Multiple Personality Disorder

..........

I read REA's Croatian version and recognized a couple of words in the introduction section:

 iranska studentica i aktivistica

It is cool! Thank you, REA!

Glad to hear that Spanish version is coming. Spanish ranks #2 in the world with 300 million speakers in 44 countries!

//www.ethnologue.com/ethno_docs/distribution.asp?by=size

Glad to hear someone may translate the letter into Azeri! Azeri ranks #49 in the world with more than 30 million speakers:

There are many Azeri Iranian VIPs, like Googoosh, Ali Daei, Sakineh Ashtiani, Mousavi, Khamenei......AN said that he can speak Azeri, not sure well he speaks....

I would like to thank the potential translator in advance!

Thank you, MPD, for finding the potential Azeri translator!

Thank you, Radius! Your Rosetta stone website looks great! Wow! You did a lot of promotion work! Glad to hear people's responses and feedback!

Thank you all!

yolanda jan, that was my opinion

Other friends on this thread may disagree with me.

........

Hi Anahid,

      Thank you for your post. I have not written them yet! Well, I will drop my plan!

Dear yolanda, This MIS may not be a good idea

If on the website, it is written that MIS helped with translation, this has a negative effect. I don't know how other friends feel but I believe the personal touch is most important. For instance, If a reader or writer living in France translates the letter to French, it is more effective than saying some translator in MIS helped.

.............

Yesterday, I found Monterey Institute of International Studies. They offer interpretation and translation degrees in 7 languages: Korean, Japanese, French, Germany, Spanish, Chinese, and Russian. I believe MIIS has the best program in interpretation and translation in the nation! They train translators and interpreters for UN, State Dept, etc....

    I was thinking of letting them help us with our project. I checked their faculty, there is not single Iranian:

//www.miis.edu/academics/programs/translation/faculty

They also offer Masters degree in Nonproliferation and Terrorism Studies

They even offer a course called Iran's Nuclear program:

//catalog.middlebury.edu/offerings/view/catalog/catalog%2FMIIS/offering/section%2F201098%2F90454

but the instructor is not Iranian!

Yesterday I contemplated all day how to write them an e-mail to let them know our project. If their translation students or teachers are interested in translating Behareh's letter into Japanese, Russian, Korean, Chinese or French, that will be awesome!

I have no doubt that they have the ability to do it and they can do a fantastic job! The hardest part is to make them volunteer their time to do it for us.........

I am still working on the e-mail.......I guess I have to start with "Iran 101" talking about Iran has 2nd highest executions in the world, is biggest prison for journalists, human right lawyers, and political prisoners, etc.....

I am working on it!

I got to run!

Spanish and Azari translation

The Spanish translator has been sickly for the last couple of days, and also had to help out with moving stuff, but the translation will be posted today, for sure, as a blog and as a comment here.  If translations are posted as blogs they will show up on Google Search, but I don't think comments would.

I also have someone who may have volunteered for Azari translation, we'll see.

wide support for Bahareh Hedayat's letter translation

I just would like to share some of the letters I received by e-mail from people outside IC. They would like to support the Evin Rosetta Stone Project by contributing more translations or just by sharing information.

----------------------------

Joanne  (One Million Voices for Iran) wrote:

Unfortunately I don't know any languages aside from what's already been
done, but I've shared this on FB, Twitter and Google +. What a wonderful
project. Thank you for including me in your efforts.

-----------------------------

Jesse C., Mt.Rainier MD wrote:

I can translate into Spanish if no one else has signed up to do it. Lemme know.

-------------------------------

Azadeh P. , The Netherlands  wrote:

Thank you for the email and the beautiful initiative. I am spreading the
word through facebook and other contacts. I wish I had the ability to
translate the letter into any language other than English. I am sure
English is taken. But, please let me know if you need help with the
English version.

--------------------------------

Lars G, Sweden wrote:

Please send me the text, I"ll try to translate. The tyranny in Iran is awful.

----------------------------------

Dear Yolanda,

Would like to have an azery version. But I don"t think we should use google translator. I"m afraid Bahareh's letter could loose a lot of its poetry.

I also received an offer for a spanish translation (see above), but asked Jesse to wait, cause MPD and latine have already initiated one.

Dear Rea, 

you once suggested a french translation by DK. I assume you are referring to Darious Kadivar, right ?

Dear MPD and Latina,

you announced a spanish version last Saturday. But you also suggested to post this on a separate blog. Could it be that I have missed it already ?

