Arabic-L:TRANS:Translate or Transliterate

[Dilworth Parkinson]

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Arabic-L: Wed 20 Mar 2002
Moderator: Dilworth Parkinson <dilworth_parkinson at byu.edu>
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1) Subject:Translate or Transliterate
2) Subject:Translate or Transliterate

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1)
Date:  20 Mar 2002
From:suma99 at att.net
Subject:Translate or Transliterate

Hi,
To answer your question about when to translate and when
to transliterate; what I do is when the phrase in
question is something generic I always translate, even
technical novelties. But when it is of something more
specific such as a title, brand, or logo, etc. I think
it's best to transliterate.
For example to translate FBI as you did it may refer to
an organiztion of US gov. or Brithish or French or any
other country. But when you hear FBI you always know
what is meant.

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2)
Date:  20 Mar 2002
From:Andrew Freeman <andyf at umich.edu>
Subject:Translate or Transliterate

Yeah -----
    and sometimes you will see al-"'aaf bee 'aay," for the FBI.  I think
we
are looking at a place in the language that is changing faster than any
standards body can keep up.

	It all depends on the writer and the genre.  For instance, in the
intended audience can the writer be reasonably certain that the words he
is borrowing are going to be recognized with the intended meaning and how
certain is the writer going to be that he/she does not need to include a
glossary of recently borrowed/coined/transliterated words.

	Why do English speaking writers say "Al-muxaabaraat" for
  the Iraqi internal security forces instead of the more accurate
translation "Internal State Police" which is exactly what the US's FBI
is.
More to the point: when relations with the Palestinians are good Arafat
is
President  Arafat, but when they have turned sour the word ra'iis is
always translated as chairman.  The Arabic word has never changed.

     The point is that what we are looking at here is a process of
borrowing, codeswitching and other language contact phenomenon.  This
falls squarely, with no wiggle room, under the rubric of
"sociolinguistics."  For a reasonable treatment of borrowing into
Moroccan Arabic you might want to check Jeff Heath "From Code-Switching
to Borrowing: A Case Sudy of Moroccan Arabic."  For more general
treatments you will probably need to take a look at Labov "Principles of
Linguistic Change" and Thomason (Rich Thomason's wife BTW) and Kaufman
"Language Contact, Creolization, and Genetic Linguistics"  Trudgill is
good.  Lesley Milroy is excellent.  Myers-Scotton "Duelling Languages" is
also very helpful, but is specific to fully bilingual communities in
Kenya.

	I hope that this helps.

cheers,
andy

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End of Arabic-L:  20 Mar 2002