An advertisement promoting a community event about dementia in B.C. shows a Punjabi word that roughly translates into English as “mishap” or “accident,” rather than the relatively neutral and intended word, “event.”

Another line in the same ad, referring to stigma, uses a Punjabi word that roughly translates to a “black spot on a person’s name” — something akin to disgrace.

These are some of the mistranslations that Jessie Kaur Lehail and Reetinder Kaur, co-developers of the Punjabi Translation Framework — a set of guidelines and tools to ensure culturally and gender-sensitive translations — have come across in their analysis of English medical materials translated to Punjabi.

“As Punjabi women, we wanted to create documents and comprehension that really lands for Punjabi women in our community,” says Lehail, a communications professional and the founder of Kaur Collective, a media organization dedicated to stories of Sikh women.

Lehail says poorly translated materials can create barriers to care.

According to Lehail, there were also words that should never be used in health documents — words that come close to being curses or could trigger shame. Many appear to have come from literal, word-for-word translations using AI, missing cultural and gender nuances.