Looking for expert Rakhine translation services? Since 2003, Green Crescent has been delivering professional translation services between English and Rakhine to clients worldwide. We specialize in various industries, including legal, technical, marketing, and business sectors. Our team ensures precise, high-quality translations tailored to your unique needs. Get a fast, free Rakhine translation quote today!
Our Comprehensive Rakhine Translation Services
Green Crescent’s skilled team of Rakhine translators includes subject matter experts for industry-specific needs. We provide translations tailored to the unique linguistic characteristics of Rakhine, covering all dialects and regional variations, ensuring cultural and contextual accuracy.
- Standard Rakhine
- Regional Rakhine variations across Myanmar
We specialize in both English to Rakhine and Rakhine to English translations, offering the following services:
Simple Translation
Our simple translations in the English/Rakhine language pair are designed for basic communication needs. These translations are completed by a single Rakhine translator without the involvement of an editor or proofreader, and therefore should not be considered final or polished work for most professional or formal use cases. While they are typically of high quality, simple translations are essentially "rough drafts" that do not go through additional editing, proofreading, or other quality control processes. These translations are ideal for personal letters, informal communications, initial drafts that will later be revised, or for situations where you need to quickly understand the general meaning or "gist" of a Rakhine text.
Standard Translation (TEP)
Our Standard Rakhine Translation service is designed to provide high-quality translations for everyday use, including business correspondence, websites, reports, presentations, and similar content. This service includes translation, editing, and proofreading (TEP) to ensure the highest level of accuracy and clarity in your Rakhine communications.
Organization Critical Translation (TEP+)
Our Organization Critical Rakhine Translation service is designed for situations where precision is essential. This option is recommended for texts intended for large-scale printing, technical documents, legal contracts, medical documents, or any case where an error could be critical or costly. Each translated line is reviewed by a minimum of three linguists, with multiple rounds of proofreading. Subject matter experts (SMEs) may be involved as needed throughout the Rakhine translation, editing, and proofreading (TEP) process.
Bilingual Editing
Bilingual Editing for Rakhine Translation is the process of editing a translated text by comparing both the source and target texts in the English/Rakhine language pair. The editor, fluent in the source language and a native speaker of Rakhine, ensures that the translation is accurate, consistent, and faithful to the source text while also maintaining clarity and fluency in Rakhine. This step occurs after the initial translation in our TEP (Translation, Editing, Proofreading) Organization Critical and Standard Translation services. We also offer this service as a standalone option for translations completed by individuals or organizations not affiliated with Green Crescent.
Proofreading
With each additional round of editing and proofreading, the error rate of a document approaches perfection. Our proofreading service for English to Rakhine and Rakhine to English translations involves reviewing a single-language text to identify and correct surface-level errors, such as spelling mistakes, grammar issues, punctuation errors, and formatting inconsistencies. This step is the final phase in our TEP (Translation, Editing, Proofreading) Organization Critical and Standard translation services. We also offer proofreading as a standalone service for translations completed by individuals or organizations not affiliated with Green Crescent.
Legal Translation
Green Crescent's elite team of linguists, each with subject matter expertise in specialized legal fields, is ready to assist you with the translation of a wide range of judicial, administrative, and private legal documents between Rakhine and English. We can also implement enhanced security measures to ensure strict confidentiality upon request.
Technical Translation
Technical translations involve any text that features specialized vocabulary or language registers, necessitating additional research and terminology verification. Common technical subject matter includes legal, medical, scientific, engineering, and IT topics, but any text that utilizes industry-specific terminology or neologisms may be considered technical in nature. These translations require the expertise of linguists with in-depth knowledge of the relevant technical field in both Rakhine and English.
Medical Translation
Green Crescent provides professional Rakhine medical translations with a focus on accuracy and confidentiality. Our team of skilled linguists, specialized in medical terminology, ensures that your translations are both precise and secure.
Localization
Our translation services are tailored for specific target markets that require localized varieties of the Rakhine language. Green Crescent is equipped to ensure that your content resonates with the intended audience. Our experienced linguists provide translations that are not only accurate but also culturally relevant and engaging. By focusing on the unique linguistic characteristics of Rakhine, we help you connect with your audience effectively.
