Olympic Games and Languages

The Olympic Games are among the world's most Complex sports competition with more than 200 nations participating. Such a diverse gathering of Athletes, visitors, journalists requires solutions in many areas like accommodation, transportation, places where the competitions will take place, complying with many international rules and regulations, etc. One of the subjects to consider when organizing an event like this, is the linguistic barrier, when dealing with visitors from the most diverse countries and linguistic background.   

Rule number 23 of the Olympic charter establishes that the official languages of the International Olympic Committee are French and English. The text of the rule can be read here https://stillmed.olympic.org/Documents/olympic_charter_en.pdf . During the celebration of the competitions, the language of the Host City is added as temporary official, as is happening now with Portuguese, the language of Rio de Janeiro.  To offer services in all the official Olympic languages is one of the musts for each city who wants to host this event. However, no matter how well the logistics are organized, or the Good will of the local committee to offer an outstanding job, when dealing with language issues, it is not possible to make that all local people involved in this event suddenly gain the language skills needed in all those working languages, and in other hand, not all countries send delegations whose members are fully prepared to communicate in them.

A brief check of the Brazilian media shows that languages were present in the organization of Rio 2016.  According to http://www.brasil.gov.br/ 8000 volunteers were selected to participate in the area of protocol and languages. Their job is to translate and serve as interpreters for the delegations and International Press in 30 languages, ranging from the most common like English, Spanish, French, German and Italian, till some languages that not all Brazilians are aware of their use in their own country like Amharic, Urdu, Swahili and Soumi. The full link can be read below http://www.brasil.gov.br/esporte/2014/11/rio-2016-oferece-8-mil-vagas-para-voluntarios-para-protocolos-e-idiomas.  But there are other initiatives coming from the public, like the disposition of language schools in Brazil and translation services firms to offer their support, and also boost their business promoting the use of other languages, and some Brazilians who are descendents of immigrants became more motivated to learn the language of their ancestors in order to communicate with the visitors from that country. Different cases are described in the media, but I will highlight now this new from “O Dia” an important newspaper from Rio, where it is reported that police officers are learning foreign languages to be able to better serve during the event. Full link can be read here http://odia.ig.com.br/noticia/rio-de-janeiro/2015-09-19/agentes-aprendem-linguas-pouco-usadas-para-atenderem-turistas-durante-os-jogos.html

But in languages and the Olympic games, not all are good news. Most of complains are related with the use of French language during the games, or rather than that, the lack of use of French. “L'Organisation Internationale de la  Francophonie” is currently leading the voice of critics. In a report that can be read in http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/10/sports/olympics/french-official-language-olympic-games.html?_r=0   Ms Michaëlle Jean, secretary general of this organization expressed her disappointment to see that there were almost no sign in French in the locations of the competitions, not a word about their non existence along the signs in the city. Other thing is that with the incorporation of new sports  in the competitions, did not happen the same with the technical terms related which are not in French. Since the Olympic games of Athens 2004 la Francophonie  has appointed a person known as “Grand Témoin” (The Great Witness) who is in charge of supervise the use of French in the Olympic games. His duties include the Negotiations about the use of French much before the beginning of the following Edition and to write a final report after the end.

Complains about the lack of use of French are not limited to Rio 2016. For the Winter edition in Sochi 2014 also there were reports that the announcements were not said in French, beside that in the City there were very few services available for French speakers. In the social media, this point was not unnoticed.

Language issues were also not limited to French. There were also some issues when using the English language to communicate. Some reports highlight the low quality of some public signs in English. A journalist wrote in “theStar.com”, the largest online news site in Canada, describing his experience dealing with volunteers who assisted in the different locations, most of them did not speak English. There were not many printings available in English, providing information about the city.

Sometimes, other official languages also can cause issues. Some reports still remember the Olympic games of Barcelona 1992, where Spanish and Catalan where used as official languages alongside with English and French. There were tense negotiations that involve the use of both languages but finally they could move on. In other hand, being the first time that such event was organised in Catalan, created a challenge for the local government and the academics who had to work hard to create the terminology needed for sports and to express situations that have not been properly described before in Catalan.

In my opinion, language barriers will always exist in events of such magnitude as the Olympic Games. The organizing committee has to work hard to provide services to visitors who speak different languages. It is not possible to provide services in all the languages, but at least they should work with the most common. Maybe in future we will see more creative solutions. Japanese are working toward the organizations of the games of Tokyo 2020. It is said that they are working with interpreting software that will make possible at least to translate speeches in Japanese to English. In other hand, the persistence of la Francophonie with the use of French language, at least creates a choice for those visitors who do not speak English and helps to preserve a tradition inside the Olympics. Maybe similar initiatives will be needed with other languages, like Spanish for example, a language widely spoken in several countries. Some countries have benefits from a diverse immigration, Brazil is one of them. Immigrants are always a great source of solutions for language barriers, because they themselves have lived this before. I am not saying that Brazil did not ask help to the different communities of immigrants in the country, but their sights and experiences are relevant for the organization of an event like the Olympics, an event where human brotherhood transcends language barriers.