Cohen, Guerrini, Rocke, Hentschel & Hentschel, Reeves & Van Helden, Blåsjö & Hogendijk, Zhang, Tsu (2018)

ARTIGOS DA SEÇÃO FOCUS DA REVISTA ISIS, V. 109, N. 4 (2018).

Cohen (2018) - Historians of science translating history of science.

• Too often have I found, on checking available translations into English of texts written in Dutch or in various other languages, how sloppily some of these had been executed. Entire interpretations have been based on translations that you just cannot rely on without closer attention, and it seemed important to me to call Isis readers’ attention to the vital importance that matters of language and, in particular, of translation possess for us historians.

Guerrini (2018) - Translation as a way of life

• Abstract: Historians who work with materials in languages other than their own inevitably do quite a bit of translation in the course of their research and writing. Much of this consists of words, phrases, or sentences, and much remains unpublished. This essay looks at the author’s experiences with this sort of translation as well as with more formal published translation, with a focus on early modern French and Latin.

• Translation requires the translator to make continuous choices between word-for-word accuracy and readability, between translating words and conveying meaning. In the fourteenth century, the poet Petrarch wrote to his fellow author Boccaccio, claiming that his appropriation of one of the latter’s works made it his, Petrarch’s, own: “The story is yours, but the words are mine.” Translation must be an act of creation, but there is always a question of how much a translation belongs to the translator and how much to the original author—a question of whose story it becomes. The literary translator Edith Grossman argues, “The most fundamental description of what translators do is that we write—or perhaps rewrite—in language B a work of literature originally composed in language A.”

• In Europe in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the vocabulary for describing new theories and phenomena similarly did not exist. Sietske Fransen recently noted, “New ideas and discoveries called for new words and new ways to describe them across the breadth of European vernaculars”—and, I would add, also in Latin. A particular challenge in translating works from this period is to avoid employing modern scientific terms that did not yet exist while also avoiding sounding self consciously antiquarian. In my particular areas of expertise, which span anatomy, natural history, food, animals, and medicine, the changes in language were profound. In the sixteenth century, names of the parts of the body changed from Arabic to Greek as humanist physicians rediscovered their classical heritage. In the seventeenth century, new anatomical discoveries earned new names. In addition, chymistry and its techniques led to a new and at times arcane vocabulary whose meaning was moreover often hidden from the uninitiated.

• At the same time, three centuries of exploration in the Americas, Africa, and the South Pacific led to an influx of new plants and animals that naturalists struggled to name. In this cas, naming held special significance in that a name also assigned a place in the chain of being. To give just one example that I recently encountered, the mid-sixteenth-century importation of the turkey into Europe—where it was readily adopted—occasioned massive confusion as to its name and place in relation to other animals. Was it related to the peacock, and therefore a pā vō Indica, or to the chicken, and therefore a gallina Indica? In the 1550s, Conrad Gessner split the difference and called it a gallopavo (chicken-peacock), but additional confusion arose when other naturalists wondered if the turkey was actually the classical meleagris, which we now know as the guinea fowl. Linnaeus further muddied the waters by classifying the turkey as meleagris gallopavo.

• While new objects sparked change, European languages themselves evolved considerably between 1500 and 1800. Not only did orthography change significantly, at least in the languages I know, but so too did the meanings of words. Although the advent of printing did much to fix language in certain conventions, this did not happen quickly. There is, for example, quite a lot of difference between sixteenth- and seventeenth-century French. Some of these differences owe to changing forms of the printed text in these eras, and some owe to changes in the language itself. Sixteenth-century printed texts still have a lot of carryovers from manuscripts: these can include a lack of page numbers (or what appear to be eccentric practices such as numbering every other page) and, particularly, an extensive use of abbreviations.

• There is a close but complex relationship among copying, translating, and creating. While transcription would seem to be mere copying, with manuscripts, as with art, the act of copying entails a number of conscious choices. In manuscripts, much depends on the quality of the handwriting and involves judgment calls about particular words and phrases. If words are crossed out or substituted, further decisions arise about fidelity to the author’s intent as well as historiographical completeness.

• This coining of new words only increased over time. Neologisms are just that; but, rather like local names for diseases, they were not employed consistently by all authors or across all genres. Aldrovandi used the term “gallopavo” (while arguing that the bird in question was really a guinea fowl). Yet French cookbook authors, the majority of whom wrote in the vernacular and knew little or no Latin, tended to refer to the bird as a “poulle d’inde” or “dinde.” Cookbooks in other languages employed some variation on “Indian chicken”—except, of course, those written by English speakers, who called it a turkey.

