[89675] in tlhIngan-Hol
Re: Translation Assistance
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Robyn Stewart)
Tue Sep 13 19:43:02 2011
Date: Tue, 13 Sep 2011 16:31:18 -0700
To: tlhingan-hol@kli.org
From: Robyn Stewart <robyn@flyingstart.ca>
In-Reply-To: <CABDLMbXBGfyvzjNpgWAx5kuBJDA3zzOrwXQRCMsD05K2+EGDtw@mail.g
mail.com>
Errors-to: tlhingan-hol-bounce@kli.org
Reply-to: tlhingan-hol@kli.org
As I think I said on the wikipedia personal page
in question, I endorse such a project.
The only reason English words such File, Login,
Directory, Website, Page, and Mouse mean anything
at all is because they've been used consistently
for these concepts. If Klingons have equivalent
ones they probably wouldn't even recognize ours.
While some people would say this is tantamount to
our making up our own vocabulary, and I won't
argue that such a project is not the first step
towards the edge of that slippery slope, I think it's well worth the risk.
Most of the large uninteresting translation
projects we get involve computer terminology and
as the author of this message (whose name I can't
read because he uses a special character set
which my old mail program renders as gibberish)
said anyone doing a half-decent job on one of
them would have to keep track of the words they
used for what. Agglomerating (is that a word?)
all such available lists and hammering out some
basic, "we can agree to understand this" computer
vocabulary would make such projects plausible.
It could be argued that almost every such project
in English creates a lot of its own vocabulary so
we wouldn't be violating KLI Marc's control of
the language any more than I do when I make up
the names of the crew in my stories.
I have contributed to a couple such projects but
they both had the database controlled online and
I lost interest and passwords before I found out
what became of them. Anyone more organized than
me in this respect with seed data to contribute?
It is something that will require constant
revision as technology changes, so I think this
is better suited to an enthusiastic and hyper
productive intermediate speaker over a cautious
expert. Once a list is compiled, cautious experts
can fix the more egregious entries. Unlike
Shakespeare and the Bible I think this is a
project where it's better to have it mostly done
and okay quality than barely started but superb.
- Qov
At 16:09 13/09/2011, you wrote:
>Ah... now I begin to understand. Sorry, I've been quite busy these days so I
>get confused easily. I really didn't know what this lonely message by De'vID
>was about, earlier this day. Thanks for reminding! I never saw the message
>in the discussion page for my Wikipedia userpage.
>Yes, I once kind of started such a project on a subpage of my Wikipedia user
>account:
>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:N-true/List_of_Klingon_computer_terms
>
>It's a work-in-progress which I have stopped working on ages ago. So it's
>old, incomplete and might contain a lot of errors. The list was mostly for
>my own work (I once thought about translating Skype into Klingon, but never
>finished the project). And I did it in a stage, were my Klingon wasn't so
>good...
>But I think the concept is a good one. I included the parts of speech for
>the English words (as "copy" could be a different translation for a noun and
>a verb), which I think is necessary. A literal translation is practical
>because it also explains the structure of the word (N+Adj or N+N or
>whatever), in the notes I sometimes cited the sources... but most of the
>words there I tried to find good solutions myself.
>
>Being also an Esperantist and a collector of dictionaries, I have an
>Esperanto dictionary with computer-related words, the "Komputeko", which
>also cites alternative translations and often gives some source or shows
>where these words are used, e.g.:
>delete (v) = forigi (OOo, KDE) | forviŝi (Firefox)
>So this is a good thing. It might work best as a community project. We could
>start with my list and expanding it. Several people already worked as
>translators for software and perhaps have an own list to stay consistent. I
>never worked with GoogleDocs, but maybe some shared file could be used to
>have people contribute to it. But we should agree on a design and format.
>
>2011/9/13 De'vID (
>) <de.vid.jonpin@gmail.com>
>
> > On Tue, Jul 26, 2011 at 11:57 AM, Robyn Stewart <robyn@flyingstart.ca
> > >wrote:
> > > I think there should be a project to standardize metaphors and
> > > language for computer systems in Klingon. While I know it would
> > > facilitate terrible Klingon translations by people who got a hold of
> > > the list without knowing anything about the language it wouldn't make
> > > such translations any worse or any less common than they would
> > > otherwise be and it would give us a ghost of a chance of understanding
> > > them.
> > >
> > > More importantly it would facilitate the task of making GOOD
> > > translations, and not make me just ignore such projects, as too much
> > > work for a mediocre result.
> >
> >
> > wa' DoS wIqIp. Chinese HolvaD vay' vImughDI', lo'laHqu' Daqvam:
> > http://ccts.cs.cuhk.edu.hk/
> >
> > Daqvam rurbogh tlhIngan Hol De'wI' mu'ghomHom'e' wIghajchugh jIbelchoHqu'.
> >
> > --
> > De'vID ( )
> >
> >
> >
