[Localization] [Sur] TamTam activity Spanish locales

Fri Jul 1 23:50:00 EDT 2011

Chris,
Yes that makes sense, as long as the terms chosen in English are standard ones that would be recognized by musicians anywhere. If students are going to learn names of instruments, they might as well be "real" names.  There is no need to "teach down" to children.  Any child is a potential serious musician and, certainly (we hope) a future "consumer" of music.  If they learn some non-standard local term they will probably need to learn the correct term eventually. If education is our objective, start with the real stuff and add the other later if you like.
So, I might suggest a compromise. Use the standard term a musician would use in the local language (example violin in English = violine in German = バイオリン (pronounced "violin") in Japanese = violín in Spansih.... etc).  So, what is a "fiddle"  it is an English word for a violin played in a particular style.  It is still a violin.  For local folk instruments such as the quena  call it a quena, but you can add a description that it is a "flute-like instrument originating in the music of the Andes".  Similarly, call a churrango a churango, but describe it as a string instrument used in Andean music that is similar to a mandolin, (adding that it is sometimes made from an armadillo shell instead of wood and is tuned differently).  Etc...
A good music dictionary would be helpful for some of this. The Harvard Dictionary of Music was the "gold standard" for this when I majored in music at UCLA way back in the 1950s.  It is still top rated. I don't know how many folk instruments from other countries will be found there, but in general, you couldn't go wrong with it for anything it does cover. I notice from the sample pages that terms from several languages are included:http://www.amazon.com/Harvard-Dictionary-University-Reference-Library/dp/0674011635/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1309578130&sr=1-1
Caryl

