​The concept of translation problematics has gone through radical changes from asking the primordial question, “how should one translate?” to the recent more engaging one, “how can translation address political and cultural hierarchies to make the world a better place through translation?” In the classic sense of the term, translation refers to the set of accepted standards by which the translation process should take place such as, the translation should be a faithful rendition of the original, the translation should read as fluently as the original does, the translator should not add or subtract without notice. In other words, translation is preserving sameness across languages. However, how can one preserve sameness when translating Zajal? ​Zajal is a traditional form of oral strophic poetry declaimed in a colloquial dialect. It is semi-improvised, semi-sung and is often performed if the format of a bedate between Zajjaleen (poets who improvise the Zajal). Zajal is best known in the Lebanese variety of the Levantine dialect. The Arabic language has two registers, the formal and the vernacular. The vast majority of the translated literature from Arabic is from the formal, even though it is the native tongue of no one, but the general wisdom goes that the formal language is more appropriate to writing literature. The vernacular literature, of which Zajal is a part, has been largely ignored as secondary and base, one that is not worthy of translation. Yet, Zajal is one of the most popular poetic forms in the Levant, one that is deeply rooted in the socio-cultural identity of the people of the region. Hence, the ethical question of translating the vernacular Zajal into English and having it enter world literature in a way that would have not been possible since English does not have the diglossia difference between formal and informal nor does it have the poetic form of Zajal. This paper addresses the problematics and ethics of translating the vernacular Zajal through centralizing the foreignness of this oral poetic form, rendering translation a political act of introducing foreign literary genres into world literature.