Re: [RANT] French translation for debconf templates stucked at 90% : analysis
Miles Bader schrieb:
Nicolas Bertolissio <nico.bertol-no-spam@free.fr> writes:
These are label but have no meaning for a non-english speaker, so they
have to be translated. This is at least the way we do things in French.
Whatever; French != Japanese. Indeed, they in some sense represent
opposite ends of the spectrum -- Japanese are notably enthusiastic about
adopting foreign words in a very ad-hoc way, whereas French are famous
for being, um, anti-non-French.
Such an governmental rule like
http://www.culture.gouv.fr/culture/dglf/terminologie/courriel.htm
would be unthinkable here in Austria. It would be rated as nationalistic
and get a touch of politically incorrect.
"Every english word has to be translated." cannot be a general rule for
all languages. The general rule should be: "Use the best fitting word,
which most people of your target group will understand." If a word is
part of an official dictionary (e.g. Duden for German, Websters/Oxford
for English) you can use it. If alternatives exist, use the more common.
E.g. "email" (DE: elektronische Post) and "scanner" (DE: Abtaster) are
part of the german Duden. In case of "scanner" nearly nobody would use
"Abtaster", google gives ~2,000,000 matches against ~4,000 for german pages.
The same google-fight for "Email" versus "elektronische Post":
3,750,000 : 15,300 (country=AT) = 1 : 0.004
10,700,000 : 403,000 (country=DE) = 1 : 0.038
6,270,000 : 13,300 (country=CH) = 1 : 0.002
Helmut Wollmersdorfer
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