Verbatim translation, as I understand from what I hear from my wife (who works as a professional translator) is where you don't introduce any semantic changes whatsoever within the reasonable limitations imposed by the need of mapping between the different languages you're working with. When translating between European languages this is relatively easy. When you bring Chinese, Japanese and other Asian languages into the picture, it gets more complicated.
I think it all boils down to the 'reasonable limitations'. If you give wings to your poetic flare, you might get into trouble. If you stick to the original text, you'll be fine.
This distinction makes more sense when discussing non-technical translations. In our field, well, there is not a lot of room for poetic flare.
Cheers!
~Carlos
On Thu, Aug 8, 2013 at 6:59 PM, Yoav Nir <ynir@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Interesting. What does "verbatim translation" mean? Word-for-word? There is a reason why searching for "google translate funny" yields 63,000 results. How much would I be allowed to paraphrase and yet keep within the license?
On Aug 9, 2013, at 12:21 AM, Jorge Contreras <cntreras@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
>>>
>>> Can you elaborate on why the license makes a difference?
>>
>> We have been told it would make it easier for people to make and distribute translations.
>>
>> --Paul Hoffman
>
> Actually, verbatim translations are already allowed under the existing IETF document license. It's other modifications that are not allowed under IETF, but which CC-BY would permit.
Yoav