From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.io!.POSTED.blaine.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Alexandre Garreau Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.help Subject: Re: Emacs i18n Date: Thu, 22 Jul 2021 20:02:48 +0200 Message-ID: <54233109.AAIb8Z4q09@galex-713.eu> References: <87r1fscb0o.fsf@zoho.eu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Injection-Info: ciao.gmane.io; posting-host="blaine.gmane.org:116.202.254.214"; logging-data="7795"; mail-complaints-to="usenet@ciao.gmane.io" To: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org Original-X-From: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane-mx.org@gnu.org Thu Jul 22 20:08:47 2021 Return-path: Envelope-to: geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane-mx.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([209.51.188.17]) by ciao.gmane.io with esmtps (TLS1.2:ECDHE_RSA_AES_256_GCM_SHA384:256) (Exim 4.92) (envelope-from ) id 1m6d7n-0001uR-Dh for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane-mx.org; Thu, 22 Jul 2021 20:08:47 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:45804 helo=lists1p.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1m6d7m-0004LL-E9 for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane-mx.org; Thu, 22 Jul 2021 14:08:46 -0400 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:470:142:3::10]:33878) by lists.gnu.org with esmtps (TLS1.2:ECDHE_RSA_AES_256_GCM_SHA384:256) (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1m6d2B-000610-DA for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Thu, 22 Jul 2021 14:02:59 -0400 Original-Received: from portable.galex-713.eu ([2a00:5884:8305::1]:45458 helo=galex-713.eu) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtps (TLS1.2:ECDHE_RSA_AES_256_GCM_SHA384:256) (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1m6d29-0000VH-8J for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Thu, 22 Jul 2021 14:02:58 -0400 Original-Received: from gal by galex-713.eu with local (Exim 4.92) (envelope-from ) id 1m6d20-0000yu-Mt for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Thu, 22 Jul 2021 20:02:48 +0200 In-Reply-To: Received-SPF: pass client-ip=2a00:5884:8305::1; envelope-from=galex-713@galex-713.eu; helo=galex-713.eu X-Spam_score_int: -18 X-Spam_score: -1.9 X-Spam_bar: - X-Spam_report: (-1.9 / 5.0 requ) BAYES_00=-1.9, SPF_HELO_PASS=-0.001, SPF_PASS=-0.001 autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no X-Spam_action: no action X-BeenThere: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.23 Precedence: list List-Id: Users list for the GNU Emacs text editor List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane-mx.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: "help-gnu-emacs" Xref: news.gmane.io gmane.emacs.help:132050 Archived-At: Le jeudi 22 juillet 2021, 19:32:49 CEST Yuri Khan a =C3=A9crit : > On Wed, 21 Jul 2021 at 15:55, Emanuel Berg via Users list for the GNU >=20 > Emacs text editor wrote: > > Translating huge books is just an immense wasted effort that > > also have several negative effects that I've mentioned > > already. For example this book > >=20 > > @book{introduction-to-algorithms, > >=20 > > author =3D {Cormen and Leiserson and Rivest and Stein}, > > edition =3D {2nd edition}, > > isbn =3D {0-268-53196-8}, > > publisher =3D {MIT Press}, > > title =3D {Introduction to Algorithms}, > > year =3D {2001} > >=20 > > } > >=20 > > It is 1184 pages! > >=20 > > And that format (book heft) isn't uncommon! > >=20 > > Are you going to translate this to French because some French > > guys aren't good enough English readers? >=20 > [This one?][1] It has been translated into Russian and it is being > sold at ~73 USD. Which is a lot for a book, and still it seems there > is demand for it. >=20 > (As for me, if I personally wanted to own a copy of that book, I could > probably buy it in English on Amazon for cheaper. I=E2=80=99ve seen enough > books whose translations were inaccurate, inelegant or any combination > of the above.) Same for me, I regularely noticed that. Yet I own french translations of=20 some important books, such as this one (and I got it from another user of=20 