Michael Ondaatje conversa con sus traductores
Translation Technology Failures and Future
Translator's Intuition by TermSeek and reviews from the ProZ foruns

From the February Issue of Vanity Fair. Tickle me, I'm not laughing.

Dear Dame Edna,
I would very much like to learn a foreign language, preferably French or Italian, but every time I mention this, people tell me to learn Spanish instead. They say, "Everyone is going to be speaking Spanish in 10 years. George W. Bush speaks Spanish." Could this be true? Are we all going to have to speak Spanish?

Torn Romantic, Palm Beach

Dear Torn:
Forget Spanish. There's nothing in that language worth reading except Don Quixote, and a quick listen to the CD of Man of La Mancha will take care of that. There was a poet named Garcia Lorca, but I'd leave him on the intellectual back burner if I were you. As for everyone's speaking it, what twaddle! Who speaks it that you are really desperate to talk to? The help? Your leaf blower?
Study French or German, where there are at least a few books worth reading, or, if you're American, try English.

The Association of Hispanic Journalists issued a letter of protest. If anybody finds Dame Edna's response remotely funny, he/she must be a very sick person.

Typography and Layout as a Translation Problem

Translators for Peace. Translators for Peace is a free association of translators from all countries and of all nationalities. The Association was established in order to publish, as far as possible in every language and by whatever channel, every message against: war in general; and in particular, against the use of war as a means of resolving international disputes.

Granta 80. I'm reading the current issue of Granta that brings readers a nice selection of narratives and essays deconstructing group photographs. I especially liked On the Roof and Mummy.

It's All Good Tracing an expression.

I leaned back exhausted. I always found it amusing and slightly embarrassing when I had to translate praise about my own work. Excerpt from the book On Interpreting by Suzanne Glass.

Birdsongs and avian "linguistics". And the long article that set me off in this wild canary chase: How the songs of canaries upset a fundamental principle of science

Lingua ex Machina: Reconciling Darwin and Chomsky with the human brain You can read it online. This is what Saffire had to say about it: "For linguistic heavy hitters, M.I.T. Press offers "Lingua ex Machina," subtitled "Reconciling Darwin and Chomsky with the Human Brain," a cross-discipline debate by the neurophysiologist William Calvin and the linguist Derek Bickerton. They try to (not try and) resolve "the apparent paradox that has hag-ridden the human sciences for centuries: that we were produced by the same forces as other species, yet behave so differently from other species."

Riding cathode waves last Thursday. A wide selection of channels showing good movies last Thrusday had me glued to the box until late hours. Put the blame on these flicks:
Children Underground - street kids in Romania
La Piscine - Alain Delon, Romy Schneider and Jane Birkin. Eye-dazzling.
The Straight Story - David Lynch Disneyfied.

What the heck is leetspeek?
The death of the amateur's translator skills in the modern world

Software Locolization. An overview of what the mermaid do for a living, day in, day out, come rain, come shine, come drizzle, come lightning, come the Merchild trying to knock my door down.

The Hairy Hungarian says I'm fed up with this type of projects and that soon I will be venturing in other areas. But frankly, I don't see it happening.

My mental status bar says: you're acting like an eye doctor who suddenly decides she wants to be a cardiac surgeon.

Let's face it: I'm a specialized mermercenaire. The savants affirm that I rocked as a translator of journalism. Highly commended. I supposed I liked the texts too (although to this date mentions to names such as Larry Rother, Richard Corliss and Diana Jean Schemo provoke a certain malaise). Wait, I think it's safe to say I loved translating this one. But I hated the crushing deadlines and I hated the low pay.

It's truly a dilemma. By now, I know all the software terminology by heart and even backwards. I am pretty confident that I could vroom my way through an online Help even when fast asleep. My output is soaring but my mind is growing number and dumber. And by God I detest those 5 page long instructions sheets.

Roland Barthes exhibit at Centre Georges Pompidou

Ce qui arrive - exhibit conceived by Paul Virilio at Fondation Cartier

Linguabloggers on MSBC. Oyez oyez! We've been mentioned by MSNBC Weblog Central. Let's straighten up the tie and sport a nice smile for the photographers and crowds.

And wouldn't you know: Japanese smileys are evolving differently from your standard fare of Western emoticons.

via geisha asobi

What is lorem ipsum?

via boing boing

Language-related links:
In search of the first language (PBS)
The vanishing verb- the rise of TV-speak (PBS)
The Language of the Vietnam War (PBS)
Review of book Atoms of Language(Human Nature)
Not your father's encyclopedia (Wired)
Wanted by the FBI for questioning: Adil Pervez. Or is it Adel Pervaiz? Adil Pervaz, maybe? (Wired)

And interesting article and news from nonharmful and Der Famose Flämische Blogger (maybe der famose is not the source, I had a couple of pages open, but I can't see how anyone will fail to see the poignancy of this)
Economists tackle US obesity
The Political limitations of culture jamming

The predecessors of the Fantanas. I guess today is one of those days in which I will publish any kind of private joke posts, provided they keep me off my software manual translation.

