Internationalized Domain Names Officialy Approved

Posted On October 31, 2009By TranspanishIn English Language, Languages, Tips for Translators, Translation Buyers/ No Comments

An Article from NY Times reports:

By the middle of next year, Internet surfers will be allowed to use Web addresses written completely in Chinese, Arabic, Korean and other languages using non-Latin alphabets, the organization overseeing Internet domain names announced Friday in a decision that could make the Web more accessible.

In an action billed as one of the biggest changes in the Web’s history, the board of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers — or Icann — voted Friday during its annual meeting, held in Seoul, to allow such scripts in Internet addresses.

The decision is a “historic move toward the internationalization of the Internet,” said Rod Beckstrom, Icann’s president and chief executive. “We just made the Internet much more accessible to millions of people in regions such as Asia, the Middle East and Russia.”

This change affects domain names — anything that comes after the dot, including .com, .cn or .jp. Domain names have been limited to 37 characters — 26 Latin letters, 10 digits and a hyphen. But starting next year, domain names can consist of characters in any language. In some Web addresses, non-Latin scripts are already used in the portion before the dot. Thus, Icann’s decision Friday makes it possible, for the first time, to write an entire Internet address in a non-Latin alphabet.

Initially, the new naming system will affect only Web addresses with “country codes,” the designators at the end of an address name, like .kr (for Korea) or .ru (for Russia). But eventually, it will be expanded to all types of Internet address names, Icann said.

Some security experts have warned that allowing internationalized domain names in languages like Arabic, Russian and Chinese could make it more difficult to fight cyberattacks, including malicious redirects and hacking. But Icann said it was ready for the challenge.

“I do not believe that there would be any appreciable difference,” Mr. Beckstrom said in an interview. “Yes, maybe some additional potential but at the same time, some new security benefits may come too. If you look at the global set of cybersecurity issues, I don’t see this as any significant new threat if you look at it on an isolated basis.”

The decision, reached after years of testing and debate, clears the way for Icann to begin accepting applications for non-Latin domain names Nov. 16. People will start seeing them in use around mid-2010, particularly in Arabic, Chinese and other scripts in which demand for the new “internationalized” domain name system has been among the strongest, Icann officials say.

Internet addresses in non-Latin scripts could lead to a sharp increase in the number of global Internet users, eventually allowing people around the globe to navigate much of the online world using their native language scripts, they said.

This is a boon especially for users who find it cumbersome to type in Latin characters to access Web pages. Of the 1.6 billion Internet users worldwide, more than half use languages that have scripts that are not based on the Latin alphabet.

Hong Jong-gil, an Internet industry analyst at Korea Investment and Securities in Seoul, said the new names would help children and old people who had not learned the Latin alphabet. But he did not foresee any major increase in the number of Internet users because Internet penetration has less to do with whether one has to type in English-alphabet domain names and more to do with “whether you can afford a PC and your community has broadband access.”

Agencies that help companies and individuals get Internet domains welcomed the Icann decision, noting it would be good for their own businesses.

“This is great news for us. This opens a new demand for domain names,” said Yang Eun-hee, an official at Gabia.com, an Internet domain agency. “There will be a rush among businesses to get new local-language Web addresses to protect their brand names. These days, a big company typically has dozens or hundreds of domains for their products, and it will be quite a cost to get all the new names.”

Observers agree that the change could make a difference for many businesses. “A lot of companies will end up having double domains — the existing one in English and a new one in the local script,“ said Choi Kyoung-jin, an analyst at Shinhan Investment. “A Korean domain name may be useful for Koreans but it’s not for foreign customers.”

Users who do not use the Latin alphabet can now reach Web sites by asking search engines to provide their links.

But a change in the domain name policy has become inevitable, Internet industry officials said. For example, there are so many .com Web addresses that it has become next to impossible to find an English word or an intelligible combination of two English words not already in use, they said.

“Today’s decision opens up a whole new Internet territory,” Ms. Yang said. “The Internet will become more multi-lingual than before.”

