July 13th, 2006

I had to translate a marriage certificate two days ago. It was for an Indonesian woman who married an English man. The marriage took place in an Islamic religious affairs office (KUA) and the certificate is full with Islamic vocabs!

First, what is wali nasab? what is a wali in a wedding anyway? The guardian? and nasab? apparently it means family/relatives who become a wali for the bride. But in this case there is no wali nasab, the couple were (was?) married by the hakim or the judge who presided the solemnization. Hence come up a question: hubungan wali/sebab, which means the relation to the wali and the reason ( I think it is the reason why there is no wali nasab). The answer to this question is very economical indeed! it is only GHAIB! what? yes I did not know what Ghaib was. I knew gaib which means spirit or in ilmu gaib it refers more to magic, but not GHAIB in this context. I sent an email to Bahtera, Indonesian translator mailing list, straight away! and the answer was provided within minutes! Bless you Bahtera. It seems that GHAIB means unknown or if you cannot find anyone. So one problem was sorted!

Another one is the status before marriage. For the bridegroom it is said Jejaka and for the bride is Perawan, which both , if literally translated, mean VIRGIN. Blimey! did anyone check if they were virgins?

Bahtera was one more time very helpful in this case. Many of the members suggested using Bachelor for the man and Spinster for the woman. I haven't had any problem with bachelor, but spinster? ! Here in London, if I said someone was a spinster I would surely got a kick in my face, or to copy what Zidane did, I would get a headbutt! The Oxford dictionary says that this spiteful word shall be avoided since it has negative connotation of someone old, childless, prissy and repressed. Yet, in the world of law and religion this word is stil preserved!

A friend whose marriage certificate has been translated into English by someone else said to me : "Yes, I know when I got married I was not young anymore, but surely I was not that old either!" She was disappointed by the usage of spinster in her certificate. I had to use the word too unfortunately ! since it is still the proper word employed in the world of judges! I just hope that poor woman whose certificate I translated did not notice that!