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thelinguist.uberflip.com JUNE/JULY The Linguist 7 FEATURES A s we approach the centenary of the outbreak of the Arab Revolt in 1916, during WWI, it is interesting to reflect on two language aspects of the ensuing international negotiations: the emergence of conference translating and interpreting, and the potential linguistic impact of T E Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia) on the post-Ottoman Empire settlements of 1919-23. The professions of conference translating and interpreting are now so well established that it is worth recalling that they are less than 100 years old, dating back to the Paris Peace Conference that began in January 1919 and the International Labour Conference in Washington D.C. later that year. 1 At the Paris conference, Lawrence had a close involvement with the Arab delegation led by Prince Faisal (later to be King of Iraq). Lawrence was also well known as a participant in and supporter of the Arab Revolt, an advocate for Arab unity, and a conflicted personality, torn between his British/imperial and Arab loyalties. In the discussions that preceded the conference, it was clear that English was being admitted on an equal footing to French, and both were to become the official languages of the League of Nations. The standing orders noted that speeches in French would be summarised in English, and vice versa, by an interpreter belonging to the secretariat of the conference. A delegate might speak in his own language, but the delegation had to provide the translation of a summary into one of the two official languages, which would then be rendered into the other official language by a secretariat interpreter. More than the Paris conference, the ILO conference in October 1919 needed a professional service. It was attended not only by diplomats and government representatives, whose linguistic skills were taken for granted, but also by delegates of employers' and Interpreting in 1919 and Lawrence of Arabia's work at the Paris Peace Conference. By Nicholas Bowen A perpetual adventure DUAL ROLE Prince Faisal (front) and his party, including Lawrence (on the prince's right) at the Paris Peace Conference As Faisal and the Arab delegation prepared for the conference, they relied a great deal on Lawrence's linguistic skills, as both a translator and an interpreter, in mediating between Arabic, English and French. From a number of Arabic (and other) sources, it seems that his command of Arabic was rather exaggerated; as Dr Haseeb Hadeed has commented: Tout d'abord, il n'a pas étudié la langue arabe dans ses bases (construction, grammaire, orthographe) mais il a seulement appris le langage parlé au contact des travailleurs… Son arabe est un mélange de différents dialectes et cette imperfection reconnue ne lui permet pas de parler couramment l'arabe. 2 The Paris Peace Conference created several institutions to be tools of a new diplomacy by conferences: the League of Nations, the Permanent Court of International Justice and the International Labour Organization (ILO). This meant the end of the virtual monopoly of French as the language of diplomacy and the presence of more professional interpreters mediating between languages.