> From: cjlhomeaddress at gmail.com
> Date: Fri, 1 Jul 2011 13:15:29 -0400
> Subject: Re: [Localization] [Sur] TamTam activity Spanish locales
> To: jza at openoffice.org
> CC: cbigenho at hotmail.com; localization at lists.laptop.org; dirakx at gmail.com; olpc-sur at lists.laptop.org
> 
> Caryl,
> 
> You may not have seen my reply to Alexandro (posted to the L10n list),
> 
> See the link below to get the spreadheet attachment of the proposed
> developers comments attachment:
> 
> http://lists.laptop.org/pipermail/localization/2011-June/003003.html
> 
> I have a different take on improving i18n of instrument names.
> Italian names may be a standard of practice among trained musicians,
> but  I think that is not a standard we want to impose on locaizers.
> 
> My idea is to provide links to the English Wikipedia page (where
> available).  Localizers are presumed to be able to read and understand
> English (as the base language of the PO files), at least enough to get
> a better idea of the instrument name in question from the pictures..
> From the English wikipedia page, cross-wiki links to matching articles
> in other language wikis can be followed from the left hand menu bar.
> In this way, even a non-fluent language speaker can probably figure
> out the proper local instrument name from the context / title of the
> other language wiki page.
> 
> If there is no matching article in your language's wikipedia version,
> this is an opportunity to enhance that wiki by adding an article by
> localizing and adapting the English version.  This approach has the
> further benefit of driving contributions to the upstream wiki on
> musical instruments which can flow back down in the form of a better
> native language wikislice being developed as a content bundle for
> music education enhancement, also leveraging the other contributors to
> that language's wiki.
> 
> Does that approach make sense to you?
> 
> cjl
> 
> On Fri, Jul 1, 2011 at 10:59 AM, Alexandro Colorado <jza at openoffice.org> wrote:
> >
> >
> > On Fri, Jul 1, 2011 at 9:52 AM, Caryl Bigenho <cbigenho at hotmail.com> wrote:
> >>
> >> Hi...
> >> I haven't looked a the terms in question, however I would like to point
> >> out that there is a standard set of names for musical instruments. While
> >> musical scores will often contain more than one, it might be nice to
> >> standardize the instruments in TamTam, possibly using the Italian terms as
> >> musicians everywhere will understand them. Why shouldn't children everywhere
> >> also learn them?
> >>  For local folk instruments, the local name where the instrument
> >> originates would be most suitable.  There would be some problem with overlap
> >> on some names, for example, "Flauto" is flute in Italian, and one of the
> >> indiginous Andean wind instruments is called "Flauta".  The "Pan Pipes" as
> >> we call them in English should properly be called "Samponia" or "Zamponia"
> >> as it is called the Andean nations.  Music is known as the "universal
> >> language", let's work to keep it that way.
> >
> > That is also a practice I have gone through many times to fix terms, however
> > I think the main point is that at least for the spanish project, we do need
> > good sources of musical instrument enciclopedias (wikipedia is very basic).
> > And stop doing literal translations of some of the things.
> > If we have good web collections of musicakl instruments it would be easier
> > to get the lingo right for the music "subject".
> > Music sound might be universal language, music instrument naming however,
> > are very different and specific.
> >
> >>
> >> Caryl  (M.A. Music Education... long time ago!)
> >>
> >>
> >> From: cjlhomeaddress at gmail.com
> >> Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2011 13:20:18 -0400
> >> To: jza at openoffice.org
> >> CC: alsroot at member.fsf.org; localization at lists.laptop.org;
> >> dirakx at gmail.com; olpc-sur at lists.laptop.org
> >> Subject: Re: [Sur] [Localization] TamTam activity Spanish locales
> >>
> >> On Thu, Jun 30, 2011 at 10:47 AM, Alexandro Colorado <jza at openoffice.org>
> >> wrote:
> >>
> >> > I found many issues with the localization for TamTam, in part for maybe
> >> > the
> >> > lack of knowledge on foreign musical instruments and in part because is
> >> > just
> >> > based off automated translations that avoid context.
> >>
> >> >
> >> > A couple of examples are:
> >> > slap = as in slap percussion. In spanish was translated as "Bofetada"
> >> > which
> >> > mostly means slap in the face or for us in Urban dictionary, "bitch
> >> > slappin'" :D
> >>
> >> > However I in context is odd to slap your legs or slap that ass with the
> >> > term
> >> > "Bofetada".
> >> > Other issues are instruments that don't really translate well like the
> >> > plate
> >> > instrument -- Chimes which is translated as "Bells" however the chimes
> >>
> >> > instrument doesnt really resembles any bells (Campandas). Specially
> >> > since is
> >> > a mixture between ximbal and a triangle instrument.
> >> > Would want to generate a report of all these fuzzy terms and dump it
> >> > into
> >>
> >> > something more people can discuss on a more public list. Feel free to
> >> > contribute the terminology.
> >> > --
> >> > Alexandro Colorado
> >> > OpenOffice.org Español
> >> > http://es.openoffice.org
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> Alexandro (jza),
> >>
> >> You are certainly not the only person who has noticed the difficulty
> >> of localizing some of the sound names of the TamTam tooltips, but it
> >> is always good to bring such discussions to the list.
> >>
> >>
> >> I recently worked with Rafael Ortiz (dirakx) and Aleksey Lim (alsroot)
> >> to make some suggestions to make it easier for localizers to give good
> >> translations by adding additional developer's comments.  (see attached
> >>
> >> spreadsheet and this recent commit).
> >>
> >>
> >> http://git.sugarlabs.org/tamtam/tamtam/commit/b49b14cf394f06e7ab788ff5ab9e521116a2a368
> >>
> >>
> >> In addition, alsroot and dirakx are experimenting with combining the
> >> TamTam strings into a single PO file so there is not quite so much
> >> duplicate effort required to do all four TamTam Suite activities.
> >>
> >>
> >> I am not claiming that my suggested re-namings are authoritative and I
> >> believe that different ears can hear the sounds a little differently,
> >> so I would be happy to discuss alternatives to the suggested changes I
> >>
> >> proposed.  This list is a fine place to do tha  as it is really
> >> related to internationalization (as opposed to activity function).
> >> This is also a good time to do that as the code is getting some i18n
> >> attention anyway and consensus changes can be made relatively easily.
> >>
> >>
> >> I won't comment on specific string translations into Spanish, I'll
> >> leave that to native speakers, I'm just trying to make it easier for
> >> all localizers to provide a quality translation of these relative new
> >>
> >> string additions to the TamTam suite.
> >>
> >> Warmest regards,
> >>
> >> cjl
> >>
> >> _______________________________________________ Lista olpc-Sur
> >> olpc-Sur at lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/olpc-sur
> >
> >
> > --
> > Alexandro Colorado
> > OpenOffice.org Español
> > http://es.openoffice.org
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Localization mailing list
> > Localization at lists.laptop.org
> > http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/localization
> >
> >

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