Subject: Translations

From: "araizen" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 07 Aug 2002 03:24:15 -0000

After the recent clarifications from lojbab on the baseline, here is 
my attempt to write guidelines for translation of the gi'uste. 
Comments awaited.

The baseline consists of the gismu, the keyword, and the place 
structure, but not the exact wording of the place structure, and not 
the additional clarifications. The English keyword is baselined, but 
since it has to be translated anyway, there is not much point to 
keeping a bad or misleading keyword, and the keyword in the target 
language should be chosen considering the entire place structure of 
the gismu. Likewise, the place-structure definition should reflect 
the same place structure as the English definition, but there is no 
need to follow it word-for-word, or even very closely, and should be 
written taking into consideration the semantic divisions in the 
target language.

The English list is baselined, but lists in other languages may also 
become part of the baseline when the dictionary is published. 
Therefore, the translation can take into account usage and experience 
gained since the English list was baselined, though it needs to 
remain faithful to the place structure and broad meaning recorded in 
the English list.

As some examples of the changes of the last type I'm thinking of, I 
plan to make the Esperanto keyword for 'facki' 'ekscii', and not 
anything to do with 'malkovri' or 'eltrovi' (I would 
translate 'ekscii' into English as 'find out' anyway). The 
explanatory note in 'slabu' says that it can be used for both senses 
of 'old', i.e. 'malnova' and 'maljuna', however I would remove any 
mention of 'old in years', since usage has clearly decided that it 
doesn't have that meaning.

mu'o mi'e .adam.