Crowdsourcing Translations: A Loss for Both Translators and Businesses

Posted On October 28, 2009By TranspanishIn English Language, Tips for Translators, Translation Buyers/ No Comments

The use of crowdsourcing to harness the power of the masses to translate web content has become all the rage at behemoth social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. In an attempt to make these sites accessible to a broader user base, the sites are asking users, rather than professional translators, to collaborate on the translation of site content. Though it’s a noble goal to expand the reach of sites like Facebook to an international audience, turning to crowdsourcing for translations hurts translators and businesses alike.

LinkedIn, a social network that aims to promote and support professionals, recently polled those members who are professional translators in order to gauge their potential interest in translating the site “for fun” or in exchange for nothing more than a profile badge. The site generated a great deal of controversy and managed to offend quite a few members, since LinkedIn was clearly looking for something for nothing. What LinkedIn failed to realize is that asking translators to work for free further devalues a profession that already struggles for recognition. In fact, many translators deleted their LinkedIn profiles following the incident, as they felt that their professional needs were no longer in line with the site’s priorities.

While the idea of tapping into the collective wisdom of a community has its merits – after all, translators reach out to each other all the time to debate issues in translation, terminology, etc. – websites must acknowledge that their image, content and reputation are at stake when they turn to anyone other than a professional to translate their content. Interestingly enough, after receiving numerous user complaints about the quality of localized translations, Facebook did turn to professional translators to edit flubbed translations and improve the consistency of translated terms across the site. Indeed, if websites insist on employing crowdsourcing to cut costs, they must acknowledge that at a bare minimum, professionals should be involved to provide quality control to avoid alienating their user base through poorly rendered content.

At the end of the day, there’s really no substitute for a professional; perhaps crowdsourcing will demonstrate that to companies the hard way.

English Words with a Spanish Pedigree

Posted On October 22, 2009By TranspanishIn English Language, Languages, Spanish Language/ No Comments

Over the centuries, Spanish has made a significant contribution to the English language. When American settlers began exploring the west in the early 19th century, they crossed paths with an established Mexican culture that supplied the English language with a number of everyday words. Merchants conducting trade in the Spanish-influenced Caribbean brought back not only goods but new words as well. Novel foods introduced to us through exposure to Hispanic cultures have expanded both our menu options and our vocabulary.

Let’s explore some of the Spanish loan words that you probably use all the time but never gave a second thought as to their origins.

Chocolate – When the Spanish conquistadors took their first sip of xocolatl, a beverage made from the pods of the cacao tree, they knew the Aztecs were on to something. The Spanish returned to Europe with their newfound chocolate, a word they derived from the Aztec language Nahuatl and later passed on to English.

Hurricane – With the constant threat of these severe storms looming over the tropics, it’s no surprise that the English word “hurricane” comes from huracán, a word picked up by the Spanish explorers from Taino, an indigenous language from the Caribbean.

Aficionado – Aficionado came into the English language from Spanish in the mid-1800s. While the word was initially only used within the context of bullfighting, it later came to mean a “practitioner or enthusiast of any sport or activity.”

Rodeo – The word “rodeo” is derived from the Spanish verb rodear, which means “to surround.” In the past, rodeo was used to refer to the pen where cattle were corralled and eventually to the informal events involving horses and livestock that took place there. Related words like lasso, rancho, hacienda, bronco and even buckaroo passed to English from Spanish back in the days of the Wild West.

Tomato – This vegetable’s (or is it a fruit?) moniker comes from the Spanish word tomate, a corruption of the Nahuatl word “tomatl”. A number of other fruits and vegetables that may grace your plate such as banana, papaya, jicama and potato have their roots, so to speak, in Spanish.

Will 90% of the world’s languages cease to exist?

