On Jan 8, 2004, at 9:43 AM, Sascha Noyes wrote:
On Thursday 08 January 2004 05:53 am, Gutza wrote:
Arwel Parry wrote:
Well, for example if you were translating to/from Welsh, the word "glas" is normally used to describe the colour of the sky, however it is also used to describe the colour of grass. "Llwyd" usually means "grey" but it also has "bluey" connotations...
Perhaps the most famous example would be "libre" and "gratuit" mapping onto the english "free". I agree with Gutza nonetheless that automation would be a good idea. The overwhelming majority of words can be translated into most languages one-to-one (ie. no ambiguities). This would save us a lot of work. And for the few cases where there are problems, they can be corrected by hand.
Take, specifically, the Spanish 'libre', the English 'free', and the French 'gratuit'. Without care, one might end up saying that since sp:'libre' means en:'free', which means fr:'gratuit', sp:'libre' also means fr:'gratuit', which is of course wrong. The transitive property does not always apply to language. Here out little automaton friend might run into difficulty, even if he *is* only aiming to "make our lives easier".
Peter
--- Funding for this program comes from Borders without Doctors: The Bookstore Chain That Sounds Like a Charity. --Harry Shearer, Le Show