Translation activity from Arabic to Bosnian (1989-2010) - Next Page ...

trade. Second reason is that the country faced severe social and political changes. Transition 2period was unfortunately simultaneous with the dissolution and the two factors influenced onevery sphere of life, translation and publishing included. This paper will put its main accent onmodern period since we find it crucial for the prospects of translation.Publishing and translations market in Serbia – an overviewThe following analysis is based upon data gathered from several sources. The period 1989-2001is covered by information obtained from the Serbian Republic Institute for Statistics. The period2004-2007 was covered by the National Library of Serbia. The existing three year gap isprobably the result of the authority shift between the two institutions. The reason for that isthat the previous source for the basic data, Yugoslav Bibliographical Institute had ceased toexist, and the task of monitoring, gathering and registering the relevant information on thenumber of translated books was transferred to the National Library of Serbia. The fact thatmethodologies and goals of the two institutions were different must be taken into account whilehandling the data.Chart 1 consists of the data excerpted from the relevant statistics published in the Bulletins ofthe Serbian Republic Institute for Statistics (cf. Literature) and it encompasses the period from1989 till 2001. The statistics covered the whole territory of Serbia, Vojvodina and Kosovoincluded, even after 1999. Montenegro is not included in the figures. Since Arabic language hasnever been treated separately in these calculations, we had to include somewhat vaguecategory of “other languages” in which it was included. It should be mentioned that the list oflanguages that were treated separately in the statistics had been altering through this period,and the only constantly separately treated languages were English, French, German, Russianand languages of Serbian minorities’. That is why we have added in the last column our findingson number of literary translations form Arabic language.Thus, Chart 1 depicts general publishing flows from 1989 till 2001. Although we are fully awarethat the encountered figures are neither completely precise nor fully compatible with the period,territory or languages that we have covered in this research, we have used them to showcertain fluctuations that had occurred in the translation and publishing business during the lasttwo decades.2 By the term “transition” we mean the economical and political changes that the country had started by introducingmultiparty political system and free market principles in short.4