A vast volume of translated material, including legal material, from and into English, and of widely varying quality, gets produced. Some of it is abysmal.

One must say at the outset that the translation of legal material from Italian to English presents particular difficulties.

First, and most importantly, the civil law and common law systems are fundamentally different, reflecting their historic roots and development and the culture and way of thinking of the nations in question. This is true of Italy par excellence. Where the Anglo Saxon approach is essentially pragmatic and direct with emphasis on the facts, the Latin is schematic and intellectual.

Italian legal writing – judgments, legal argument, articles in law reviews and academic works, to which, incidentally, much importance is given – is expressed in abstractions (with a scattering of Latin) and in the long, convoluted sentences to which the language and its grammar lend themselves. This immediately makes translation into readily comprehensible English difficult.

The translator must wrestle with the wording in order to arrive at the exact concept that the writer wished to convey, bearing in mind that every word serves a particular purpose, will have been chosen with care for its implications, and is not to be overlooked in the interests of simplification – tempting though this may be. The translator has the job to put it all across.

Then the translator must take into account the differences in the two legal systems, which is most marked in the traditional areas such as succession, property and procedural law. Reforms and European directives have done a certain amount to harmonize; however, Italians have a propensity to adopt English words and phrases without really understanding their implications, and this can be misleading. More often than not there is no exact equivalent in English of an Italian legal term, and the translator will have to use an expression formed of more than one word that conveys the meaning, or the nearest English equivalent, such as “life interest” for “usufrutto”, and, if necessary, provide an explanatory footnote. Unless they are an Italian lawyer, they should have the Civil Code, the Code of Civil Procedure and any other relevant legislation to hand in order to be sure they has fully understood.

Much use is made of acronyms. For example, “CTU” is an official technical consultant, one appointed by the court, and “CTP” is one appointed by one of the parties; as another example, “TUIR” is the consolidated income tax legislation. Such abbreviations abound and the translator must get them right.

Then the translator must be sufficiently conversant with the legal system whose terms they are using. English/Italian legal or business dictionaries are usually inadequate, as they may give alternatives between which the translator may have difficulty in choosing and are often too generic and necessarily succinct. An exception is the late Prof. de Franchis’ very excellent English-Italian legal dictionary published by Giuffré, Milan, in 1984, in which English legal terminology is explained, often at some length, to Italian users. Though in one direction only, it is nevertheless useful as a check that the right English term has been selected. Nor should one overlook the European Commission’s website, eur-lex.europa.eu/n-lex, for the translation of words used in EU directives.

Unfortunately one comes across all too many inept, careless or approximate translations, or in which the translator has gone to an ordinary Italian-English dictionary and taken the wrong word. An example is the word “perizia” which means, inter alia, skill or expertise, and also refers to an expert report, valuation or assessment made by a “perito” or expert; more than once such a report has been found mistranslated as “the expertise”, which is nonsense. As another example, a British engineering company was once served with proceedings by an Italian engineering company concerning patent rights, in which the accompanying English translation referred consistently to “the actress”, which mystified them, since there was no connection with the theatre or cinema. The explanation was that the Italian word “attore” means an actor and also a plaintiff or claimant, one who brings an action, and since that party was a company, or “società”, a word in the feminine gender, the feminine form was used.

This is apart from the so-called false friends, traps for young players, that any translator must watch out for, such as “eventuale” which refers not to something likely to happen in due course but rather means “possible” or “any”. In the legal context the list is almost endless: for example “rappresentante legale” in relation to a company is not its “legal representative”, i.e. its lawyer or counsel, but the official representative, if no-one else, the chairman or president, who formally signs in the company’s name in accordance with the company’s constitution or board resolutions, and whose signature is filed with the business registry, a concept not found in British company law and that of countries who have followed it. It is an institutional function, insofar as a company cannot be without such a representative.

“Sede legale” is another, not “legal seat” but the registered office of a company. “Domicilio” is not domicile in the common-law sense of the country of ones permanent home, but the centre of ones interests; it may also be an address appointed for specific purposes, in proceedings an address for service, in practice being that party’s lawyer’s office; similarly a director will often be said to be “domiciliato” for the purposes of his appointment at the company’s registered office. “Sentenza” is not a sentence in criminal proceedings but simply a judgment, any judgment. These are but random examples that illustrate how misleading or confusing a translation by someone insufficiently qualified may be.

Finally, the translation from English to Italian may produce problems, albeit of a different order. An Italian lawyer, himself no mean linguist, once wanted to know the difference between “money owing” (active) and “money owed” (passive) in a bank document. Any offers?

David B Macfarlane, solicitor

Maka Language Consulting
www.makaitalia.com