There is big brouhaha in the Portuguese translators list today on the topic of evaluating the reliability of Web searches. See, the thing is the Web is being used periodically as the mother of all dictionaries by translators and there is a lot of garbage coming out in translations as a result of transgooglification. Who pulled the thread? Danilo Nogueira, who after over a year of absence rejoined the list, bringing Lazarus back from the dead with his sharp observations and unparallelled witticisms.

Live from the WSF. The famously controversial or controversially famous Hairy Eyeball has initiated live coverage from the World Social Forum, taking place en las orillas del Guaíba, in the Brazilian city of Porto Alegre.

If you don't know that the World Social Forum is about, don't bother reading further. Go to Chicken Head or take a jump in the lake. Or if you're a masochist dinosaur, like me, go translate some financial software strings on clunky TM software that has been discontinued. But I digress.

According to the Mermaid's special envoy to this leftist alka-seltzer of ideas, Elvis, Jesus and even Prentiss Riddle are in attendance of the event. However, so far the Hairy Eyeball has been too mesmerized by the Pentium 4 computers in the Press Room to do any serious reporting.

He even posted a Photoshop-ed memento of his girlfriend on the blog today! Imagine how disastrous if the AF, AP and other agencies correspondents started sending provençale-inspired barcaroles, snapshots of their birkenstocks and description of the scrambled eggs they had for breakfast to the international press.

However, we believe that the Hairy Eyeball is an organ with a mission and that much instantaneous and juicy gossip about the World Social Forum will be posted here in the next few days, only to be captured in Google-cache eternity, for all times, Amen.

The Bee Project. We've had humming birds poetry and now Renée is proposing bees as a linguablogging meme. I can't remember if there are any bee-related texts of note in Portuguese. But I've found Sylvia Plath's The Arrival of the Bee Box translated into Portuguese by Ana Cristina César and Ana Cândida Perez. More on Plath's Bee Poems here. I think that Renee's idea is to find a text and TIY (translate it yourself). A fun idea for these rainy January days.

Update: The language of bees. Insects in literature. Poems about bees.

Two Worlds and In Between. Jonathan Kiefer discusses the delicate art of translation with Michael Emmerich, English translator of Japanese novelist Banana Yoshimoto.

via bookslut

The Big Mac as an Edible Sign. I got a chuckle from the link at the bottom of the page. It says: See also Coca-cola.

For the full neuron titillation experience kindly proceed to the front page of the The Nonverbal Dictionary of Gestures, Signs & Body and Language Cues (From Adam's-Apple-Jump to Zygomatic Smile)

Colloquialisms used in Business Settings. "Most of us unconsciously use jargon or slang that doesn't mean much to speakers of English (or even American in this case) as a second language. Over the years I have recorded some common phrases used by my countrymen during U.S.-Japanese business meetings that upon upon retrospect, may have been rather puzzling to the Japanese participants."

Silly me, I didn't know Bifurcated Rivets featured so many language links.

chiasmus [ky-AZ-mus] (plural -mi), a figure of speech by which the order of the terms in the first of two parallel clauses is reversed in the second. This may involve a repetition of the same words ("Pleasure's a sin, and sometimes sin's a pleasure" --Byron) or just a reversed parallel between two corresponding pairs of ideas . . . . The figure is especially common in 18th century English poetry, but is also found in prose of all periods. It is named after the Greek letter chi (x), indicating a "criss-cross" arrangement of terms. Adjective: chiastic.

And there is a whole site dedicated to them under the motto Never let a fool kiss you or a kiss fool you.

Serendipity strike: While doing my morning Web wanderings I chanced upon this chiastic quote from Montaigne:

I have no more made this book than this book has made me

Vademecum. Repertorio de comentarios lingüísticos y aclaraciones de dudas sobre el uso de la lengua española, elaborado por el Departamento de Español Urgente de la Agencia EFE: neologismos, antropónimos, topónimos, gentilicios, transcripciones, traducciones, barbarismos, abreviaturas y usos erróneos.

List of countries, currencies, capitals, adjectives etc. (updated September 2002). Languages: EN, DA, DE, EL, EN, FR, FI, IT, NL, PT, SV

Color Names in English - Czech - Hungarian - French - German - Spanish
Color names in French

Firefighting glossary of terms EN, DE, FR

English - Chinese dictionary

Tongue-tied Swiss opt for Double Dutch
What's in a loanword?
Special teaching certificates to preserve tribal languages
Reports of Gaelic's demise are premature

Parabéns a você. And today's birthday-blog is yours truly, the Enigmatic Mermaid. As the old Brazilian shampoo commercial used to say: vocês lembram da minha voz, ela continua a mesma, mas meus cabelos, quanta diferença! Thanks to my readers for keeping tuned, even when the commercial breaks are long and the commentary too sparse (need I say that I worship Plep?). My readers are such an unbelievably loyal crowd that I've been even getting referrals from Fairvue lately. To this I can only say that you must be out of your minds! Language Hat beats me hands down in the linguablogging department. Prentiss is way cooler and heavily annotated. Pat is more wacky-cranky in his style, and the Hairy Eyeball is a much more efficient keyword manipulator. And of course, the best design award goes to Glosses.

