Strategies For Creating A Natural Maya Yucateco Translation
The Maya Yucateco language is spoken by over 800,000 people today and has several movie and book translations geared toward these speakers. Those who want to reach this diverse audience with new material would do well to keep these strategies in mind for creating a natural-sounding Maya Yucateco language translation.
Choose Translators Carefully
Arguably the most important aspect of creating a natural translation into any language is to choose translators who know the target language well. In this case, native speakers of Maya Yucateco (also called Yucatec or Maaya) will make the best translators because they are already familiar with the language.
A Maya Yucateco speaker can tell by listening to or reading a sentence whether that sentence is natural without much linguistic study. Any native speaker will be able to give a yes/no answer, making them an invaluable resource for any translation project.
However, as with any discipline, some people will be more skilled at the linguistic aspect of translation than others. Speakers with previous translation experience, or multilingual speakers who are used to communicating to different language-speaking audiences, will have a good foundation for further training in translation skills.
Involve a Team in the Drafting and Revision Process
The translators are not the only ones needed to create a natural translation for Maya Yucateco. Because this language is spoken by a diverse group of people in different locations, age groups, and educational backgrounds, any one speaker will not be able to create the best translation for every other speaker of the language.
Once a team of Maya Yucateco speakers drafts a translation, that draft should be tested in a community of the target audience. Focus groups that will read or listen to the translation and give feedback are valuable sources to making the most natural-sounding translation.
Bear in mind that online communities can make testing a translation draft even easier, but you may still want to conduct in-person testing of the draft so that speakers without internet access are also represented.
Make Changes to Accommodate Maya Yucateco Language Structure
Depending on the source text, changes may need to be made to make the Maya Yucateco translation sound more natural. Such changes will include syntactical structure, such as the fact that Maya is a verb-initial language. Some spelling and pronunciation may also need to be changed to fit Maya phonology and make foreign names pronounceable.
Speech patterns and formulae, as well as discourse features including how to start or end a story, track participants, transition between events, and build up to the story climax also need to be considered in creating a natural translation.