Handakte WebLAWg reports on a new online legal translation company, Tolingo.

They describe their translators as qualifiziert und zertifiziert. They also have geprüfte Lektoren.

I couldn’t help noticing this:

Die Drei Punke
Ihre Texte werden dreifach geprüft: linguistisch, stilistisch und fachlich.

I see they use translation memory, unlike many legal translators. They need to be very careful about the quality of their memory, of course, and also consider the copyright aspects.

Das elektronische Gehirn
Unser Translation Memory System garantiert die `richtige´ Terminologie in jeder Fachrichtung.

Tolingo also has a blog, with a photo of the ‘Team’ of ‘tolinguisten’. They say they pay translators for DE/EN (both directions?) from seven to eleven eurocents per word.

Train without driver:

Goethe weilte in Nürnberg! was it in Goethestraße at Maxfeld?

Rathenauplatz:

Q. How do you say Queen Mother in German?
A. Queen Mum.

It’s never filtered through that this expression is only used by a few newspapers for effect.

Bianca Jagger lost a valuable ring in Austria. Austrian law requires that the finder be paid 5% of the value of the ring (German law has a similar provision). The finder has taken her to court in Salzburg for slander – she said that he handed in the ring far too late (8 days after it was announced in the press, before which time he thought the ring was worthless). After this civil case, it will be clear whether the finder’s reward is to be paid. It would be 10,000 euros.

Jagger, a human rights activist, made an alternative offer in November to pay 9,000 euros to Amnesty International and the remaining 1,000 euros to Ringler’s daughter, according to her Austrian lawyer Gabriel Lansky.

But negotiations between the parties failed.

The civil suit will go to court on May 4. If Jagger loses, she will have to pay 19,000 euros, including court and lawyers’ fees.

In the US, finder’s fee usually refers to a commission agreed to be paid for introducing businesses and customers.

Süddeutsche Zeitung report

AFP report

BBC article on Oetzi (the iceman)

(Via Handakte WebLAWg)

John Flood recommends Charon QC’s Insite Law Magazine Netvibe (this link is to the page on UK law blogs):

If you are looking for an online source that aggregates blogs, law reports, legal magazines, journals and more, then you should check out Insite Law Magazine Netvibe (sponsored by Wildy & Sons).

Some miscellanea today. I did start twittering – see right-hand column – but have not really got into it. It will be useful for posting quick links, but without following and being followed by a large number of translators and/or lawyers, it will not be useful for terminology questions, for instance.

1. Weißwurst
Today (as already tweeted), IPKAT has an entry on the Weißwurst case. It has a photo of a cat – one of the old-style round-faced Siamese type – that has grabbed an uncooked British sausage. Something to shock Germans!

The writer, Marc Mimler, refers to the tradition that the Weißwurst should not hear the bells chime midday. He doesn’t mention the controversy as to whether it is OK to cut the sausage with a knife, or whether it is not better to suck out the contents. Enough said.

The case was also mentioned on the Class 46 Blog by Birgit Clark.

2. Large statue of Christ
As reported, the Fürth Stadtheimatpfleger has problems with the Neue Mitte, the huge shopping centre the town council want to splat across the town. Meanwhile, the Bezirksheimatpflegerin Andrea Kluxen has problems with a planned 55-metre statue of Christ to be erected near Wassertrüdingen near Ansbach. This is the same one that was planned for Bad Reichenhall last year. This recalls Franz Josef Strauss’s daughter Monika Hohlmeier, who is being exported to Franconia as a potential MEP. The Augsburger Allgemeine says:

Die angeblich weltweit größte Christus-Statue solle auf einer Ackerfläche am Ortsrand errichtet werden. Teil des Projekts sei ein «Pilgerhotel» mit 185 Zimmern, Wellness-Bereich und einem Restaurant. Die Baukosten von 20 Millionen Euro wolle eine Stiftung des Hamburger Unternehmers Harry Vossberg übernehmen, erläuterte Babel.

The artist is Angerer der Ältere, who seems to do Tolkieny stuff. Pictures here.

3. Court interpreters in Los Angeles
The Los Angeles Times on American Justice in a Foreign Language an article about interpreters and how the courts found a telephone interpreter for a variety of Mixe spoken by only about 7,000 people in Mexico.