Translation of the legal English language into Indian languages is a problem at the moment. One has to accept the fact that there is no precise equivalent of many English words in other languages, and that the ideas expressed by them are not familiar to the speakers. As it is not easy for the English language to inculcate sentiments and ideas of other mother tongues, the Indian situation calls for development of legal register in Indian languages so that it carries with it the cultural ethos of the language. For there is no doubt that translation of a text, especially legal language is not identical with the original text. It can only be similar to the original text.

In 1976 the Government of Tamilnadu decided that all judgements of the court of law shall be written in Tamil. The Criminal Procedure Code, the Indian Penal Code and the Indian Evidence Act were translated into Tamil. One of the objectives of translation was that translations should be in a style easily understood by the common man. In rendering the legal text into Tamil, the translators have used terms drawn from old Tamil literature. For example, words for ‘assertion’ ‘a Raidal’, ‘declaration’ ‘vilambal’, ‘pronouncement of judgement’ ‘ti:rppu’ are taken from old Tamil literature. It often happens that in the English language one word is used in semantically different contexts. This poses problems while translating from British to an Indian language.

For example, the word ‘disposal’ has to be rendered in Tamil as follows :

1) ‘get rid of’ = ‘tiirtuvai’
2) ‘take it away’ = ‘appuRapa•uttu’
3) ‘decide’ = ‘ti:rma:ni’
4) ‘decide’ = ‘mu•ivusei’
5) ‘at your beck and call/at your disposal= ‘e:val’

There has been, while translating laws into different Indian languages, use of the same terminology and also use of different terminology for the same sense. During the period when late Sri Govinda Menon was Law Minister, a formula was evolved by consensus in the Law Ministers Conference. This formula was that a term which adequately expressed a legal concept or idea prevalent in a region should not be replaced by a term coined by the Official Languages (legislative) Commission in order to secure terminological uniformity. This was a good idea. In support of it one could quote Peter Benson Maxwell who points out that in the interpretation of statutes, variation in different statutes is not necessarily indicative of a change of intention. Thus there is no difference between a “stream” and a “river” in SS27 and 28 of the Salmon Fishery Act 1861, and “ordinary luggage” in an act and “personal luggage” in a bye-law under it. Maxwell says “But just as the presumption that the same meaning is intended for the same expression in every part of an Act is, as we have seen, not of much weight, so the presumption of a change of intention from a change of language (of no great weight in the construction of any documents) seems entitled to less weight in the construction of a statute than in any other case, for the variation is sometime to be accounted for by a mere desire to avoid the repeated use of same words, sometimes by the circumstances that the Act has been compiled from different sources, and sometimes by the alterations and additions from various hands which Act undergo in their process through Parliament” (Sinha, 1979). It may be mentioned that general words acquire technical meaning through usage. “Demand”, “supply”, “money”, “market”, in Economics; “heat”, “light”, “velocity”, “resistance” in Physics are common words in the English language.

Therefore it is only through usage that technical register is likely to be established in any language. Examples of ordinary words acquiring a technical sense in law are many. “Caution deposit”, “overside”, or Kannada “oppatu”, “part time” could be taken as examples. There are many examples of borrowals from other language. “Locus standi”, “res judica”, “inter alia”, “ipso facto”, “ex-gracia” are some of the examples of borrowals from Greek and Latin into English. Some of them have also come into Indian languages. Wherever adequate vocabulary is not available languages take recourse to coining of words taking elements from classical languages. As English coined words with prefixes such as ab-, ac-, ad-, in-, in-, or suffixes such as -al, -ance, -ity, etc., borrowed from Greek and Latin, Indian languages while accepting some of these depend heavily on Sanskrit for such coinage. Not only that, they also make loan blends such as “pukka ¡de??a” (Urdu-Sanskrit), “kh°a voucher” (Urdu-English), etc. One of the judgements delivered in the 16th March 1870 in Kannada reads as follows:

±ÚÈÚ~¾ÚáÛ¥ÚÚ }Ú«Ú­ VÚMsÚ«Ú Éß«ÛÈÚßß dÉßÞ«ÚßVÚ×Ú ÈÚßÔÚÑÚàÄ
ÈÚ«Úß­ VÚß~¡Væ¥ÛÁÚÁÚßVÚØM¥Ú ®ÚÃ~ÈÛ¦VÚ×Úß @OÚÃÈÚßÈÛW ÈÚÑÚàÅé
ÈÚáÛtOæàMsÚ †Û…}Úß¡ 1 OæQ 7 3/4 ÁÚà®Û¿ß ®ÚÃOÛÁÚ RÂÞ¦
Èæà…ÄVÚß 316 ÁÚà. 1 A. 9 ®æç ®ÚÃ~ÈÛ¦VÚØM¥Ú OæàtÓOæàsÚ
†æÞOæM¥Úß ÈÛ¦ ¥ÛÈÛ......etc' (Gurudatta, 1979 )

This is a good example of how Kannada has blended -- Persian, Arabic and Sanskrit in this legal register.