• While I still rely heavily on the Oxford Latin Dictionary, there are many other sources for what is known as neo-Latin (i.e., postclassical Latin). There are a number of resources at the Numen website, including dictionaries and bibliographies. The University of Chicago’s Logeion website allows searching across eight Latin dictionaries, including the Dictionary of Medieval Latin from British Sources. Medievalists I know rely on J. F. Niermeyer’s Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, which is available for download on Internet Archive. It is particularly useful in being a trilingual dictionary: Latin, French, and English. Be warned, it is a hefty file. Also helpful is the Dictionary of Renaissance Latin from Prose Sources. It too is trilingual and is available online via subscription from Brill.

• Translation not only plays its important traditional role as the means that allows us access to literature originally written in one of the countless languages we cannot read, but it also represents a concrete literary presence with the crucial capacity to ease and make more meaningful our relationships to those with whom we may not have had a connection before. Translation always help us to know, to see from a different angle, to attribute new value to what once may have been unfamiliar (Edith Grossman).

Rocke (2018) - Englishing Kopp

• Abstract: This essay describes the complexities, challenges, and pleasures of translating from German into English a charming fantasy about the world of molecules, published in 1882 by the chemist and historian Hermann Kopp (1817–1892).

• The final issue is a perennial one that every translator faces: the tension between literal translation versus graceful expression, all in the service of the most faithful and accurate possible reproduction of the text. By “faithful and accurate,” I mean achieving the closest possible approach to identity in the destination language of the denotations, the connotations, the overall sense, and the tone of the language of the original. Too close adherence to literality can lead to careless “false friend” missteps, inauthentic awkward constructions, and merely partial equivalencies. On the other hand, too great liberties with the text can introduce an idea, a connotation, or a tone that does not appear in the original. Of course, innumerable decisions in translating are simply questions of judgment and taste, over which authorities may reasonably differ. [...] My sense is that translators tend to commit the fault of excessive literality more often than taking excessive liberty with the text. I agree with Deborah Smith’s comment that one must at times be willing to commit “an infidelity for the sake of a greater fidelity.”

Hentschel & Hentschel (2018) - Translating in the history of science

• Abstract: A translator and her science consultant, who have worked together on many books, consider the problems of translating primary and secondary texts in science. Various problems encountered in translating an ongoing documentary edition in the history of science are discussed using the collected works of Albert Einstein as a test case. For instance, each language has its own preferred sentence structure; moreover, not every historical term finds a perfect equivalent in modern usage, and historical accuracy is contextually bounded.

• In such problematic cases a general knowledge of the context is often more helpful than a magnifying glass. That’s where the consultant to the translation series comes in. The ideal is someone not only conversant with the terminology and the science but also with its history, particularly for the correspondence. As a native German historian of physics, Klaus could quickly resolve some of the ambiguous idiomatic phrases or misreadings in the draft transcriptions as well. In some instances, they were simply misinterpretations of a crucial pronoun’s gender. In other instances, it was a matter of scientific terminology. A single letter can make all the difference: Was it really “Ektropie,” not “Entropie”? Given no annotations and a draft copy full of gaps and sometimes with blatant transcription blunders, disimprovements are quickly made and not so easily caught afterward.

• Correspondence about science-in-the-making inevitably uses varying terminology. A proper name is often part of a proto-term, making reference to the author of the idea or new method. In most instances, such designations last the longest in the native country of the individual concerned. “Röntgenstrahlen” is an obvious example. It is still in general use in Germany, in proud recognition of the German Nobel laureate, even though he himself chose to use “X-Strahlen,” which now prevails in English as “x-rays” (except perhaps in medicine). The scientific community as a whole tends to move toward more descriptive terminology in translation, especially when the origin of the discovery is no longer considered relevant. Halpern-Streuung, first described by the Austrian Otto Halpern, is known among English speakers as “photon-photon scattering.” This must be borne in mind when considering how to translate a term. The first translation volume of Einstein’s collected papers explicates: “Many technical expressions used in the original documents are outdated. Wherever possible, we have not replaced them by the modern English ones; instead, we have used the expressions employed in the technical literature of the time, if known, or provided a literal translation”.

