An example of the Franconian ‘weiches P’, I assume.

Not welcome at Country Corner, Fürth.

LATER NOTE: I thought this Frankenberger was a local hoodlum, but the penny has just dropped – it refers to Sebastian Frankenberger, who initiated the Bavarian referendum as a result of which Bavaria now has the strictest anti-smoking regulations in Germany.

I am pleased to announce that Victor Dewsbery has a new weblog, Language Mystery. Let’s wish it a long and active future.

At Victor’s website there are a number of resources, such as translations of the titles of German statutes, a glossary of Christian terms, German public institutions, advice on not trusting dictionaries, and a lot more.

Advertisements for carp restaurants in local advertising paper (click to enlarge):

Anyone who is learning about how to translate German statutes into English might be interested to compare the two online translations of the Bundesdatenschutzgesetz.

1. Goethe Institut (formerly Inter Nationes translations)

2. BFDI (Der Bundesbeauftragte für den Datenschutz und die Informationsfreiheit)

Bundesdatenschutzgesetz (original German)

In no. 1, I was struck by:

a) The use of Article instead of section for §

b) The difficulty of navigating to sections 5, 43 and 44

c) Section 43 (2) ‘fails to appoint a commissioner for data protection’ – I would only use this for the Federal Commissioner – here, prefer ‘data protection officer’ (No. 2 has ‘data protection official’)

d) Translation of rechtzeitig as on time instead of in (good) time (No. 2 has ‘within the prescribed time limit’)

e) Mystifying translation of section 43 (7): contrary to Article 29 para. 3 sentence 2 does not ensure the acceptance of recordings,
(No. 2: in violation of Section 29 (3) second sentence fails to ensure the inclusion of identifiers)

Incidentally, if one looks at no. 1’s translation of section 29, the terms used do not match.

In no. 2, I liked

a) data subject for Betroffene(r)
(No. 1 had affected party – I was going to use person affected, although I see I had already got data subject in my database)

b) Bußgeldvorschriften and Strafvorschriften, as headings, translated as Administrative offences and Criminal offences
(No. 1 had Administrative Fine Provisions and Penalty Provisions)

c) Translation of section 43 (5):
entgegen § 29 Abs. 2 Satz 3 oder 4 die dort bezeichneten Gründe oder die Art und Weise ihrer glaubhaften Darlegung nicht aufzeichnet
in violation of section 29 (2) third or fourth sentence fails to record the evidence described there or the means of presenting it in a credible way
(No. 1: contrary to Article 29 para. 2 sentence 3 or 4 does not record the reasons named there or does not record the way in which they are credibly presented)

There is more. I would love to know who did the BFDI translation.

Jessica Antosik at the Übersetzerportal reports (in German) on a petition sent by young translators and interpreters to the Petitions Committee (Petitionsausschuss) of the German Bundestag. The Committee is a place people can complain to or petition, with a sort of ombudsman function.

The request was to protect the words Übersetzer, Dolmetscher and Sprachmittler. This would mean that the only people who could call themselves the equivalent of translator or interpreter would have to have some sort of training or pass some sort of exam.

This petition was developed on a social network called Xing, where there is more to read, and members can see more than I can. A representative of the BDÜ is there quoted as saying that if the petition had been granted, the effect would not have been as desired (more work for the petitioners?).

The Committee turned down the petition, inter alia because there is a trend towards encouraging occupations rather than restricting them.

The BDÜ wanted something like this for many years, but as far as I know doesn’t any longer. It amazes me that anyone would want this. I have not yet found that passing or failing a particular exam made anyone a good or bad translator. Do these people look at the many unqualified and incompetent translators and overlook the qualified and incompetent ones? whatever that means, since a translation may work without being brilliant. And presumably non-translators could still translate for money, so you could say ‘I had this translated not by a translator, but by a teacher’. (I have passed the Bavarian and Hesse translators’ exams and the Hesse interpreters’ exam, although I think I learnt more from teaching and online forums than anything else)

Wir, die gezeichneten Übersetzer und Dolmetscher der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, fordern den Schutz der oben genannten Berufsbezeichnung und deren weiterführenden Fachbezeichnungen. Als Qualifikation zur Ausübung der Berufe fordern wir ein abgeschlossenes (Fach-)Hochschulstudium oder eine abgeschlossene Ausbildung an einer anerkannten Ausbildungsstätte. Quereinsteiger sollen fortan ihre Sprach-, Fach- und Sachkompetenz durch entsprechende Nachweise oder eine qualifizierende Prüfung vor einer anerkannten Stelle (z. B. IHK oder staatliches Prüfungsamt) belegen. Sollte eine Person weder eine abgeschlossene Ausbildung noch eine qualifizierende Prüfung vorlegen können, darf sie nicht unter den Berufsbezeichnungen Übersetzer, Dolmetscher oder Sprachmittler tätig werden.

From the grounds:

Übersetzen und Dolmetschen ist mehr als die reine Übertragung in eine andere Sprache. Es erfordert sowohl linguistisches Wissen, stilistisches Feingefühl als auch die richtige und korrekt angewandte Technik des Übersetzen und Dolmetschens. Diese Kenntnisse erwirbt man nur durch eine qualifizierte mehrjährige Ausbildung.

Sorry, but show me someone straight from a university translation diploma course who has linguistic knowledge, stylistic sensitivity (in their mother tongue) and the right and properly applied techniques of translating and interpreting – it takes years of practice.

They also object to translators and interpreters working at very low rates, which they think is more common among unqualified people. But I think our economic system permits it. Personally, I would rather work as a cleaner than translate for peanuts – if only I were fitter, then I might even do some cleaning here.

The novelist (also lawyer, and daughter of a translator) Juli Zeh has been having a discussion with her translators at the Europäisches Übersetzer-Kollegium in Straelen. One can’t be sure whether the press got it right, but the Rheinische Post reports:

1. Chinese has no word for gesunder Menschenverstand (common sense). (One has one’s doubts):

“Man macht sich beim Schreiben keine Vorstellung davon, dass der Begriff des gesunden Menschenverstandes in anderen Sprachen nicht existiert”, sagt Juli Zeh. “Menschen können nur das denken, wofür es auch ein Wort gibt. Es fehlt nicht nur das Wort, es fehlt die ganze Idee dazu. Welt wird erst durch Sprache definiert.”

2. There are several terms for gesunder Menschenverstand in English. Juli Zeh prefers The Healthy Mind.

Doch die Auswahl an Übersetzungen für den Zeitungstitel “Gesunder Menschenverstand” ist groß: The Common Sense, The Healthy Mind oder Logic Dictates. “Mir gefällt The Healthy Mind” sagt Zeh. “Das passt zu meiner Idee.”

The healthy mind? Mens sana in corpore sano?

3. The novel (it was a play originally, I think) is called Corpus Delicti. The many legal terms are particularly hard to translate into other languages, so rponline quotes the Belgian translator Hilde Keteleer. She translates for Belgium and the Netherlands. In the Netherlands there are no Schöffen (lay judges). So she takes the Belgian term Hof van assisen and the Dutch will have to put up with it.

(Wikipedia says this Court of Assize consists of three judges with a jury of twelve, but that’s just by the way).

(via uepo.de)