“Zov” illustrates how those issues affect frontline troops. When the translation was complete, it provided firsthand perspective of what many analysts had seen from a distance: The Russian war effort has been hampered by poor logistics, communication, and leadership. “It was a fun challenge to find a creative way to convey the exact same meaning and find similar phrases that would be used in English.” “Some of the military jargon, slang, wordplay, and colloquial expressions would not make sense in English if translated verbatim,” said Berlin. Besides profanity, the LEAP scholars also had to use their best judgment to translate colloquial or military terms. Indeed, David Remnick, the editor of The New Yorker and a fluent Russian speaker, wrote in 2014 there are thousands of variations on the four curse words that make up the backbone of Russian profanity. Maybe I’ll use different curse words to convey the meaning.” I may or may not use the exact F-word equivalent. “It is kind of a puzzle: how do I translate the F-word in Russian into English in a way that is understandable to the reader. “It was the use of language I found particularly interesting,” Reinhold said. It was a difficult task: Filatyev wrote in a stream-of-consciousness style filled with military jargon, typos, and colloquial expressions that do not translate perfectly into English. Nadia Wolfe, read “Zov” the entire way through, split it into sections, assigned one Airman to each section, then worked together to ensure consistency throughout the translation. Like his four co-translators, Obolonskiy is a member of the Language-Enabled Airman Program, an initiative within AFCLC where Airmen and Space Force Guardians who have significant experience in a foreign language can apply to serve as cultural and linguistic experts for their fellow service members. Ukraine Ministry of Defense/Facebook Challenges of Translation “‘We did not have sleeping bags or winter clothing and we had rusty weapons that were out of sight.’ Having 200 rifles is great, but not if none of your 200 rifles can shoot straight.”Ī destroyed Russian tank at an undisclosed location in Ukraine on Oct. “Is what’s on paper real? The writer would tell us, ‘Hey we were not issued the things we thought we would be issued,’” Obolonskiy said. While military planners could estimate the number of Russian resources like tanks, troops, and planes, accounts like “Zov” shed light on intangible factors such as morale, motivation, and training. “Now we have to go back and figure out what within our military intelligence community and analysis failed to predict this outcome.” “Before the invasion started, everybody was reporting that Ukraine would fall within weeks, and that clearly hasn’t happened,” Capt. service members and leaders, “Zov” provides insight into how Ukrainian forces have been able to defy the odds and blunt the effects of a larger, technologically superior Russian military, one of the USAF translators told Air & Space Forces Magazine. And while it may be impossible to verify all of the details in Filatyev’s account, his writing offers a rare glimpse of what went wrong in the Russian invasion. “I cannot remain silent,” wrote Filatyev, who later fled Russia for political asylum in France.Īirmen and the rest of America can now read the whole document on the U.S. Though Russian soldiers had previously posted photos and videos of the war to social media, Filatyev’s blog was one of the first longform accounts to appear in public. The full blog-titled “ Zov,” a term that means “Calling” in English- made headlines in August after appearing on the Russian social media website Vkontakte.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |