The Linguist

Chartered Institute of Linguists SPRING 2026 The Linguist 11 FEATURES The present designations of big cities like Lemberg are well-known (Lviv), but with smaller places it gets much trickier to find them on modern maps. Thankfully there are some handy tools available online that let you zoom in on century-old maps. Knowing the area where a family came from helps to know where on the map to look. Apart from old maps, passenger lists from immigration centres are a great resource for finding out names of people who travelled together, where they departed from or even on which ship they travelled. I enjoy this research part of my work tremendously and sometimes find myself spending far too long browsing these fascinating historical records just to confirm a particular name. Deeply personal Of course, language changes over time, and so does spelling (always a hot topic for Germanists). This applies to any older text, not just handwritten ones, but it is certainly a problem when you are trying to decipher a difficult text. I find myself thinking in the old language in order to imagine or predict what a particular word might be. For example, when translating a decree from the 1700s I know the text will be full of officialese, bursting with Latin terms and forms of humble address like Seine hochfürstliche Durchlaucht. It doesn't help when the spelling of a word is a challenge in itself. Whether it's the letters from an unschooled farmer's daughter who emigrated to the United States in the early 20th century or a church registry entry from the 1700s, the spelling is often very 'individual' and rarely follows any modern rules or conventions. Even a person's name can be written differently within the same document, for instance Schäfer can also be written as Schaefer or Schaeffer. Sometimes a client assumes their document is written in Sütterlin because to them it appears illegible, but that's not necessarily the case. My most challenging assignment to date was the diary of a Jewish father living in hiding during World War II. The notes were written in a small pocket diary in minute modern script littered with shorthand symbols, some official, some individual abbreviations. It had been rejected by several other translators for being impossible. But I like a challenge, and as I began to work my way through the document, I quickly realised which little squiggles could be articles and prepositions in front of nouns, so I started my own glossary. Using clues like 'onions, potatoes but no [xyz]', e.g, I deduced that 'xyz' probably stood for 'meat'. I would then use an online short-hand dictionary to look up 'meat' and confirm my suspicion. Slowly but surely, I became more familiar with the author's symbols and was eventually able to transcribe the whole diary. When translating handwritten material, be it the beautiful cursive of a child's hand or the hurried scribbles of a distraught parent, it's impossible not to imagine the author – the human being – behind it. Letters and diaries are by their very nature deeply personal, and one can't help but be affected. The letters I deal with are often full of despair and concern for either the recipient's or the author's personal safety. Some tales are heartbreaking and hard to read, let alone translate. My clients are usually aware of the circumstances in which the correspondence came about, but I sometimes feel the need to warn them if they are about to receive some particularly painful details. Equally, I share their disappointment when the letters don't reveal the missing details in their parent's or grandparent's life they were hoping to find. So, the challenges involved in translating handwritten documents are truly manifold – technically and sometimes emotionally too. But I relish the practical ones and embrace the emotional ones because I value the personal connection they bring, and I feel privileged to be trusted with such a delicate task. I know that my translations are treasured and have a real impact. Much has been written, in this magazine and elsewhere, about the blessing and curse that is AI in translation. This is less of a pressing issue for handwritten documents, especially those penned in Sütterlin or Kurrent. Transcription software for handwriting is still in its infancy and I have not been impressed by the results provided by the models I have tried. Given the negligible commercial relevance of the material in question, thankfully, for puzzle-lovers like me, there seems little financial incentive to invest in more powerful algorithms, and so for now at least, my job seems relatively secure. HISTORICAL IMPORTANCE (Left-right) An example of Sütterlin from a book published in 1905; a diary Carolin worked on for a client; and imprisoned resistance fighter Kurt Huber wrote a book while awaiting execution, which was typed and published posthumously

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