Posted On October 17, 2009By TranspanishIn English Language, Languages, Spanish Language, Tips for Translators, Translation Buyers/ 2 Comments

A program in BBC radio reveals the following:

An estimated 7,000 languages are being spoken around the world. But that number is expected to shrink rapidly in the coming decades.
In 1992 a prominent US linguist stunned the academic world by predicting that by the year 2100, 90% of the world’s languages would have ceased to exist.
According to Ethnologue, a US organisation that compiles a global database of languages, 473 languages are currently classified as endangered.

What is lost when a language dies?

As globalisation sweeps around the world, it is perhaps natural that small communities come out of their isolation and seek interaction with the wider world. The number of languages may be an unhappy casualty, but why fight the tide?

“What we lose is essentially an enormous cultural heritage, the way of expressing the relationship with nature, with the world, between themselves in the framework of their families, their kin people,” says French linguist Claude Hagege.

“It´s also the way they express their humour, their love, their life. It is a testimony of human communities which is extremely precious, because it expresses what other communities than ours in the modern industrialized world are able to express.”

For linguists like Claude Hagege, languages are not simply a collection of words. They are a living, breathing organisms holding the connections and associations that define a culture. When a language becomes extinct, the culture in which it lived is lost too.

Cross words

The value of language as a cultural artefact is difficult to dispute, but is it actually realistic to ask small communities to retain their culture?

One linguist, Professor Salikoko Mufwene, of the University of Chicago, has argued that the social and economic conditions among some groups of speakers “have changed to points of no return”.

As cultures evolve, he argues, groups often naturally shift their language use. Asking them to hold onto languages they no longer want is more for the linguists’ sake than for the communities themselves.

Ethnologue editor Paul Lewis, however, argues that the stakes are much higher. Because of the close links between language and identity, if people begin to think of their language as useless, they see their identity as such as well.

This leads to social disruption, depression, suicide and drug use, he says. And as parents no longer transmit language to their children, the connection between children and grandparents is broken and traditional values are lost.

“There is a social and cultural ache that remains, where people for generations realize they have lost something,” he says.

What no-one disputes is that the demise of languages is not always the fault of worldwide languages like our own.

An increasing number of communities are giving up their language by their own choice, says Claude Hagege. Many believe that their languages have no future and that their children will not acquire a professional qualification if they teach them tribal languages.

Babbling away

Perhaps all is not lost for those who want the smaller languages to survive. As the revival of Welsh in the UK and Mouri in New Zealand suggest, a language can be brought back from the brink.

Hebrew, says Claude Hagege, was a dead language at the beginning of the 19th century. It existed as a scholarly written language, but there was no way to say “I love you” and “pass the salt” – the French linguists’ criteria for detecting life.

But with the “strong will” of Israeli Jews, he says, the language was brought back into everyday use. Now it is undeniably a living breathing language once more.

Closer to home, Cornish intellectuals, inspired by the reintroduction of Hebrew, succeeded in bringing the seemingly dead Cornish language back into use in the 20th Century. In 2002 the government recognised it as a living minority language.

But for many dwindling languages on the periphery of global culture, supported by little but a few campaigning linguists, the size of the challenge can seem insurmountable.

“You’ve got smallest, weakest, least resourced communities trying to address the problem. And the larger communities are largely unaware of it,” says Ethnologue editor Paul Lewis.

“We would spend an awful lot of money to preserve a very old building, because it is part of our heritage. These languages and cultures are equally part of our heritage and merit preservation.”

Some Statistics

6% of the worlds languages are spoken by 94% of the world’s population
The remaining 94% of languages are spoken by only 6% of the population
The largest single language by population is Mandarin (845 million speakers) followed by Spanish (329 million speakers) and English (328 million speakers).
133 languages are spoken by fewer than 10 people

SOURCE: Ethnologue

British companies relying too much on the English Language

Posted On October 13, 2009By TranspanishIn English Language, Spanish Language, Spanish Translation, Translation Buyers/ No Comments

English may be the leading international business language and UK companies may still have a head start in the 53 Commonwealth countries where English is spoken, but the National Centre for Languages says that three-quarters of the world’s population speak no English and 94% of English speakers do so only as their second language. Chinese is the most widely-spoken language, followed by Spanish and then English.