• One cannot have it both ways: we must opt for either historical accuracy and context boundedness or an anachronistic fit with current terminology. For example, the omnipresent “photon” has a long and complicated conceptual history only partly intertwined with Einstein’s “Lichtquantum” and with various intricate models of light. Although of course closely related, the two terms are not completely interchangeable. As a matter of fact, Einstein himself never once used the term “photon” in his own writings, even though he had lived in Princeton since his emigration to the United States in 1933. Anachronous terminology in translations of historical scientific texts can therefore lead to mistaken historical assumptions and new myths. In the case of evolving vocabulary, “obliteration by incorporation”—in other words, anonymous appreciation and incorporation of valid ideas—dissimulates the provenance. Even if we disregard the subtly changing meanings of the terms “photon” and “light quantum” over time, their usage in the literature may still be arbitrary. In his recent book about the history of the photon, Klaus compared the occurrences of these two terms in titles published in professional journals in the past century. But he found it necessary to restrict the analysis to articles in English in order to arrive at somewhat reliable statistics. Mentions in other languages would have distorted the figures because the bibliographic translations were inconsistent. Evidently, as soon as one transgresses the language barrier, the data pool becomes murky.

• When a pretty young woman sitting next to Albert Einstein at dinner during an international conference answered his polite inquiry, “And what do you do?” with “I’m a simultaneous interpreter,” his spontaneous reaction was “Oh, what a pity! That’s such a self-effacing profession.” Translators must be equally committed to their cause

Reeves & Van Helden (2018) - Translating Galileo's and Scheiner's letters on sunspots.

• Abstract: This essay concerns the authors’ translation of the debate between the Jesuit astronomer Christoph Scheiner and Galileo Galilei in 1611–1612, published as On Sunspots by the University of Chicago Press in 2010. In offering an account of their experience as translators, and of the intellectual aims and unforeseen complications of this project, they have focused on two particular issues. The first is that of the asymmetrical linguistic environment of this epistolary exchange: Galileo’s Tuscan was accessible and congenial to his patron and primary audience but not to his German rival, who was forced to rely on translations and to respond in the more cumbersome idiom of scholarly Latin. The second concern lay with the often problematic translation of the solar images themselves, central to this debate, from various media to print. Here they encountered both the subterfuges of the protagonists and the fiscal concerns, understandable and ultimately manageable, of their own publisher.

Blåsjö & Hogendijk (2018) - On translating mathematics

• Abstract: Mathematical texts raise particular dilemmas for the translator. With its arm’s-length relation to verbal expression and long-standing “mathematics is written for mathematicians” ethos, mathematics lends itself awkwardly to textually centered analysis. Otherwise sound standards of historical scholarship can backfire when rigidly upheld in a mathematical context. Mathematically inclined historians have had more faith in a purported empathic sixth sense—and there is a case to be made that this is how mathematical authors have generally expected their works to be read—but it is difficult to pin down exact evidentiary standards for this supposed instinct. This essay urges that both of these points of view, for all the tension between them, be kept in the historian’s toolbox. It illustrates these considerations with a case study from the Ptolemaic astronomical tradition on computing lunar model parameters from eclipse data.

• Mathematics has an uneasy relationship with language. Geometry is intrinsically visual rather than verbal, while algebraic texts often use more symbols than words. One has the sense that mathematics, perhaps more than any other field, is in its essence far removed from immediate textual expression. Written mathematics is an imperfect proxy for mathematical thought itself; it has to be thoroughly digested before it transmutes into the intended idea in the reader’s mind. Perhaps this is why mathematicians in every age have stuck to the most formulaic prose and produced voluminous tomes composed solely of combinations of a small set of stock phrases.

• This apathetic attitude to the written word, which is arguably nearly universal among mathematicians, makes the classic letter-versus-spirit dilemma in literary translation especially problematic in mathematics. It is one thing to try to strike a balance between literal and essence translation when the author of the original took pride in both. It is quite another to try to decide what to do with literal aspects that the author openly held were merely a pale and incidental shadow of his actual point. One might almost consider mathematical thought a nonverbal language unto itself, so that the textual expression of it is already a translation even in the original—a translation, furthermore, from a nonverbal language into a written one, and hence across a much greater conceptual divide than that between verbal languages to be bridged in any subsequent translation of the written text.

