[NCUC-DISCUSS] NCUC French translation project [was Chinese Translation Project]
Nicolas Adam
nickolas.adam at gmail.com
Tue Mar 17 22:06:14 CET 2015
This is a more complex question than meets the eyes ;)
There is probably 3 ways to go about it.
À propos de ICANN
À propos d'ICANN
À propos de l'ICANN
and I guess the last one is the one I liked the least. But I'm more than
willing to go with it though.
It is true that we commonly say l'ONU, and that we have used the *l'*
most everywhere else when it comes to International orgs. However, it's
sometimes wrong. And more often than we might think.
> L*'élision* consiste, en règle générale, à remplacer par une
> apostrophe une des voyelles finales "a, e, i" d'un mot, lorsqu'il ce
> mot est suivi d'un autre commençant par une voyelle "a, e, i, o, u" ou
> commençant par un " h " muet.
However, we do not think about ICANN (at least I don't) as "La ICANN" or
"Le ICANN" that we could strip that a or that e and replace it with an
**'**.
For me, it's more of a "de ICANN" situation, as in "le problème de ICANN
est que bla bla" and not "le problème de la ICANN ..." (where you would
have two /déterminants/ in front of the word) and that's why I
abbreviated it like I did, using the above rule. In essence, I
determined that the sentenced to be shortened by the /élision/ was
1) À propos de ICANN
and not
2) À propos de la ICANN
So that was one grammatical reason. But a grammatical reason that hinges
fully on the first determination being right (a determination that could
be challenged: it *is* possible to have "de la" in front of a word: "de
la tarte"). So the determination itself seems to hinge on what is the
most appropriate word category for ICANN. Is it like a pie or more like
Internet? Notice, not the Internet.
So the reason ceases to be solely grammatical and becomes logical and
relates to a category mistake that is often made with many process or
phenomenon that are (wrongly, IMO) thing-ified (reified).
I may have been too polluted by English (please take no offense, I love
Poe's idiom), but for the same reason I do not feel it right to say "The
ICANN is ..." and that it sounds better to say "ICANN is", for instance;
and for the same reason that it sounds better to say "UNICEF is" rather
than "The UNICEF is ...", I feel it it is ugly form on top of bad
philosophy to emphasize a reified (thing-ified) outcome, for some words
referring to processes and phenomena.
Yes, English uses "The UN ..." quite a bit when it comes to the United
Nations. I have no idea why and I'll grant that it almost feels wrong
today to say "UN is ...". I feel this form ("... the UN ...") is a wrong
that will endure because it has, basically. But at the same time it
doesn't look like we are going there with (the) ICANN or (the) UNICEF ...
I think that logically, it is a category mistake, the same that many
people make when they say "*the* Internet" (or, its French equivalent,
"l'Internet"). Internet is not a thing, and language shouldn't
thing-ified it. Internet is a process, an emerging phenomenon. So is ICANN!
So ... the fact that ICANN's first letter means, precisely, Internet,
the same word people so often wrongly use a "the" in front of, kinds of
stack on that first determination on which the grammatical rules is then
applied.
When we use the "ONU" acronym, it is the translation of the UN acronym,
and it stands for "Organisation des Nations Unies". The word
"Organisation" calls for the l' in a way that seems impossible to
resist, but I would argue that sometimes, it is indeed wrong to think
"la mission de la ONU"
and that we should have probably thought
"la mission de ONU"
and that, as a result, we should have probably said "la mission d'ONU"
instead of "la mission de l'ONU".
But I am well aware that I will not find that "correct" élision anywhere
and that usage has deeply ingrained "de l'ONU".
I wouldn't make a case for ceasing to use l'ONU, you know. But I would
resist (as I have in the past) any attempt by proofreaders to make me
change ICANN into l'ICANN *in a personal text of mine*. This not being a
personal text of mine, I will go with whatever you think is best. I
guess I felt like I would preemptively right a soon to be aesthetical
wrong :) and you caught me red handed in language activism ;)
Cheers
Nicolas
On 17/03/2015 9:56 AM, Mathias HOUNGBO wrote:
> Hello Nicolas
>
> why you write "À propos d'ICANN" and not "À propos de l'ICANN" ?
>
> we said "À propos de l'ONU" here http://www.un.org/fr/aboutun/
>
> Thanks
>
>
>
> "And then God said Noah make me a backup I need to format"
> "Mefies toi de la médiocrité, c'est la moisissure de l'esprit"
>
> --
> Made in Bénin -http://mathias.houngbo.net
> Président ONG IGBANet -http://www.igbanet.org/
> System and Network Administrator at BCEAO Bénin
> CTO & Co-Founder at STARSOFT INFORMATIQUE
>
>
> Le 13/03/2015 20:05, Nicolas Adam a écrit :
>> Here is the first half, which is the most i could do today.