When the British Chambers of Commerce (BCC) asked almost 3,500 of its members for reasons why they did not export to Europe, 11% cited language barriers and 5% cultural barriers.

Isabella Moore, former president of the BCC and managing director of Leamington Spa-based Comtec Translations, says the survey showed that on average small businesses were losing up to £250,000 a year in orders due to a lack of language skills.

“You have a school of thought that you manage in English. But when you look at our export successes, we do best where English is spoken widely,” she says. “Then you look at countries like Spain and Italy, where we don’t do as well proportionately. Look at South America and it’s only a fraction of our overall export figures.”

Prof Foreman-Peck also found that British exporters are not benefiting from others’ willingness to learn English to the extent that they may believe. Analysis in the US found that online buyers with poor English were six times less likely to make a purchase than those with good English. The research also showed the customers were willing to pay more if the website was in their native language.

The BCC research found that the main reason why companies choose a particular export market is because they know there is
potential demand and feel able to secure sales, but 14% said they were attracted because of linguistic and cultural similarities to the UK.

However, businesses in the same survey did not see securing better language skills as a priority. Only 5% of the companies polled said they would welcome subsidised language training.

Similarly, demand for an “Export box” all-in-one starter package launched by UK Trade & Investment in June, which included translation services, has been slow.

The package included subsidised website translation and redesign to target a foreign-language market, a Google adwords campaign, logistics from Royal Mail and subsidised banking services from HSBC.

Mr Wheeldon says there were plenty of inquiries, but a “much smaller number” had actually then bought the service, which costs £3,000. “I knew that we were not great at exporting, but I didn’t appreciate the fear and anxiety and the time it takes for people to do it,” he says.

source: Telegraph.co.uk

Machine Translation or Human Translation?

Posted On October 11, 2009By TranspanishIn English Language, Spanish Language, Spanish Translation, Tips for Translators/ No Comments

CNN published an article explaining the different approaches from Google and Facebook to translating their webs. Below you will find some highlights:

Facebook aims to translate the Web using an army of volunteers and some hired professional translators. Meanwhile, Google plans to let computers do most of the work. Which method will ultimately prevail remains to be seen.

But for now, here’s a look at the latest language features from both companies, and some background on how their translation services work. (Feel free to add your own Internet translation tips — and fun translation bloopers — in the comments section at the bottom of the story):

Facebook’s human translation

Many tech bloggers think Facebook’s method of human translation seems promising. After all, the American-born social networking site introduced non-English languages for the first time only in January 2008. Now about 70 percent of Facebook’s 300 million users are outside of the United States.

How it works: Real people are at the heart of Facebook translation plan. They suggest translated phrases and vote on translations that others have submitted. These crowd-sourced edits — which work kind of like Wikipedia — make Facebook’s translation service smarter over time. Go to Facebook’s translation page to check it out or to participate.

Size: More than 65 languages function on Facebook now, according to Facebook’s statistics. At least another 30 languages are in the works, meaning Facebook needs help working out the kinks on those languages before they’re put to use.

What’s new? Facebook announced in a blog post on September 30 that the social network has made its crowd-sourced translation technology available to other sites on the Web. The update allows sites to install a translation gadget on their sites through Facebook Connect, a service that lets Facebook users sign in on other Web pages.

Facebook also added some new languages, including Latin and “Pirate,” which translates the Facebooky word “share” as “blabber t’yer mates!”

Pros and cons: People are good at knowing idioms and slang, so Facebook tends to get these right, but there are limited numbers of multi-lingual volunteers who want to spend time helping Facebook translate things.

Also, Facebook’s site is available in many languages, but its human translators don’t touch wall posts, photo comments and other user-submitted items, which is a big con if you want to have friends who don’t share a common language with you. People who use Facebook Connect to translate their sites can choose which text they want users to help translate, according to Facebook spokeswoman Malorie Lucich.

