For decades now, English and Russian have been among the world’s predominant languages, largely due to the enormous influence of the United States and the Soviet Union during the latter half of the twentieth century. Even now, after the Cold War has subsided into the past, people around the world continue to conduct business, publish scientific research, write technical manuals, and produce a number of other materials in one of these languages that need to be translated into the other. English Russian translation is an especially popular language conversion for many different reasons.
History of English to Russian Translations
Contact between the English and Slavic peoples began in the sixteenth century, when Richard Chancellor, an English seaman, visited Moscow and met with Czar Ivan IV, who was also referred to as Ivan the Terrible. This began a cultural obsession with England and English texts in Russian that lasted for centuries.
Originally, English Russian translations were performed by translating a text first into Latin and then into Russian, using the lingua franca of Europe as an intermediary between the two. Eventually, English to Russian translations of English literature became so popular that it had a profound influence on the works of Russian authors. For instance, Turgenev, Dostoyevsky, and Tolstoy were widely known to have admired the works of Charles Dickens.
Technical English to Russian Translations
Today, technical Russian translations have applications far beyond the realm of cultural contact. As large scale players in the global economy, the United States and Russia each have many businesses that depend upon prompt, accurate English to Russian translations in order to function on a daily basis. Likewise, both languages are spoken in a wide geographical area with Russian spoken in:
- Belarus
- Ukraine
- Kazakhstan
- Kyrgyzstan
- and in many other nations with smaller groups of Russian speaking citizens
This makes English to Russian translation very important to any business in an English speaking nation that wants to communicate with sister companies, satellites, or subsidiaries located in Russian speaking nations. Companies and advertisers wishing to tap into Russian speaking markets may also employ English Russian translations in order to present their materials in the language of their desired consumers.