Dear Soosan Khanoom, 

You had the great idea to translate it into the "Language of Love". Although I would say that this was the original language of the letter, in case you know a singer/songwriter who would like to turn it into a song, please encourage him/her to do so.

Dear humanbeing,

Have you heard something from your (distant) friend and the arabic translation ?

About the potential risk of a hebrew version I tried to contact  OMID (advocats for human rights). But their e-mailserver is down (hope its not hacked by pro IRI viruses). Does any of you know some legal advisers who are familiar with such a question ?

I found out today that for certain browser (Google Chrom) the
introductory page looks a bit weired, in particular the table. I will
try to correct this. But I think most important is the content, we are
not trying to win the award for best web design, but maybe for doing a
little bit against the injustice.

Anyhow, if you see that under certain browser the web-page looks strange, please don"t hesitate to write me.

Radius

Thanks yolanda for checking on Lori.

I guess "Lori" is out and from the comments, it appears that closest thing to an "Indian Language" is English :).

..........

Hi Anahid,

     I checked on "Lori"...it seems to be a spoken dialect....people have to write in Farsi! Google translator can translate Azeri......Azeri seems to be closer to English than Farsi....I translated a couple words.....some resemble English, like the words "ocean" and "Islam"

The photo of Nasrin hugging her hubby is priceless. It is on Nasrin's facebook avatar:

//www.facebook.com/NasrinSotoudeh

I checked last nite, Nasrin has more supporters than Mousavi! Nasrin has 11,000 fans while Mousavi has 8000 supporters on facebook.........

Where is the Spanish version of the letter?

Thanks ROPC for your talk with Azadeh Pourzand

Thanks ROPC for talking to Ms. Pourzand about translating her father's letter.

Evin prison letter goes international

Dear Yolanda, Dear Anahid and MPD, such a pleasure to feel your strong support.

Thanks for carefully double-checking. The format errors should now be removed. What is interesting for me, always when I go through the letter for editing, I enjoy the beautiful language again and again. Its really a piece of poetry. I think it is this iridescence between despair and hope, and the convidence one can feel that love will overcome the torture what makes this text so unique.

Outside of IC I received a mail today from Azadeh Pourzand, who lost her father Siamak after he was tortured for years in secret detention sites that are probably even worse than Evin (like Prison 59 or Khatam-ul Anbiya).

Mrs. Pourzand expressed her symphathy for our initiative, and she is going to circulate it around. I was telling her about Anahids idea to translate similar personal experiences like Bahareh's letter from other prisoners and that in case she considers a letter from her late father, we would give it highest priority and extent the website.

Hope you are successful inviting more translations. 

Take Care

/Radius

Thank you all for all your hard work,,,

Thank you Yolanda for all your work to get the Chinese translation out, and on my behalf, please thank your mother and friend.

Thank you RPC, you are doing a great job keeping this blog up to date, and your translation website is great, just great.

And thank you to all the contributors and translators.

We are anxiously waiting for the Spanish translation, and all the other languages in the world.

Thank you all,,,

..........

Dear Radius,

    Thank you for loading the Chinese version so quickly! I like the links you added to the introduction section. The links will help the 1st time Chinese readers know more about Behareh and Evin. Thank you for finding the English translation to the Finglish phrase......fortunately a Chinese translation was able to be located to your English translation. Here is the new revised introduction, if you don't mind, you can use this updated introduction:

Evin Rosetta Stone

Bahareh Hedayat是伊朗學生活動家，婦女權利活動家和廢除歧視性法律的百萬簽名活動運動家. 她是中央委員會促進團結辦公室委員和發言人 。她於2007年7月9日被捕, 8月9日被保釋出獄。2008年,她再次被捕和被釋放。
2010年，她又被逮捕，被送往Evin監獄, 209牢房，這是第五次了。革命法庭28分庭判處她九年半徒刑。

她在監獄中寫她信給她的丈夫, 表達自己的想法, 擔憂，和對她丈夫, 阿明, 的欽佩. 阿明 Ahmadian，是中央委員會促進團結辦公室的成員。
以下是Bahareh Hedayat 的信的中文翻譯.

****************************

I checked the poem part of the text, every word is there! Unfortunately there are 8 to 9 formatting errors.......some sentences accidentally shifted and 2 verses ended up in one line.......for example, the 6th verse.....a super long sentence, actually there are 2 verses. If you take a look the poem in my post, you will notice that the line 6 have 2 verses there.....be very honest with you, it is not a big mistake. If you have time, you can revise it. If you are busy, don't even worry about it! You've worked hard enough!

