The translation of Palestinian prisoners’ cryptic security Arabic terms into English

This study deals with the translation into English of nine cryptic security Arabic terms Palestinian prisoners have nomenclatured in response to the life conditions in Israeli prisons. These terms were collected from prison literature and through interviews with five newly-freed Palestinian prisoners who served long terms in Israeli jails. The terms’ functions are pragmatically explicated, and suitable translations, capturing their pragmatic imports, are offered. The study found that these terms have drifted from their original semantic usages and acquired new functions prompted by Palestinian prisoners’ needs for self- and mate-security concerns. In such cases of highly contextualized language usages, the translation options range from those capturing the form and/or function to those capturing the communicative sense independently.