[Wikipedia-l] About creating a new language on Wikipedia

[Berto 'd Sera]

Hi!

Admittedly, we had similar worries when we started the UI localization for
our wiki. The basic fear was that "people won't be able to use it". The
discussion was quite long and the number of candidate words was judged by a
much larger community than those who eventually got involved in the wiki.

We eventually decided that when you offer a product (because any localized
software IS a product) you have to give it an added value, i.e. a reason why
people would use it. We identified this value in "being able to explain to
what IT mumbo-jumbo actually means". The result is positive, there is not a
single english word left in our wiki and people magically "understood" what
is used to do what. 

The only requests I am receiving are about totally clearing from english
other UIs. You might be surprised, but the highest pressure comes from young
(15-20 y.o.) bilingual users, who are native or almost native in english,
too. It has nothing to do with liking english or not, it's about using a
language for what it's meant to do: to deliver a clear message.

The choice of words really depends on what's current in your language. In
our case even if the dominant culture has long become industrial and it
would take you ages to find a horse anywhere, there still are lots of
metaphores originating from the farmers' life. Sometimes their roots are
incredibly old.

We don't "move things", we "make St. Martin" (because St. Martin's Day was
the end of all location contracts in the Middle Age). We call someone who is
chatting about everything a "marossé" (although not many people remember
that they actually talk about a horse vendor). We say that "it takes 20
solds to make a Lira" (because the 5 cent piece was called "sold" for almost
a thousand years, coming from Emperor Constatine's "solidus"). I guess that
none of those catholics who nowadays shout "you Catholic swine!" when
something falls off their hands have a clue at the fact that the expression
dates back to our 500 years long religious war. Yet they do curse like that,
even if they are Catholics themselves. 

A language is social history condensed in sounds. Basically nobody remembers
the "because" section behind most words, yet they are current in everyday
language and deliver a clear message. Moreover, most of the frequent press
attention we get originates from the fact that our UI "is fun". Just one
month after opening pms.wiki we got a giant article in the main newspaper in
our area just because we translated "Web" literally :) At that point we
understood that our "added value" could sell the project pretty well.

Yes they laugh, so what? It's free ads you get, so let them laugh while you
get your crop in fresh users :) It doesn't really matter how you get to be
frontpage news, whoever gets there becomes "fancy" anyway. BTW, I'm
currently localizing Drupal and a videogame called Freecol, so the number of
"funny words" is growing exponentially... 

People like it, so why not? You know, if you start to believe that "your
language is not fit" and resolve to abandon it (if only partially) then
there's no reason for you to use that language at all. If you don't believe
in what you're doing... than you probably chose the wrong business. You may
be a wonderful contributor in other fields, but localizing is clearly not
your bag. 

It's not only about Uis ant the IT, as I'm often surprised by what people
write about physics and mathematics in Piemontese. Mostly because concepts
are so much clearer than they are in Italian or English... If you look at
our discussion pages you'll find that almost 70% of them are about the
terminology used. Such results don't simply "happen", they are the result of
a complex team-work.

Anyway, all languages are unique and it takes some care to identify what
moves are best in your context. When you translate an interface you really
need to contact as many native speakers as you can and check their
reactions. We work for the people, so their opinion comes first.

Bèrto ‘d Sèra
Personagi dl’ann 2006 për l’arvista american-a Time (tanme tuti vojàotri)
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1569514,00.html
 

-----Original Message-----
From: wikipedia-l-bounces at lists.wikimedia.org
[mailto:wikipedia-l-bounces at lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Ray Saintonge
Sent: Wednesday, July 11, 2007 9:25 PM
To: wikipedia-l at lists.wikimedia.org
Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] About creating a new language on Wikipedia

Berto 'd Sera wrote:

>This is true for every language that has its first UI developed for a wiki.
>For a small number of words that totally wiki-related it's also true for
>major languages, English included. "Wiki" wasn't an English word before
>wikipedia.
>
This usage of wiki actually goes back to Ward Cunningham's WikiWiki 
Website in 1994.  That's before Wikipedia.

>IMHO, most small languages don't need borrowing from English at all. They
>have a long and sound tradition on their own, and can basically translate
>all IT related words to make them "accessible". 
>
In theory.  If you have a small glossary of common English IT terms that 
you want to translate into Piedmontese (Note the different "English" 
spelling even for this language term.) you will not have an easy time.  
If there is only a small number of these you can get away with literal 
translations.  If you introduce too many of them you will become 
incomprehensible because it begins to look like an out-of-context 
jumble.  It takes time for these neologisms to become understood in 
their new language and intended meaning, and the time usually isn't 
there.  In English, when there is no word for something you just make 
one up, begin to use it in key contexts, and it becomes acceptable.  
There is no academy to tell you that the word is right or wrong.  The 
evidence for a word comes from its usage.

