gibmadrasi (post-scholarly) suggested by al-Husari is not
precise in its sense, since madrasi is a relational adjective derived from madrasah
(school) and is not necessarily referring to scholars or doing research. Unlike the
prefx formations with the particle la, the latter suggestions gained no acceptance.
Tus the susceptibility of the composite to the defnite article the al is another
constraint on the composite.
Tere is no escape, however, from admitting that Arabic is evidently lacking
an apparatus for word coinage that is productive enough to meet a continuous de-
mand for new terminology and fexible enough to render into Arabic the delicate
diferences of English neologisms. Te desire to preserve the spirit of the language
by using only derivational patterns based only on the root-pattern system has thus
proved difcult to reconcile with the consistency, clarity, and concision demand-
ed by the modern science. Te root-pattern system by itself has failed to generate
Constraints on Arabic translations of English technical terms 447
large enough families of morpho-semantically related terms, analogous to those
found in western scientifc discourse (e.g., groups of words such as English rheu-
matology, rheumatism). Rheumatic, rheumatoid, etc., in which semantically sta-
ble sufx can be freely added to a fxed stem (Holes 2004: 313).
Paraphrase-related constraint
Although one-word translations are preferable to two-word translations on the
grounds that a one single term is both derivative and attributive, the tendency to
coin one-word terms is not the safest approach. Te uncoordinated efort of indi-
viduals and Arab linguists and philologists in unifying terms lef the door open for
individual whims. Tere exists a wide divergence from one region to another or
from one writer to another as to what terms are to be preferred. For example, there
is a profusion of synonyms for the technical term brake. According to Shihaby
(1959), there are at least eleven neologisms coined for this device. Tese are al-
Kammamah, derived from kamaha (to pull in: a horse); al-Muqif in Iraq ; al-masik
and mikbah in Syria; al-Lijam in the French-Arabic dictionary of al-Najjari; al-da-
bitah and al-Kabihah (in the English-Arabic Dictionary by A. Ellias); al-miqaf ( in
a technical book); al-Farmalah (a colloquialism registered also by the Arabic Lan-
guage Assembly in Cairo); al-Firan (in Syrian colloquialism); and al-faramil and
the brake in Jordan. In this case, it would be better to keep the foreign word brake
to avoid the profuse synonyms and confusion.
In addition to this, one important constraint that disqualifes one-term trans-
lations for gaining literary and scientifc acceptance for foreign technical terms is
their semantic opacity to the non-academic user. Such opacity may clearly derive
from the fact that the coined terms are outside the stock of roots in active use. Al-
Maghribi (1947), for example, points out that the archaism jammaz (swif-footed
ass or camel) that Arab linguists recommended to replace the foreign term tram
triggered comical results and thus gained no acceptance among average people.
Al-Maghribi maintains that the Arabic Language Assembly in Cairo was forced to
tolerate the foreign term.
Te tendency therefore to paraphrase using two-or-more word terms does not fare
better than that of one-word terms. Arab academicians preferred solution was to
resort to paraphrase, so that, for example logy is rendered by a noun phrase con-
sisting of ilm construct plus noun phrases, ilmu nnafs (lit. science of the soul) and
ilmu al-Ahaya(lit. science of living things) were coined. But this solution leads to
other problems. One is a certain syntactic clumsiness. Te word indivisibility and
hundreds of Latinate formations like it, have to be rendered into Arabic by rear-
448 MohammadAhmad Al-Quran
ranging the component morphemes of the source word into lengthy noun phrases:
adamu alqabiliyyati li ttajazzu (lack of the susceptibility to the division) (Holes
2004: 311). Tis lengthy paraphrase does not correspond to the linguistic criteria
that call for brevity in use and ease in pronunciation. Another constraint on the
use of this lengthy paraphrase is how ofen the foreign term occurs in a given text.
If it occurs so ofen, then the use of the lengthy Arabic translation for the foreign
technical term might impair rather facilitate the process of communication. More
importantly, the greater density of such a lengthy translation per page is not well-
received by the audience.