• And so the translator and interpreter of historical mathematics has to grapple with a paradox. On the one hand, the text is all we have. It is the evidence. As historians, we are obligated, virtually by definition, to treat the text as the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. But if the above picture is accurate, and even the primary text is in a sense truly a secondhand account, then our professional pride in being sensitive to the subtlest nuances of the text may even be directly counterproductive. From this point of view, perfect textual sensitivity—that methodological cornerstone of our field—may, ironically, amount to the same thing as a widely renounced cardinal sin of our profession: namely, drawing inferences from incidental aspects of a translation without consulting the original with understanding.

• Again, modern historians take pride in being sensitive to “actors’ ” ways of thinking, which is typically taken to mean giving primacy to the text and avoiding any anachronistic terminology or extraneous concepts. But the assumption that perfect textual sensitivity is equivalent to perfect sensitivity to actors’ thought is a problematic one—and especially so in mathematics, if there is any truth to what we said above. So we have another paradox on our hands: professional standards of our field designed to ensure certain ends can quite plausibly be construed as directly at odds with those very ends. Being sensitive to the text can mean being sensitive to the author’s thought—but can potentially also mean being insensitive to it, insofar as that sensitivity is directed at modes of expression that the author considered unimportant.

• This divide tracks disciplinary lines. The scientist seeks to unify and idealize; the humanist thrives on nuance. The scientist is trained never to “multiply causes,” the humanist always to “problematize”—the two are virtually opposites. Mathematicians studying history often develop a strong sense of kinship with historical mathematicians and become convinced that they have an empathic sense of those mathematicians’ thinking that transcends centuries and superficial differences Scholars trained in history, on the other hand, view such an approach with great suspicion and instead “take as their working assumption, a kind of null-hypothesis, that there is a discontinuity between mathematical thought of the past and that of the present.” The underlying point—that one must try to approach historical sources without preconceived ideas—is no doubt a prudent one. But then again, the a priori assumption that the development of mathematical thought is fundamentally discontinuous is itself a preconceived notion. Both approaches—that of the mathematician and that of the historian—have their assumptions and potential pitfalls.

• The different “null hypotheses” of the mathematician and the historian lead to opposite strategies for delineating the meaning of terms in historical texts. The mathematician tries to find the smallest natural category that fits the evidence. The assumption that, whatever the meaning is, it must be something that we can construe in ways natural to us is a leap of faith, but one that the mathematician takes to be true until proven otherwise. The historian instead admits only what can be strictly proven from explicit textual evidence, regardless of whether the total conception so formed seems unnatural or artificially restricted. Thus the mathematician potentially overestimates similarities between ancient texts and modern conceptions, while the historian potentially underestimates them.

• One could argue that the use of altered mathematical notation in a translation is sometimes equally innocent, not to mention equally helpful in eliminating major obstacles to readability. The aversion to using modern notation is based largely on the assumption that differences in form of expression reflect lays of thinking that differ in functionally significant ways. Although this is sometimes the case, we should not close our minds to the possibility that sometimes it is not, just as the absence of spacing in Greek manuscripts does not imply that the ancient Greeks inhabited a conceptual universe ignorant of the notion of words as distinct units. [...] While the former [mathematics approach] may erase historical differences, the latter [historical approach] runs the risk of perceiving conceptual differences where there are none.

• Autores utilizam um cálculo astronômico presente no Almagesto de Ptolomeu e no manuscrito de  Taqi al-Din ibn Ma'ruff.

• Some historians of Greek mathematics have insisted that translations should be made very literally, in order not to read modern concepts into the ancient texts.15 In their view, it is misleading to render the rectangle contained by LD and DM as LD*DM, because in the orthodox Euclidean view LD andDMare line segments, not numbers, and therefore cannot be multiplied as numbers. [...] Blurring the distinction between line segments and numbers is precisely the alleged danger in using notation such as the multiplication dot and the exponent 2 for the square. But the case for upholding this distinction is greatly undermined when Ptolemy himself switches freely between the geometrical and arithmetical viewpoints. Taqi al-Din operates similarly; like Ptolemy, he has no qualms about equating segments to numbers.

