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Question Should some items not be translated?

  • WGroleau
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13 years 8 months ago - 13 years 8 months ago #1 by WGroleau
Should some items not be translated? was created by WGroleau
For example, one of the msgids is “jours complémentaires” which of course are days in the French Revolutionary calendar. If the French is used as the base (which is otherwise English), should the French also be used in Spanish? A Google check makes it seem like “complementary days” is used in English five or ten percent more often than “jours complémentaires.”

Or the month names—since the calendar was only used in France (is that the case?), should the French month names be used in other languages? I don’t think English has any equivalents. I’d certainly be reluctant to say that my ancestor died on the “Frosty the Fourth”

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Wes Groleau
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Last edit: 13 years 8 months ago by WGroleau.

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13 years 8 months ago #2 by fisharebest
Replied by fisharebest on topic Re: Should some items not be translated?
AFAIK, these are just "loan words" - where the foreign words are used in the local language.

Often these are given local spelling / pronounciation / transliteration / capitalisation, but the foreign word is still used.

Thus the "english" (and probably spanish too) for "jours complementaires" is still "jours complementaire".

I'm not sure what happens with inflection rules - it probably varies by language. So, if your language adds "-ta" to genitive month names, then it may well translate genitive "brumaire" to "brumaire-ta"

Greg Roach - greg@subaqua.co.uk - @fisharebest@phpc.social - fisharebest.webtrees.net

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  • WGroleau
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13 years 8 months ago #3 by WGroleau
Replied by WGroleau on topic Re: Should some items not be translated?

Thus the "english" (and probably spanish too) for "jours complementaires" is still "jours complementaire".

In PGV, Julio did translate it to actual Spanish, but I was a bit skeptical. Counting Google hits on “complementary days” vs. “jours complémentaires” (with appropriate checks to avoid counting unrelated items) suggests that English writers use both--with the translation slightly more common. I did a similar check in Spanish but I didn’t think to check for false positives.

How is it actually used in PGV/webtrees? Each jour complémentaire had its own name, so we shouldn’t ever see jours complémentaires as a date of birth.

I think leaving it in French is best, for genealogy. Translating it makes it less obvious that it refers to the French Revolutionary Calendar.

I agree with “Hispanizing” the month names, but I don’t think translating to Frosty or Month of Frost should be done.

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Wes Groleau
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13 years 8 months ago #4 by fisharebest
Replied by fisharebest on topic Re: Should some items not be translated?
<<How is it actually used in PGV/webtrees? Each jour complémentaire had its own name, so we shouldn’t ever see jours complémentaires as a date of birth.>>

Unfortunately, named days doesn't easily fit in with the date format specifiers, "%F %j, %Y", etc.

It just gets treated like a regular month, so you'd get "6 jour complementaires" instead of "jour de la revolution"

If the calendar had widespread use, we'd probably add a dirty hack, but nobody has every mentioned it, let alone asked for it.

Greg Roach - greg@subaqua.co.uk - @fisharebest@phpc.social - fisharebest.webtrees.net

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13 years 8 months ago #5 by WGroleau
Replied by WGroleau on topic Re: Should some items not be translated?
:-) I wonder whether any genealogist on PGV has used it. Think I'll ask.

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Wes Groleau
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