Translating rights: The Peruvian Languages Act in Quechua and Aymara

Abstract

New language rights legislation in Peru has triggered State training of indigenous translator-interpreters to work in public service and prior consultation settings. A spin-off of the training has been the translation of the text of the 2011 Languages Act from Spanish into a range of indigenous languages. This article focuses on the challenges of the translating process to Quechua and Aymara. These challenges were presented by the structural differences between source and target languages, the divergent conceptual systems that embed the original text and its translations, and the different trade-offs between orality and literacy of the cultural systems involved. Finally, issues concerning the relationship between the translators' cultural identities and the translation process arose; these are also addressed.