[Mailman-i18n] German Localization

Bernd Petrovitsch bernd at petrovitsch.priv.at
Wed Oct 17 13:28:07 CEST 2012


On Mit, 2012-10-17 at 11:56 +0100, mta_enigma wrote:
[...]
>  example:
>  No one here (neither me) has known, what "bounce processing" is (its 
>  actually translated with "Bounce-Erkennung"). Now, i know what it 
>  is...but i had to read in wikipedia. You know what i mean? We think, its 

Didn't you understand the word as such or didn't you know the concept?
If it's the first, which word did you know?
If it's the second, no German word wouldn't have helped either.

>  possible to found everytime a term in the target language to explain for 
>  everyone, whats exactly meant.

First, no you won't. E.g. I failed to find a good translation for
"scheduler" (to name the oldest one I can remember) for decades.
And no, I do not know (or have) the legendary "Siemens-Dictionary" from
the times where German was the corporate language there. The examples
from that "Siemens-Dictionary" at the university were quite funny at
that time.

Second, you loose all the techies who know the English terms and who
have to learn(!) the - new and thus artificial - German word.
And for people who do not know what "email bounces" (as such) are, a new
German word won't help either (or an existing word with the n+1.
meaning).
And yes, IMHO the french strategy to define French words purposely
different from the English one for new terms is a strategic failure - at
least for the IT area.

Third, it may help the few who do not speak English at all but it
doesn't help the ones who - sooner or later - find the Internet and will
learn the original English ones.

	Bernd

PS: I'm purposely ignoring the problem with the whole bunch of German
regional dialects (and even .at has far more then one. Yes, most in .de
can't distinguish them, though they are quite different) which adds to
the problem of an "official German translation". We already have way too
much "German language imperialism" in .at - thanks to strange TV
translations;-)
-- 
Bernd Petrovitsch                  Email : bernd at petrovitsch.priv.at
                     LUGA : http://www.luga.at



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