[Lexicog] Translating scientific terms

[Peter Kirk]

On 10/04/2004 12:04, Rudolph C Troike wrote:

>
> Fritz,
>
>       I hope the linguists trying to come up with scientific terms
> aren't following the ivory tower approach of other "language planners" in
> the past. I recall Joshua Fishman reporting once that, of a dictionary
> developed in the 1920s anticipating the modernization/secularization of
> Hebrew use, only 40% of the terms were now actually in use. In another
> West African case, someone once told of linguists coming up with terms for
> parts of an automobile for a dictionary they were developing, but no one
> bothered to ask auto mechanics, who already had terms they were using.
>
>       Rudy Troike
>
This reminds me of trying to explain at length to an Azerbaijani auto
mechanic which part of my car was not working, because I didn't know the
correct term. He replied "Oh yes, you mean the 'starter'", using the
English word, which had somehow been borrowed all that way.

--
Peter Kirk
peter at qaya.org (personal)
peterkirk at qaya.org (work)
http://www.qaya.org/



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