Since a two-word term is not susceptible to nisbah (relational adjectives), at-
tempts have been made to keep the loan word and attach the relational sufx-yy
to it. Tus, for the loan word biology (ilm al-hayaa), it is common to use biulugi-
yy (biological). Despite its widespread use in science, this composite is rejected by
Arab purists on the grounds that it is of non-Arabic origin, and thus any foreign
encroachment whatsoever upon Arabic is unwelcome. Other attempts have been
made to form the relational adjective from a plural noun ahyaaiyy (pertaining to
life). Tis attempt has also been rejected by Arab purists because it is an ofense
against the rules of Arabic word derivation on the grounds that the plural form is
not susceptible to nisbah (relational adjective). Tus, there is a constraint on at-
taching the relational sufx-yy to the plural Arabic noun Ahyaa.
While attaching a relational adjective-yy to the radical root consonants of a
word is an approved method in Arabic, it causes ambiguity in many cases because
the relational adjectives slot is already occupied in many roots by a word with a
diferent established meaning. Holes (2004: 313), for example, notes that the re-
lational adjective hayawiyy a root meaning life already has many of the lit-
eral as well as metaphorical senses of the English word vital. Te same is true of
nafsiyy, a relational adjective that comes from the root nfs, meaning breath, spirit,
psyche. Tus nafsiyy can be used as equivalent for several English words, psycho-
logical, spiritual, breath.
Te shortcoming of the principle of paraphrase is that many composite Arab-
ic terms have variants or are not sufciently current in their literary usage. Tis
deprives them of the desirable semantic precision. Te term conditional refex,
for example, is translated into Arabic sometimes as al-inikas assharti and some-
times as al-inikas al-zarf. Some authors, according to Mandur (1944), who use
terms tend to add to the Arabic version the original foreign form. Tus we read
wahm al-hakika (illusion du reel) and in the same book he expresses the same
concept as (mushakalaat alwaqi) usur al-dhawq (les poques du gout), and al-
ruyah asshiriyyah (vision potique). Tis tendency to insert foreign translations
Constraints on Arabic translations of English technical terms 449
of Arabic within quotation marks or may be bracketed is to avoid the possibility of
misunderstanding since clear communication is the overriding aim in word coin-
age and usage. Tis tendency may as well suggest that the user himself is not quite
sure that the Arabic terms precisely render the English neologisms.
Implications for Arab purists and linguists
It is evident that the methods of naht and paraphrase have their own problems. Yet
it is safe to say that the principle of naht is more challenging than translation by
paraphrases, since there is no standard prescribed policy regarding reduction of
the components of the coined term to a particular limit. In a sense, the process is
somehow arbitrary and may lead to misunderstanding. I fnd it difcult, for ex-
ample, to relate the condensed form nazwarah (defoliation) to its source words.
Arab linguists should focus their attention on this thorny issue and coordinate
their eforts with pragmatic scientists in the feld of technology and science to help
produce more acceptable composites. Such joint efort is essential for coining ad-
equate precise terms.
Linguistically speaking, it is no use for purist linguists adhering to the old prin-
ciple of derivation in its narrow sense where conservative linguists reject Arabic
equivalent terms that are non-derivative. Arabic was never, in recorded history,
a pure or even completely homogeneous language in the normal senses of these
words. Tere are undeniable cases of lexical borrowings in the earliest classical
texts such as sijjil (kind of hellish stone) zangabil (ginger), istabraq (brocade)
and ward (fowers), which are non-derived nouns and otherwise cannot be de-
rived from. Still, these nouns and many like them are contributive to the growth
and expansion of the language, albeit non-derivative. Tus the idea of drawing a
line that distinguishes classical from non-classical, as purists suggest, is bound to
be an arbitrary freezing of the language at a particular point in time.
What needs to be done, instead, is a joint efort by the linguists to coordinate their
eforts across the Arab world to reduce the extent of confusion and chaos in the
use of the Arabic terms used as equivalent for their foreign counterparts. Te pro-
fusion of synonyms, for example, for brake characterize the chaotic, ad hoc coin-
ing of term that leads to terminological inconsistencies from one part of the Arab
world to another. At any rate, the individual trends should come to an end, espe-
cially in coining words for foreign technical and scientifc terms where precision
in meaning would value more than meeting mere linguistic and grammatical con-
siderations.
450 MohammadAhmad Al-Quran
References
Al-Bustani, Sulayman (1904) Il-yadhat Humurus, Beirut: Dar al-Kitab al-Lubnaniyyah, 163.
Al-Husari, Sat(1988) Ara wa Ahadith, Cairo: Markaz Dirasat al-Wahdah al-Arabiyyah, 51.
