www.cgerli.org seems to have vanished from the radar.
Here’s my post introducing it in 2008.
It had links to all sorts of translations of current German statutes and many other documents too.
I hope it is just being updated and has not been removed altogether.
There is a site with links to ‘official’ translations, Gesetze im Internet, but there are many more statutes out there in translation, good or less good, that can be useful to translators and lawyers.
The reburial or reinterment of a body sharing the same female DNA as Richard III and many others recalls the Umbettung of Friedrich der Große in 1991. At least the pomp and ceremony in the former case will not be limited by the wishes of Richard to a burial at night by the light of carriage lamps.
Grabplatte Friedrich II. Schuschke von SK49 – Eigenes Werk. Lizenziert unter CC BY 3.0 über Wikimedia Commons
(Spiegel article on Richard III)
See also Operation Bodysnatch on the saltmine.
Translation Journal is back, reports B.J. Epstein at Brave New Words.
In another mailing list last week, I was struck by the question of how to translate the term divorce decree into German.
One would normally write Scheidungsurteil, but recently the term Urteil has been removed from German divorce law, apparently because it makes divorce sound like a fight (haha!). Indeed, all family law cases now end in a Beschluss, which sounds more harmless, allegedly.
See Es gibt keine Scheidungsurteile mehr in Thomas von der Wehl’s blog.
Wir haben nur durch das neue FamFG eine neue Begrifflichkeit erhalten. Aus einem schwer nachvollziehbaren Grunde hat der Gesetzgeber den Begriff Scheidungsurteil abgeschafft und durch den Begriff Scheidungsbeschluss ersetzt. Er wollte damit ausdrücken, dass es sich bei Scheidungsverfahren um angeblich weniger streitige Verfahren handelt und dieses Weniger an Streit mit dem etwas geringerwertigen Begriff “Beschluss” kenntlich machen. Ich halte das für Unsinn, zumal die Vermutung, Scheidungsverfahren seien weniger weniger streitige Verfahren, häufig falsch ist.
So the colleague’s question was: do we change the translated term to suit new German practice? The answer on all sides was ‘no’.
And yet when English law removed the term plaintiff and replaced it by claimant, translators in the UK followed suit, even though the term plaintiff is used in Ireland and thus in the EU, and also in the USA and other common-law jurisdictions. And similarly, in family law, it’s common to use contact instead of access in translations, just because the term has changed in English law.
Of course one has to consider how close the concepts are in German law and English law. And also whether the audience is from one specific jurisdiction – it’s statistically more sensible to use plaintiff unless the readership are purely from the UK.
I’m trying to think of other cases where changes in terminology might affect translations. One area is the introduction of ‘politically correct’ usage, which may occur in the USA and UK before it does in Germany. Should a German institution use non-sexist language in its English documentation even if it doesn’t in German? I think so.
The names of courts, court personnel and lawyers often change. So do forms of companies and partnerships.
Of course, many concepts are not close and the target language needs a definition. It’s only terms like Scheidungsurteil and plaintiff that are close enough that one wonders whether to follow changes in the target language.
I will be getting back to legal translation matters – really! Meanwhile:
1. Postman’s leg £2.95:
Apparently these are also sold as Dinosaur Bones.
2. Burns Night tomorrow: Lidl has or had kilts on offer.
3. Between the Lines: podcasts on literary translation, including Joyce Crick on Freud and Kafka in English and Anthea Bell and Jo Catling on translating W.G. Sebald.
4. It seems holders of manorial rights in land will not be able to claim damages for fracking.
5. I suppose it’s not likely that, if Scotland were to be independent, Orkney and Shetland would have to be handed back under udal law? It does appear that a very few people, possibly not including royalty, are or were pursuing this line.
AN INDEPENDENT Scotland will have to hand back Shetland and Orkney according to Denmark’s British Ambassador.
In partnership with Norway’s King Harald V, the Danish regent Queen Margrethe II intends reviving the ancient rites of Udal Law which were ratified by the Scottish parliament in 1567.
I am excited to announce that Thomas West has been running a legal blog for a couple of months – I have only just seen it.
The blog can be accessed from his website, www.intermarkls.com.
Most of the posts so far are on Spanish to English legal translation, but there will certainly be posts on German coming, on German law and Swiss law above all.
The opening post in 2014 is headed 10 Ways to Improve Your Legal Translations – it contains a lot of useful advice:
3. Beware of British terminology in the bilingual dictionaries:
High Court (a court of first instance in England, but used by American journalists to refer to the United States Supreme Court)
locus standi (this is called “standing” in the United States)
Rules of the Supreme Court (this is the equivalent of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure in the United States)
Yes, I remember being surprised to read the US press writing about ‘the high court’.
Be careful not to assume that the photograph of the former King Juan Carlos of Spain, who has been testing the adage ‘The King can do no wrong’, with Tom, who looks different and as far as I know has done less wrong.
The post Costas, costes y costos reminded me that in England we talk about court fees and lawyers’ costs. There used to be a term taxation of costs, meaning review of the necessity of costs, where a court officer, called a taxing officer (this gives the word taxing at least three meanings), reviews whether the solicitors had overcharged (the service is only available in connection with a court case, but the court’s fees, of course, cannot be challenged in the same way). The term has apparently been changed to detailed assessment since 1998. However, taxing officers and taxation orders are still so called. Here’s the Law Society on making a complaint about your solicitor’s bill.
