The Diplomat
Casa Árabe, the University of Castilla-La Mancha (UCLM) and the Agencia Estatal Boletín Oficial del Estado (BOE) are publishing the Spanish Constitution in a bilingual Spanish-Arabic edition. The School of Translators of Toledo, a research centre of this university, has been in charge of the translation of the major work, which has been revised by Casa Árabe. Will be published soon in print and digital versions, and free download will be made available.
The translation process arose in 1996 from a final thesis by Mourad Zarrouk, led by UCLM professor Luis Miguel Pérez Cañada at the School of Translators in Tangier. Years later, Zarrouk’s version is included in a publication that the research centre of the regional university uses as a handbook for students to learn how to translate legal texts.
The first international release comes in 2011, coinciding with the Arab Spring, when the Spanish Agency for International Cooperation of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs contacts the School of Translators of Toledo. Since then, this version of the Spanish Constitution has been used as a protocol gift in meetings held in Arab countries, “thus giving a second life to the work,” notes Pérez Cañada, now director of translation and editing projects at the Toledo School of Translators. The BOE’s interest in the translation of the work comes more than 15 years after its first revision “and will be included in the collections of legal codes held by the state agency”.
This first rapprochement between UCLM, Casa Árabe and the Agencia Estatal Boletín Oficial del Estado (BOE) lays the foundations of a partnership that aims to materialize in new joint actions in the future.
The signing of the agreement between the three entities, held at the BOE facilities in Madrid, was attended by Luis Miguel Pérez Cañada; the Vice-Rector of Culture, Sport and Social Commitment of the UCLM, César Sánchez Meléndez; the general director of Casa Árabe, Miguel Moro Aguilar, and the director of the state agency Boletín Oficial del Estado, Manuel Tuero Secades.
