Protecting the interest of translation companies – establishing a Danish ATC Presentation at the...

Protecting the interest of translation companies –

establishing a Danish ATC

Presentation at the Annual Conference of ATC,

Association of Translation Companies, Tuesday 16th - Wednesday 17th October

2001, International House, Piccadilly, London.

By Jørgen Christian Wind Nielsen, authorized

translator, Copenhagen, Denmark

© Wind Kommunikation



Portrait of Shakespeare on a stone tablet at the main entrance to

Kronborg, Hamlet´s Castle



Quote

"William Shakespeare's story of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark,

takes place behind

the walls of the castle at Elsinore.

Kronborg is therefore known throughout much of the

world as Hamlet's Castle, and Elsinore as Hamlet's town.

Unquote*


establishing a Danish ATCQuote:

The legend

A Prince Hamlet was first mentioned more than 800 years ago in a history of Denmark

by Saxo Grammaticus entitled Gesta Danorum.

From Saxo, the legend was retold by Christian Pedersen, whose version of the story was printed in 1514.

This publication spread the drama beyond the confines of Denmark and the

English playwright Thomas Kyd's new version of the work around 1590 transformed

Hamlet into a drama of revenge. Probably inspired by Kyd's version, William Shakespeare

wrote the "The tragicall historie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke and the Castle of Elsinore" around 1600 and immortalised Saxo’s legendary prince.



Shakespeare was the first to associate the legend with Elsinore and its castle.

This was probably due to the town's reputation as one of the most important places

in the world during the 17th century. Thanks to the Sound Dues, the special fee

that all passing ships had to pay, Elsinore was a major traffic junction for

international shipping. At the same time, the town also became a cultural centre

thanks to the newly built royal castle, Kronborg."Unquote*

Protecting the interest of translation companies - establishing a Danish ATC

State authorization/certification of translators

About 35 years later, on the 21st of August 1635, the Danish king

Christian IV published an open letter stating that all shipping

documents had to be translated into Danish.

The translation industry in Denmark began with the Sound Dues. The Sound Dues, and the "Translation

office", continued to exist until 1857.

The logo of the authorized translators


establishing a Danish ATCIt is an assumption that the Notary Public at that time was the person in charge

of official translations. The Public Notary, when necessary, took contact to individuals with specific knowledge of languages.

As an example, in the year 1785 a Royal Certification was issued to a translator capable of translating Swedish, Portuguese, Italian, and several more

languages.

In 1800 ten translators were certified by the king, most of them multilingual and translating up to four languages.

Certification was issued on application, and the applicants were tested by the Notary Public. This system lasted until 1853.

From this year the Ministry of the Interior became the competent authority, and in 1910 an examination committee was established.



The Association of Danish Authorized translators

Thus a platform for the creation of Translatørforeningen (the Association of Danish Authorized Translators) was

established, and on the 20th of March 1910 the Association had become a reality. The authorized translators obtained

the sole right to use the title state authorized translator and interpreter, and the sole right to do interpretation and

translation work in the Danish courts of law. The Association of Danish Authorized Translators celebrated it

´s 90th anniversary last year.



The exclusive right was established in the Danish Retsplejeloven (the Administration of Justice Act), entering into force in 1919. Its article 149 says that "the language of the courts is Danish". Questioning of persons who do not speak the Danish language must, if possible, be done by

the intervention of an authorized translator.

The sole right was confirmed in a court decision in 1912, but

not transformed into law before the Trade Act of 1931.



Law on authorization of translators

In 1966 Denmark had the first ever in the world law

on authorization of translators. The law has been

revised only a few times. All legislation

concerning authorization of translators and

interpreters can be found (in Danish) at the

websites http://www.eogs.dk and

http://130.228.210.124/eogs/lov/menu/tolke.htm



One mayor problem remains. Since certification is personal, you are in principle not allowed to organize on a company basis, but only as an individual, and the term "authorized

translator", in Danish "translatør", cannot be used in company names, which is why the authorized translators have to come up with other company names less suitable for marketing purposes. This has definitely influenced the

structural development of the translation business in Denmark, as most authorized translators run companies of a limited size only, while big business is set up by business

agents who are not authorized translators, generally speaking. The situation may be changing slowly.



Another important legislation is the Nordic Convention on

Languages, Den nordiske sprogkonvention, entering into force on

the 1st of March 1987.

The Danish Administration of Justice Act makes an exception

concerning citizens of other Nordic countries in that they may

hand in to public authorities and courts of law documents that are

written in the language of the citizens concerned. The Convention

is applicable to Danish, Finnish, Icelandic, Norwegian and

Swedish Citizens and to Danish, Finnish, Icelandic, Norwegian

and Swedish languages.



Training of translators

Around 1920 the steps towards business schools or

faculties offering business language training as

their main courses at an academic level were

taken, including education of the famous

bilingual secretary that we have known in

Denmark ever since, and preparatory studies for

authorization as translators.



