Articles and Stories

October 10, 2013

For the past couple of years, I have been practicing some yoga in the quiet environment of my home. I had never been particularly familiar with this discipline until some of my friends swore by it, claiming great benefits for their body and mind.

Perhaps because I have lived in the USA for a decade now, it made sense I would be more inclined to explore yoga videos in English, since that is the language I use the most in my daily life. Even though Spanish is my mother tongue, it has become my second language in terms of how often I use it on a regular basis, both at home and at work.

For those here in the USA that love and know Yoga well, it is not uncommon to hear foreign words such as “prana”, meaning “life force” in Sanskrit. The more I read about Yoga and surround myself with “Yogis”, the more I hear Sanskrit words describing abstract aspects of this practice. It made sense that, by importing a discipline from a different culture, certain words would remain in the original language, particularly when they are shorter than their translation and, therefore, faster to say.

The concept of “economy of language” refers to the tendency of speakers to communicate using the least amount of words. This got me thinking about what it would be like to go to a Yoga class where instructions are in Spanish instead of English. I am well aware that English is pretty effective in this, but Spanish…? Not so much.

Every year, I spend a month in Spain visiting relatives. Since this is a considerable amount of time to be away, one thing that helps me keep a healthy routine is to continue with my yoga exercises. After considering the possibility of going to a Yoga studio during my next visit to the Canary Islands, I wondered: are all the different names for poses in Spanish a translated equivalent of the names in English as I know them? Or do they perhaps try to find a shorter equivalent? Out of curiosity, I decided to explore the names of some of the basic Yoga positions, in their Sanskrit form as well as in their translated versions in both English and Spanish. No surprises here, as expected, English is the most “economic” linguistically:

Thankfully, the idea of trying to communicate the most content in the fewest amount of words is not an issue during a yoga class. Then again, if this class were in English and the instructor made a video that he or she wanted to dub into another language, such as Spanish, this is when “economy of language” might be relevant. You wouldn’t want a yoga video with an instructor dubbed in Spanish that seems to be out of breath while giving instructions; it would defeat its purpose.

When it comes to dubbing a yoga video into a foreign language, our teams rely on their ability to “economize” language in order to maintain the soothing pace of speech that characterizes yoga classes.  It requires careful evaluation of shorter alternatives that only professional translators and studios are qualified to suggest. The “prana” of good localization is in the tone and intent.