I saw that a usually decent Russian website wrote that today is "The World Day of Spreading Information About the Problem of Autism" (Всемирный день распространения информации о проблеме аутизма).
At first, I was angry, because we are not a problem, and that website should know it.
But then I checked the United Nations' official translation of the day's name, and found a bunch of oddities.
So the English name is "World Autism Awareness Day". This is less awful than the Russian name "the problem of autism", although many #ActuallyAutistic people suggest changing "awareness" in the English name to "acceptance" or "inclusion".
In recent years, major progress has been made in increasing awareness and acceptance of autism, not least thanks to the many amazing autistic advocates who have worked tirelessly to bring the lived experience of autistic people to the wider world. Additionally, medical professionals, researchers and academics in many countries are now incorporating the neurodiversity paradigm, coined by sociologist Judy Singer in the late 1990s, in their work.
The #Spanish name is "Día Mundial de Concienciación sobre el Autismo". According to Wiktionary, "Concienciación" is the "act of raising awareness", so I guess that it's a reasonable translation of the English name.
El autismo y otras formas de discapacidad son parte de la experiencia humana que contribuye a la diversidad humana. Como tal, las Naciones Unidas han enfatizado la necesidad de incorporar la discapacidad en la agenda de desarrollo de la Organización.
The #French name is "Journée mondiale de la sensibilisation à l'autisme". According to the dictionary at cnrtl.fr, one of this word's senses is "the act or process of arousing someone's interest or curiosity; the result of this action", so I guess that it's also a reasonable translation of "awareness".
(The English Wiktionary translation of this French word is not great. I'll talk to French friends, and I'll try to improve it.)
This brings us to Russian, a language I can claim to know the best of all the six official United Nations languages. The Russian translation is seriously horrible.
"Awareness" is translated as "spreading information", which is not wrong, but kind of stiff.
And why "problem"?! That word is negative and completely unnecessary. Maybe I should engage some Russian autism groups and ask to change it?
I know #Arabic much less well, but enough to see that the Arabic name of this day is اليوم العالمي للتوعية بمرض التوحد. The word for awareness is توعية, which is fine, but "autism" is translated as مرض التوحد. The first word مرض there usually means "illness". The Arabic Wikipedia article about autism is called just توحد, without مرض.
The last official United Nations language is #Chinese. The day's name in Chinese is "世界提高自闭症意识日", and I'm sorry, I don't have anything to say about it. If you know Chinese, I'd love to hear your analysis.
Amir E. Aharoni