After the Second World War international organizations such as NATO and the United Nations were created, along with an

increasing international trade. Also FIT, http://www.fit-ift.org, the International Federation of Translators, was created as a result of

the new international cooperation. Translatørforeningen (The Assocation of Danish Authorized Translators ) was one

association out of six founding fathers.

Speaking only Danish, the need for translators in Danish business and society in general grew.



The Danish business language institutions continued to develop, and in 1966 a new model for academic training was developed. After

high school one did two years full time for the bilingual secretary degree, two more years for translation competences at the practical

level, and finally two years full time for the MA in business languages and authorization as translator and interpreter.

The first authorized translators and interpreters graduated from this new system in 1972 when Denmark in the autumn of 1972, like the

United Kingdom, had a referendum for membership of the then European Communities. When Denmark in January 1973 became a

member of the European Union Danish became an official language, and the need for translators and interpreters at all levels

reached new heights. Also due to this development language technology applications were developed for Danish at an early

stage.


establishing a Danish ATCThe training structure existed along the same lines until 1993 when a bachelor / MA degree was implemented, and specialization in different subject matters introduced such as international communication and

marketing, websites, company communication, language engineering and , not to forget, translation and interpreting, focussing on legal, technical and

economic text types.

Around 2.000 authorized translators exist today, working in-house in Danish

companies, most of them being organized in Erhvervssprogligt Forbund

(The Danish Association of Business Language Graduates),

http://www.esf.dk, a FIT member. A growing number of these in-house

translators combine in-house work with part time freelance activities.

About 500 authorized translators run their own company, be it small or big.



Translators associations in Denmark

In 1989 a group of authorized translators left Translatørforeningen (the Association of Danish Authorized Translators) to form Dansk Translatørforbund (The Danish

Association of State-Authorized Translators and Interpreters), http://www.translators-association.dk

The old association joined forces with Erhvervssprogligt Forbund (The Danish Association of Business Language

Graduates) as a section for self-employed authorized translators.



Last year negotiations aiming at separating the two on

friendly terms began. But one group of self-employed

translators wanted to continue the good relations with the

in-house translators, one group wanted to transform the

association into an association of translation companies

and open up the association to translators without any

authorization, another group on their part wanted a merger

with the other association of authorized translators, being

of a somewhat fundamentalist observation as far as broad

cooperation concerns. If you were looking for trouble you

had come to the right place.



On the 31st of May this year the old association was

established as an independent association on the basis of

cooperation agreements with the in-house translators

association, and no merger with the other group of

authorized translators. Still based on individual

membership and still open for membership only to

authorized translators, however.



The Danish Association of Business Language Graduates has all in

all about 10.000 graduated members, 1.000 being authorized

translators working in-house.

The Association of Danish Authorized Translators (the old one), now

has 150 self-employed translators, and the twelve year old

association has about 100 members.

But how about all the translators in Denmark, companies and

freelancers, that have no public certification or authorization?



Winds of change

Through history the authorized translators have had a monopoly on business

related translation work in Denmark. They were the ones that were there, they had the certification and the training,

not much translation was needed, and last but not least,

no foreigners took up competition.



Through the last century they developed what is called traditional

work of an authorized translator, specializing in legal, economic

and traditional technical texts. Translating - as is also the Danish

tradition - from and into their mother tongue, Danish.

However, when the winds of change swept the country, when

globalization opened up windows, when lozalication required the

use of new technology, when the Internet opened up translators

directories, and so on and so forth, many a Danish translator

were stuck behind closed doors, still doing traditional translation

at a modest scale. Also the universities and the business schools

took some time in adapting to the new circumstances.



With globalization and internationalization

foreigners came in taking up technology based

translation from Danish into their own mother

tongue, and international translation companies

entered the scene translating for the growth

sectors of the Danish economy.



The present

When it became clear that the associations of authorized

translators would not open up for membership on a broader

basis, the non-authorized translators and the translation

companies, accounting for maybe 50 per cent of the market,

were all dressed up but nowhere to go, and nobody to protect

their commercial and professional interests.

For the first time ever a group of translation company

representatives met on October the 9th - only one week ago - to

have a talk about the situation.



The conclusions of the meeting was that an association of

translation companies should be made, that the company

representatives would go back home and think, that they

would forward suggestions for main objectives of an

association to be, and that a seminar will be convened later

on this year.



The future

What will future bring: My guess is that we will have an association of translation companies created in 2002,

operating in close cooperation with Translatørforeningen (the old association of authorized translators), based on the

assumption that many authorized translators will be members of both associations and that the general

interests in many cases are the same. And, where possible, cooperating with the association of in-house employees.


*Sources:

http://www.kronborgcastle.com/html/frame/frame.htm

http://www.translatorforeningen.dk

http://home8.inet.tele.dk/mylius/

mylius2

Own writings.


Legend would have it that when the Kingdom is

threatened by an external enemy, the

stone figure will turn into flesh and blood

and Holger Danske will rise in defence of the

fatherland.

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