St Jerome and transcreation

In July 2016, theology student Lydia Lange's doctoral thesis was published in book form in German by De Gruyter.

Lange, Lydia: Die Juditfigur in der Vulgata. Eine theologische Studie zur lateinischen Bibel. Verlag De Gruyter, 2016. 456 pages, 129,95 Euro. ISBN 978-3-11-048823-4

Her supervisor was Prof. Barbara Schmitz, Head of the Chair of Old Testament Studies and Biblical-Oriental Languages at the University of Würzburg.

The University's online press release, complete with some interesting Germanisms, is entitled 

The Book of Judith -- a free translation?

Lydia Lange (32), Faculty of Catholic Theology, 

Julius-Maximilians-Universität (JMU) Würzburg in Bavaria, Germany

in the library of the chair of Old Testament Studies and Biblical-Oriental Languages

Quotations:

"The Book of Judith is one of the more recent works of the Old Testament; it was written down for the first time about 100 b. C., in Greek"

"Jerome emphasizes Judith's chastity - but the Greek original and the other Latin translations do not mention that word at all",

Jerome may also have used a strategy that is commonly used in theater and literature up to this day: recasting an old story for the present.

The implications for theology, sacred book translation and translation tout court are considerable, to say the least.

The parlance of pilots

The parlance of pilots is, quite simply, an amazing piece. You can read it on the aeon.co site. It was written by Mark Vanhoenacker, a senior first officer with British Airways, the author of Skyfaring: A Journey with a Pilot (2015) and a regular contributor to The New York Times.

A few quotes:

It’s hard to imagine a system more in need of a common language. And that language is English (or English-derived Aeroese).

I like the word atmosphere, for no other reason than because we so rarely think of the air as a sphere, one that floats just above and envelops the heavier world of land and water.

Each Boeing or Airbus airplane is sold with an entire library of associated technical manuals. They’re all in English, too (a particularly remarkable fact for Airbus, which is headquartered in France). A small number of airlines might translate these manuals – an expensive endeavour, and a never-ending one, as the manuals are frequently updated.

The same is generally true of the checklists that pilots read to one another at key points in a flight. These checklists – a sheet of laminated paper or, increasingly, a display on a computer screen – are a simple but critical component of flight safety (see ‘The Checklist’(2007) by Atul Gawande in The New Yorker).

It’s also worth noting that Airbus and Boeing have distinct dialects of Aeroese. For example, there’s a system on airliners that we can regard as a sort of cruise control (though that’s not a perfect analogy). On Boeings, it’s the autothrottle; on Airbus jets, it’s theautothrust.

Another defining (and simplifying) feature of radio Aeroese is its small vocabulary. Indeed, in addition to callsigns and numbers, the words regularly used in everyday air-traffic communications probably amount to only a few dozen. Even these few words are subject to usage and pronunciation rules designed to correct the shortcomings of quotidian English.

For example, we’re instructed to pronounce three as ‘TREE’ and nine as ‘NINER’, and 25,000 as ‘two-five thousand’ (more specifically, ‘TOO FIFE TOUSAND’), not ‘twenty-five thousand’, because experience has shown that these modified pronunciations are less likely to be misunderstood.

For the technical communicator, translator or journalist, the precision of Mark Vanhoenacker's technical language combined with his sense of style makes every sentence a joy to read. If you don't believe me, just listen to the version on the aeon.co page, courtesy of curio.io. This is the sort of flow that technical writers and translators should aim for. Writing worth listening to is the name of the game.

Beyond curly quotes

Brit Bitch Berlin is one hell of a name for a blog and The Short and Curlies is one hell of a name for a post ... but the lady (Ms Galina Green) writes both well and wisely.

The Short and Curlies is on:

Quotation marks, double inverted commas, speech marks, guillemets, goose feet, citation marks, duck feet, smart quotes, curly quotes, dumb quotes, whatever you want to call them, we really have to master them in the languages we work in – there’s no goose stepping around it. Oh and then there are the scare quotes and – my favourites – air quotes.

and it's fascinating.

At one point she writes:

Just for the record, the only place you should be using dumb quotes is when you’re coding. Which is probably never.

On this I beg to differ.
The other place is when compiling glossaries and doing terminological work. Why? Because once your efforts have been indexed by an indexing engine, some search engines are liable, when launching a search containing quotation marks or an apostrophe will sometimes miss the curly kind, but never the dumb ones. At least that's been my experience to date.

Her post on The Ten Commandments of How to be a Good Translator is also very good.

Preparing Word files for InDesign

As discussed in Workflow for low-tech .doc or .docx to .idml, this workflow requires that the translator carefully format Word files containing text to be imported into InDesign. Today I want to say a little more about adding hard spaces (aka NBSPs) to the said files to reduce the workload when proofreading documents laid out using InDesign.

Thanks to some excellent support by Stanislav Okhvat the developer of TransTools, I now have this excellent bag of tricks properly configured. I have now configured the suite's NBSP Checker to automate the otherwise fastidious task of inserting NBSPs.

