Written by Mr. Denis Atabong, English Reviser with the African Union’s (AU) Directorate of Conference Management and Publications (DCMP) 

Article originally published in Issue 6 (January 2016) of The BRIDGE, Mouthpiece of the AU’s DCMP 

Writing, just as translation, is often a challenge of finding the right words to say exactly what you have in mind. The translator may read the source text and understand it well, but in putting down what [s/he] understands, [s/he] conveys a completely different meaning or allows [his/her] words to be interpreted in varying ways.  In the worst case, a translator may fail altogether to understand the source text; [s/he] may misunderstand individual words or the whole sense of the sentence or the text. 

Humans have been putting ink to stone and parchment and then paper to articulate thoughts and ideas and share information for thousands of years, and the written word is one of the cornerstones of human civilization.  In the ever fast-paced, globalized and interconnected world we live in, the importance of the written word cannot be overstated, and being able to provide critical information in various languages has become essential. This is where the critical role of the translator comes into play.