Language Faux Pas in Diplomacy

Last Week, the media reported an unusual expression used by the President of France, Emmanuel Macron, during his state visit to Australia. In the BBC, we can read that, when addressing the Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, he said: "Thank you and your delicious wife for your warm welcome…," It is known that President Macron speaks English very well, and very often he uses his linguistic skills to talk directly in this language with other leaders. But this time, Mr. Macron was the victim of something we call “False Friends” where words that sound similar and may be written with the same orthography, they do not have the same meaning. In this case, we know that the word “delicious” does not apply to people. But this word in French is “délicieux” that can also mean “charming”. According to the online dictionary wordreference, in French, we can say “C’est une jeune femme délicieuse” to describe a charming woman.

The history of Diplomacy has many examples of diplomatic faux pas using languages. A famous example, John F. Kennedy delivered a famous speech at the Berlin Wall, where he said the famous phrase: “Ich bin ein Berliner”. He wanted to say “I am a Berliner”. But the use of “ein” with the word “Berliner” brought a different message to the residents of that city. Berliner is the name of a popular jelly doughnut; so many people understood “I am a jelly doughnut”.

We described a situation where a chief of state uses a language that he can speak very well but is not his mother tongue and a different one where another head of state tries to say a phrase in a language that he does not know and the local context did not help. Most of those situations ended as mere anecdotes. We do not see them more often, despite the different languages used in today’s diplomacy, because not all the world leaders can speak well in a different language than their mother tongue.  We often find high-ranking officials who speak fluently English or French besides the national languages of their countries because they had the opportunity to study in countries like the US, UK or France, and learn the language properly. But most of the times, world leaders request assistance from language professionals before important meetings, state visits or sign a treaty where different languages are used.

But professional translators and Interpreters are not exempt of errors. There are also cases of diplomatic faux pas where language professionals were involved. In the page of TERMIUM Plus, one of the largest terminology and linguistic data banks of the world, operated by the Translation Bureau under the government of Canada, there is a page dedicated to historic translation mistakes. One of the stories writes about a Spanish delegate addressing an audience of French speakers, through his microphone he said in Spanish: “Estoy constipado, perdonadme“, (Sorry, I’ve got a cold). But the interpreter translated this in French as  « Excusez-moi, je suis constipé. »  After this, the audience started to laugh.  The word “constipé” in English is “constipated”. 

But not all the mistakes in this area are so funny. In 1889, Ethiopia and Italy signed a pact known as the Treaty of Wuchale. The text of the treaty was in Amharic and Italian, the languages of those countries. But the text did not read the same in both languages.  The text in Amharic guaranteed Ethiopia’s king Menelik II considerable autonomy, while the Italian text established an Italian protectorate and that Ethiopians should conduct their international affairs through the Italians. Later discussions regarding this treaty led to a war six years later. Some sources now say that all this was caused by a mistranslation of just one verb, forming a permissive clause in Amharic and a Mandatory one in Italian. This difference read in Italian is: 

-Amharic text: “l’Abissinia «può» servirsi dell’Italia…”;

-Italian text: “l’Abissinia «consente» a servirsi dell’Italia…”        

One of the most memorable translation faux pass in diplomacy happened during the state visit of US President Jimmy Carter to Poland. Carter said that he was glad to be in Poland. But the translator to Polish hired by US state Department translated those words in a way that could be understood as he has abandoned the US to live in Poland. But a later phrase of US president saying that he wanted to know what Poland’s desires for the future were, was translated as he said that he was interested in learning more about the carnal lusts of the Polish.  It is interesting to note that the translator was a Polyglot, fine translator of Russian, French, and Polish into English, and he also was recognized for translate poems. Some analysts say that although the translator was very competent translating, he lacked interpreting experience, especially with the Polish language. Another interesting fact is that the translator was a native Russian speaker, and he might have confused some terms in Russian and Polish.  An interesting story can be read on the page of Strange History. 

But Official translators can make mistakes in areas less related with languages. There is a story about a diplomatic impasse between Spain and Morocco. When both countries were discussing the details of the final document that stipulated the limits of the territorial waters, this bilingual document Arabic – Spanish used different units of measurement for the final maritime delimitation in both languages. In one language they used nautical miles while in the other they used international miles. There was a difference of more than two hundred meters.

In 2015 the magazine Veja reported that Brazil still could not implement a trade agreement between Mercosur and 5 African countries, that was discussed since 2008, because of 205 translation mistakes in the final document in English and Portuguese. Terms like “Cooking oil” and “lubricant”, “working day” and” holidays”, “tricycle” and “scooter” were words that were often mistranslated.  

Diplomats and Language professionals who work with them are not error-free. Most of the times, when a diplomatic faux pas happens, the governments of the countries involved move on and what we get from this issue are another curious story. Perhaps the worst possible mistake in diplomacy is to work unprofessionally with the communications between nations.