ProZ.com Translation Article Knowledgebase

Cultural keywords are words that reflect cultural values, beliefs, and history. Such words are often very difficult to translate in another language and the translator has to explicitly render them by including footnotes, or explanations in parentheses, or by using the technique of adaptation to find corresponding terms in the foreign language that would evoke the same feelings in the target audience. Cultural keywords constitute a challenge which requires experience on the translator's part, patience, and a profound knowledge of the culture of the source and target languages. In this review some examples from the Greek language are presented.