Craig Ulliott, founder of whereivebeen.com, said he’s excited about Facebook’s translation application, but it would be too much to ask his site’s users to translate user-submitted material.

Google’s ‘mechanical’ translation

Google uses mathematical equations to try to translate the Web’s content. This fits in line with the company’s mission, which is to organize the world’s information and make it useful and accessible to all.

How it works: Google’s computers learn how to be translators by examining text that’s already on the Web, and from professional Web translations posted online, said Franz Och, a principal scientist at Google. The more text is out there, the more Google learns and the better its translations become. The search-engine company currently translates documents, search results and full Web pages.

Size: Google claims to be the largest free language translation service online. It covers 51 languages and more than 2,500 language pairs. The site’s interface has been translated, with the help of Google users, into 130 languages.

What’s new?: Google recently created a widget that any Web developer can put on his or her page to offer up Google translations. So, say you’re a blogger who writes about music. You might get some Brazilian readers if you offered up a button to translate your site into Portuguese.

Google also recently unveiled a translation service for Google Docs, which lets anyone upload a document to the Web and have it translated into a number of languages for free. And there’s a new Firefox add-on from Google to help people translate the Web more quickly.

Och said real-time translation of Internet chats is on the horizon, as are more languages and increased quality as Google’s computers get smarter.

Pros and cons: Google’s computerized approach means it can translate tons of content — and fast. But computers aren’t quite up to speed with ever-evolving modern speech, so reports of translation errors are fairly common.

On the plus side, the service has been vastly improved in the last five years, Och said. Also, Google lets people spot translation errors, suggest new wordings and translate its interface into languages Google’s computers don’t speak just yet.

Lost in translation: Latinos and the bilingual divide

Posted On June 25, 2009By TranspanishIn English Language, Latinos, Spanish Language/ 3 Comments

What’s best for Latino students who struggle with English? Should they be taught through bilingual education or are English-only programs the way to go? The answer for a school district in Charlotte, N.C., seems to be a strong combination of both.

At the Collinswood Language Academy (kindergarten through sixth grade) students spend half their day learning subjects like math and science in Spanish and the other half being taught history and social studies in English. The program has been around for a decade and in Charlotte, home to a huge influx of Latinos, it is in great demand.

Experts with opposing views will point you to separate research and data that argue whether English-only or bilingual education is the way to go. Although they may never agree, what’s clear is that Latino students continue to struggle to even graduate from high school. And while educators continue the debate over English only, Latino numbers in higher education remain dismal.

From NBC correspondent Miguel Almaguer

Source: http://allday.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2009/06/17/1968748.aspx

Spanish-English Translations: Pitfalls to Avoid

Posted On April 1, 2009By TranspanishIn English Language, Spanish Language, Spanish Translation, Tips for Translators/ 3 Comments

As with any field, newbies at freelance translation will make mistakes. But being aware of possible mistakes and correcting those errors is a part of any freelance translator’s journey from novice to expert. This list of tips will focus on errors of content and the nuts and bolts of translation work, not on the freelance business side of the equation.

Know your audience.Or in translator lingo, don’t forget about localization. If you translate from English to Spanish, is your audience Spanish? Mexican? South American? While you may be Argentine, if your main audience is from Central America, the translated message may be misconstrued or garbled because of differences in word usage. If you work from Spanish to English, will the translated document be used in Australia or the U.S.?
Translate content, not each word. Truthfully, if you translate each word without regard for the grammatical and syntactical conventions of the target language, you should not be translating. Spanish to English and English translations require a sophisticated knowledge of both languages. Leave word-for-word translations to those beginning the study of a language or online machine translators, not a paid freelance translator.
Be consistent throughout your translated document.While both English and Spanish are rich with different vocabulary words that mean similar things, don’t forgo consistency of terminology throughout a document. This is especially true in technical translations, as the language is very specific.If you translate documents with high word counts or different documents with similar content, consider using translation memory software. This will save you time over the course of the project as well as lend consistency throughout.
Only translate into your native language.If your native language is Spanish and your second language English, only translate into Spanish.While your English may be impeccable, there is no substitute for a native English speaker’s translation and vice versa.
Invite constructive criticism and feedback from your translation mentor. Your mentor can offer you invaluable insight that will allow you to grow as a Spanish to English or English to Spanish translator. Being open to their perspective and advice will enrich your translation work and facilitate your journey from novice to seasoned translator.

