Christian Stimming <stimming@xxxxxxx> wrote: > 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. Please explain how translating all terms makes it easier for Germans to work with git. As far as I am concerned, all the terms you tried so hard to translate are technical terms, i.e. their full meaning cannot be readily understood without an explanation. That is the reason why we have a glossary for those terms even in the English original. Translating these terms into German does not change anything about that. All terms still need to be explained. There is some slight potential gain in that perhaps *some* translated words will be more easily associated with their corresponding explanations due to the imagery they use, but at the same time there is a cost. I have never met anyone with experience with revision control who used Germanized technical terms. If you never introduce new folks to the terms that are actually used, they are in for a whole world of communication problems. There has always been opposition to borrowing words from other languages, but it's the way language develops. Nobody says "Haareschneider" or "Senf-Eier-Paste" or "dünne Nudelteigfäden". Nobody says "Kompaktscheibe" or "Systemstartverwalter" or "grafisches Dokumentabtastgerät". If I used those words out of the conviction that rigorously translating everything is a good thing, people who have difficulty understanding me if I casually used some of those (and I can think of lots more). I don't actually think that translating words is bad, but I'd rather keep the original word than translate it to something that either doesn't map to the concept half as well or something that is simply extremely unwieldy. There are quite a few examples in the git-gui translation that I consider extremely unwieldy, and in my initial translation of git itself I tried very hard to avoid translations like "Bereitstellung (zum Eintragen)", where I have absolutely no idea what that is supposed to mean. I don't want to turn this into a critique of git-gui's translation, though. > [...] a translation is for people who do neither know nor understand > the English wording for the git concepts. Yes, but when you are first introduced to the words as an English speaker, you don't understand the concepts either. This part of the learning curve cannot be eliminated. > 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. But neither of us have, right? We're adults, after all. You're free to assume that Wikipedia doesn't reflect some kind of social consensus. I do assume that, moreso than I assume that Wikipedia is accurate. > However, in this particular case that article doesn't even mention > many of the terms which need to be discussed in a git glossary. Of course not... but it reflects a tendency for terms to not be translated. > > branch Branch (m.) > > I'd go for "Zweig". It's even on the wikipedia page and it perfectly > represents the concept. My main reason for not translating this one is that we have a command called "branch" and since people need to learn what it means anyway, and we're certainly not going to change the command names in different languages, translating the term in other uses just means that German users have to remember two different words for the same thing. Similar reasoning applies to some other terms. > > 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. So we should strike the word "Index" from casual and professional usage when referring to the reference section of a book? > > > commit (noun, verb) Commit/committen > > That's a hard one. It sounds terrible to use "committen" in German. True, but it beats the alternatives. I seriously can't think of any German word that is equivalent to "commit" in the sense that we use it; neither verb nor noun form. The command name reasoning applies here, too. > > revision Revision > > Die "Revision" kommt ins Haus, um die Bücher zu prüfen. Honestly, > please don't use that word in German. Why not "Version"? Sure, why not... though there are a *lot* of other meanings for the word in German. > > tag Tag > > Der heutige Tag oder der morgige Tag? What's the problem with > "Markierung"? This is exactky the git concept which is meant. I believe that the English "tag" is a much better metaphor than the German "Markierung". One use of "tag" refers to a small label that is attached to, for example, baggage. This is exactly the concept we have in git. "Markierung" doesn't come close at all to describing the same concept. Conflicts markers are "Markierungen"; tags are not. The command name reasoning applies here, too. > > tree Tree > > I would not understand what the "Tree" in German should be. Any > German word instead? Okay, fair enough. Anyway, to conclude: I appreciate the feedback, but I think translating all words is not as conducive to making git accessible to Germans as you think. -Jan -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe git" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html