Al-Magribi, Abd al-Qader (1947) al-Ishtiqaq. Cairo: Matabaat al-Hilal bi-al-Fajjalah. 1316.
Al-Shihabi, Mustafa (1960) Journal of Majma al-Buhuth wa al-Muhadarat, 1, 70.
Al-rifa I, Mustafa (1998) Tarikh Adab al-Arab, Cairo: Dar al-Kitab al-Arabi, 1, 169215.
Holes, Clive (2004) Modern Arabic, Structures, Functions, and Varieties, Washington: George-
town University Press, 31115.
Mazhar, Ismail (1955) Tajdid al-Arabiyyah. Cairo: Maktabat al-Nahdah al-Misriyah, 17.
Mandur, mahmud (1944) Fi al-Mizan al-Jadid. Cairo: Maktabat Nahdat Misr. 12.
Abstract
English terms, especially in the feld of science and technology, appear to be difcult to translate
into Arabic by using an accepted-by-standard Arabic word. As an alternative authors tend to
form composite words to function as adequate equivalents for the source terms, either by means
of naht word coinage or through translation by paraphrase. Te principle of Naht refers here
to the creation of a new single shortened word out of two diferent words, whereas paraphrase is
a form of coining one or more words without having them abbreviated or shortened. Te appli-
cability of either principle is limited across the board, due to a number of constraints.
Tis paper thus intends to investigate the constraints that make the applicability of the prin-
ciple of naht and that of paraphrase limited. Constraints clearly rest upon Arabic word deriva-
tive and morpho-syntactic rules, which seem to be a point of dispute between Arab purists and
academicians. For this reason, neither principle seemingly provides a satisfactory solution since
it mostly fails to create acceptable translations for English technical terms.
As far as the organizing principle is concerned, the paper frst begins with an introduction.
Ten it highlights paraphrase-related constraints, and fnally concludes with a discussion of the
implications of this study for Arab purists and linguists.
Keywords: naht composites, paraphrase, agglutinative derivation
Rsum
Les termes anglais, en particulier dans le domaine de la science et de la technologie, semblent
difciles traduire en arabe en utilisant un terme accept par larabe standard. Comme solution
alternative, des auteurs ont tendance former des mots composites pour faire fonction dqui-
valents adquats des termes sources, soit par naht (en crant un nologisme), soit en les tra-
duisant par une paraphrase. Le principe du naht se rfre ici la cration dun nouveau mot
unique court partir de deux mots difrents, alors que la paraphrase consiste crer un ou
plusieurs mots sans les abrger ni les courter. Lapplicabilit de chaque principe est systmati-
quement limite en raison dun certain nombre de contraintes.
Constraints on Arabic translations of English technical terms 451
Cet article a donc lintention dexaminer les contraintes qui limitent lapplicabilit du prin-
cipe du naht et de la paraphrase. Les contraintes reposent clairement sur des rgles en matire
de termes drivs de larabe et de rgles morpho-syntactiques, qui semblent tre un point de dis-
cussion entre les puristes et les linguistes arabes. Pour cette raison, il semble quaucun des deux
principes napporte de solution satisfaisante tant donn quils ne parviennent gnralement
pas crer des traductions acceptables des termes techniques anglais.
En ce qui concerne le principe organisationnel, larticle commence par une introduction.
Puis, il met laccent sur les contraintes lies la paraphrase et sachve enfn par une discussion
sur les implications de cette tude pour les puristes et linguistes arabes.
Mots-cls : Principe de naht, traduction termes techniques paraphrase, drivation agglunitive
About the Author
Mohammad Ahmad al-quran is assistant professor of translation at Yarmouk University. He is
currently working on a research project entitled Translators and Political Vague terminology.
Tis project deals with potential grounds accounting for ambiguity, contestability, and incon-
sistency as refected in Arabic encyclopedia and bilingual dictionaries. He is also working on
a translation project from English into Arabic. Te project is entitled Security in the Persian
Gulf , which sheds light on local and global factors contributing to the regions instability. Apart
from this, Mohammad also takes interest in serving the local community of the university and
wider community as well to raise learning awareness and meet the needs of knowledge seekers.
Address: Translation Dept. College of Social Sciences, Yarmouk University, PO Box 4990 IRBID,
Jordan.
E-mail: maabdelw1@gmail.com
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