A One Word Mistranslation Lead to the Atomic Bomb Dropping on Hiroshima
At the end of World War II, allied forces demanded a full surrender from an already beaten Japan. When the Japanese prime minister sent his reply, English translators misinterpreted the word mokusatsu as an expression of stony contempt.
The United States dispatched the bomb unnecessarily, not realizing that Japan was only trying to buy some time to gather a more formal response. Had they known the translation facts, they would’ve realized that a surrender was underway. But it was too late. This translation mistake cost 80,000 lives.
Known People on Earth Are the Last Speakers of Their Languages
In public schools we learn about Spanish, French, German and maybe Japanese. But there are over 7,000 living languages on Earth today. Many more have gone extinct, which is what happens when the last living native speaker of a language dies.
An endangered language is a language at risk of becoming extinct. When children stop learning a language, it's moribund. Many endangered and moribund languages are indigenous, and a few have only one remaining speaker, e.g. Charlie Mungulda, of Australia’s Northern Territory, is the last living speaker of Amurdag. Amurdag is an Indigenous Australian language. Before colonial invasion, Australia had over 200 nations and languages. Australian linguists have been working with Charlie Mungulda to preserve records of Amurdag for posterity.
Translation plays a bigger part in history, culture and human life than we sometimes give it credit for. It’s easy to overlook the foundational and far-reaching impacts translation can have on our world. But now you know!
Source: https://www.daytranslations.com/blog/2017/09/amazing-translation-facts-9848/
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