While COVID-19 has dispersed around the globe, governments have adopted this novel coronavirus’s characteristics and been forced to spread important messages designed to curb the circulation of the new disease. When considering each specific country, however, it pays to be mindful of the diversity of its population before painting them with a broad brush.
If there’s one thing we’ve learnt, especially during the pandemic, people are constantly on the move, setting up home in all corners of the globe. Countries such as the UK are not homogenous, but home to a multitude of communities, many of whom speak not just English but a variety of other languages too. A county’s political border is by no means a linguistic one.
During the pandemic, we have become all too aware of the need for accurate and up-to-date messaging to keep the general public safe and healthy, especially in a way people will understand or they risk falling through the cracks. According to the 2011 census, 7.7 per cent of people in England & Wales considered languages other than English as their main language. Let’s explore how the UK has helped translate its way through the pandemic and what it means for your business.
More than English
After English, the second-most-spoken language in England & Wales was estimated to be Polish, which was considered the main language by over half a million people, according to the 2011 census. This was followed by Punjabi, Urdu, Bengali and Gujarati. The popularity of these languages is reflective of the successive generations of inward migration of people from Eastern Europe, and South Asia. Many of these people now reside in urban areas like London, which is home to an estimated 250 languages, making it one of the most diverse cities on the planet.
If you were to start in Ealing, you would find evidence of the sizable Eastern European diaspora here, with shops bearing signs written in Polish. Take a train to the East End, and you begin to see the influence of South Asian communities in everything from shop fronts to street signs. Brick Lane is the best example of a street that has embraced its diversity. Gazing up at the street sign itself, you can’t help but notice the original name in English, followed by a Bengali transliteration, written in a distinctive script.
Brick Lane is considered the heart of the UK’s Bangladeshi community, and this has led to some affectionately calling it Banglatown. During the height of the first lockdown in 2020, however, these very streets fell silent, as countless others did, as shoppers stayed at home to limit the spread of COVID-19. In the early days of the pandemic, there was a narrative that the disease was a leveller, a shared experience we would all feel together.
The Impact of Language Beyond the Virus
However, as we know, many communities were hit harder than some, and language barriers may have been a crucial factor in all of this. In July 2020, a charity believed the UK Government had shown ‘no engagement’ on the matter of making sure public health information was translated into an adequate number of languages. The government claimed to have translated messages to a wide audience, and that it was not feasible to reach out to all communities before it was revealed they had just translated into 25 languages for public health literature. Campaigners have warned the languages the government had focused on were too narrow, which makes sense, considering it is estimated that 88 languages other than English are spoken in England and Wales regularly.
A lack of adequate translated messaging can have potentially harmful consequences on a human scale, as seen in Bradford, one of the UK’s most ethnically diverse cities. Bradford made headlines in late 2020 when it emerged that many locals who didn’t speak English were unable to understand the latest coronavirus guidelines, as the UK experienced the hard-hitting second wave of COVID-19 infections.
One local doctor, Dr Uzma Quereshi, told the BBC that this language barrier was putting peoples’ lives at risk. The BBC reported at that time that Bradford had one of the highest infection rates in the country during the autumn of 2020, with many local people becoming infected as they believed the risk of catching COVID-19 was exaggerated. In the absence of clear guidance, there was a danger many would fall between the cracks and resort to less reliable guidance elsewhere, which could put their health at risk.
A more thorough effort to ensure adequate translation of guidance might have made all the difference in communities such as Bradford, preventing people from turning to less reliable sources of information that underplayed the risk of catching the disease. Fortunately, organisations such as Doctors of the World have stepped in to provide COVID-19 guidance tailored to over 60 community languages, helping fill in some of the gaps left by the UK Government. Such tools are intended to help tackle the burning issue of health inequality, so that access to healthcare is assured, no matter what language someone speaks.
As we wrote previously, in the Difficulty and Importance of Medical Translation, adequate levels of translation would be necessary to ensure a successful distribution of COVID-19 vaccines.
Countries, Cultures & Context of COVID
While it is geographically true that the UK is an island country, culturally, it has deep ties to a range of countries and cultures all over the world, which bridge these geographic divides. However, an inability to cater to the dozens of languages spoken in the UK other than English poses a problem, unless localisation is undertaken.
The UK’s problem with making sure all communities are up to speed on the twists and turns of the COVID-19 pandemic is a lesson for businesses in how localisation doesn’t just extend to work overseas, but starts at home.
The UK is a melting pot of language and culture, and the long history of the English language is a lasting testament to this. Domestic localisation can often be highly effective, especially in parts of the UK where the communities can range from Eastern European to South Asian languages. Bubbles has experience translating over 280 languages, many of which are spoken in communities up and down the UK. The pandemic highlights how the importance of good translation can potentially be a matter of life and death.
For your business, picking the right translation partner can make the difference between resonating with a specific community or falling short completely. To learn more about the power of localisation, get in touch with Bubbles today.