emacs, btw, met on emacs french irc channel), and first edition sicp (which= =20 was translated in my university). But as nothing is perfect, absolute and rarely objective, there can be=20 stuff you can sometimes like in old editions, for instance the first editio= n=20 of sicp contains some additional exercises (some of which are unsolvable,=20 yet amusing to try to solve), and I dislike the =E2=80=9Cobject.notation=E2= =80=9D of third=20 ed. of cormen, which does not appear in french edition which is from=20 second ed. More generally, if books used a tailor-made translation infrastructure,=20 such as GNUnation, or anything allowing to translate only changed/added=20 paragraphs, and only portion of them, that would make translation of new=20 editions much easier=E2=80=A6 but I=E2=80=99m pretty sure it=E2=80=99s not = done because (1)=20 copyright unhelps, (2) it=E2=80=99s obviously already profitable anyway, ev= en being=20 horribly expensive, (3) the interest in it and profitability, especially in= =20 smaller audiance, may be a lot more chaotic and variable, so it may not=20 remain always as interesting to translate. But more generally a few errors and (correctable!) unaccuracies are worth=20 the increased easiness reading. Anyway *that* is the core, DH0 [0] point of it. And you may attack it=20 pretty efficiently (but maybe you don=E2=80=99t want that but just hope eve= rybody=20 feels like you more generally dismissing everything else) on its *own*=20 playground (the political field) in this way: having a wide and rich enough= =20 linguistic sphere for benefiting from it is a privilege, that currently=20 mostly benefit the most powerful imperialist nations (france, russia,=20 china, japan, hispanophone and lusophone countries, arabic countries),=20 dismissing most of other languages So it would not even be efficient (*at all*) at protecting languages from=20 extinction (beside that side effect that english would spread less fast and= =20 extinguish them more slowly). A counter-argument, which, contrarily to the uneasiness of reading a=20 foreign language, may by chance not be scientifically studied upon, is that= =20 it=E2=80=99s still easier to learn a similar language, from the same family= ,=20 rather than just english. Except Japan which is an isolate, and Iberic=20 ones which are totally unrelated to american languages (well except=20 vocabulary nowadays=E2=80=A6), there are many arabic (maybe semitic in gene= ral),=20 chinese, slavic, and latin languages out there=E2=80=A6 yet some very impor= tant=20 families are missing from that imperialist game, such as austronesian, and= =20 many african, american, indian (and asian in general) ones. Actually, if I wanted to approach from adressing your core, DH0 [0] point,= =20 of shared culture, I may say that centralization (except maybe in some=20 =E2=80=9Cutopia=E2=80=9D where all languages are extinguished) is not the m= ost efficient way=20 of doing it=E2=80=A6 just as broadcasting everything, in a horizontal,=20 decentralized and most importantly *indirect* network such as the internet= =20 (or more generally human relations), is less efficient as *multicasting* in= =20 a tree-shaped way: translating most important stuff to main languages of=20 most important linguistic families, that would then be learned by most=20 people may be easier, as for the fact that most of the human population=20 still is *ignorant* (it=E2=80=99s not necessarily elitism, it=E2=80=99s jus= t a fact, not a=20 researched goal or an immutable truth) about science and technology, we=20 could maybe in this way approach more the goal of making them *aware* of=20 what=E2=80=99s important in it. Most important knowledge is not the one that change most often. Classical= =20 mechanics are still used, and it=E2=80=99s good that books on it are transl= ated in=20 most of languages (in it could be in *all* languages that=E2=80=99d be grea= t). =20 I=E2=80=99m *sure* translating Knuth would be wonderful, once he=E2=80=99s = dead (I hope he=20 authorizes it, but under american copyright law maybe he=E2=80=99s not even= =20 allowed to free his own work after publishing so well=E2=80=A6). [0] http://www.paulgraham.com/disagree.html