Life Jacket

On a flight back from Kuala Lumpur, I had nothing to read but the safety instructions in front of me, which were written in English and Malay.  I got to wondering which of the words meant “seat” and, with the help of an online translator, discovered that my life jacket was under “the place where I sat down.”  I was used to thinking about a seat as an object (which might be large or small, clean or dirty, plain or luxurious etc), but Malay shifted my focus from an external inanimate object to what I was doing.

English:

Your life jacket is under your seat.

Malay

Jaket keselamatan anda berada di bawah tempat duduk anda.
~ jacket safety your is at under place sit your

Chinese

你的救生衣在你的座位下。
~ you ‘s rescue life clothes at you ‘s seat position under

Tamil 

உங்கள் வாழ்வு காப்பு பாவாடை உங்கள் இருக்கையின் கீழ் உள்ளது.
~ your life protection skirt your seat under is

Tamil takes the same approach to “seat” as English, while Chinese specify that the seat in question is the one on which I am sitting.

Jacket

The way that “life jacket” is expressed in the different languages is also interesting.  In English and Malay it is a “jacket”; in Chinese it is 衣 (yī, “clothing”); and in Tamil it is பாவாடை (pāvāṭai, a “covering” though more typically a “skirt” or “dress” as the word is derived from the Tamil word "பாவை" (pāvai, "woman" or "girl") plus the suffix "ஆடை" (āḍai, "clothing" or "dress").

Life

The Chinese “救生” says the jacket “saves” or “rescues” (救) life; the Tamil says it “protects”, “preserves” or “takes care of” (காப்பு, kāppu) life; while the English does not say what exactly the jacket does with life. 

The Chinese 生 also has connotations of birth, growth and creativity. Similarly the Tamil வாழ்வு (vāḻvu) does not just refer to being alive but to a life of happiness and prosperity.

The Malay “keselamatan” does not mention life directly at all.  It says the jacket provides “safety,” a concept communicated by the word “Selamat” that is familiar to us in greetings and good wishes like “Selamat Datang” (welcome).  It is an adoption from Arabic "سَلَامَة" (salāmah), meaning “peace,” “wholeness” and “well-being” (compare Hebrew “Shalom”) and comes from the same root as “Islam” and “Muslim,” which have to do with “submission” or “surrender.”

Reflections

The translations all communicate the same message: if the plane goes down on water, reach between your legs and put on the yellow inflatable thing which will help you stay afloat.  But the ways in which the language get the message across reflect different ways of seeing and thinking and feeling about the same thing.

_{Photo credits: Freepik and Switlik}