On July 21st I had an entry on a new language invented in Regensburg. I have now received an email from one Robert Maier, who apparently knows something about this but mysteriously describes himself as ‘happily far from Regensburg’. I reproduce it here and also in the comments below the earlier entry, which I have temporarily re-opened. I don’t imagine the original commenters will all see it, either way:

a few comments/flames?! from someone who – for his own taste – knows way too much about the thing…

New language not a COD… well it used to be; aber auch dort hatte man wohl so eine Art Rechtschreibreform. (Although COD was quite o.k. IMHO, theres sth very fishy about all this new language/un-language business…)

Tomas points to the issue of empiricity & testing, and quite rightly so… but his linguistics prof might be made aware of the fact daß seine (und mithin auch meine) Zunft ganz fröhlich an der ganzen internationalen Planspracherei mitgebastelt hat. Otto Jespersen gab der Welt Novial – http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novial – , André Martinet war in den Vorstufen von Interlingua – http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interlingua_%28Plansprache%29 – beteiligt, und selbst der Name de Saussure taucht in den Annalen der Interlinguistik auf – allerdings nicht Ferdinand, sondern sein Bruder René; der dafür aber recht umtriebig auf der Esperanto-Seite der Dinge: http://www.fenetreeuropetv.com/forum/read.php?f=1&i=13456&t=10984

Das bei persistent illusions erwähnte Sommerloch… genau, das war auch mein erster Gedanke. Das passt auch, da gehört das auch hin – just like the Loch Ness Monster, Bigfoot and the Yeti… :)
(“Persistent Illusions”, actually – true true true… seems like the world of science has been hunting for THE international language ever since the early 17th century… and before that for the philosopher’s stone. Genau dasselbe, genau den gleichen Realitätsgehalt…)

Incidentally, you mention the UFO content of the institute’s name… actually, the acronym is meant to indicate the equivalent of R&D – or rather D&R: Entwicklung Und FOrschung… die Überlegung, ob das denn die richtige Reihenfolge ist, überlass ich jetzt aber dir… (but sure *does* remind of one song of Schwaben’s finest (of 1979 vintage), “Schwoißfuaß”: “Guck, guck, i han E UFO gsäa…”)

Und was Qoh angeht: Klingonisch, warum nicht? Once the fundamental auxlangers’ (auxiliary language proponents) postulate of “we need an artificial language to ease communication between people of differnt languages” is accepted… there is nothing, absolutely NOTHING, that would make one language preferable over any other (which is my huge heresy against them all, right).
[Und von daher nehmen diese Leute in Regensburg auch ihren Stolz von wegen, no grammar. Vielberth apparently assumes that it is grammar which causes the worst difficulties when learning a language – und darauf fußt das ganze Ding. Daß das Vokabular notwendig anschwillt, wenn man (wie dort betrieben) die ganze Morphologie lexikalisiert… tja! Oder? “The real intrinsic difficulty of learning a foreign language lies in learning to master its vocabulary.” Henry Sweet, 1899 – not a word about grammar…]

Anyway, das brannte mir so am Freitagabend grad mal noch so unter den Nägeln.
Happily far from Regensburg,
viele Grüße –
Robert

Ist es wirklich sinnvoll für einen Übersetzer, lustige Fehlübersetzungen auf der Homepage zu veröffentlichen? U. a. hat es die Wirkung, dass der Leser Übersetzung mit Fehlern assoziiert. Oft liest man immer wieder dieselben Beispiele, die manchmal erfunden sind.

Dann gibt es Geschichten über Fehler in der Werbung, z.B. soll es einen Chevy Nova gegeben haben, aber no va bedeutet auf Spanisch “fährt nicht”. Die Geschichte stimmt aber nicht.

Some translators like to post a list of amusing bad translations on their websites. Sometimes these are lists that are passed round in email and on the Internet and aren’t even genuine. Then you show that you did not have the energy to make your own collection, and you also encourage the reader to associate translation with errors.

There was an apocryphal story, a kind of urban legend, that a car called Chevy Nova had its name changed for Spanish-speaking countries because no va means ‘it doesn’t work’.

However, other stories are true. There was a full-page Air France ad in a British paper a few years ago with the slogan ‘Air France wants you to fly united’. I am ashamed to say I haven’t got the details, but I remember a number of people mentioning it at the time. And Des reports in a Smörgåspost (first item) of a Honda near-miss in Scandinavia in 2001, with what later became the Honda Jazz:

bq. Honda was all set to lauch a marque of car with the jolly name of “Fitta” globally, until they were alerted that “global” includes Scandiwegia, and that that name might have certain issues in the ‘Wegian market: “fitta”, in Swedish, corresponds very exactly to the literal (anatomical) meaning of the Engleesh ‘c’-word (albeit without the connotational baggage – ‘Wegian swearing is organised otherwisely).

