We are people, people of earth in Brazilian Sign Language - translation ERROR

Nikhil Sinha nik.azn at GMAIL.COM
Wed Aug 3 15:48:33 UTC 2011


Hi!
@Charles and Adam: i've corrected the Portuguese and ASL translations.
Nikhil.

On 03/08/2011, Nikhil Sinha <nik.azn at gmail.com> wrote:
> Yes, i have read about Nicaraguan SL. Pretty interesting from a
> linguistic point of view!
> By the way, not many may know about constructed languages. So here's a
> brief overview. Constructed languages are those languages that have
> been carefully planned and created by a single person or group.
> Languages are created for several purposes:
> 1. Easier international communication. Example: Esperanto, Interlingua.
> 2. Linguistic research. Example: Lojban, Loglan.
> 3. Use in movies, stories, comics, etc. Example: Quenya, Klingon.
> 4. For fun. Example: countless constructed languages found on the
> Internet. Even I have created five such languages. :)
> Nicaraguan SL still counts as a natural language, because it developed
> naturally among children, without any deliberate planning on their
> part.
> Nikhil.
>
> On 03/08/2011, Charles Butler <chazzer3332000 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>> However, laughing, Klingon and Quenya have now been used for at least a
>> generation as viable languages.  The challenge of creating a language
>> from
>> scratch (such as happened with Nicaraguan Sign Language) is both
>> beautiful
>> and daunting.
>>
>>
>> ________________________________
>> From: Nikhil Sinha <nik.azn at GMAIL.COM>
>> To: SW-L at LISTSERV.VALENCIACOLLEGE.EDU
>> Sent: Wednesday, August 3, 2011 6:42 AM
>> Subject: Re: We are people, people of earth in Brazilian Sign Language -
>> translation ERROR
>>
>> Lol. I'm going specify on my website today that the project is only
>> for humans, not aliens! A lot of people have thought of aliens because
>> of the reference to Earth in the sentence!
>> Nikhil.
>>
>> On 03/08/2011, Cherie Wren <cwterp at yahoo.com> wrote:
>>> And behind the differences in my and Adam's translations might be how we
>>> took the intention of the sentence.  When I saw the sentence, I
>>> immediately
>>> thought of the little plaque that went out with some space probe showing
>>> the
>>> human physique and saying some phrase in many earth languages.  So my
>>> translation is geared to someone who knows nothing about humans or
>>> earth.
>>> lol
>>>
>>> cherie
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>>________________________________
>>>>From: Adam Frost <icemandeaf at GMAIL.COM>
>>>>To: SW-L at LISTSERV.VALENCIACOLLEGE.EDU
>>>>Sent: Tuesday, August 2, 2011 6:33 PM
>>>>Subject: Re: We are people, people of earth in Brazilian Sign Language -
>>>> translation ERROR
>>>>
>>>>Ok everyone. I understand that people get very touchy with relations to
>>>> their language. I have caught myself doing the same thing, but we need
>>>> to
>>>> remember that putting people on the defense will get anyone anywhere.
>>>> Having said that, we have to remember that many people have given
>>>> Nikhil
>>>> a
>>>> translation of their own for the phrase in question. After all of the
>>>> years that I have had in
>>>> interpreting/translating/translation/transliteration, I have found that
>>>> not everyone is on the same skill level to do so. Most people don't
>>>> even
>>>> realize that it is a true skill that doesn't come over night. There are
>>>> many people who don't know what is required to translate even if they
>>>> are
>>>> natives.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>The one thing that makes it even more difficult is that even a simple
>>>> sentence can be interpreted in many different ways. Notice that Cherie
>>>> and
>>>> I both had very different ways of translating the same sentence into
>>>> ASL.
>>>> I don't feel that her sentence is more or less right than mine. The two
>>>> versions are just that, different. Now, my understanding is that Nikhil
>>>> was told by other people about the way to write the sentence in
>>>> Portuguese. I personally did not see your suggestion, Charles, for
>>>> Portuguese, but I could have missed it as I thought you were referring
>>>> to
>>>> how it is done in LIBRAS (which is probably the same thing with
>>>> Nikhil).
>>>> So are you suggesting another way, Charles? Or are you saying that the
>>>> suggestion that Nikhil had received is truly wrong and not just another
>>>> version? If so, then one of two approaches could be taken: accept it as
>>>> an
>>>> alternate variation, or get in contact with the others who gave the
>>>> earlier suggestion to talk it out with
>>>  them. Nikhil cannot make that sort of decision either way, nor has s/he
>>> even when asked to by you, Charles. (I can't tell by your name, Nikhil,
>>> if
>>> you are male or female. *wink*)
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>Now as for where the Sign Language examples on Nikhil's website are
>>>> placed,
>>>> they (ASL and LIBRAS so far) are under "Translations in Natural
>>>> Languages". I believe that is what you were asking, Charles.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>Now that I have given my little take on what has happen, let's be fair
>>>> with
>>>> everyone on the list and step away from language politics and write
>>>> Sign
>>>> Languages. Because they can and should be. :-)
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>Adam
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>On Aug 2, 2011, at 2:02 PM, Nikhil Sinha wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>Oh dear God! I'm tired of saying this again and again. I do NOT want
>>>>>the translations to confirm to my structure.
>>>>>And how are you so sure that i'm tampering with translations? Give me
>>>>>examples. I just go according to what people submit. I do NOT make
>>>>>changes on my own. The only thing i do is capitalise the first letter
>>>>>of the sentence, if it isn't already so, and add a full stop, if there
>>>>>wasn't any.
>>>>>Nikhil.
>>>>>
>>>>>On 03/08/2011, Trevor Jenkins <bslwannabe at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>On Tue, Aug 2, 2011 at 7:58 PM, Nikhil Sinha <nik.azn at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>Please soften your tone! You are sounding a bit rude!
>>>>>>>
>>>>>I'm not an idiot. I have extensively studied languages (informally)
>>>>>>>
>>>>>and i do not "demand" unnatural translations, just to make them
>>>>>>>
>>>>>confirm to the structure of my original sentence.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>If you are making these target sentences "conform" to your original
>>>>> sentence
>>>>>>
>>>>>structure then you are not after translations but trans-literations and
>>>>>>
>>>>>thereby they become unnatural. And as to Charles' tone, I'm with him;
>>>>> you're
>>>>>>
>>>>>tampering with what people have generously given you but without
>>>>>>
>>>>>understanding the implications of what you are doing.
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>Regards, Trevor.
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>><>< Re: deemed!
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>--
>>>>>निखिल सिन्हा | Nikhil Sinha
>>>>>nik.azn at gmail.com
>>>>>www.wahawafe.zxq.net - Wahawafe - a multilingual translation project.
>>>>>"We are humans and we are from Earth." in several languages.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> निखिल सिन्हा | Nikhil Sinha
>> nik.azn at gmail.com
>> www.wahawafe.zxq.net - Wahawafe - a multilingual translation project.
>> "We are humans and we are from Earth." in several languages.
>
>
> --
> निखिल सिन्हा | Nikhil Sinha
> nik.azn at gmail.com
> www.wahawafe.zxq.net - Wahawafe - a multilingual translation project.
> "We are humans and we are from Earth." in several languages.
>


-- 
निखिल सिन्हा | Nikhil Sinha
nik.azn at gmail.com
www.wahawafe.zxq.net - Wahawafe - a multilingual translation project.
"We are humans and we are from Earth." in several languages.



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