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International Translation Day 2025
What’s the News?
- International Translation Day is observed globally on September 30 each year to recognize the vital contributions of translators, interpreters, and terminologists in connecting nations and fostering mutual understanding.
- The 2025 theme is “Celebrating Translation, Peace and Trust”, which underscores the critical role of human expertise in ensuring trustworthy communication, especially in diplomatic, humanitarian, and multilingual contexts.
- The theme also emphasizes the need for human oversight of AI-generated translations and reaffirms the importance of ethical, accurate, and culturally sensitive translation practices in an era of rapid technological advancement.
Theme Focus: Translation, Peace and Trust
- The 2025 observance highlights how professional translators contribute to:
- Building dialogue between conflicting parties.
- Strengthening trust in international relations and global institutions.
- Safeguarding linguistic diversity, particularly for Indigenous languages.
- It aligns with the United Nations General Assembly’s Resolution declaring 2025 as the “Year of Peace and Trust”, reinforcing translation as a tool for conflict prevention and diplomacy.
- A key sub-theme, “Translation, shaping a future you can trust”, reflects concerns about the reliability of machine translation and the irreplaceable value of human judgment and cultural fluency.
Additional Info
- Historical Context:
- The date, September 30, marks the feast of St. Jerome, the Bible translator who is regarded as the patron saint of translators.
- He is renowned for translating most of the Bible into Latin, a version known as the Vulgate, making it accessible to a wider audience.
- Establishment and Recognition:
- The International Federation of Translators (FIT), an international grouping of translator associations, established the day in 1953.
- In 1991, FIT launched the idea of an officially recognised International Translation Day to promote the profession globally.
- On May 24, 2017, the United Nations General Assembly officially recognised the day by adopting Resolution A/RES/71/288, acknowledging the role of professional translation in "connecting nations and fostering peace, understanding and development."
- Translation at the United Nations:
- The UN is one of the world's largest employers of language professionals.
- Official documents are issued simultaneously in the six official languages: Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian, and Spanish, which is made possible by the work of UN translators.