This could at least be traceable.

Some stories are collected here. A level higher is a linguistic fun page with good links. Looking at the top page, I wonder if deep linking wasn’t enough.

Maurice Druon said in Paris that French should be the language of the EU justice system, because it ‘reduced the risks of differing interpretations to a minimum’.
The initiative is apparently also supported by other dignitaries of various nationalities. A French state prosecutor said the move was meant to counter juridical decadence (i.e. failure to speak French?).

This inspired Trevor to some variations on the theme.

There’s an article in the Anwaltsblatt (German) by Volker G. Heinz, who is a Rechtsanwalt and Notar in Berlin, comparing the English limited company with the German GmbH.

I’ve already mentioned Heinz’s excellent comparative articles on notaries.

(Via Handakte WebLAWg and Bonn Blawg).

I have already mentioned Lundmark’s Talking Law Dictionary, which has been very silent for some time now. At the Frankfurt Book Fair, a LexisNexis representative told me it will be on the market by December 2004 at the latest.

December 2004 is quite soon in publishing terms!

Meanwhile Langenscheidt has announced another for spring 2005. This is described as a ‘Medienpaket’:
Fachwörterbuch Kompakt & e-Fachwörterbuch 4.0 Recht
In Kooperation mit Alpmann-Schmidt
Von Stuart G. Bugg B.A., LL.B. (Hons), M. Jur (Dist) und RAin Heike Simon
EN>DE und DE>EN
Rund 11.000 Fachbegriffe und mehr als 22.000 Übersetzungen je Sprachrichtung, Paperback, mit CD-ROM
3-861172410, EUR 44,90

You can buy the paper dictionary separately, 3861172402, for EUR 29.90.

Aus dem Inhalt: juristische Grundtermini, Zivilrecht (Schwerpunkt), Vertragsrecht, Gesellschaftsrecht, Handelsrecht, Steuerrecht.

Yet another Franconian law dictionary! I’ve met one of the authors and spoken to the other, but knew nothing about this. Heike Simon was the co-author, with Gisela Funk-Baker, of the Beck introduction to German law and language.
Einführung in das deutsche Recht und die deutsche Rechtssprache

One thing I’d like to say is that the software divergency is driving me mad. I use Dietl-Lorenz on CD, which is compatible with the Acolada Collins.
I added the Alpmann-Brockhaus German law dictionary, but that runs on different software. It could be combined with Duden-Oxford, but I like that less.

I’m not convinced that Alpmann-Brockhaus is better than Creifelds, indeed, I think it is not as good. In the last instance, it’s the text that counts. But it does come with book and CD, and it uses nice two-colour printing. Alpmann Brockhaus Fachlexikon Recht

I haven’t got the latest Creifelds CD-ROM, which may be compatible with Dietl. I admit Beck’s software has tended to be clunky. At least you can do a full-text search, which is essential But I don’t want to have two separate dictionary interfaces. Here’s a link to the paper version: Creifelds Rechtswörterbuch

A word about law dictionaries: once I’ve got Dietl on the CD and Romain at hand, I don’t want to open much else. So my old von Beseler-Jacobs-Wüstefeld gets neglected. Köbler I wouldn’t use – it’s just a glossary. Pons Fachwörterbuch Recht is not a bilingual law dictionary, but an excellent learners’ dictionary for English usage, with a German index. It gets rotten write-ups at amazon.de by people who buy it as a cheap bilingual dictionary and are then disappointed it isn’t what it never meant to be (it’s unfortunate that the cover says Englisch-Deutsch and Deutsch-Englisch!).
PONS Fachwörterbuch, Recht

I have already praised the small Lister-Veth. I hope the Bugg-Simon dictionary is good, but almost more I hope for an expanded Lister-Veth, with the obviously very useful Frau Isolde Kübler in the background.
Taschenwörterbuch Recht : DE>EN

Taschenwörterbuch Recht :EN>DE
The cheapest of the lot is the tiny Krimphove, which has French too. It actually has definitions, and even a tiny little CD-ROM – I think I’ll water it and see if it grows. Rechtsbegriffe deutsch – englisch – französisch

This might be worth knitting/crocheting if the weather gets any colder. It might also make me look younger.

From Felieke van der Leest, Jewellery and Objects (note also the nifty tampon holders), via Cobwebs of Petty Inquisitiveness.