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

[Adam Frost]

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.
> 

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