Translating the Universal Declaration on Archives: working with archival traditions and languages across the world

Abstract

Translating archival concepts used in the Universal Declaration on Archives into languages with varying archival traditions is challen- ging. It is essential to make the UDA understandable for the general public without altering the meaning of the original text while ensuring coherence with archival practices in all countries where the target language is spoken. Twelve translators were surveyed on the translation of key UDA terms: archives, archivists, records, memory and open access. They reported on archival terminology resources and strategies they used to resolve difficulties in translating English or French archival terminology into languages that do not possess precisely equiva- lent concepts.