****************************

10 miles from where I live, there are a lot of Indians. It is called "Little India" or "Indian Village"........one time, I went there to buy Indian style clothes, Kurti. I had a little chat with the shopkeeper. The guy showed me an Indian monetary paper bill with 18 official languages listed there....OMG! Apparently India is a big country with a lot of people, a lot of languages, dialects, and religions!

********************

Thank you for your effort to set up the website for this great cause!

this letter will stay in history along with ...

In the past couple years. there have been scenes, events, writings, all regarding the young leadership of movement of Iranians which have touched me. Some are:

Majid Tavakoli 's speech on student day

Bahareh Hedayat 's video to international students

Nasrin Sotoudeh's embrace of her husband

This letter of Bahareh Hedayat to her husband

Does any one have other ones that can be added to this list? It may be nice to have a blog which discusses all these and has links to related videos, web sites, etc.

Congratulations

Hi MPD, yolanda, human being, REA, Anahid, Latina, Soosan Khanoom, vildemos, Shazde, daneshjoo, Nazy Kaviani,

I just recognised that thanks to all your valuable contributions, this blog now made it into the top-five "Most Discussed" of IC. It is nice to see that we managed to keep Bahareh Hedayats case and this of all other prisoners on the agenda, at least here on the forum. Hope it stays there for longer.

I hope that IC administrators don"t mind if we continue to post exotic translations of Baharehs letter to the blog. Please stay open, don"t forget it will also rise ICs rank on internet search engines.

chinese version is online now

Dear Yolanda,

Thank you very much for organizing the chinese translation. Seems there were no major hussles to put it on the web site. Please check. I put your name on the bottom as "communicated by". In case you want to have this changed, please write.

Today I asked a colleague from India, whether he could translate. Funny thing was that he insisted that every small region has its own language and that the only commonly spoken in India is english. I asked him about Hindi - he said this can only be writen by novelists and poets. Maybe he was kidding. I will ask somebody else.

Greetings and thanks, RotPC

.....

Here is the Chinese version, introduction included:

Bahareh Hedayat是伊朗學生活動家，婦女權利活動家和廢除歧視性法律的百萬簽名活動運動家. 她是Daftar Tahkim Vahdat中央委員會委員和發言人 。她於2007年7月9日被捕, 8月9日被保釋出獄。2008年,她再次被捕和被釋放。
2010年，她又被逮捕，被送往Evin監獄, 209牢房，這是第五次了。革命法庭28分庭判處她九年半徒刑。

******************************

我渴望你的擁抱

石頭是什麼色彩?
你提醒過我一次，
我不記得！

你還記得，那是在六月，
我第一次來到 Majideyeh。
然後,你帶我去看伊斯法罕，
那是我的第一次。

你還記得上一次我們與艾哈邁德一起去的，... ...
2008年的春天.

告訴我繼續我的生活。

3月7日，
你還記得嗎？
我知道。

你一定也記得
這是七年半前.

RPC,

I will take a look and send the editing/corrections to this email address,

evin-rosetta@persian-cat.de 

Farsi/Persian text version

Hi MPD,  great idea, thank you. I"ll see if I manage to copy/past the persian text from Rahesabz to the web-site.

I would also be extremely grateful for any correction of the english wording (not the 2 english translations, but the intro and explanations on the web site). We germans always think we are good in english, but usually this is an illusion and we do the same mistakes with extreme persistence over and over again.  So in case you see some funny sounding phrases, please let me know and I will change them.   

greetings  radius 

RPC,

I was wrong.  In the Evin Prison Rosetta Stone website, I thought my version of the letter was posted twice, once in the "english” section, and once more in the “english-Poetry” section.  My mistake; I apologize.

As of now a scanned copy of the original letter is posted in the website as an “image”.  Is there a way to post the original letter as “text” also?  A copy of the text of letter can be found here (and in other places),

//www.rahesabz.net/story/39031/

In the table, can you create another section and call it "Farsi"?

Croation Version is on-line

Hi Rea,  Thank you very much for your translation. It is the 3rd foreign language, it is online now (please check if it is o.k in particular the special croatian characters). I am very grateful also for your general considerations relating to editing, selecting .... It was a relief for me to see there is somebody really experienced in all issues of translations and publishing.

May be I"m a bit naive when it comes to copyright issues or potential misusage of web-ressources. I hope it will never become a problem, but our intention will always be clear and it will be a moral support for the people suffering from political oppression.

