[NCUC-DISCUSS] NCUC French translation project [was Chinese Translation Project]
Timothe Litt
litt at acm.org
Wed Mar 18 12:52:48 CET 2015
I won't get far into the French argument: I'm no expert. But to
Nicolas' point on the English equivalent, which illuminates a larger issue:
This is a common issue with jargon. To decide, consider your audience.
The way to understand how this diverges is to expand the acronym.
Here's a sentence from the home page:
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers is a non-profit
organization.
If one removes the article, it makes no sense.
On the other hand:
IBM is a for-profit organization.
Here, the acronym has been turned into a noun by years of common usage.
"International Business Machines" is a for-profit organization.
barely works, because it's implictly
International Business Machines Incorporated is a for-profit organization.
So the issue is whether ICANN is a well-known enough acronym to be
considered a noun, rather than something that people need to expand
in-place to understand.
In an introductory document, on behalf of the audience, I say no. In
any language.
Within the group of people who live and breathe ICANN policy and
politics, the answer can be different. The ICANN sure is a complex
replacement for one guy and his secretary.
And that's the larger challenge for writing any document: know your
audience.
Donc, je suis d'accord avec Jean. Troisième.
Timothe Litt
ACM Distinguished Engineer
--------------------------
This communication may not represent the ACM or my employer's views,
if any, on the matters discussed.
On 18-Mar-15 03:41, Jean Guillon wrote:
> Troisième.
>
> *Jean Guillon*
> www.gTLD.club <http://www.gtld.club>
> *Mobile*: +33.631109837
>
> On Tue, Mar 17, 2015 at 10:06 PM, Nicolas Adam
> <nickolas.adam at gmail.com <mailto:nickolas.adam at gmail.com>> wrote:
>
> 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>
>>>>>>> <mailto: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>
>>>>>>>> <mailto: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>
>>>>>>>>> <mailto: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
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>>>>>> Ncuc-discuss mailing list
>>>>>>>>> Ncuc-discuss at lists.ncuc.org
>>>>>>>>> <mailto:Ncuc-discuss at lists.ncuc.org>
>>>>>>>>> http://lists.ncuc.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/ncuc-discuss
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>
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>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>
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