• This illustrates our point about the mathematical versus the humanistic-historical ways of getting at the meaning of mathematical texts. Had Ptolemy given the general “algebraic” description only, the extent to which he thought of this in numerical or geometrical terms would be open to interpretation. And since the language is geometrical, the historian’s approach would require us to play it safe and say that we have no basis for inferring that Ptolemy’s notion went beyond a geometrical context. The mathematician’s view, on the other hand, would be that this is surely algebra and that the geometrical language is simply a textual artifact that is conceptually incidental. This is inferred on the basis of the mathematician’s intuitive empathic understanding of colleagues past and present. Accordingly, translations using algebraic symbolism have been commonplace among scholars with such inclinations. On the basis of the “algebraic” expression alone, the matter could not be definitively settled. Fortunately, in this case we also have the numerical part of the argument, showing that the mathematician’s sense was indeed correct. The historian’s view has to be updated in light of this additional information, and when this is done the two interpretations converge.

• Once again we see that Ptolemy places considerable faith in the reader to perceive mathematical ideas that go well beyond what is textually explicit. One might say that Ptolemy expects the reader to take the treatise as a starting point for probing thought that will give rise in the reader’s mind to the intended message, the text itself being merely a shadow of the idea it is meant to convey. In short, mathematical authors expect mathematical readers. This speaks in favor of not dismissing as historiographically naive the mathematician’s point of view in the interpretation and, consequently, the translation of historical texts.

Zhang (2018) - Translating history of science in China.

• Abstract: To understand the qualities of Western civilization and its modernity, to think about the future of humanity, and to understand how modern science was gestated in  western civilization: in the author’s view, these are the most important reasons to do history of science research in China. Study of the history of Western science in China is in its infancy, and there are great deficiencies leading to its lagging behind the international world of scholarship. In this situation, the most urgent task is to translate as soon as possible a batch of high quality and classic books in the field, to establish a basic academic platform for research in the history of science, and, once that foundation has been laid, to deepen our researches further. Given these considerations, this essay discusses why the author translates works on the history of science, how he chooses books for translation, and his experiences as a translator.

• A trend of learning from the West began toward the end of the Ming dynasty, and Western scientific and technological works began to be translated into Chinese. Since the 1980s, a number of Western traditional scientific and philosophical works have been translated into Chinese. However, in this process, a key link has been lost—namely, in-depth understanding of and reflection on the origin of Western science. Chinese scholars did not begin to investigate the gestation and development of science in the context of Western civilization with conscious attention until the end of the twentieth century. Then they started to translate works on the history of Western scientific thought, which were already abundant. However, study of the history of Western science in China has only just started, and there are great deficiencies, both inborn and acquired, leading to its lagging behind from an international perspective.

• In any age, the revival of an ideological field begins with the introduction and, if necessary, the translation of classic works. Given that academic research on the history of science has been undertaken in the West for more than a hundred years, our best approach is to sit down and learn what it has to offer. In the Chinese book market, original research and translated works on the history of Western science are very scarce indeed, and excellent ones are rarer still. This stands in strong contrast to the abundance of literature on the history of Western science available worldwide. Given this situation, the most urgent task is to translate a batch of high quality and classic books in the field as quickly as possible, to expand our horizon as much as we can, to establish a basic academic platform for research in the history of science, and, once that foundation has been laid, to deepen our researches further.

• Talent in history of science translation is very scarce, and one reason is the interdisciplinary character of the field. The translator needs to have some background in science, philosophy, religion, and history, and the work of translation also involves facility in Greek, Latin, German, French, Italian, and other languages—all of which requires the investment of a lot of time and energy.

• From a certain point of view, the study of the history of scientific thought in China has just begun, and the thought and philosophy behind science and technology themselves in China deserve further attention. In what sense we can talk about, and use, concepts like “science,” “technology,” “religion,” and “nature,” which were borrowed from the West, in the Chinese context needs further discussion and definition. Only by referring to each other can Eastern and Western culture see their respective advantages and disadvantages more clearly. Only by comparing Chinese and Western science and technology, as well as the civilizations to which they belong, by means of the principle of “seeking for differences while preserving similarities” rather than that of “seeking for similarities while preserving differences” can we learn to understand the respective characteristics of China and Western countries more completely.