Back-translation
Back-translation is often a crucial component of the quality control process, particularly when translating highly technical documents or for critical translations in the Rakhine/English language pair where an error could have significant consequences. This process involves an independent linguist translating a previously translated text back into its original source language—either Rakhine or English—without reference to the original document. The resulting text is then compared to the original translation to verify its accuracy and suitability for its intended use.
Peer Review
Green Crescent offers professional peer review services where one or more linguists not involved in the original translation process assess the quality, style, and overall fitness of the translation for its intended purpose.
SME Review
Subject Matter Expert (SME) review is a specialized form of peer review conducted by non-linguist professionals with expertise in specific fields. This process ensures that Rakhine to English or English to Rakhine translations of highly technical texts are both linguistically accurate and technically precise.
Transcreation
Our Rakhine Transcreation Service adapts your content creatively to resonate with Rakhine-speaking audiences. We ensure that your brand’s messages maintain their original intent, emotional impact, and tone while aligning with the cultural and linguistic nuances of the target market.
MTPE-Full (Machine Translation Post-Editing - Full)
MTPE-Full (Machine Translation Post-Editing - Full) involves comprehensive post-editing of machine-generated translations to meet the highest standards of linguistic quality. This detailed editing process includes correcting grammar, syntax, and terminology to ensure the text flows naturally in Rakhine or English.
MTPE-Light (Machine Translation Post-Editing - Light)
MTPE-Light is a streamlined version of post-editing designed for situations where speed and cost-efficiency are prioritized over linguistic perfection. The human editor focuses on fixing major errors to ensure the overall meaning is clear and understandable.
Additional Language Services and Options for Rakhine
Certified Translation
Green Crescent provides certified translations of a wide range of legal documents, including birth, marriage, and death certificates, diplomas, school transcripts, passports, and much more, in both Rakhine and English. Our certified translations are recognized for their accuracy and compliance with legal standards, making them suitable for official use. You can receive hard copies of our standard certificate of translation mailed directly to your home or business.
Rush Service
If you require expedited service, Green Crescent can usually accommodate such requests. However, please note that rushing translations may come with trade-offs, which could affect both price and consistency. Please consult with a project manager for more details.
Discounts
Volume discounts are available for large projects, long-term clients, and for non-profits, charities, NGOs, and government organizations.
Minimum Fee
There is a minimum project fee of $75.00 USD per language, which can be reduced or waived for regular clients.
Additional Language Services
In addition to translation, Green Crescent offers a range of other Rakhine language services, including interpretation, transcription, website design and development, and desktop publishing.
About the Rakhine Language
Rakhine, known locally as "ရခိုင်ဘာသာ" (Rakhine Bhasa), is a variety of the Burmese language spoken by the Rakhine people primarily in Myanmar's Rakhine State. The language shares many linguistic features with Burmese but is distinct in terms of pronunciation, vocabulary, and regional dialect variations. It is important to note that while Rakhine is considered a dialect of Burmese, it is treated as a separate linguistic entity due to its unique cultural and historical context.
Rakhine is spoken by approximately two million people, with the majority of speakers residing in Myanmar. However, smaller communities can also be found in Bangladesh and among the Rakhine diaspora in other parts of Southeast Asia.
The Cultural Context, History, and Linguistic Features of Rakhine
Rakhine has a rich historical background closely tied to the Rakhine people’s cultural identity. The Rakhine Kingdom, once a major power in the region, developed its own literary and linguistic traditions, distinct from mainstream Burmese. Historically, the Rakhine language has been used in regional governance, literature, and religious texts. The Rakhine people have maintained a strong sense of cultural pride, and the language plays a key role in preserving this heritage.
Linguistically, Rakhine differs from Standard Burmese in several phonological aspects, such as the pronunciation of certain consonants and vowel shifts. Rakhine speakers often retain older pronunciations that have evolved in Burmese, making the language sound more conservative compared to the standard variety.
