Solidarity in four different languages

Tricky terms to translate.

In December each year, the BBC runs a series of lectures by leading figures. These are called the Reith Lectures, after Lord Reith, the BBC’s first director-general.

The joy of the accidental discovery

In December 2023, it was Professor Ben Ansell of Oxford University giving these lectures. This year I came across the lectures by chance, tuning into Radio 4 in the car while taking my dog to her grooming appointment. The glamorous life I lead!

This chance discovery reminded that, when we carefully curate and filter the content we consume through podcasts and streaming services we sometimes miss out on this joy of discovering something by chance.

What is the true mean of ‘solidarity’ in languages other than English?

This year’s lectures were entitled ‘Our Democratic Future’, and the episode I tuned into was ‘The Future of Solidarity’ – the third in the series. I quickly reached to turn up the volume, because when I heard ‘solidarity’ it got me thinking about the word itself and what it really means.

‘Solidarity’ is not a term I hear much among English speakers, except when someone is expressing their backing or sympathies for someone or something. To me, the word ‘solidarity’ also has quite strongly political connotations.

There are terms that look very similar to ‘solidarity’ in other languages, for example ‘solidarité/solidaire’ (French), ‘solidariedade/solidário’ (Portuguese) and ‘solidaridad/solidario’ (Spanish). In my experience, these are used more often in those languages than in English, where a different word is usually more appropriate. Especially in the international development field.

For translators, these terms are notoriously tricky to translate and, when it comes to deciding on the English word that fits best, that decision is guided by the context. So what we English speakers think of as ‘solidarity’ is not necessarily what French speakers think of when they say ‘solidarité’. Or is it?

Narrow definitions need to be ‘unpacked’ to fit their context

What I found so interesting about Professor Ansell’s lecture was that he seemed to me to be proposing a definition of solidarity. One that gets closer to the meaning of the equivalent term in French, Spanish and Portuguese. Or am I wrong about that? Let’s see what my trusty bilingual and monolingual dictionaries say.

Compared and contrasted definitions

The table below compares the meanings of roughly equivalent terms in French, Spanish, Portuguese and English. It’s worth noting that a dictionary definition is just a starting point for a professional translator – the definition can rarely just be inserted into a text as is; context is everything.

Translators do their research

What do you notice about the English definitions and examples, compared with those in the other languages? Some sources provide quite a few different examples from specific contexts and sectors. One glaringly obvious thing is that we don’t often use the word ‘solidary’ in English. Well I don’t!

Perhaps you also notice subtle differences in nuance, or perhaps you don’t think they differ much at all. What I notice is that it’s those examples in context that really tell you what the term might actually mean.

You’ll also notice that not all of the examples I’ve quoted are from conventional dictionaries. One is a corpus, and another is Wikipedia. This shows how, though the dictionary is often a translator’s starting point, things get REALLY interesting when you dig deeper than that.

I find it intriguing that the Wikipedia articles in French and English, and the parallel language corpus, offer the most context (I use Sketch Engine on most days for that reason). Perhaps because language is always evolving.

More real-life translation examples

Whichever the source language, it’s generally true that English prefers more concrete language. Over the years, this has often required me to ‘unpack’ the intended meaning behind a French, Spanish or Portuguese term to pinpoint the right English word for the context.

Depending on context and register, I’ve used some of the following words and phases to express the concept of ‘Solidaire/solidario/solidário’:

• Community/community outreach                                       

• Supporting good causes

• Pulling together

• Inclusive

• Close-knit (if talking about a team)

• Socially responsible (referring to funds)

• Standing shoulder to shoulder

• (Re)connecting with others (when talking about people)

• Charitable initiatives

• For the common good

• Caring (education)

As a translator, my task is to successfully communicate across cultures in a way that someone who simply ‘speaks the language’ cannot. Intercultural communication is about more than simply replacing words with other words; it recognises that our understanding of words is forever shaped by our (changing) social and cultural contexts as humans.

Over to you

Going back to the Reith Lectures, what I believe Professor Ansell was proposing was a revival and almost a repurposing of the term ‘solidarity’ that I think fits more closely with the French, Spanish and Portuguese concepts. He talks about solidarity as the ‘social glue’ that binds us together in our polarised societies.

The lecture distinguishes solidarity – a shared feeling of ‘us’ – from charity, which is more an act of a fortunate ‘us’ giving to an unfortunate ‘them’. And Ansell argues against seeing ourselves through a binary lens – us and them.

What do you think about the various meanings of the term ‘solidarity’?

Would you agree it has subtle nuances and differences between languages?

Have you found any other definitions, or have you used any other translations of these terms in your work?