• Seleção de livros:

1. Books that put scientific phenomena in the context of Western civilization and that explore, from the perspective of the history of thought and ideas, changes in worldview and the way in which those changes reflected the relationship between humans, God, and nature, thus revealing the philosophical, religious, cultural, and other ideological roots of science.
2. Books that focus on the relationship between science and the ultimate meaning and moral values of human beings.
3. Books that focus on introspection regarding and criticism of science and technology and modern industrial civilization.
4. Books that focus on the esoteric tradition.
5. Books that promote understanding of and reflection on Chinese culture through the study of the history of Western science.
6. Classic scientific books.
7. Popular scientific books.

• The most important thing in translation is to be earnest, careful, and responsible. Look up in dictionaries and on the Internet terminology that you do not understand, or ask the author or other experts, and do your best to understand and represent the original meaning as accurately as possible, all the while creating new expressions when necessary.

• For a good piece of translation in the history of science, making full use of the expressive capacity of modern Chinese is as important as your professional knowledge. In my case, the time spent on proofreading and on polishing the draft version usually accounts for at least half the time spent on a book. For any given passage, there may be many people who can almost understand it, but there are not many who can express it in fluent and accurate Chinese. I believe in simplicity. Clarity, simplicity, and fluency are the most important criteria for translation of works in the history of science.

• There are no shortcuts in translation. Every minute spent is reflected in the final translation. So I have had to race against time and sacrifice my other interests. When you feel unable to translate any more, you still have to tell yourself to stick to it. But the fun part is that translating a book not only teaches you a lot; a good translation also resonates with readers. When I see the reader benefiting from my translation, I feel that my hard work is rewarded.

• The account given above renders my understanding of, and experiences with, translating the history of science. Translation, essentially, is sharing. I am naturally fond of sharing, and I am keen to introduce others to what I think is good. About the specifics of day-to-day translation, I do not have much to say. Pressed to elaborate, I can only say that translation is a process in which practice makes perfect and persistence is important. I didn’t—and don’t—set specific goals for myself. I just hope to have as much free time as possible and to keep translating, one book after another. Translation is like walking. Each step costs only a little, but you can reach faraway places when you keep going. I am willing to devote my whole life to making my due contribution to China’s future research on the history of science, as well as its intellectual and cultural construction.

Tsu (2018) - Historians of science translating history of science

• Abstract: Every discipline of inquiry takes certain tasks for granted. They are not seen as the big questions that inspire and guide the field, even though they have been the practices that shape and imprint its deepest presuppositions. The question of translation, having been the focus of other humanist disciplines for decades, has come to the history of science only as of late. This essay, as a final review of the issues raised in a Focus section entitled “Historians of Science Translating the History of Science,” discusses the underlying struggle between elegant renditions and literal accuracy and opens up larger and comparative questions about the reflexive capacity of a discipline, its conditions for knowledge, and the historical mishaps and shared labor that can connect or thwart the process beyond local origins. The essay offers comparative cases in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century China as a counterpoint, where the Western history of science became world knowledge through unintended readership.

• The disciplinary difference between the literary scholar and the historian of science does not separate but puts them in a shared arena of making intellectual judgments. Where the literary translator takes liberties, the historian may have to think twice. For both, though, mastering the art of elegant rendering and literalness comes down to making the hard call of when to smooth words over and when to leave their pointy edges intact—or, to use a convenient shorthand, the elegance of “blur”  versus the literalness of “grit.”

• It was a rare, lengthy commentary on translation at a time when words and meanings were in new flux, as China tried to take in, within the span of a couple of decades, the vast body of scientific knowledge that took centuries to develop in Europe. The texts translated were secondhand to begin with, as they were mostly written by Jesuit and Protestant missionaries who were the main disseminators ofWestern science in China. The problem of equivalence arises not only from one language in dialogue with another, Fryer explained, but also from the rivalry between old and new meanings as languages scuffle.

• Padrões de Fryer para a tradução de novos termos:

1. Ought to be translations, where possible, and not mere transliterations;
2. If positively untranslatable must be transliterated by the most suitable Chine characters obtainable;
3. Ought to accord as far as possible with the general construction of the language;
4. Should be short and terse;
5. Must be accurately and clearly defined;
6. Must bear an analogy with all others of the calls they belong to.

• After the two previously published Focus sections, the question of the hegemony of global languages and science finally came down to the most overlooked actions on the ground. Acts of translation are not incidental to the discipline itself, part of the service performed, but at the core of how knowledge gets prepared for dissemination and what makes those conditions possible. From this, one hopes that the history of translation will be incorporated as part of the reflexive practice of the history of science and remain its rightful fellow traveler.