RE: Translations in PWP?

The classic example (pun intended) is the Loeb Classical Library published by Harvard University Press (https://www.loebclassics.com/). This is a 100-year-old program that publishes a huge collection of classic Latin and Greek literature in facing-page English translations. It has, if I remember correctly, at least three or four simultaneous footnoting/commentary schemes, including footnotes that appear at the bottom of the verso (Greek or Latin) text that flow over to the bottom of the facing English text. The Digital Loeb (I think that's what it's called—in both XML and HTML, I believe) went live a couple of years ago. They have now embarked on a similar project for classical Indian literature, with the originals in not just two languages but a whole bunch of languages and scripts—a project that the Press expects will take about 100 years to complete. How's that for long term thinking!!—Bill Kasdorf

From: ahby@aptest.com [mailto:ahby@aptest.com] On Behalf Of Shane McCarron
Sent: Wednesday, February 10, 2016 11:46 AM
To: Levantovsky, Vladimir
Cc: Ivan Herman; Nick Ruffilo; W3C Digital Publishing IG
Subject: Re: Translations in PWP?

Another interesting example (to us geeks, anyway).  The Annotated ANSI C is a book where the original contents of the ANSI C (X3J11) are printed on the left hand page, and the interpretation into English is on the facing page.  It is the only book like it I have seen, but that doesn't mean there aren't more out there!

On Wed, Feb 10, 2016 at 10:23 AM, Levantovsky, Vladimir <Vladimir.Levantovsky@monotype.com<mailto:Vladimir.Levantovsky@monotype.com>> wrote:
Thank you Ivan,

Another good example of practical applications of multi-lingual publication is what’s often used in poetry – I had a couple of books (“English Poetry in Translations” and “Shakespeare Sonnets in Translations”) where the content was presented as a side-by-side comparison of the original text accompanied by multiple translated versions of the same by different people and at different times. (And I might add that the translated versions were sometimes in stark contrast to the original and to each other, but this is hardly relevant for PWP. What is relevant though is that there are very practical use cases where presentation of multi-lingual content and the ability to toggle it side by side is needed and desired.)

Thank you,
Vlad


From: Ivan Herman [mailto:ivan@w3.org<mailto:ivan@w3.org>]
Sent: Wednesday, February 10, 2016 12:21 AM
To: Levantovsky, Vladimir
Cc: Nick Ruffilo; W3C Digital Publishing IG
Subject: Re: Translations in PWP?

Great example:-)

But it may be a UC for a slightly different situation. I *think* Nick meant that you have the whole content translated and have the translations side-by-side within the same PWP. Your example is, in a sense, more interesting: it is a mixed language text, where, depending on the user's preferences, I may want to have the French intertwined with the Russian text (if I speak both languages), or only in Russian with the French parts being some sort of an annotation that I may call up if curious. It may therefore be some sort of a personalization issue use case…

Ivan

P.S. Actually… I remember the same issue, but I had a different setting to it: I read a Hungarian translation that did the same as what you say about the Russian: had the French portions in the text with translated footnotes. I was in a unique situation among my friends to understand both languages, ie, I could read continuously without referring to the footnotes, and it was a very interesting experience indeed…

Interestingly, the translation I have on my bookshelf removed the French text altogether and is fully in Hungarian. It does take away a special feel to it...


On 9 Feb 2016, at 22:05, Levantovsky, Vladimir <Vladimir.Levantovsky@monotype.com<mailto:Vladimir.Levantovsky@monotype.com>> wrote:

Hi Nick,

The moment I read the first paragraph of your email something from the distant past came to mind when “War and Peace” was on my mandatory school reading list. Reading the original novel (which was published exactly as written by the author) was a huge pain, mainly because the high class Russian society of that time preferred to speak French, and the book was written as reflection of the real life – all descriptive parts are written in Russian, all dialogs are in French! For those who don’t speak French, a paper edition of the book had half a page footnote offered by the editorial staff to provide the translation of the dialog – and it is repeated page after page after page, for all four fat volumes of the novel.

So, I think we can safely consider “War and Peace” a glaring example of the use case, if anyone ever attempts to publish it as PWP preserving the original text as Leo Tolstoy intended.

Thanks,
Vlad


From: Nick Ruffilo [mailto:nickruffilo@gmail.com]
Sent: Tuesday, February 09, 2016 9:45 AM
To: DPUB mailing list (public-digipub-ig@w3.org<mailto:public-digipub-ig@w3.org>)
Subject: Translations in PWP?

Dear DPUB Group,

I had one of those things where the brain feels warm - I think they call it a thought...

Would there be a use-case for being able to have multiple translations of a text within a single container?  For example, if I had a copy of Tom Sawyer in English, French, German, etc, it could all be in one package, and I'd be able to toggle between them?  At least being able to go to the same chapter (or a given location) and switching between languages might be extremely useful.

I imagine in STEM type stuff this might be huge - allowing for an educational research paper to be shared in multiple languages - or maybe that's a bad thing, who knows.

I can imagine a bunch of really fun things one could do with such functionality as well (imagine a "dimension hopping sci-fi that you have to switch 'languages' to get to the end of the book - some translations move you forward, while others move you back' but that's not a use case I'd push as a reason for such functionality.

--
- Nick Ruffilo
@NickRuffilo
Aer.io<http://aer.io/> an INGRAM company


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Ivan Herman, W3C
Digital Publishing Lead
Home: http://www.w3.org/People/Ivan/

mobile: +31-641044153<tel:%2B31-641044153>
ORCID ID: http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0782-2704






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Shane McCarron
Managing Director, Applied Testing and Technology, Inc.