While Khamseen started as an English-language scholarly resource for Islamic art, architecture, and visual culture, we aspire to create content available in other languages. Making our platform more accessible is a work in progress, and this endeavor includes translating talks and pedagogical materials into multiple languages.
We have started this process by translating the summaries of our videos. The majority of the synopses for Topic talks can already be accessed in several languages, including Arabic, Persian, Turkish, French, and German. If, for example, you look at this presentation on Latin American mosques by Caroline Olivia Wolf, you’ll see that its synopsis is available in five languages other than English. The translated synopses will allow non-English speakers to understand the content of each talk with greater ease and speed. Yet, this is only the beginning of our translation project.
In addition to the multilingual synopses, we also have started to translate our talks’ closed captions. You can now watch Alex Dika Seggerman’s video on Mahmoud Mukhtar’s Khamasin: Sculpture in Modern Egypt with Arabic closed captions, by navigating the video player’s CC options. Soon we will add a second video with closed captions in Persian, and this will be followed by a talk in Turkish to be posted later this year.
Teachers, students, and general audiences can also make use of worksheets in English and other languages. The first bilingual worksheet was developed for Seggerman’s talk on Mahmoud Mukhtar’s sculpture, mentioned above. Please take a look at the English and/or Arabic worksheets that accompany this presentation. And further non-English worksheets are in the works!
Beyond closed caption translations, soon Khamseen will offer full talks spoken in languages other than English. The first of these will be Negar Habibi’s presentation of the term “farangi.” A new, fully translated video post page is currently being built for Persian speakers and language learners. This new version goes beyond translated closed captions as it will also include dubbing, making it possible to both read and listen to the presentation’s text in Persian.
Additionally, a language learning worksheet has been developed for users who teach or study Persian. The soon-to-launch language learning worksheet for “farangi,” for example, provides a list of key vocabulary as well as a set of questions—in English and Persian—focusing on terms, concepts, and overall comprehension. It thus can be used by Persian-speakers to improve their English, and English-speakers to strengthen their Persian.
Khamseen’s translation project soon will host its first Turkish-language talk on the term “hilye,” which has been prepared by Aslıhan Erkmen. Like other talks, it will be accompanied by a Turkish-language worksheet and other pedagogical materials.
During this first stage of translation, we have focused on Arabic, Persian, and Turkish, three languages that are widely spoken in the Islamic world. However, we will expand our translation efforts in the future to include various other languages, such as Chinese and Spanish, while also hoping to develop content in other Islamicate languages such as Bahasa, Urdu, and Swahili. Please watch this space for more news as our project continues to develop!
As always, we are grateful to our team of translators, who help us bring Khamseen’s content to our international audiences. We couldn’t do it without them!
Hindu and Muslim Scholars Translate the Mahabharata from Sanskrit into Persian, Razmnama (Book of War), Mughal, northern India, 1599 CE. Free Library of Philadelphia, Lewis M. 18.
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