Mots Maudits #5: The perils of solidarité

Like “mobilisation” in my previous blog, “solidarité” was definitely one of my 2020 words of the year. It was heartening to see how many acts of everyday kindness and generosity were inspired by the pandemic, during the first lockdown in particular. Reports of individuals and companies spontaneously donating time, money, and food to help the less fortunate during this difficult time restored some of my faith in human nature. Unfortunately (from my perspective), it also led to a proportional increase in the use of the word “solidarité”.

Obviously, I am being facetious. Let me explain; “solidarité” is one of those curious terms that — although it translates word-for-word into English — is just far more commonly used in French. And no, mes amis, Brexit notwithstanding, I don’t think it’s because the English are naturally more egocentric; it’s just a quirk of language.

A Google Ngram search shows that “solidarité” is used 2.5 times more frequently than “solidarity”.

This is not just an interesting factoid; the translator’s choice of words should reflect the language used by the target audience, and throwing solidarity around willy-nilly just doesn’t feel right. In some cases, like the one below, it seems perfectly fine to translate word-for-word, if only out of a desire to be faithful to the source text:

“je voudrais souligner la solidarité dont ont fait preuve les salaries”

“Faire preuve de solidarité” and “esprit de solidarité” could reasonably be translated as “show solidarity” and “spirit of solidarity”, respectively. It’s not always that clear cut though. Fortunately for us, it is not necessary to shoehorn “solidarity” into your translation every time it appears in the source text; English offers a multitude of synonyms and idioms that would cover the same meaning. Take these sentences, for example:

“une opération de solidarité que nous sommes fiers de soutenir”

“nous participons à des actions de solidarité”

Something to the effect of “charity drive”, “community action”, or “initiatives” might convey the meaning. Depending on your understanding of the context and how much scope you have to re-phrase, you could try to reference the “generosity” of those involved, “helping those in need”, “giving back to the community”, or “supporting local people”. Meanwhile, “organismes de solidarité” generally just means “charities” in most cases.

Another problem is the adjective form, “solidaire”. There is no adjective form in English, so you could use phrases like “show solidarity” or “stand in solidarity”. Once again, though, more idiomatic idioms or adjectives, such as “stick with”, “stand by”, or “support” may do the job while giving you the opportunity to vary your language and provide greater clarity.

Whenever I discuss this type of issue, people often remark that “English is so much more varied than French”. While this may be true (depending on how you count, certain sources say that there are twice as many words in English), but it’s not really the point of today’s blog; what interests me is usage and the traps that translators fall into. Truly mastering a language means being able to identify which word or phrase is most appropriate, and the craft of translation is to strike the right balance between being faithful to the source text and providing optimum clarity to the reader.

Do you have any other ideas on how to translate “solidarité”?