For example, in Rakhine, the Burmese word for "fish" (ငါး) is pronounced more closely to its classical form, while in Standard Burmese, it has undergone more phonological changes. These differences extend to everyday vocabulary and sentence construction, creating a distinct linguistic profile that translators must be aware of when working between English and Rakhine.
The Writing System: Burmese Script
Rakhine is written using the Burmese script, a writing system that consists of circular and cursive characters derived from the Brahmi script of ancient India. Like Burmese, Rakhine uses this script to represent its sounds, which includes a series of consonants, vowels, and tonal markers.
Vowels and Consonants: The script features 33 consonants and 12 vowels. In Rakhine, just as in Burmese, vowels are often attached to consonants as diacritical marks, modifying the base sound of the character. The script is syllabic, meaning that each written character represents a syllable.
No Capitalization: Similar to other Southeast Asian scripts, the Burmese script used in Rakhine has no concept of uppercase or lowercase letters, which simplifies some aspects of writing but requires attention to context to understand proper nouns and sentence breaks.
The Burmese Script in Rakhine
The Rakhine language is written using the Burmese script, which consists of 33 consonants and 12 vowels. It is a tonal language, where the meaning of a word can change based on pitch and intonation. The script includes diacritics that are used to modify the base consonants, and words are written in a rounded, flowing style.
- 33 consonants: က, ခ, ဂ, ဃ, င, စ, ဆ, ဇ, ဈ, ည, ဋ, ဌ, ဍ, ဎ, ဏ, တ, ထ, ဒ, ဓ, န, ပ, ဖ, ဗ, ဘ, မ, ယ, ရ, လ, ဝ, သ, ဟ, ဠ, အ
- 12 vowels: အ, အာ, အိ, အီ, အု, အူ, အေ, အဲ, အို, အဠ, အာံ, အဃ
- Diacritical marks modify the pronunciation of consonants.
The script is written from left to right, and like other Indic scripts, it uses inherent vowels that are modified by additional vowel markers. Rakhine speakers must also be familiar with the tonal nature of their language, where subtle differences in pitch can completely alter the meaning of a word.
Key Linguistic Differences Between Rakhine and English for Translation
When translating between Rakhine and English, several critical linguistic differences must be taken into account to ensure accuracy and cultural relevance. Below are some important considerations:
Sentence Structure: Rakhine follows a Subject-Object-Verb (SOV) sentence structure, whereas English typically uses a Subject-Verb-Object (SVO) structure. This requires careful reordering of sentences during translation. For instance, "I eat rice" in English translates to "ငါ စပါး စားတယ်" (Nga sapae sar de) in Rakhine, where the verb appears at the end of the sentence.
Politeness and Honorifics: Like Burmese, Rakhine employs different levels of formality and politeness, depending on the context. Addressing elders, authorities, or religious figures requires the use of specific honorifics, which do not have direct equivalents in English. Translators need to be aware of these social nuances to maintain the appropriate tone.
Tonal Language: One of the most challenging aspects of Rakhine is its use of tones. The language is tonal, meaning the pitch or intonation used when pronouncing a word can change its meaning entirely. This feature is absent in English, making it a significant hurdle in translation, especially in oral interpretation or localization efforts.
Gender and Number Agreement: Unlike English, Rakhine does not mark nouns for gender or number in the same way. Plurals are often indicated contextually rather than through changes in the noun itself. This requires translators to carefully consider the target audience to avoid ambiguity.
By addressing these key linguistic differences, Green Crescent ensures that our Rakhine translation services capture both the linguistic precision and cultural subtleties of the source material, allowing for translations that are both meaningful and accurate.
An Insight into Rakhine Expression
This passage is from the renowned Rakhine work “Lakkhri” (လက်ရှိ) by “Thein Kyaw Aung” (သိမ်ချောအောင်), first published in the early 20th century. It remains a key text in Rakhine literature, offering deep reflections on human perseverance and the quest for truth amidst adversity.
- Rakhine: "အမှောင်ထဲတွင်လည်း၊ အလင်းလွှာများကိုရှာဖွေရန် စိတ်ဓာတ်စွမ်းဆောင်ရမည်။"
- English Translation: "Even in the darkness, one must harness the strength of spirit to seek the rays of light."