Questa è Enida

Did I tell you that whoever is responsible for translating the title of English movies to Bahasa Malaysia  has chosen this for the latest Ron Howard’s work  ‘Angels and Demons’: Malaikat dan Jin.

Hwwaaattt?

Yes! That was exactly my reaction. Where on the middle earth did that jin come from? Jin Mata Satu dari Gua Hantu, hai meh? I foresaw something like Malaikat dan Roh Jahat or Malaikat dan Syaitan, even. But jin is a very specific being.

I am not actually remotely questioning the language side of the translation, but rather the simple homework somebody simply did not do. How challenging is it really for a translator to Google for a definition of demon?

Here’s what I found on my basic dictionary (WordBook):

Word Links
djinny: (Islam) an invisible spirit mentioned in the Koran and believed by Muslims to inhabit the earth and influence mankind by appearing in the form of humans or animals

Synonym

• genie, jinni, jinnee, djinni

Hypernym

• disembodied spirit, spirit

Domain Of Category

• Islam, Islamism, Mohammedanism, Muhammadanism, Muslimism

Hyponym

• eblis, shaitan, shaytan

I did specify that jin is a very specific being, did I not?

I’m pretty sure Dan Brown did not have any jin or djinn in mind when he wrote Angels and Demons. A translator does not have to read the book, nor watch the movie to be able to tell that much. Am I stating the obvious that the translator did not do his homework? Or was there a member of Illuminati putting a burning satay skewer to his neck ready to stamp him with this word had he not used the word JIN?