>>
>> I send it right now because I won't be able to work more on it before
>> Monday night, so if someone else wanted to do some work on it then
>> they can do so without redoing what I just did. Since there is quite
>> a bit of neologism that has arisen around Internet Governance, and
>> translating them with equivalents (with the view that they stay
>> stable) isn't always a straightforward process, don't hesitate to
>> discuss the choices I made with me.
>>
>> Cheers!
>>
>> Nicolas
>>
>>
>>
>> On 13/03/2015 11:34 AM, Stephanie Perrin wrote:
>>> Huguenot... we bailed out for England so long ago we are rusty! I
>>> must admit it was embarrassing when I lived in Quebec, where folks
>>> are not taught much history of those massacres, and did not
>>> understand the explanation. You, on the other hand, have such an
>>> english name....?
>>> Suppose we take the text in word and divide it up? I have plunked
>>> the online version into word, attached.
>>> cheers Stephanie
>>> PS some of these expressions must have already been translated,
>>> anybody know which document would be easiest to follow? I dont
>>> fancy dredging through meeting transcripts if I can avoid it...
>>> On 2015-03-13 10:57, Nicolas Adam wrote:
>>>> Ma langue maternelle est le français. I can help with the vetting
>>>> and writing. You have french names Stéphanie Pérrin ;)
>>>>
>>>> Nicolas
>>>>
>>>> On 13/03/2015 10:29 AM, Stephanie Perrin wrote:
>>>>> Yes we do, I am not a native speaker but can do a rough
>>>>> translation which we could have vetted by a francophone.
>>>>> Stephanie Perrin
>>>>>
>>>>> On 2015-03-13 4:04, Arsène Tungali wrote:
>>>>>> This is a great news.
>>>>>> We may need to think of French translation as well. Do we have
>>>>>> french
>>>>>> speakers in the NCUC?
>>>>>>
>>>>>> 2015-03-13 6:44 UTC+02:00, Jia He <hejia925 at gmail.com>:
>>>>>>> Dear All,
>>>>>>> Yes, this idea is great. I have a face-to-face conversation
>>>>>>> with Peter
>>>>>>> this morning . For the brochure translation, we can divide the
>>>>>>> task into
>>>>>>> two parts. each of our both can translate a half , then we
>>>>>>> invite the
>>>>>>> experts in CCTEAG (Chinese Community Translation Expert Advisory
>>>>>>> Group) to
>>>>>>> Check it. CCTEAG is organized by my academy, so it is easy to
>>>>>>> connect with
>>>>>>> those experienced experts who participate in ICANN meeting for
>>>>>>> many times.
>>>>>>> Meanwhile, those experts can make sure the words we translated
>>>>>>> is in the
>>>>>>> right way.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> We will see the Chinese NCUC brochure in Argentina.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Regards,
>>>>>>> Jia
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> 2015-03-13 0:17 GMT+08:00 Amr Elsadr <aelsadr at egyptig.org>:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Peter,
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> This sounds fantastic. Exactly the sort of work a regional
>>>>>>>> representative
>>>>>>>> on the EC should be undertaking!! The best of luck to you and
>>>>>>>> Jia on your
>>>>>>>> endeavour.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Thanks.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Amr
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> On Mar 12, 2015, at 4:37 PM, PeterGreen
>>>>>>>> <seekcommunications at hotmail.com>
>>>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Hello NCUCers,
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> As the Asian/Pacific Representative on the Executive Committee,
>>>>>>>> I would
>>>>>>>> like to take this opportunity to formally announce that we are
>>>>>>>> launching a
>>>>>>>> "*NCUC
>>>>>>>> Chinese Translation Project*".
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> In this Project, we will translate NCUC materials into Chinese,
>>>>>>>> enabling
>>>>>>>> more Chinese to be involved in our Constituency, to that
>>>>>>>> extent to
>>>>>>>> commit
>>>>>>>> to the most diversified Constituency within ICANN community in
>>>>>>>> terms of
>>>>>>>> language.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> This Project will be taken by a translation team under the
>>>>>>>> Department of
>>>>>>>> International Affairs and Policy Analysis of China
>>>>>>>> Organizational Name
>>>>>>>> Administration Center (CONAC) - my home institution, together
>>>>>>>> with my
>>>>>>>> Chinese Colleague Jia He who recently joined NCUC.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Firstly, we will start by translating NCUC Brochure, which is
>>>>>>>> currently
>>>>>>>> written in Enligh and Spanish, available at
>>>>>>>> http://www.ncuc.org/brochure/
>>>>>>>> .
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> After that we will tranlate other materials into Chinese
>>>>>>>> according to an
>>>>>>>> EC scheduled priorities list (which is to be determined).
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> It is aimed that we could circulate Chinese vesion NCUC
>>>>>>>> Brochures during
>>>>>>>> ICANN 53 to be held in Buenos Aires in late June.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> In launching this thread, hope more NCUCers who would like to
>>>>>>>> join in
>>>>>>>> other kind of language tranlation work take up a similar
>>>>>>>> initiative.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Thanks very much for your attention.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Best Regards
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Zhang Zuan / Peter Green
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
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>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
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>>>>>>
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