lb. It is not unusual that legal representatives try to discredit us court interpreters as part of their strategy, so it came as no surprise when the defense lawyer at my latest assignment insinuated I lacked the necessary mastery of his mother tongue to be of any use. His attacks were incessant but by the time he threatened to resort to DeepL, I had already emotionally dislodged myself, putting it off as just another one of the defamatory remarks he probably hurls at anyone with my skin tone – deaf to how my German actually sounds.
The lawyer went on, accusing me of having a “limited vocabulary”. If anyone in the room was in need of linguistic assistance, however, I knew it couldn’t be me. His math was obviously flawed, failing to recognize that my purpose for being there was precisely to open his world to an entire treasury of words he would otherwise have been locked out from. And yet, rather than proactively saving our honor, the institutional role of a court interpreter is to stay ‘neutral’ at all times, withstand any form of attack whilst maintaining the clarity of a zen master, lest anyone should accuse us of being onion skinned.
Rather than letting this prescribed placidity feel like a defeat, however, I like to think of it more like a secret weapon as I remember a man whom some consider a pioneer of our guild. Enrique de Malacca was said to have been Ferdinand Magellan’s cherished slave and interpreter, who assisted him in appeasing the Rajahs they first encountered on the shores of what today is known as Eastern Samar. Magellan had vowed that Enrique would be set free if ever Magellan should die. But following his death in the historic Battle of Mactan, Magellan’s successors refused to grant Enrique the freedom he had been promised. According to historical accounts, it was Enrique’s ability to speak European and the local languages alike that enabled him to eventually regain his freedom: he conspired with the natives and together they caused the remaining Spanish soldiers to leave Cebu immediately.
The year 2022 marked the fifth centennial since Magellan’s first circumnavigation of the globe. It remains contended whether Enrique de Malacca was originally from what today is the Philippines or Malaysia. Both countries claim him as one of theirs with reimaginings of him emerging in literature as well as the visual arts. One such illustration can be found in the feature by RTS.
Annette Hug’s related column in the WOZ can be found here; the interpreter also appears in the book co-edited by Beatriz Lorente.
(Images of Magellan’s Cross and Basilica del Santo Niño on Cebu by lb.)
