Re: Translation of program names

[Danilo Segan <dsegan gmx net>]

Дана петак, 31. октобар 2003. 17:43:49 CET, Curtis C. Hovey написа:
> On Fri, 2003-10-31 at 07:03, Murray Cumming Comneon com wrote:
> >   Epiphany Webbrowski
> >
> >   Erscheinung Browser
>
> Another point about translating app names: how do I and another user
> know we are talking about and using the same app?  How would I file a
> bug against Erscheinung?

How would you report an error for GNOME System Tools in that case (if  
this name is translated, which Christian called "descriptive", and thus  
translatable, yet he's opposed to name translation)?

Still, how about using Bug-buddy? How about checking the 'About' dialog  
for original name? How about looking at epiphany.desktop and seeing:
X-GNOME-Bugzilla-Product=epiphany

If you don't know that you should look at 'epiphany.desktop', you  
should check the properties for that menu item. This is made for  
programmatic usage, so that's why it's not straightforward, but  
straightforward is what Bug Buddy is for.

What bothers me is how are you going to report a bug against Xeyes?  
Yeah, you need first to find out where to report it to. It's not easy  
to find that alone. Next, you need to find out in what module it might  
be. No, that's not all. You need to know whole lot about reporting a  
bug. And if you don't use automated tool (like Bug buddy), you're  
probably talking about yourself as a rare user who knows how to use  
Gnome Bugzilla, knows how to find the real name of the app, etc.

> I don't think it is wise to translate proper names like Epiphany or
> GNOME (which is a anagram anyway).

For the reasons mentioned above? I never knew that it's obvious to new  
users that bugs for Gnome should be reported to bugzilla.gnome.org (do  
a test yourself, put someone in front of Epiphany, tell them that they  
need to report a bug [if they know what a 'bug' is, before you explain  
that it's actually an error, misfeature, or similar] for "Epiphany",  
and watch them how they do it and how they find out about bugzilla; do  
you think name itself would help them that much? I believe it will be  
easier for them to start Bug-buddy and report error through it.)

On the "Gnome" thing, anagram part is really meaningless. Please try to  
find where it's explained. Yeah, I remember it was on the start page in  
Gnome 1.x days, perhaps even in the 2.0 days, but I cannot find it  
either on the start page, or "about" page today. So, what's it (the  
meaning of anagram) good for?

More on that below, with a summary of pros and cons I have so far  
noticed in this discussion.

> Proper names are not usually translated in literature.  If there is a  
> meaning in a proper name that isn't obvious in the translation, then  
> a footnote suffices.  I would not make it a rule though.

Yes, but they *are* usually transliterated in languages which use a  
different script. Serbian has a phonetic alphabet, so all foreign names  
are transliterated as they're pronounced. Grammar allows people to  
include the original spelling with the first appearance of  
transliteration (in parentheses or a footnote, as you suggest).

Of course, in literature proper names could sometimes be translated too  
(because they're often used with a meaning; perhaps none of Englishmen  
know what does Raskolnikov in Dostoevsky's "Crime and Punishment"  
actually means, because you don't know what 'raskol' is; this name is  
probably not translated in English translations, but you miss a lot  
because of that -- do you care what Raskolnikov means while you read  
600 pages about him? I certainly do). But we're not talking about  
fantasy literature (as Christian rightly pointed out), and I was never  
talking about translating your name. It's such a shame that I have to  
repeat all this stuff over and over again.

Lets try to summarize the pros and cons of *translating* names:

Pros
1. Easier to remember, because it's understandable and in the spirit of  
the language
2. All readers of that language are able to read it correctly
3. Higher quality translation (declinations are impossible with foreign  
words, unless transliteration is used, but even then they're hard to  
do)
4. More interesting names (for both users and for translators), just  
like names are interesting to English language speakers

Cons
1. Harder to talk about it with others who're unfamiliar with that  
translation, find documentation and other foreign resources
2. Harder to report bugs
3. Author of software *might* be insulted

1 is easily solved through About dialog and inclusion of original name  
there, or by using menu "Help > Contents" for documentation, instead of  
starting Yelp and searching for it. I don't think it's unrealistic to  
ask from a user to check the About dialog if he's about to start  
searching for data in a different language. Yeah, she might even first  
check there to see if there's a webpage dedicated to a project.

2 is already solved through usage of Bug buddy, and data which is  
already there in all .desktop files I have looked at.

3 is the only remaining task, but I don't think it's very common.  
Actually, with free software it's possible to rerelease software with  
entirely different name, so this point is probably moot.

If I did miss anything, please point that out. But if there's nothing  
else, I think all arguments you have are those of your "gut feeling" or  
"6th sense" that it's not right thing to do, yet you don't know *why*  
it's not right thing to do. In any case, noone can deny that there are  
benefits with translation of names.

So, the "cons" *can* be fixed more or less, but "pros" *cannot* be  
fixed if we'renot using a translation (some of the time transliteration  
suffices). What would you go for if you bear all of that in mind?

Cheers,
Danilo