>We translate "Feed aggregator" as "Marossé" in piemontese, because that's
>the word that historically defines the profession of "Horse trader", and it
>has the added meaning of "the one who always knows what's going on where".
>
What's a "feed aggregator"?  What you say leads me to believe that it's 
some device for mixing the food that is given to livestock on a farm.  
I've lived in a city all my life, so what would I know about modern farm 
practices?  When you mention "horse trader" as a possible meaning I 
become thoroughly puxxled.  Horses are an old technology, and "horse 
trader", as we know it now, has drifted away from its original meaning.  
It has now come to mean a person who profits through a series of 
effective trades.  The recent case of the person who set off on the net 
trading a paper-clip for gradually more valuable items until he had 
acquired a home for himself is a great example of a horse trader. How 
will that contribute to my understanding of "feed aggregator"..

>"Ping" is something you can pretty much translate with the verb you'd use
to
>"Knock at the door", etc.
>
"Ping" is onomatopoeic, that is to say it is understood by its sound.  
It does not resemble the sound made by a knock at the door.  It is a 
distinctly a higher pitched metallic sound such as in hockey when a 
slapshot strikes against a metal goal-post, or the sound of a single 
note on a vibrophone.  Very seldom does it have anything to do with 
wood, except perhaps in the resonance of a single note on the 
xylophone.  In English a cow says "Moo", a dog says "Woof", and a duck 
says "Quack", but the way speakers of another language perceive these 
animal sounds can be quite different.

>One of the reasons behind the weakening of local languages (mid-sized
>official languages included) is in that at a certain point in history they
>gave up "explaining" things. In instead, they privileged the English
>speaking layer of society.
>
To a point yes.  But English is absolutely profligate in the way it 
generates words.  Who could keep up with so many bastard children?

>This eventually damaged English itself. The number of English words that
are
>drifting away from their original meaning because of the way in which they
>are used in foreign languages is constantly increasing. I see that
>frequently in business, as the number of "supposed to be in English" emails
>and faxes coming from Italy is constantly growing.
>
As in the case of "horse trader" English doesn't need the help of any 
foreign language to create that drift.  When an English speaker sees 
these kinds of errors, and knows that the message is from a non-native 
speaker he has a good quiet laugh, and proceeds on the basis of what the 
word should be.  The point then becomes one of politeness, and how often 
do you tell a native foreign speaker about his English language errors.  
I know that they want to write better English, but pointing out mistakes 
too often can be horribly discouraging.

There is a current example on the Wikimania site where the people who 
have registered are called "registrars".  It should be "registrants".  A 
litteral reading of "registrars" doesn't make any sense at all.  The 
correct word, however, can be inferred from the context.  In the 
interest of not being too picky, one lets it go.

>As a result, people come to me asking to translate "from Italian English to
>English". Since telepathy does not exist usually all I can do is have the
>communication sent back and ask the guy to write in Italian. 
>
Yes, that can save a lot of misunderstanding.  If the person making that 
request really doesn't believe that telepathy exists, he shouldn't be 
expecting you to use it. :-)

>Importing English words is rarely doing any good both to your language AND
>English; unless a native population really is bilingual in English.
>
It's not so harmful to English, because English has become able to 
absorb these variants.  In part it explains why American and British 
English have been able to adapt to each other on Wikipedia, and language 
aware English speakers are even able to make room for the peculiarities 
of India's Hinglish.

>Roberto Bahamonde Andrade:
>
>However, there are many cases on communities can't avoid that "original
>research". Many American languages (Quechua, Náhuatl, Cherokee) haven't
>words for "edit", "talk page" or "internet", then is necessary find the
form
>of say such concepts. One way to solve it is paraphrasis and another way is
>the borrowing of a word of English or Spanish and adapt it to phonetics of
>the language. No matter the way used, the community of Wikipedians had made
>original research.
>
Maybe, but it's up to each community to define what it means by original 
research.  At the very least if you are going to discuss original 
research in one of these languages that language must have a term for 
"original research".  Rules discussions should then take place in that 
language.  If a rule puts you in a Catch-22 something's wrong with the rule.

>2007/7/5, GerardM: 
>  
>
>>In the language committee we are not really happy with artificial
languages
>>or with languages long dead that are given a new lease of life because "we
>>can". In dead languages you have to do original research in order to be
able
>>to name the concepts that are modern and foreign to that language as we
know
>>it. Wikipedia is not about original research and you have to create new
>>words and in the process change the language in order to write an
>>encyclopaedia that is to be used in this day and age.
>>    
>>
At one time I had an old medical dictionary (ca. 1820), and the entry 
for "cadaver" started with "A cadaver is generally immobile."  
Immobility for these dead languages means that they are no longer able 
to move, and generate new life.  We cannot expect that the new 
terminology that we invent for it will be accepted by the people who 
normally speak that language, because those people don't exist.  Our 
newly invented words do not rise above the level of fantasy.  The 
resulting encyclopedia is indeed to be used in this day and age, but 
only by people who do not exist.

Ec



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