Publishing Multilingually: The United Nations, Machine Translation, and Global Efforts Toward Linguistic Diversity

This report examines the importance of multilingualism in publishing, taking into consideration the reasons for difficulties in translating publications — including historical precedents and such practical constraints as budgeting and staffing — and assessing ways of overcoming these difficulties. Translation and its related considerations are discussed in the context of the New York-based publications unit of the United Nations, which has both a motivation and stated desire to publish multilingually, but due to various obstacles is not always able to do so. Proposed solutions include the effective use of emerging technological tools, in addition to efforts at shifting societal and industry attitudes away from an anglocentric paradigm.