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There was an idea in the 90s in Poland to have each and every computer/CS term have its native equivalent, but the ones proposed were awkward to say the least.
by Tade0 6y ago
There was an idea in the 90s in Poland to have each and every computer/CS term have its native equivalent, but the ones proposed were awkward to say the least.
To give an example: a mouse click was supposed to be called a "mlask", which directly translates to "a smack of the lips".
Needless to say that didn't stick and nowadays only veteran programmers are even aware that such an attempt was made.
- tomca32 6y agoSame thing happened in Croatia in the 90s. Silly words were introduced and then people made up even sillier words to make fun of it leading to insanities like: - čigrasto pamtilo "peg-top-like memorizer" for a floppy disk - čigrasto velepamtilo "peg-top-like big memorizer" for a hard disk - stolno potezalo - "tabletop pull-arounder" for a mouse After a while, nobody was certain what was a real term and what was a joke one, so most of it is abandoned now and mostly English terms are used.
- sanxiyn 6y agoI am not sure why that failed, but that's probably because I don't get Croatian nuances. In Korea disk is translated as "storage device" and it stuck. In general, you can make non-silly translation instead of silly translation, and non-silly translations do stick.
- Tade0 6y agoI see there was no shortage of creative self-proclaimed linguists in these parts of the lands behind the iron curtain as well. Our expression for "mouse" was quite byzantine: "manipulator stołowo-kulotoczny" (table sphererolling manipulator?). This just begs for a TLA like "MSK".
- sanxiyn 6y agoKorean translation of "mouse" was "squirrel", although ultimately it lost to a loan. I can't imagine why anyone thought that long-winded translation in Polish would stick. Squirrel was chosen because it is considered cute, but mouse is considered dirty. I think that kind of consideration of association is important in translation.
- fludlight 6y ago> Squirrel was chosen because it is considered cute, but mouse is considered dirty. That's a great example of the difference between translation and localization.
- jhanschoo 6y agoWell to someone who have never heard of them, "floppy disk" and "mouse" are themselves very comical words to describe the machinery they refer to. The worst part about those calques are their lack of brevity.
- kube-system 6y agoThey were funny to many native English speakers in the 90's too.
- sanxiyn 6y agoWhat a failure. Try non-awkward translation, instead of awkward translation! "smack of the lips" thing is a failure of awkwardness, not a failure of translation. In Korea "to click" is translated as "to press". Now, that wasn't difficult, was it?
- Tade0 6y agoI guess sharing (roughly) the same alphabet it was easier to adopt the English terms. Then again some words, like "sterownik"(can be understood as "someone who steers" - driver) remain in use to this day.
- yongjik 6y agoEh, Korea had its own share of awkward attempts. It's hard to predict which terms will be accepted. E.g., in early 90's, some people tried to use daramjwi (literally, "squirrel") for mouse. I'm not sure what they were thinking - a (computer) mouse doesn't look like a squirrel at all. The term didn't survive. Even worse offender was the Hercules graphics card, which was widely popular at that time. I think the same group of people tried to "translate" it into cheonha jangsa (something like "the strongest man on earth") - because, you know, Hercules the son of Zeus was known to be the strongest man on earth! (Never mind Hercules was a brand name here.)