The Translation and Interpretation Initiative for Iranian Protesters (TIIIP) is an ad hoc initiative to produce free, publication-ready translations and high-quality interpretations of the written and spoken communication streaming out of Iran in the Farsi (Persian) language in the form of e-mails, YouTube videos, Facebook entries, press releases, etc. We leverage volunteer translators, interpreters, linguists, bilinguals, and technical and administrative support personnel to achieve these goals. Our approach is similar to crowdsourcing, but with greater emphasis on the use of professional translators, writers, and editors. Our platform is the wiki. We make liberal use of social media such as Twitter and Facebook to communicate and to attract attention to our initiative.
Language Pairs
At the present time, we are focussing our efforts on translating Farsi text into English, but as we gain recognition we will add additional target languages.
Volunteers
One of the cornerstones of the TIIIP approach is the use of not just Farsi translators but also any translator familiar with any of the Arabic-based alphabets (used in Arabic, Urdu, Punjabi, etc.) who are willing to learn a few extra letters of the Farsi alphabet and thereby equip themselves for the task of translating a sentence or two of Farsi with the help of an online Farsi dictionary and grammar. This will greatly increase our pool of available translators. Naturally, qualified Farsi translators are critical to our efforts and we will defer to such translators on all translation-related issues.
Qualified editors and proofreaders are also requested in the event that no Farsi translator is available and the task of translating a document falls onto the shoulders of native-Farsi-speaking bilingual. In this case, editors and proofreaders use their skills to correct errors of style, grammar, or spelling without altering the meaning of the text.
Interpreters, subtitle engineers, and voiceover artists will be required to work with the massive number of Youtube videos and other forms of spoken communication being produced by the Iranian protesters.
Technical support will be crucial to our success. Assistance is needed in setting up and maintaining the wiki, facilitating communication, and maintaining security.
Specific volunteer TIIIP positions include:
Translator, native Persian-speaking (Farsi, Tajiki, or Dari)
Translator, native English-speaking with knowledge of Persian
Translator, other (particularly needed are those with a knowledge of the Arabic alphabet and a desire to learn Persian)
Interpreter
Editor/Proofreader
Voiceover talent
Subtitle engineer
Bilingual contributor (Farsi/English)
Wiki engineer
Media relations professional
Anonymity
Due to the potential risk involved in facilitating communication between Iranian protesters and the outside world, contributors are permitted to remain anonymous. Protesters inside Iran are encouraged to refrain from contributing to the translation initiative. You are risking your life protesting in the streets and passing on documents, videos, and images to the outside world. Let us take care of this mundane task so that you can focus on your efforts to sustain freedom and democracy in Iran.
I wrote this in a hurry, please pardon any typos. Please leave your contact e-mail in the comments or e-mail translate4iran {at} gmail {dot} com if you wish to help out with this effort. Thank you. -jp
I’m an English-language editor or proofreader with lots of experience.
geneven@rocketmail.com
thanks for putting this up, jp.
check this out for farsi twitter trans effort:
Iran Elections: Join the Meedan translators newsroom
We are looking for Farsi translators to take the extraordinary use of social media over the Iran elections aftermath to a new level.
We want to translate tweets, blogs and videos so that they are available across the web.
To do this, we’ve started twitter account @farsitrans This will be an account for subscribing to farsi twitterers from Iran, and also an account for a translating and ReTweeting [trans]RT Farsi posts into English, or, English posts into Farsi. (And yes, we did think about trying to standardize TRT as “Translated ReTweet”– but decided to test just one innovation at a time).
Here is what you can do to help:
1. Push out word to any vetted Farsi translators who are willing to help the effort to email farsitrans (at) meedan.net or info (at) meedan.net or tweet to @meedan or @farsitrans
2. Subscribe to @farsitrans
3. Push any Farsi Tweet or URL you think should be translated to @farsitrans with hashtag #translate
4. Push any eloquent/important/vetted farsi twitterers to @farsitrans with hashtag #follow eg “@farsitrans @Gonahkar #follow”
Of course, we encourage bi-lingual twitter users to simply use the convention [trans]RT and hashtag #farsitrans or #meedan to begin scaling real time communications between these language groups.
This is a citizen driven effort with Meedan team members helping to coordinate – this is also us trying to invent ways of using Twitter in a real-time emerging situation. We will keep evolving our strategy and will hope that we can share some compelling Farsi voices with the English and Arabic speaking communities on the web.
Remember, you can post any translated blog posts onto our live blog on Meedan and we’ll tweet this out too. And, we will point out that the HuffingtonPost’s Nico Pitney is doing a remarkable job of liveblogging IranElection–do bookmark Nico’s page.
Come and join the team and help us learn more about what is going on in Iran right now.
What can we (the world outside of Iran) do to help the people in Iran whose courage and determination is in danger of being doused by the illegitimate and aon-representative government of Tehran and the clerics?
I still remember Tien An Men Square and the brutal repression of the students by the Communist Chinese government. Neda is to the Iranian bid for freedom what the “tank man” was to the Chinese attempt to win democracy. Now, both are dead.
The demand for democracy in Iran cannot be permitted to die. Neda and the others who have suffered at the hands of government thugs should not be erased from history by the thugs – they should live on as the parents of a new Iran.
I want to help but don’t know how to help.