The archaeologist Clemente Marconi was hired a few years ago as an assistant professor at Columbia University, without even having a publication in English in his pocket. Of course, the English knew. And gradually rising to the full professorship and then to the top of New York University he then wrote several essays in English. Obvious. First, however, I miss one. And discovering that from now on, in Italian universities, teachers will not be able to include their works in French, German or Spanish (and all other languages) in the curriculum at the competitions, he bursts out laughing: I can’t believe it! as if the aspiring commissioners confessed that they were not up to par …
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Sworn translations
Only foreign works translated into Italian or English will be accepted. Some say: a nuisance, having to translate your publications that elsewhere are a sign of distinction. Macch, a home translation will not be enough: the translations must be sworn. As if they were land registry documents recovered in Bulgarian or Indonesian archives. After a deluge of visa … seen … seen …, the rules of the announcement for the competition for the new round of National Scientific Qualification established by the Directorial Decree n.553 of 26 February of the Miur say so. Where, as Professor Paolo Liverani denounced on the portal roars.it, a news immediately catches the eye: art. 2 paragraph 4, lett. b), in fact, it is prescribed that candidates must upload the pdf of the publications on the ministerial platform and “where the publication is written in a language other than Italian and / or English, the sworn translation of the publication in a single file”.
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The lingua franca
Why? The first suspicion, Liverani replies, that the idea comes from those who think they are familiar with hard sciences, where English is the lingua franca. I emphasize: “thinks you have”, which is different from having. Because even the most convinced supporter of English as a lingua franca – but with a minimum of familiarity with university issues – would have been careful not to formulate such a vulgar norm due to its devastating consequences. Example? If it is true that necessarily those who handle certain topics must at least know how to read German, Italian, English, French and Spanish, as it is expected that Italy will attract brains from abroad if then ask a native Germanist. German not to present its qualifications in the language and culture it deals with, except through a clumsy translation? Because, mind you, we ask for a sworn translation, the one required for documents and public deeds (for example, a marriage certificate) for which there are specialized translators, but who unfortunately understand nothing of German literature, Greek archeology, history medieval.
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Costs
Question: like this sworn translation? Some like the translated.com group offer translations in 186 languages. Do you want a quote? Consider that your name is Karl Marx, that you aspire to a professorship in an Italian university and that you have to translate the Manifest der Kommunistischen Partei written with Friedrich Engels from German. Words to translate: 9684. To understand: only one third more than the notice of the Miur we are talking about. An essay that in today’s editorial layouts would take up 45 pages. A booklet to put in your pocket. An accurate translation would cost two weeks and 1300 euros. After that the original (paper!) In German and the translation (paper!) In Italian must be taken to a certain office in Piazzale Clodio or some other Palace of Justice where the officials check a few pages on a sample basis. Incipit of the Manifesto in German: Ein Gespenst geht um in Europa, das Gespenst des Kommunismus …. In Italian: A specter roams Europe: the specter of communism …. And so on.
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The report of enslavement
But what if the essay in a language completely unknown to the official on duty? So, hold on tight, the Italian solution. A translator tells: They take two or three pages at random and look if there is something (a footnote, a percent sign or a name like Hans Mayer or Alain Delon …) that suggests that it is the same text. Therefore, a paper (sic) sworn report is attached to the two paper documents, on which a 16 euro duty stamp will be affixed every 100 lines. Plus 70 euros fixed for the practice. Everything, it seems to understand, to be submitted for this announcement by 27 March.
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Subjugation
But please! Who invented such an absurdity? Do you carry handlebar mustaches, use the inkwell and go to the office with the velocipede? Maria Luisa Catoni, professor of Archeology at the Normale in Pisa, former commission president of the European Research Council and teaching fellow at the Wissenschaftskolleg in Berlin (before having a single publication in German), stunned: There are at least three unacceptable points. First: the exclusion of the main European languages from an Italian university. Second: total English subservience. Third: the overthrow on the shoulders of researchers and teachers, while acknowledging the difficulties of many commissions in evaluating works in less widely used languages, of all the effort and all the expenses. Vermondo Brugnatelli, one of the leading scholars of the Berber language and professor at Bicocca, has made the math: For a job done for the Sorbonne in French (that is the language of my sector) I would have to pay 25,416 euros for a sworn translation. Plus revenue stamps, one every 100 lines! And when ever?
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Bureaucracy
the triumph of bureaucracy over science, accuses Salvatore Settis, director of the Normale for a long time, former president of the Higher Council for Cultural Heritage and still of the Scientific Council of the Louvre, also the stones know, for example, that German is the most important for archeology . And they know that it is an honor for a scholar of Raphael to publish an essay in German. Why should he translate it? But there is more: with all due respect for English, I believe that the decision of the Italian university to choose as lingua franca only that of those who wanted to leave Europe is an outrage to Europe. And I do not dare to think of any cross spite …. Worse, Tomaso Montanari adds: If one renounces a priori to having commissions capable of judging teachers and understanding at least the basic European languages, a pillar of our university falls. Compared to the humanistic culture, then, there is an unbearable scientistic pride. Used like this, English will be a cultural GMO. And it will nullify all diversity.
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March 4, 2021 (change March 4, 2021 | 22:44)
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