Dear Thomas, Jan, et al.,
thanks for the discussion of an initial git translation to German. I
appreciate the efforts to translate not only the gui tools of git, but
also the command line commands as well. I completely agree with
Thomas' proposal to discuss and agree on a glossary of terms *first*,
and *secondly* preparing the actual translation - otherwise it will be
impossible to create a consistent translation.
As you might guess, as the (initial) translator of git-gui I've been
through this discussion before [1] and as you have noticed, I have
decided to take a translation approach different from what you have
recently discussed here. I deliberately tried to translate as much of
the terms into German as possible. I do not agree about the importance
of statements on this mailing list like "This translation translates
too much terms - I cannot find the commands I'm used to". The point of
a translation is to enable the usage of a program to people who do
*not* know the original language. This is the target audience. By
definition, this excludes anyone who participates on *this* mailing
list from the target audience: Obviously you not only speak English
very well, but you are daily familiar with the English git wording for
the concepts inside this VCS. Then let me repeat: A translation is not
for you. You know, the bait and the fisherman and the fish and such.
Instead, a translation is for people who do neither know nor
understand the English wording for the git concepts. For this target
audience, the goal is to find a set of terms for the different git
concepts which makes the concepts most easily accessible for their
language. This may or may not include terms which are left at English
words.
Having said that, I would also take the following inspiration with a
grain of salt:
You said on IRC that you left all English terms that
are also used on
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Versionskontrolle
Wikipedia is a bad reference for measuring the importance of certain
things. I (or you) could have easily adapted that article to my point
of view before continuing the discussion. However, in this particular
case that article doesn't even mention many of the terms which need to
be discussed in a git glossary.
Having said that as well, I admit the translation of the command line
tools is somewhat more difficult than a GUI tool, because many of the
git concepts appear as English words in the command itself. Hence, I
admit it is much more difficult to decide on a non-English
translation, but having to mention the English term all the time
because that's the command which needs to be used. And for sure we
won't want to translate the (main porcelain) command names. Hence, the
decision on terms which are left in English can surely be decided
differently here than in the GUI tools.
After this introduction, I would like to comment on a few of the
proposed German glossary translations; the IMHO easier ones first:
branch Branch (m.)
I'd go for "Zweig". It's even on the wikipedia page and it perfectly
represents the concept.
index Index
I'd strongly vote for not using "Index". The "Index" is where the
"Bundesprüfstelle für jugendgefährdende Schriften" puts the
Ballerspiele on. Don't let the identical word fool you into thinking
this is a worthwhile translation. Also, the English term is a bad
naming anyway IMHO. I'd use git-gui's replacement (staging area) and
use "Bereitstellung" here as well. Feel free to propose something
different, but please not "Index". Git isn't FSK18.
commit (noun, verb) Commit/committen
That's a hard one. It sounds terrible to use "committen" in German. I
would strongly vote for not using this word directly, but I admit I
also don't have a completely convincing alternative.
revision Revision
Die "Revision" kommt ins Haus, um die Bücher zu prüfen. Honestly,
please don't use that word in German. Why not "Version"?
tag Tag
Der heutige Tag oder der morgige Tag? What's the problem with
"Markierung"? This is exactky the git concept which is meant.
tree Tree
I would not understand what the "Tree" in German should be. Any German
word instead?
Many other of the proposals are just fine and very good. Keep up the
good work!
Regards,
Christian Stimming
[1] http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.version-control.git/58315
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