Re: Translation of personal names (was: Re: XHTML Basic)

Hello translators, Stefan,

> just to swim against the tide. I never translate peopleīs names, not
> because Iīm afraid of the work to find all languages for the 
> xml:lang, but I think it is simply not necessary.
  Ordnung muss sein, Stefan.

> I think itīs more important to recognize a name at once in other
> documents. To stay by your example:

> If you see the name Deiv Reggitt in a translation and look into 
> another document (news, Rec, whatever) where the name is in itīs 
> original form, do you recognize it at once?

> If you like to tell people, how to pronounce it, why not go the way:
> <span xml:lang="en">Mark Baker</span> (pronounced: Mark Beiker) .
> So that you ever give your reader the original name.
  For this purpose the following is done by the respectable Russian
  newspapers: the first appearance of a name is translated into
  Russian following by the English form in parenthesis.

  A hypothetical article:

     <h1>Deiv Reggit vstrechaet'sa s Martinom Dyurstom</h1>

     <p>Segodnia v 14:00 po moskovskomu vremeni v kongress-tzentre
     gostinitsi Radisson-Slavyanskay vstrechalis' dva nebezizvestnih
     predstavitelya konsortziuma W3C: Deiv Reggit (<span
     xml:lang="en">Dave Raggett</span>) i Martin Dyurst (<span
     xml:lang="de">Martin Duerst</span>).</p>
     <p>Gospoda Reggit i Dyurst obsuzhdali problemi rasshireniya
     geografiyi W3C za schyot vostochnoy Evropi.</p>

  Note that the first appearance of "Deiv Reggitt" was not translated
  (because it's a heading) as well as the third one (because it's not
  the first appearance).
  If you use this style any reader who reads the article from the
  very beginning will notice the original form.

>> XHTML Basic is to be enclosed in <span xml:lang="en"> too.
> Not necessarily.
  Assuming you're right what is the purpose of xml:lang attribute?

Happy translating.
---
  Alexander "Croll" Savenkov         http://www.thecroll.com/
  w3@hotbox.ru                            http://croll.da.ru/

Received on Saturday, 13 April 2002 16:10:56 UTC