The ADÜ-Nord, one of the German associations for translators and interpreters, has a lot of useful information (in German) on its website. The bulletin, Infoblatt, has just appeared. This and older issues (pre-2003 in the archives) can be downloaded.

Among the interesting items in this issue are an article by a tax accountant on how Gewerbesteuer (trade tax / local business tax) will affect translators if it is imposed, with some calculations to show the effects, and an article on the payment of interpreters by the Bremen courts. The Bremen courts take the view, apparently, that they can enter into framework / outline agreements (Rahmenverträge) with agencies undercutting the lowest statutory payment rate. Copies of correspondence are given. The practice of having a basic agreement of this kind is apparently spreading.

There is also a reprint of a review I wrote for the MDÜ, the journal of the BDÜ, of a book by Dieter Stummel, Standardvertragsmuster zu Handels- und Gesellschaftsrecht Deutsch-Englisch. They liked my last sentence so much they put it in bold. I believe Dieter Stummel works for Burger King in Munich. Without any sources or bibliography, he presents not-quite-perfect English versions of a huge range of contracts (but with no CD-ROM – perhaps just as well). People should be really really careful before relying on a book like this.

Another German translators’ and interpreters’s society, Aticom, has a list of new publications and some reviews (German).

And there’s a list of journals, both in print and online, for translators at Alexander von Obert’s Übersetzerportal.

Isabella Massardo reports that a man in Manchester has been forbidden by magistrates to use the word ‘Paki’ (i.e. Pakistani; quoting the Guardian and the Independent – BBC News has it too). Under the terms of an anti-social behaviour order, he will go to prison if he uses the word in public. This is the first such order of its kind, apparently. The Independent quotes Liberty, the human rights organiization, as describing this as bad law, because it is ‘almost impossible to enforce’ (presumably hard to monitor rather than to enforce).

The prosecutor was Manchester City Council. An anti-social behaviour order was new to me. It is also referred to as an ASBO. (It sounds like the opposite of what is intended – should it not be an Anti-Antisocial Behaviour Order?) There are some statistics here, from April 1, 1999, when they were first introduced – Greater Manchester certainly seems fond of them. And here is information from the Home Office.

Slashdot (who also gives a link to the original story of the finding of Ötzi) quotes Yahoo News on the discovery that Ötzi was killed in a fight lasting two days. DNA from four different people has been found on the body.

bq. Otzi’s naturally mummified body, the oldest found so far, became a worldwide sensation in 1991 after two Austrian mountain climbers saw it in a thawing glacier at 10,500 feet on the Hauslabjoch Alpine pass at the Italian/Austria border.

Tut, tut, Yahoo, not Austrians but a couple from Nuremberg. We inhabitants of Franconia must stand up for each other.

‘Alois Pirpamer, one of the climbers who found Otzi …’ – Hm, has the Fürther Nachrichten been telling lies? But no, BBC News in February 2002 (nice pictures) rescues us: ‘German hikers Erika and Helmut Simon describe the moment they discovered our best window on the Stone Age.’

At all events, with the ice in the Alps melting fast, there’s going to be a search for new bodies on Sunday. But whatever the limitation rules, if this was a murder, it predates the jurisdictions involved.

I thought there had been a court case relating to a finder’s reward.. The Simons were going to sue South Tyrol for 250,000 euros – they were offered first 5,000, then 28,000. And BerlinOnline some time ago gave the reason for the reluctance of the government of South Tyrol: with the ice thawing, they suspect more bodies will come to light and this won’t be the last such claim.

Finally, here is Ötzi’s new home.

A report in the Sueddeutsche Zeitung, ‘sagen, sug, gesugen’, describes a society for the promotion of strong verbs in German (Gesellschaft zur Stärkung der Verben). Strong (irregular) verb forms are being avoided, so in a kind of affirmative action, this society is trying to make more weak verbs strong. Gesellschaft zur Stärkung der Verben (and they do more, see the heading Rettet des Genitivs!).

It reminds me of Matthias Koeppel’s poems in what he calls Starckdeutsch. I haven’t got the book here, but I found two on the Web (originals and translations here):

Arrckiteikturr
Arr, di Arr; di Arrckitucktn –
jarr, di sünd tautul pfarrucktn.
Pauhn onz euburoll Quaduren,
vo se gurrtücht henngehuren.
Vn demm Hurz büsz ze denn Ullpn
snd di Häusur steitz di sullpn.
Duch di Arrckitucktn tschumpfn:
Onzre Pauhörrn snd di Tumpfn!
Olle zullte mon kastruren,
düßße auff ze pauhin huren;
odur stott ünn rachtn Winkuln
se dönn pauhin, wi se pinkuln.

I wondered if Koeppel was still in print, and I found that the site I just quoted misspells starckdeutsch and matthias, so I hope it spelt the poem right! For instance, I suspect gurrtücht should be gurrnücht… It may be possible to get second-hand copies of Starckdeutsch and Starckdeutsch II, or Koeppels Tierleben. In Starckdeutsch.

But there is a CD available.

The Shifted Librarian gives a link to Doonesbury’s Daily Dose strip. The topic on Sunday August 10th was blogger’s block.

This second case on a translator’s invoice is earlier. It was decided by the Oberlandesgericht Hamm (Higher Regional Court of Appeal in the civil and criminal court system)
The translation was from Spanish to German. 145 pages of transcripts of phone conversations in Spanish had to be translated for a criminal case under the Narcotics Act (Betäubungsmittelgesetz). The appeal court conceded the translator the DM 3.20 per line that the translator wanted, but again it insisted that spaces could not be included in the count. Not only was the translation urgent, but the deadline was reduced by 14 days after the translator had started working.

The ZSEG statute does not speak of remuneration for translators, but compensation (Entschädigung) for time spent. The translator was actually promised DM 3.20 per line by the Dortmund public prosecutor’s office, but the court held that such an agreement is not binding. When the translator submitted his invoice, he was at first offered only DM 2.50, which was the lowest permitted line rate plus 25% for urgency.

It is interesting, as in the last case, to read why the court thought the translation was particularly difficult and therefore accepted the translator’s higher line price. It said that the conversations were not in ‘European’, ‘easy/Castilian’ Spanish, but in Latin-American Spanish. ‘This Spanish is harder to translate, according to the applicant [the translator], and the court has no reason to doubt this’. Spanish is actually classed by the guidelines for compensating interpreters and translators as an easy language (Group A).

(Of course, many languages are equally ‘easy’ for those who speak them). Continue reading →