Storm Brews over Translation Proposals

They say there's no accounting for taste, and this is never more true than when talking about views on language use. Ask ten people to identify what they consider to be the most heinous 'language crime' and you'll probably get ten different answers. Different people's attitudes towards language use are as varied as their tastes in music or their favourite colour... and just as hard to account for.

Take, for example, the polarised reactions to plans to translate the Bible into Patois, the unofficial language of Jamaica. As reported in this article that appeared in last week's Telegraph, there are those who welcome the proposals, arguing that Patois is a "powerful tool of communication" among the vast majority of Jamacians and that there is "nothing wrong with translating the Bible into someone's native tongue". Those who oppose the plans, however, claim that "errors could be made, and essentially what is translated is not necessarily reflecting the true meaning of the Scriptures".

At the heart of this controversy lies a very common language debate. Many people are of the opinion that there are certain places in which standard English should be preserved - and, along with law, medicine and the world of education, the Bible is one such place. It's important to bear in mind that Patois is an unofficial language (English being the official language of Jamaica) and, as the article tells us, "only recently have the middle and upper classes been speaking it in public". So it would seem that this debate boils down to the age-old battle between prescriptivists and descriptivists, a fight between those who wish to preserve the standard form of language in formal contexts such as the Bible and those who see language variation as inevitable, desirable and part and parcel of everyday life.

So what do you think? Should texts like the Bible be translated into non-standard linguistic varieties? Should we do the same with, say, Shakespeare, or legal documents, or school and college text books? I'd be interested to hear your views... please feel free to express them in whatever linguistic variety you prefer.