Translation is ultimately a human activity which enables human beings to exchange ideas and thoughts regardless of the different tongues used. Al Wassety (2001) views the phenomenon of translation as a legitimate offspring of the phenomenon of language, since originally, when humans spread over the earth, their languages differed and they needed a means through which people speaking a certain language (tongue) would interact with others who spoke a different language. Translation is, in Enanis (1997) view, a modern science at the interface of philosophy, linguistics, psychology, and sociology. Literary translation in particular is relevant to all these sciences, audio-visual arts, as well as cultural and intellectual studTranslation is, in Chabbans words (1984:5), "a finicky job," as it has not yet been reduced to strict scientific rules, and it allows for the differences that are known to exist between different personalities. Translation is a heavily subjective art, especially when it deals with matters outside the realm of science where precisely defined concepts are more often expressed by certain generally accepted terms. In the final analysis, translation is a science, an art, and a skill. It is a science in the sense that it necessitates complete knowledge of the structure and make-up of the two languages concerned. It is an art since it requires artistic talent to reconstruct the original text in the form of a product that is presentable to the reader who is not supposed to be familiar with the original. It is also a skill because it entails the ability to smooth over any difficulty in the translation, and the ability to provide the translation of something that has no equal in the target language. In translation, the richness of vocabulary, depth of culture, and vision of the translator could certainly have very conspicuous effects on his/her work. Another translator might produce a reasonably acceptable version of the same text, which, however, may very well reflect a completely different background, culture, sensitivity, and temperament. Such differences cannot, in Chabbans view (1984), detract from the merit of either translator. This is simply because translation is decidedly a more difficult job than creation. The question of the possibility of translation is widely regarded as crucial to any understanding of what language is. If translation is not possible, then what is it that language does? Translation is possible in the sense that we humans have been doing it (or claiming to have done it) for many thousands of years, but we have been doing so without any assurance that the message sent was indeed the message that was received. If I ask you to open the window and you then do just that, it may not be too presumptuous to think that the message has successfully been translated, but in the case of a great many possible linguistic instances -- probably the vast majority -- that sort of unambiguous confirmation is not possible. Even in the present case, your "compliance" with my request may be the result of sheer coincidence, of my misunderstanding of what youve done, or of some entirely extraneous factor. Translation between languages is not the whole of translation, but it is an especially illuminating limit case of a much broader phenomenon. The need to translate the spoken word (either within or between languages) presents serious practical difficulties for a great many people on a day-to-day basis. However, it is written texts that most profoundly present the theoretical problem of translation; a "literal" translation would be inconceivable in an entirely oral culture. Indeed, the notion of "fidelity" to an "original" must be quite different in an oral culture than it is in a print-dominated culture. In addition, written texts raise the question of the "translation" between speech and writing.