THE LANGUAGE AND DIALECT OF WORKERS’ COMPENSATION
May 10, 2019 THE LANGUAGE AND DIALECT OF WORKERS’ COMPENSATION By: Judge David Langham You can be in the same room, on the same topic, and yet not on the same page. I am struck by the number of dialects there are in some languages. Dialects came to me recently; a Judge described a hearing involving a translator. A witness made some statements and the translator dutifully interpreted. But, in the course of reciting one of the answers in English, the Judge interrupted and corrected the translator. There was some “back and forth” with the witness, and eventually all agreed to the substance of the witnesses’ answer, which was not as originally translated. This is not a reflection on the translator. This is a reflection on the idea of dialect. Spanish, for example has a number of dialects. As Languagenext.com notes, “Spanish comes in many flavors,” which it notes are “dialects” and “accents.” That website contends that this is a result of the “dynamism of languages,” a result of evo