The Linguist

24 The Linguist Vol/60 No/4 2021 thelinguist.uberflip.com REVIEWS There are an estimated 272 million international migrants around the world, equivalent to 3.5% of the world's population. Most of them leave their home countries for work reasons, but millions are driven away due to conflict, violence and climate change. Migration has become a highly charged political issue, but it remains a subject that is poorly understood, tending to generate radical confrontation rather than constructive debate. Translation and Transmigration sets out to cast some light on this through a detailed analysis of the challenges and difficulties faced by migrants, and the linguistic, cultural and semiotic flux in which they live. The term 'translation', as used in this book, refers both to interlinguistic translation and to the broader concept of cultural transformation. People who move from one linguistic/cultural sphere to another for a length of time – whether by choice like the book's author or forcibly like refugees – live 'in translation'. The book is structured around three key areas: migrants themselves, hospitality and borders. Geographical borders logically play a fundamental role in transmigration, as barriers which both divide and unite; which keep out but also allow in. Migrants must cross them not only physically but also culturally and linguistically, just as translations cross borders between languages, sometimes with powerful political and ethical implications. Hospitality is shown to be contradictory, involving the acceptance of immigrants but only under certain conditions. Compassion for the impoverished refugee and fear of 'the other' co-exist in the recipient community. Siri Nergaard reflects on the apparent preference in our societies for the static over the mobile, for the rooted citizen over the incoming foreigner (and, by extension, for the unalterable original over the changeable translation). In addition to offering a broad picture of the societal and linguistic issues that migration involves, Translation and Transmigration contains a lengthy reflection on what it means to live outside one's home country in a multilinguistic state of virtually permanent translation. It provides us with a valuable and timely framework for considering how these crucial issues, which affect communities all over the world, can be addressed and resolved. Ross Smith MCIL Early alphabets and writing systems are endlessly fascinating. Egyptian hieroglyphs are a thing of beauty, while Akkadian and Sumerian cuneiform tablets contain huge amounts of data about lost civilisations. Writing systems used in the Americas have generally attracted less interest, not least because there are so few clues as to how the Inca knotted string system, the quipu, could be used to run a whole empire. Stone pillars and buildings covered in complex half-legible hieroglyphs, left by the Maya in the depths of the jungles of Central America, stirred the imagination of 19th-century travellers. However, only in the last 50 years have so many inscriptions been deciphered. These focus on the exploits of kings and the founding of cities. Texts (the codices) do exist, but the conquistadors destroyed many as works of the devil. In contrast, Aztec writing survived the conquest by nearly a century. The Spanish were interested in these civilisations. Missionaries focused on the local language, Nahuatl (still spoken by nearly two million people today), to help in the process of evangelisation. However, Aztec records also Thames and Hudson 2021, 224 pp; ISBN 9780520380370; Paperback £25 provided valuable information concerning the tributes which were being paid by subject tribes. In addition, for some years after the invasion, Aztec writing developed a way of dealing with topics of a more Hispanic nature. Today, the details of genealogies, conquests by ruling kings, and major events such as the founding of the great temple in the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan, have proved to be of greater interest to modern historians. We now know that what was assumed to be a rather simple set of pictograms actually includes phonetic, syllabic and pictorial symbols, which enable far more information to be presented. Deciphering Aztec Hieroglyphs: A guide to Nahuatl writing offers a groundbreaking study of writing in the language, beginning with the role of the scribe in Aztec society. Over 300 illustrations in full colour provide a fascinating range of examples, which show how information could be contained in a single glyph. The fact that the one for 'leg' has ten possible readings is indicative of how complex the writing system really is. Professor Tim Connell Hon FCIL Translation and Transmigration Siri Nergaard Routledge 2021, 208 pp; ISBN 9781138543683; Paperback £27.99 Deciphering Aztec Hieroglyphs Gordon Whittaker

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