Six winners of the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques Abdullah Bin Abdul Aziz International Award for Translation were announced Saturday. “Translation is a bridge to other cultures and plays a great role in the advancement of civilizations and societies,” said Prince Abdul Aziz Bin Abdullah in his opening speech at King Abdul Aziz Public Library. A Saudi professor of technical engineering, Abdullah Muhaidib, won the award for his translation from English into Arabic Geotechnical Engineering: Soil Mechanics by John N. Cernica. Egyptian Ahmad Fouad Basha won translation award in natural science from other languages into Arabic. Moroccan Abdulsalam Al-Shaddadi and Italian Claudia M. Tresso jointly won for translation in humanities and social sciences from Arabic into other languages. Egyptian Salih Sadawi Salih won for translation in humanities and social sciences from other languages into Arabic. King Fahd Complex for the Printing of the Glorious Qur'an won the award for institutions. A total of 186 applicants submitted their work to the committee from 30 different countries in 16 languages. The award, which was instituted in 2006 upon King Abdullah's request to promote high standards of translations, contributes to the transfer of knowledge from and into Arabic, promote translation into Arabic in various fields of science and enrich the Arab archive by publishing distinguished works of translations. The award also aims at recognizing the achievements of institutions with outstanding contributions in the field of scientific translations from and into Arabic and establishes standards of excellence in translation in regards to originality, scientific value and text quality. __
