[general] Arabic-L:LING:Standardization of Arabic Technical Terms (fwd)

[Klaus Lagally <lagally at informatik dot uni-stuttgart dot de>]

Hi all,

I think this could be of interest to the Tech-Dict group.

Peace

Klaus Lagally

Forwarded message:
> 
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> Arabic-L: Thu 09 Jul 2009
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> -------------------------Directory------------------------------------
> 
> 1) Subject:Standardization of Arabic Technical Terms
> 
> -------------------------Messages-----------------------------------
> 1)
> Date: 09 Jul 2009
> From:Benjamin Geer <benjamin dot geer at gmail dot com>
> Subject:Standardization of Arabic Technical Terms
> 
>   found the following article stimulating, and would be interested to
> hear the views of the readers of this list on the problems it
> outlines:
> 
> David Wilmsen and Riham Osama Youssef, "Regional standards and local
> routes in adoption techniques for specialised terminologies in the
> dialects of written Arabic," The Journal of Specialised Translation 11
> (January 2009), 191-210.
> 
> http://www.jostrans.org/issue11/art_wilmsen.pdf
> 
> Abstract:
> 
> "As opposed to its numerous, somewhat mutually unintelligible regional
> spoken vernaculars, formal written Arabic is generally regarded by its
> users as constituting a single standard across the entire Arab world.
> Regardless of this perception, translators and interpreters are aware
> that written Arabic also demonstrates regional variations. This poses
> potential obstacles to those working in a transnational environment,
> in that regional technical terminologies are for their part also
> somewhat mutually unintelligible.
> 
> "To assess the terminological variations in formal written Arabic, an
> examination was made of technical terms compiled from original works
> by Arab authors and western books translated into Arabic. Seventeen in
> all, these were the product of twelve Arab authors and translators
> writing or translating works in the fields of sociology and
> psychology. These fields were chosen precisely because they are among
> the fields outside of the Arab intellectual tradition, only being
> introduced to it relatively recently, being thus likely to employ
> novel terminologies. Terms extracted from these works were checked
> against 16 general and specialist dictionaries and three United
> Nations glossaries. Terminological discrepancies and inconsistencies
> were noticed in all of these works. Corroborating evidence is brought
> by observations of technical terms and regional variants in commercial
> jargon, journalistic usage, and municipal categories from Arab world."
> 
> Ben
> 
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
> End of Arabic-L:  09 Jul 2009

-- 
Prof. Dr. Klaus Lagally, Universitaet Stuttgart
Institut fuer Formale Methoden der Informatik, Abteilung Betriebssoftware
Universitaetsstrasse 38, D-70569 Stuttgart, GERMANY
URL: http://www.informatik.uni-stuttgart.de/fmi/bs/people/lagally.htm
TEL: +49-711-7816392, mailto:lagally(at)informatik(dot)uni-stuttgart.de
FAX: +49-711-7816370
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