One thing I want to make clear right from the beginning:

- There wont be any adverts on this site.

- There wont be any religious arguments on this site.

- There wont be any nationalistic arguments on this site.

It is only there (like a lot of other websites) to make aware political injustice and violation of human rights.  

Best greetings 

Sent

Don't worry about possible linguistic arguments, cat. ;o)

Thought about it yesterday, am well aware. Translation (not of poetry, mind you) is what I do for a living.

Firstly, one has to take a risk. If not, nothing ever gets done. Secondly, linguistics is not a primary message here. As long as we stay faithful to the original, of kors.

Anyway, I intend to publicize it. So, I'd like to know if, once you've done your share with posting, I can use your link? It would help spread the message and may help Bahareh. That, I suppose, is the main objective.

PS. ask DK for French translation. I live in France but French is not my native language. 

Evin rosetta-stone tranlations

Dear Rea,

Thanks for your translation. In case you had to do a night shift for it, just remember it is for an important purpose. You can send it to the following e-mail adress  evin-rosetta@persian-cat.de

I will include it right away.

About the two different english versions:  as much as I understand, the ealier one in a more inter-linear translation was from Banooye Sabz (put on her blog June 24th and forwarded to IC on June 30th by Maryam Nayeb Yazdi). The "poetic" version by MPD is slightly different, composed in verses. I think for additional translations one should use either Baharehs persian original or either of the two english versions as the starting point. Maybe I shall explain this on the site as well.

But what shall we do if we get independently several translations into the same language (say french), and the authors than start to argue with each others about which version is better (nightmare !). Do we need a jury at the end ?  O.k., for reasons of political urgency, I currently would say: The early bird catches the worm. (so in your case, nobody else has announced an other croatian version yet).

Chinese/Cantonese might also be great, even though we might got blocked for chinese users. Is there need for fingilish transliteration ? I myself would like to have one, cause it gives me an impression how the original sounds. 

radius of

Croatian translation is ready. Where do I post it ? Or shall I send it to you by email ?

PS. I, however, translated MPD' poetic adaptation, not the letter itself.

Dear yolanda, how about Lori

Somehow I think this letter would look nice in Lori. Too bad I don't know Lori.

......

Hi Natalia,

    I am glad to hear that someone is working on the Spanish version.......wow! interesting translation, too! I am excited already even though I can't read Spanisn......:O)

Looking forward to the Spanish version!

Thank you, Mr. Radius (half of the diameter) for setting up the website....you are fast and you are a doer!

Hi! MPD,

     I know a lady that she is a Chemist originally from Beijing......I will persuade her to come up with the Chinese version ASAP....:O))

Once it is done, I will post the translation on behalf of her here!

Thank you again for your great blog!

P.S. I was wondering if anyone on IC can translate the letter into Azeri or Kurdish versions.....I heard there are 12 million Azeris in Iran.

Thank you RPC for creating the website,

I noticed the "english" and the "english-poetry" are both the same.  I know you meant to copy the other direct translation.

I don't think translation in Hebrew would cause any additional problem for her.

Evin-Letter Rosetta-Stone project

Dear MPD, Yolanda, Rea, Latina, Soosan Khanoom, human-being, have a look at the website I did to initiate the translation project of Bahareh Hedayats letter.

//evin-rosetta.persian-cat.de/

I know its no great design, but if somebody has ambitions to improve, he/she will be invited to do so.

For the moment, I think it is more important to get more translations. Please don"t hesitate to ask friends, relatives, colleagues. Thanks human-being for raising the issue of potential negative consequences for Mrs. Hedayat. Intuitively, I"d say she is a brave person and perhaps would agree to make her case more public. About the problem to publish a hebrew translation, I"d first try to contact her husband or lawyer.

Translation Project! What a great idea!

.

Latina, please tell MPD's friend, who is translating the letter into Spanish, to post the translation as a separate blog.  Tell her, or him, not to post it here as a comment or it will not get enough coverage.  Well, it's OK to post it here as a comment, but also it needs to be posted as a separate blog too.

Now, if I could find a Chinese-American woman and convince her to translate the letter into the Chinese language, that would be great.  Hummmmmm!  Who do I know that knows Chinese, and likes the Persian culture, and is a sympathizer?  Well, no one comes to mind at the moment, but I keep working on it,,,

:O) 

..............

Yolanda,

Also in Spanish, one of MPD's friends is working on a Spanish translation. It should be an interesting translation. :o)