The media team of the Sheikh Hamad Award for Translation and International Understanding held a seminar entitled "The Reality and Prospects of Translation in Korea to and from Arabic" yesterday, Monday, June 15, with a number of Korean and Arab academics and translators.

Presented dr. Musa Gondo Kim, professor of Arabic language and culture at Myeongji University, made an intervention entitled "Korea's experience in translating into Arabic and vice versa ... the nature of official and individual efforts", touching on the history of the presence of Arabic in Korea that entered this country since 1965.

Cultural exchange

Later, South Korea started establishing Arabic departments and translating from Korean into Arabic and vice versa, until the number of Arabic departments reached 605 departments in all universities of the country. The number of graduates of the Translation Department has 220 students annually, and Kim explained that translation in his country is still a nap and should be sought to revive it as the basis of cultural exchange between peoples.

Dr. noted. Kim to the efforts of the Ministry of Culture to improve the image of Korea abroad, as it was interested in translating the country's civilization and culture into Arabs until the number of PhD holders in Arabic reached 45 Korea, and spoke about the necessity of making official and individual efforts to raise the percentage of translation from Arabic to Korean, and suggested building a database and discussion group How to translate Arabic into Korean society, calling for an increase in the number of female translators between the two languages. He concluded his speech that the choice of Korean by the Sheikh Hamad Award for Translation and International Understanding is a great gift for the Korean people and a valuable opportunity to open the door to taste the beauty of Arabic for Koreans.

Pride in Arabic

He gave a. Dr.. "Lee About Sup" "Editor-in-Chief of Koriana Magazine / Arabic version at Hankook University of Foreign Studies in his intervention" A personal experience in the translation process to and from Korean and a statistical reading in the size of the translator from Korean to Arabic and vice versa "and expressed his pride in studying Arabic and spoke intimately about his relationship with this language that It has become a cherished cardiac identity.

Sup emphasized the Korean society's need for written translation more than the need to teach and research it, because of the rich cultural depth of the Arabic language that deserves to be seen by this community, especially since now it has become a mixed-race society unlike the previous where it was mono-ethnic. And that almost ten students graduate annually from the Arabic translation departments in Korea.

The Korean academic pointed to the patterns of translation, stressing that, despite the importance of translation, students tend to interpret as being attractive for several reasons, including the fact that the financial return is better than translation, and therefore dr. An invitation to official institutions to support translation translation financially and morally, and talked about his personal experience in the field of translation where he devoted time to translation from 2000. However, translation is slow to a large extent and takes years to complete one work, and this is not suitable for those working in this field because they need to cover Expenditures and materially improving living.

Sup talked about his personal efforts in bringing together a team of translators to work together in translating some Arabic works, until the Coriana magazine, which he headed editing and is affiliated with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, deals with 11 languages, and Arabic is the seventh of these languages ​​that translates Korean arts, civilization and culture, in addition to efforts In a number of initiatives, such as issuing a guide for teachers to translate into Korean, it includes a number of Koreans who volunteer to help those who need translation in order to present a complete and real picture of Korea on beauty, art, civilization and society.

At the end of his speech, he explained that the translation from Arabic to Korean is somewhat excellent compared to the translation from Korean to Arabic, as she translated from Korean to Arabic three general books and 26 literary books, indicating that this number is not sufficient to demonstrate the Korean civilization.

Read translations

The third intervention came from a. Dr.. Nabila Yun Eun Kyung, Head of the Department of Arabic Language, Hankook University of Foreign Studies, entitled "Areas of translation in the Korean language (literature / humanities) and the volume of interest in reading Arabic translated works" addressed the importance of translation from Arabic to Korean as the language of the Holy Quran and the sixth language in an organization The United Nations and other cultural and intellectual reasons called for the necessity of cooperation between the Arab and Korean worlds in order for the translation to flourish. It also showed that the translation movement in Korea has witnessed tremendous growth recently.

Dr. also reviewed. Kyung literary, legal and financial translation areas indicated that the translation movement from Arabic to Korean flourished in the late 1980s, after Naguib Mahfouz's victory, as the demand for translation of Arabic literature specifically increased, Palestinian and Egyptian.

The Korean Academy hoped that the field of literary translation would expand to cover various Arab countries, in addition to praising the translation of some books of Arab heritage literature. She stated that the number of literary works translated from Arabic to Korean reached 30 books, and from Korean to Arabic 40 books, and showed that the number of translators from Arabic to Korean is small compared to the depth of Arab civilization and its ancient history.

Kyung focused on the necessity of exerting efforts for translation that convey what suits the taste, thought, civilization and culture that appeal to Koreans, and called for cooperation between Koreans and Arabs to enhance the role of translation.

Difficulties and challenges

In the penultimate intervention, the Jordanian researcher, Muhammad Qawabba, who holds a master’s degree in the Korean language, spoke about the difficulties facing the Arabic translator in the Korean language, which is classified by some researchers as isolated or unique, and although it is similar to Mongolian in terms of characteristics, it remains unique .

He divided the difficulties database into two parts: formal linguistic and cultural. And that Korean differs in its morphological construction from Arabic in that it is a sticky language where suffixes are added to the roots, as it differs in the way of building the sentence, numbers, and others, which is a great obstacle for the translator if he does not master both languages, in addition to the fact that Korean has what is known as Hanja, which are words and letters Chinese has entered this language, and the translator is very confused about the consequence of the necessity of knowing the Arabic Chinese translator in addition to his knowledge of Korean. As for the second part, which is cultural, it showed that Arabic and Korean share many societal characteristics, such as respect and appreciation for the elderly and other similarities.

Sheikh Hamad Award

In conclusion, Dr. Hanan Al-Fayyad, media advisor for the award, aims and vision, the mechanism for distributing the annual financial value, in addition to the award categories and the importance of choosing Korean as one of the five languages ​​in the achievement category for this sixth season. She indicated that the Sheikh Hamad Award directed her attention this season to choosing Persian as a second major language besides English, and choosing five new languages ​​in the category of achievement: Pashto, Bengali, Swedish, Hausa in addition to Korean.

The media consultant invited those interested to enter the award site in order to download the nomination forms and other benefits about the nature of the award.

Everyone listened at the conclusion of the seminar moderated by Dr. Amr Othman is a professor of Islamic history at the Humanities Department at Qatar University and winner of the fifth season of the Sheikh Hamad Award for Translation - in his translation from English into Arabic for the book "Palaces of Orientalism" - to a number of questions received by the award during the broadcast of the symposium on Facebook about strengthening efforts to open translation channels between Arabic and Korean.