VS: "French+" support by Unicode

From: Erkki I. Kolehmainen (eik@iki.fi)
Date: Sun Apr 13 2008 - 23:24:27 CDT

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    Dear Mr. Morfin,

    I'd like to comment only on a limited set of points in your note.

    The ISO/IEC 10646 English version is not a US document but the result of
    truly international co-operation involving contributions and verification by
    participants from all over the world and with a multitude of mother tongues.
    The working language of ISO/IEC JTC1/SC2/WG2 is English.

    The French version is a translation of the English version and - as such -
    it is not subject to the same level of scrutiny. Since it cannot have any
    normative information beyond that of the English version, it would be wrong
    to use it as the base for any further translation, because this could lead
    to errors in interpreting interpretations.

    Erkki I. Kolehmainen
    Tilkankatu 12 A 3, FI-00300 Helsinki, Finland
    Puh. (09) 4368 2643, 0400 825 943; Tel. +358 9 4368 2643, +358 400 825 943

    -----Alkuperäinen viesti-----
    Lähettäjä: unicode-bounce@unicode.org [mailto:unicode-bounce@unicode.org]
    Puolesta JFC Morfin
    Lähetetty: 14. huhtikuuta 2008 4:54
    Vastaanottaja: Doug Ewell; Unicode Mailing List; Asmus Freytag
    Kopio: Marion Gunn; Kenneth Whistler; genetech@mil.mltf.org
    Aihe: Re: "French+" support by Unicode

    ...

    4) My point is that in being published out of a bilingual process it
    is expected to be nearer from a its own metalingual architectonic.
    What Asmus implies is that the ISO 10646 he uses is, from his point
    of view, a US document; and does not care about the pragmatic being
    involved). In addition he fails to consider that the French version
    is more worked on and probably more metalinguistic and more advanced
    that his US copy [because he says that translators are good, so they
    can easily chose the best notional occurrences, and add (or have to
    add) metalinguistic value (moreover that it is more common in
    metaductive French than in inductive English).

    It means that the ISO process has not been respected in order to get
    a polynym document (cross-language synonymy and quality), i.e; able
    to be better translated in different other languages. The French
    document is more advanced and there is no feed back of it into the
    English version. This is something we oberved in ISO 639-3 : the
    itarative bi-lingual quality assurance process has not properly
    worked. This creates problem in that particular case because they did
    not want to publish a face to face version which would help
    comparing. And because the French version is often favored as more
    precise (language and actual ISO publication process) when
    translating in other languages.

    Thank you for this very speaking example of the polynymic issue. jfc



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