Speaking of design, this is all I could get out of Photoshop in the way of commemorative banner. Enjoy and link!

Foundation for Endangered Languages
English Words Borrowed from Other Languages (Link removed. Read Language Hat's trashing of this site instead)
Grants for Translators of Prose and Poetry into English
The Early History of Indo-European Languages
Alphabet Books (beautiful)

Why Your Waitron Can Serve Brunch but Not Linner. Allan Metcalf, executive secretary of the American Dialect Society, argues that you can tell what words are likely to survive by applying a simple formula. (NY Times)

Species and languages flock together. Cultural and biological diversity are highest in the same places. (Nature)

Saramago and his translators en la Escuela de Traductores de Toledo

Quote:

Los escritores hacen las literaturas nacionales y los traductores hacen la literatura universal: nos permiten a los que no podemos conocer todas las lenguas que se pueda leer algo escrito en Japón, Rusia, Finlandia...

Los traductores convierten las lenguas en mi propia lengua; por eso seríamos más pobres sin ellos.

Yo he aprendido muchísimo con ellos, he aprendido a leerme, porque a veces se plantean dudas que no sé aclarar.

Todo está claro para mí en lo que escribo, pero no en lo que significa, y tengo que pensarlo varias veces.

Ellos me han dicho que lo que uno escribe en su lengua no es tan fácil de entender

José Saramago

Language News.
Cleaning up the Chinglish for the 2008 Olympics
Finding New Ways to Rob Translators Off their Living- Editing of Machine Translations
Language forces sex-assault retrial
Plain English translators would make life easier to understand
Death of Kashmir Language Foretold

Glossary Galore for the Demanding Glossaryte
Terminologisches Wörterbuch
Multilingual Earthen Building Glossary (EN-FR-IT-RU-ES)
The CMU Pronouncing Dictionary (why don't they use the international phonetic alphabet, I wonder?)

For Hardcore Word Nerds
Panace@ Boletín de Medicina y Traducción es la revista de MedTrad, foro internético independiente y plurinacional constituido por profesionales de la comunicación escrita del ámbito de la lengua y de la medicina y de las ciencias biológicas. Featuring this month a glossary of radiation therapy terms and El Mito de la brevedad del inglés.

Go Click with Enigmatic Mermaid Digital Exploration Tours.
The Secret Life of Maps and Tales of the Punjab (via plep)
Maritonio (the Brazilian answer to innefectual Consumer Protection Agencies)
David Cronenberg on Spider
Alberto Giacometti
William Burroughs
Etimology of the word brega according to Caetano Veloso
The History of Education and Childhood (amazing link collection)
Social History of Children's Literature
List of Songs inspired by Literature
The Digital Story Bee
Museu da Pessoa
The Peanuts Tarot Deck
Leonardo DaVinci Master Draftsman

New Translator Blog? Looks like it. He is posting about Jean Hardoin, aptly described as Christian, Scholar, Translator and Kook. In any case, let's throw him a link: Machine Translation - How to program common sense?

The Mineiro Accent. This is cute and funny and quite a challenge to decode.

Sapassado, era sessetembro, taveu na cuzinha tomando uma pincumel e cuzinhando um kidicarne com mastumate pra fazer uma macarronada com galinhassada. Quascaí de susto, quandoví um barui vinde dendoforno, parecenum tidiguerra. A receita mandopô midipipoca denda galinha prassá.
O forno isquentô, o mistorô e o fiofó da galinha ispludiu! Nossinhora! Fiquei branco quinein um lidileite. Foi um trem doidimais! Quascaí dendapia! Fiquei sensabê doncovim, proncovô, oncotô. Oiprocevê quelocura! Grazadeus ninguém semaxucô!

The Creator of Unwinese. Excuse me but I must steal Quarsan's post.

January 14 marked the first aniversary of the death of Professor Stanley Unwin, who was best known as an inspired mangler of the English language. Here's Stanley's retelling of Goldyloppers and the Three Bearloaders.

There was a cotty; so she went up, all ready with the basket and picked up the butter and all that with a little bit of birch she scrape it off and rub it and down her clothesee. Mum would be cross but... never mind. Clop clop on the door. This little cotty had a jar on the door, so she went in. Nobody there. Three baseload of porry on the tabloid, all slightly steamy huff, and nobody at. She called out: [as though down a cardboard tube] "Anyone home?" Nobody. Folly, folly, and a little hunger was with her, so she falolloped a taste out of the first basel.

You can read transcripts, but you're much better off listening to these clips instead.

Translation as a Profession. Series of 15 very readable articles by Roger Chriss.