| Dear all, I am really sorry for my late response. I know that what I wrote 2 days ago to respond to this message contains lots of repetitions and views already expressed here, but I do not have enough time to reformulate. So that is what I had wrote, but couldn't have time to send: This is one of the classic problems we have to deal with when we are to translate new terms. A new term is usually the _expression_ in one word or more of a new concept. Finding a name to a new concept depends, in most cases, on the circumstances in which the new concept emerged. As I understood, and please correct me if I were wrong, the only reason for calling that pointing device a mouse in English was its shape that looked like a real mouse with a long tail. A (real) mouse in the European culture in general has a good connotation (or meaning). It refers to that small white animal with pink ears, nose and feet that Europeans like. Europeans also distinguish between that animal and the rat. For them, the rat is that gray hated animal that destroys the crops and transmits all kinds of diseases. As for us, we became accustomed to use one word to name both mice and rats: Fa'r. It mostly refers to that ugly gray thing and rarely to the cute little mouse. As the trend in arabization is towards using Arabic words as much as possible, so that every term can find its way easily among all the Arabic users, the word Fa'ra was chosen instead of Fa'r, as it lessens its bad connotation. If the word Fa'ra is commonly used in the Golf area (and probably some other countries), although the term chosen for the more commonly used computer applications is a transliteration of mouse, this means that Fa'ra was adopted by this region as a better and more acceptable word for that term (they might not have a rat problem! .) And even t! hough th e transliteration of mouse into Arabic characters is currently, and will probably be, orally used in different other countries, I think that adopting an Arabic word remains the best choice in Linux Arabic documentation, until it is either approved or otherwise rejected by the biggest number of users. The same applies to the word computer. Is it كمبيوتر or حاسوب, or some other Arabic word like مرتب from the French work ordinateur? We, at the UN, always opt for an Arabic word in dealing with new terms, in this case It seems that this word is gaining more users every day in the حاسوب written literature. However, many people still prefer the transliteration when speaking. I think that this comes in line with the duality كمبيوتر, of written and spoken Arabic, which is a characteristic of our language used in so many countries with relatively different (while complementary) cultures. I see this as a good thing. We better have a standard Arabic written computer language that can be understood by all, even if its terms shock some of us a little bit or are not used in some countries, than sticking to each one's spoken dialect. This should apply to all of computer terms, unless the transliteration is the only option commonly used in all parts of our Arabic countries. I would also like to add that we should not stick to Microsoft terminology (which translitereates the word mouse). We should think about being a reference in this regard by knowing how to benefit from others inputs and how to add our own. I am sorry for that long message, but as a famous French writer said: I did not have enough time to be concise. Salam Yasser _____________________________________________________________ Maktoob.com presents the FIRST EVER Arabic Instant Messaging on the Web! http://www.maktoob.com/ |