[kdecat] Fwd: Re: Pacific Languages

Sebastia Pla i Sanz sps at sastia.com
Thu Feb 10 20:13:16 UTC 2005


Hola,

Adjunto un correu amb algunes idees interessants quant a traducció. Potser ja 
l'haureu vist, ha aparegut avui a la llista kde-i18n-doc.

Sebastià

----------  Missatge transmès  ----------

Subject: Re: Pacific Languages
Date: Dijous 10 Febrer 2005 16:13
From: Chusslove Illich <caslav.ilic at gmx.net>
To: kde-i18n-doc at kde.org

> [: Dwayne Bailey :]
> But don't be too paranoid as even if they're not the best word they
> are merely place holders for ideas.  People will learn what these
> ideas are.

I think this is very important point. Often, translators try to think of
translation which is "intuitively understood", "friendly to the
beginners", etc. In my opinion, these considerations are almost
counter-productive, as then one easily ends up with translations which are
of questionable usability -- not determining original idea uniquely enough
or simply too long.

An example of this from my language would be "formal translation" (ie.
currently used in translation of Windows, KDE and Gnome) of "driver",
which if translated back to English is "management program". It is both
ambiguous (eg. "printer management program" is most certainly not "printer
driver") and way too long.

I think it is better to, whenever possible, draw ideas and associations
from the fields you know to *work*: English language itself, other
languages with long tradition in science, older branches of science in own
native language.

Again, in the example of "driver" in my language, there actually exists an
excellent (IMO, of course) translation, and that is the literal one (of
"driver" in "cattle driver", not in "bus driver"); it is very short (2
syllables, 5 letters only), already used in my language in eg. mechanical
engineering, used in many European languages (eg. German "der Treiber"),
and keeps the same association as in English (it "drives" the device).

> You might want to involve some linguists in the translation as they
> will be better equipped to select and adapt words.

This would also be a great advantage. Whenever you want to use
transcription of English word, or coin a new native word, linguist can
tell you whether it fits well into spelling and pronunciation rules of
your language.

Also, he can signal whether a coined word is following the language
tradition (ie. will not sound too unnatural to the speakers) or not. Eg. in
my language it is not traditional to make double-noun or noun-verb
composite words, but there is a large set of usual prefixoids/suffixoids
that can be used.

> Its also much much bigger.  OOo2 is about 65,000 words IIRC [...]

Just for comparison, this would amount to about 12,000 KDE-average message
(one KDE-average message is about 5.3 words). Total KDE GUI from CVS in
August last year had some 550,000 words.

--
Chusslove Illich (Часлав Илић)
Serbian KDE translation team

-------------------------------------------------------

-- 
Encara quedem valencians que no volem deixar d'ésser el poble que som,
que no volem cedir a la dissolució ni a la indiferència.
		   Joan Fuster. "Nosaltres, els valencians"



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