Interpreting has been necessary since people speaking different languages have been in contact with each other. Since they didn't speak the same language, they couldn't understand each other. This is where interpreters intervene to become bridges or to stand in the gap.

The need of people that understand and speak two or more languages and their capacity to transpose the ideas, meaning and need of one language group to another by respecting the cultural and grammatical constraints contributed to the professionalization

We will not deal with translating (written form) but with interpreting (spoken form) even though the two terms at a certain extent have the same objectives. Furthermore, we will not look at how things work at the UN, UNESCO and all those major world agencies. Focus will be placed at how interpreters work on a smaller scale, within workshops, churches, group meetings and the different difficulties and errors they encounter.

In many of the lessons that you find online and even offline, special attention is placed on the interpreter. Seldom are the teachers, main speakers prepared in order to convey their message to the audience.

Our understanding is that if the one using the source language (SL) understands that his/her message is only relevant if they consider the interpreter without whom the message is useless.

In section 1, the purpose is to help you understand from the interpreter's viewpoint.

Interpreting is as old as language itself. There has always been a need for different civilizations to communicate with each other, whether to conduct business or trade, or during expansion.

As a Bible reader, interpreting can find its origins in Genesis 11:1-9. The narrative goes that at creation, all humans spoke one language. It was much easier to communicate and to get along. As the number of humans increased through time and humans felt bold and no longer needed God, they decided to go on a different path. The people decided to build a tall, proud symbol of how great they had made their nation. The Babylonians wanted a tower that would "reach to the heavens" so they could be like God and would not need Him. They began to construct a great ziggurat. They wanted to make a name for themselves.

This scripture explains the origins of the multiplicity of languages. God caused the people to suddenly speak different languages so they could not communicate and work together to build the tower. This caused the people to scatter across the land. The tower was named The Tower of Babel because the word Babel means confusion. The Hebrew word balal, means "confuse" and provides useful wordplay that stresses God's confusing of the builders' languages and His scattering of them throughout the earth, as told by the Tower of Babel account

We can presume and assume that following this confusion with people speaking different languages and no longer able to understand each other, those who were able to communicate aggregated. They settled in areas where only those who spoke the same language were together. This implies that the difference in languages was a cause of conflict and probably war. This is probably where those who could learn the languages of other groups could go-between as negotiators or interpreters.

In this way and even subsequently, interpretation and translation originally served as a necessary tool to facilitate trade and political alliances for the prosperity of nations.

Interpretation's original challenge has always been the inseparability of a language from its people and their environmental and cultural origins. Even God himself highlights the importance of communication when He says " when humankind is organized as a team with a common language (prerequisite for effective communication), nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them."

Specificaties