Nur-Sultan: The Sheikh Hamad Award for Translation and International Understanding (SHATIU) organised a wide range of cultural events in Kazakhstan within the framework of trip of the media team for the award to have a glimpse of the translation reality from Kazakh to Arabic, and from Arabic to Kazakh, on the occasion of choosing this language in the languages of this year’s achievement category.
The four-day trip included two scientific seminars and field trips to a number of universities, libraries, and language and translation institutes, the most important of which are Al Farabi Kazakh National University and its library.
The delegation was briefed on the Kazakh heritage and the most important manuscripts in the library, in addition to visiting the National Library to get familiarised with its heritage rich in Arabic books and manuscripts, the Eurasian Institute, the library of the poet Jambul Gabayev, and a number of publishing houses to see the reality of translation between Arabic and Kazakh, the most important translated books and the efforts of institutions in translating between the two languages .
As part of the award teams trip, a scientific seminar entitled “The Reality and Prospects of Translation between Arabic and Kazakh” was held at Al Farabi University, with the attendance of Ambassador of Qatar to Kazakhstan H E Abdulaziz bin Sultan Al Rumaihi, and Ambassador of Kazakhstan to Qatar
H E Arman Issagaliyev, and with the participation of a cohort of academics and translators from local and foreign universities.
During the seminar, H E Abdulaziz bin Sultan Al Rumaihi expressed his happiness at the presence of the delegation of Qatar to introduce the Sheikh Hamad Award for Translation and International Understanding, pointing to the depth of the relationship between Qatar and Kazakhstan, and the diversity of aspects of cooperation between them in a way that boosts cooperation in the intellectual, cultural and scientific fields.
For his part, the Ambassador of Kazakhstan to Qatar welcomed the award delegation, pointing to his interest in the Arabic language and his study of it at the Faculty of Oriental Studies at Al Farabi University, pointing out to the importance of the Arabic language at the global level, as he called for more fruitful cooperation between the two countries in the field of translation.
Media Adviser to Sheikh Hamad Award for Translation and International Understanding, Dr. Hanan Al Fayyad, gave a detailed introduction to the award and the languages offered in its eighth season for the current year.
The first category comprises translation in single books, and is bifurcated into four branches: translation from Arabic into English, translation from English to Arabic, translation from Arabic to Turkish, and translation from Turkish to Arabic, pointing out that the second category includes achievement in the selected sub-languages, which this year is translation from and into Arabic from languages: Bahasa Indonesia, Kazakh, Romanian, Swahili , Vietnamese, appreciating the efforts of the Faculty of Oriental Studies at Al Farabi University in the field of translation.
For her part, translator Gulnar Nadyarovna spoke about the importance of literature as the best means of communication between cultures, considering that translation contributes to supporting aspects of civilized communication.
She pointed out that an anthology of modern Kazakh literature into Arabic was published in 2020, and some works were translated into Chinese and Spanish, noting that one of the most important translation challenges is the high cost, which calls for the support of institutions to achieve better results in various fields of translation.
Professor Ikhtiar Baltouri, Dean of the Faculty of Oriental Studies of Al Farabi Kazakh National University, pointed out the need to qualify translators to deal with various challenges.
