Publishing Sector TranslationThe First Records of Publishing TranslationTo this day there is still very little finite data for the sector of publishing translation, despite the invention of the ‘Index Translationum.’

One of the most comprehensive search engines for literary translation, the Index Translationum, was established in Geneva in 1931 by the League of Nations and is now under the control of UNESCO.

The Index Translationum received worldwide popularity since it began in 1931 and has now become fully ‘digitised.’

Publishing Translation Business Highs

The Most Popular Translation Source Languages

English FrenchGerman

SpanishItalian Swedish

Russian

Japanese

80% of the world’s translated material is published in Europe, with literature translations reportedly even higher.

there was a big increase in titles translated from English. 1990’sIn the early

there was a gap of almost 200% between translations using English as a source language and translations from the next most popular 25 languages.In 1996

The annual number of literature titles translated from English in Europe just before the year 2000. 20,000

10,000 The number of titles translated from the next most popular 25 source languages in the same period.

Why is English so popular as a source language for translations, and yet translations with English as the target language are not as popular?

• The global influence of American culture• The use of American English as the international language of business• ‘Multi-culturalism’ in Britain already provides inhabitants with a sense of other cultures

without resorting to foreign literature• You can read literature about other cultures written by countrymen using the English

language. Why distance yourself from an author through translation when you can get experience their authorship first hand in your own language?

• This may change as foreign language literature and more intense language training is introduced into the national education system.

Literature Translation and Politics

40.000 The number of literature titles translated per year globally, with this number already reached in Europe a few years ago.

Over the years, political movements have played a significant role in the statistics of literature translations:

During the rise of the Fascist regime, Italy was publishing more translated literature than any other country in the world. Political propaganda played a huge part in raising these figures in the 1930s.

The Russian language saw a marked decline in literary translations following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, to a low of just 600 literary titles per year. In the last decade, however, Russian regained some of its popularity, and has since maintained figures about 600.

After the fall of the Berlin wall, English played a larger role in the publications of East and West Germany, with figures beginning to spike in 1990.

Literature Title Translations from 1990 – 2005Literature titles translated from English rose from 13,500 in 1990 to almost 25,000 in 2005

The number of literature titles translated from the next most popular 25 languages went from 10,000 in 1990 to just under 14,000 in 2005.

All other languages continuously appeared around the 1000 mark.

The Da Vinci Code Effect

11,500Fiction books published in the UK every year.

1.8%of the fiction published in the UK had been translated.

24%The output of translated published fiction in Spain.

With the arrival of Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code, Spanish translations of the title became the best selling Spanish translation of fiction ever recorded.

Usually, the US sells between 15,000 and 20,000 copies of fiction, which has been translated into Spanish

“El Codigo Da Vinci” sold more than 300,000 copies in America alone, causing publishers to start marketing English and Spanish titles at the same

time.