Back in 1945, after the Japanese surrender, British rule returned in the form of the British Military Administration (BMA).
Having to overhaul the entire administration left in place by the Japanese authorities, they had to amend, resstructure or reissue nearly everything, from road signs to security services to currency. Britain also regulated the functioning of the court system in all its ancillary tasks, including legal translation and court interpreting.
Back then, the BMA defined two distinctive types of Court interpreters; Interpreters and Official Interpreters. Their oaths differ in form and content under the First Schedule, Part I, of Forms of Affirmation in Military Courts, as the following oath templates show:
Interpreter: “ I, A.B. do solemnly affirm that I will well and truly interpret the questions put to witnesses and the evidence given by witnesses from (English) language into the (Malay) language as the case may be”.
Official Interpreter: “ “ I, A.B. do solemnly affirm that I will always , in my office of interpreter of the Courts, well and truly, without fear or favour or the hope or promise of reward, interpret the questions put and the answers given by the witnesses and also the statements made by the Courts or by the parties or prisoner and will also so translate and, if required by the Court, transcribe any document given to me for that purpose, which I will faithfully guard from mutilation or alteration”.
The key differentiator seems to be literacy, as many citizens of Malaya were illiterate, yet fluent in more than one language
An official interpreter can also transcribe the content if required, complementing the work of the steno typist who, in turn, also had a different oath template.
Note the absence of references in the gazette to any other vernacular besides Malay. These were the early days of 1946 when the social fabric of modern Malaysia was still “forging in the cauldron” right after the Japanese occupation.
Reference: ( BMA Malaya Gazette, 1st Section, 1946 )
