The paper first discusses several proposals of universals in language. Secondly it looks at so-called ‘translation universals’ as these have been suggested in the translation literature, i.e., explicitation, simplification, conventionalisation, disambiguation, standardisation and so on. The paper argues that the quest for specific translation universals is essentially futile: since translation is an operation on language, general linguistic universals must also apply to translation. Thirdly and finally, the paper tries to suggest a link between ‘intervention’ and universals.