Translation Throughout History

Posted On March 10, 2009By TranspanishIn English Language, Spanish Language, Spanish Translation, Translation Buyers/ No Comments

Translation has played a role throughout history any time there has been an intersection of two cultures and languages. And each time one culture has produced a written text, translators serve as the bridge that allows literate members of one culture to be exposed to the written material the other has produced.

Perhaps the best documented example of translation history is that of the Bible, but the work of scholars and great thinkers from all over the world has also been translated. These translations have permitted the cross-germination and exposure to ideas and values that have then spread across the world because of their availability in other languages.

There are three general types of translation: literary, technical, and commercial. Most translation history that goes back centuries focuses on the former, literary translation, because of the need to transmit ideas and values from one language to another. The Translator’s Invisibility: A History of Translation by Lawrence Venutis is a seminal work tracing the translation of literary texts into English and how those translations shape translation theory and thought across cultures.

The translation of literary texts is a field unto itself, and the layperson benefits from this because it allows access to great written works written in another language. As Venutis says in his book: “I see translation as the attempt to produce a text so transparent that it does not seem to be translated.” The reader benefits from skilled translations that stay true to the style and content of a text written in the source language and rendered into his own without the need to understand the source language.

The history of machine translation may be more critical to the modern person because of its use as an aid to transmitting information as opposed to ideas and art. Technical and commercial translations can be rendered more quickly and with greater continuity when machine translation tools are utilized. Wikipedia gives a brief overview of the history of machine translation, beginning with its origins in the seventeenth century.

Because of skilled translators and their ability to bridge two languages, we have access to texts as varied as the richly detailed novels of Isabel Allende, scholarly articles, instruction manuals, and pamphlets for non-native English speakers about health resources. Each of these examples are made possible because of the craft of translation whose history dates back to the first intersection of two cultures with written texts.

Tips for Getting a Quote for Your English to Spanish Translation

Posted On February 3, 2009By TranspanishIn English Language, Spanish Language, Spanish Translation, Translation Buyers/ No Comments

The first step in forming a relationship with a potential translation agency is getting a quote for your project or document. Translation agencies are experienced with asking the right questions so they can provide you with an accurate cost estimate. Many agencies’ websites allow you to submit your document and query via an online application. Some preparation on your end will make the process much more streamlined. Below are some questions you should be ready to answer when requesting a quote:

What is the source language and into what language will the document be translated?
How complex is the document to be translated?
What file format do you require for the final translated document?
What turn around time will you require?
What is the word count of the document?
Do you require a certified translation, such as those for immigration purposes?
Will you require any value-added services such as Desktop Publishing or complex formatting of graphs and tables?

In turn, the translation agency will give you a cost estimate based on the above factors. Don’t be seduced by bargain basement quotes, as the adage “you get what you pay for” applies to translations. A reputable translation agency or freelancer will charge more for highly technical or complex document translation because of the level of expertise required. And agencies may apply a surcharge for formatting the document so that it mirrors your source language document. In this case, be prepared to send the agency all images and tables so that the agency can return a print-ready file. Depending on the file format of the original, you may not be able to tell the translation agency the word count. If you only have a hard copy or scanned copy of the document, agencies will price the project based on either the final word count of the translation or the number of pages. In this case, the final cost may differ from the initial estimate offered. Your chosen translation agency should be able to work in various file formats and many are able to provide value-added services such as those mentioned above. Being clear about what you require in the end product and being open to dialogue with the agency will facilitate not only pricing but also the entire translation process.

English Language