News and Events

2005 Media Releases

Handling Hills Hoists and Hogan in Hindi

There are inherent difficulties in translating information about Australia—particularly aspects of our lifestyle and language—into a culturally distant language like Hindi.

‘Chuck another shrimp on the barbie’, presents some social as well as interpretation problems and explaining to Indians in one of their major tongues such icons as the Victa motor mower and the Hills Hoist require conceptual and linguistic gymnastics.

Such tasks were among the problems recently confronting the La Trobe University translation team of associate lecturer Dr Peter Friedlander of the Asian Studies Program and Indian exchange student Ms Manu Arya.

Dr Friedlander, who speaks fluent Hindi, and Ms Arya, on exchange from the Lady Shri Ram College in New Delhi, won a $20,000 grant to translate Radio Australia’s 30,000 word website on Australia into Hindi.

The Australia-India Business Council funded the translation of the website designed to make Australia better known on the Indian sub continent and to provide information for Indian students considering studying in Australia.

Hindi is the largest Indian language with 240 million speakers. In its spoken form, it is virtually identical to Urdu which has a further 180 million speakers in India and Pakistan.

Radio Australia and the National Centre for Australian Studies prepared the website’s original English version and it was decided to translate it into Hindi and Chinese.

‘The Hindi translation was the longest and most complex task of this nature we have faced, at least during my time at La Trobe University,’ said Dr Friedlander who is Coordinator of Distance Hindi and Buddhism courses.

However the task was completed on time and the site was officially opened in Hindi last December after Dr Friedlander and Ms Arya had spent almost a year on the tricky translation.

‘While the major part of the site contained straight forward basic information and was relatively easy to translate, the site also contained transcripts of 13 half hour episodes of the ABC radio show, Australia Now as part of its Open University segment,’ Dr Friedlander said.

‘Various programs involved aspects of Australian popular culture. One included a discussion about the opening ceremony of the Sydney Olympic Games which featured such things as motor mowers, corrugated iron, surfboards and horsemen wearing Akubras and Drizabones.

‘Other programs presented characters like Paul Hogan and his famous ‘Throw another Shrimp on the Barbie’ television advertisement and monologues by Dame Edna Everage.

‘In many instances, literal translations were simply impossible because much Australian slang, if translated word for word, has no meaning whatsoever in another language.

‘And imagine the problems in explaining the cultural significance of a Hills Hoist clothes line, a motor mower, the Akubra hat and the Drizabone horseman’s coat!

‘We found that even subjects like sheep farming in Victoria’s Western District required explanation because Indians at home have no concept of the size and function of huge agricultural properties.’

La Trobe had another connection with the website. It includes interviews with La Trobe University academic staff members including Professors Robin Jeffrey and John Fitzgerald.

For further information:

Please contact Dr Peter Friedlander, Tel: +61 3 9479 2064, or La Trobe University Marketing and Communications Division, Tel: +61 3 9479 2316.