Re: Translating the Mouse !?

[Gregg Reynolds <arabink at earthlink dot net>]

 On Monday, September 30, 2002, at 02:10  PM, Ibrahim Shaame wrote:

> Isam Bayazidi wrote:
>
> > Salam all ..  I am starting to feel odd about some of the translation .. even some of them I did .. today when I got a dialog delling me to do something with the Fa2ra (Mouse) .. I felt offended .. maybe it is just me .. but I think that translating the Mouse Name is not very wise .. around here (in Jordan) no one uses the word fa2ra to refere to the computer mouse .. 
> > I prepered a major commit fixing the Fa2ra thing to make it a translitrated mouse ماوس instead, and with alot of changes ..
> > I wanted to hear what you think .. Specialy Mr. Yasser.. 
> Assalaam Alaikum wa Rahmatul llahi wa Barakaatuh
> It does not make sense in English neither. If you find any English speaking person who has never seen a computer before he would also feel odd to call that small thing a mouse. It is just a question of getting used to the word. If we reason as you do then there wouldn't be any translations at all. So I think it should be translated to Fa'ara.

Actually I think most native-speakers of English would immediately see the metaphor and think it a natural fit, considering both the shape of the object and scurrying-like motion of the cursor on the screen.  But Isam's reaction to "fa'ra" is instructive.  In English, the word "mouse" has lots of positive and few if any negative connotations; the mouse (the animal, I mean) has a long history in fables and folk-sayings, and off the top of my head I can't think of any negative meanings.  Say "mouse" and the average English speaker will probably think "small, furry, cute" or the like (think Mickey Mouse, or The Mouse That Roared) - there are dozens of examples).  On the other hand, "rat" has a strongly negative sense.  Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe in Arabic the same word (fa'ra) is used for both "mouse" and "rat".  Yes? Maybe that explains Isam's reaction?  

In any case, I would discourage using transliterations in general; remember your terminology has the entire Arabic-speaking world as its audience, and most people are monolingual, so a transliteration will just be a nonsense string of letters to them.  Too, I don't see why Arabic should be compelled to use the same metaphors as English, since after all the goal is not really to translate English terminology but to come up with Arabic that "just works", i.e. it feels natural to Arabic-speakers (especially monolingual ones) and its semantics adequately covers the technical ideas involved.  So "mouse" is the word we use in English to designate that plastic thingee, since the metaphor works well; Arabs might call it anything the "fits" in Arabic culture.  How about "@aDal" (gerbil) or "qird" (monkey) or even "quTaiTah" (kitty)?

This gets into another interesting area: should the Arabic documentation for e.g. Linux be localized to the various dialects?  I would think that might be a Good Thing for some docs, such as intros or tutorials.

(sorry about using English; I'm using Mac OSX and don't yet have an Arabic-enabled email client.  Plus my Arabic writing is pretty bad. ;)

Sincerely,

Gregg

G. Reynolds