[Lexicog] Translating scientific terms

[Mali Translation]

Don't worry, Rudolph,

I know e.g. what these "language planners", as you call
them, have done in the area of medicine. They are not ivory tower
people divorced from reality.

Of course, the local
terms for certain diseases were kept. Only in cases of new
medical developments and insights,new terms were introduced.
These new terms were coined
after discussions and agreement with local people (e.g. farmers)
doctors and linguists. These terms which are clear (do not sound
foreign) are introduced in health booklets about certain diseases
to sensitize the population how to protect themselves against these
diseases and/or treat them. These terms begin to be widely used.
Foreign words in this area stand a small chance to be accepted.

Fritz Goerling


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





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