Stanislav's procedure to configure this TransTools function is described here.
It took me a while to get my head around a couple of key steps, but it was well worth the effort.

Thanks to Workflow for low-tech .doc or .docx to .idml and TransTools I can now insert hard spaces automatically, more systematically and far more quickly.

For me, the procedure needs to go just one step further. Stansilav, perhaps you could now apply your proven skills to develop a Hard hyphen checker similar to your excellent NBSP checker.

A few hours later:
... And you know what, Stanislav just informed me that he's actually working on a hard hyphen and dash checker. He says it may take a while to finalise, but I, for one, am looking forward to the results.

Who needs to go from .doc or .docx to .idml?

Following my earlier posts on workflows involving the delivery of translations as .doc or .docx files with a view to producing end products laid out using InDesign, some readers have asked me to explain the sorts of projects I refer to.

First, it's true that many translation projects involving InDesign come from clients who want the translator to produce an end product in the target language from a source document already laid out using InDesign. For the corresponding workflow, see Workflow for .idml to .idml.

Today's question is, however, Who needs to go from .doc or .docx to .idml?
Well, there are translation customers in France and elsewhere who publish some documents in one or more target languages but not in the source language.
Indeed, when you think about it, this situation is potentially applicable to any organisation marketing or promoting products or services in foreign-language markets differently from the way these things are done on its home market.

More specifically, some of my clients draft technical journalism articles in French that are tailored specifically to promote French products and services in English to international target audiences using arguments, writing styles and publication formats that are different from those used in France. In the case of end documents laid out using InDesign, the source articles are drafted over a period of several weeks, translated and laid out progressively as the articles are made available, then published as an online and/or printed magazine as the last step of a long process.

The French-mother-tongue technical journalists draft their articles using Microsoft Word; the translators draft their translations using Word; and the page layout team does the layout using InDesign. The completed magazine is published in English, but not in French.

Workflow for low-tech .doc or .docx to .idml

Note: the Caveats listed in Workflow for .idml to .idml apply.

Case 3: Source language text mostly unformatted in Microsoft Word, but target language version to be laid out using Adobe InDesign.

The following workflow is based on a tip provided by Jamie McKee (@MacKeyComp) in the course of private exchange. Jamie McKee (@MacKeyComp) is the author of a high recommended post entitled Moving Text From Word to InDesign.

This workflow is for translators and graphics layout teams working for translation clients aiming to produce a target language documents laid out using Adobe InDesign from mostly unformatted source language documents in Microsoft Word. More specifically, this workflow is for cases where that described in Really smart workflow for .docx to .idml is not feasible for whatever reason.

Proposed workflow
1) Run a test by compiling a short Word file using only Word's "Normal,n" and containing local character attributes (bold, italics, etc.), non-breaking spaces (NBSPs), non-breaking hyphens, curly apostrophes, curly quotes and so forth. Ask the layout team to import the text into InDesign using the Place command (in the French version of Adobe InDesign this is called Importer) and to check that the said NBSPs) non-breaking hyphens, curly apostrophes and curly quotes are preserved.
2) If the test fails, find out why and repeat until successful. It may, for instance, be necessary to use a different style or styles in the Word document.
3) Ask the authors and translators to build their Microsoft Word files using only the Word style or styles successfully tested in step 2 and local character attributes (for bold, italics, etc.). From the outset authors and translators should use non-breaking spaces (NBSPs), aka hard spaces, non-breaking hyphens, curly apostrophes, curly quotes, and any other relevant tricks to ensure that layout and proofreading progress as smoothly and quickly as possible.
4) When the translation work proper has been completed, the translators should run Stanislav Okhvat's TransTools to ensure the consistent use of apostrophes, quotation marks, non-breaking spaces (NBSPs) and the like.

5) The translator(s) now forward their .doc or .docx files to the layout team. Be sure to ask the layout team to import all text exclusively using the Place command (in the French version of Adobe InDesign this is called Importer) as this is the only way to preserve local character attributes (bold, italics, etc.), non-breaking spaces (NBSPs), non-breaking hyphens, curly apostrophes, curly quotes and so forth.

Really smart workflow for .docx to .idml

Note: the Caveats listed in Workflow for .idml to .idml apply.

Case 2: Source language text in Microsoft Word formatted in strict compliance with a comprehensive Word template and target language version to be laid out using Adobe InDesign.

The following workflow is based on a post entitled Moving Text From Word to InDesign by Jamie McKee (@MacKeyComp). Although a keen user of Word styles, I have yet to have the privilege of working with a client, or a client's graphics layout team, that appreciated their benefits.

This workflow will only work well if the translation client, the translator(s) and the translation client's graphics layout team share in-depth knowledge and a commitment to continuous improvement in the use of both Microsoft Word and Adobe InDesign.

Proposed workflow
1) Ask the layout team to create their InDesign Template as detailed in Moving Text From Word to InDesign and taking into account the recommendations in 8 Steps to Optimize InDesign Files for Translation.
2) Ask the layout team to export the said InDesign Template to Word so that authors and translators work consistently with the same set of styles.
3) Ask all authors and translators to exercise extreme discipline in the use of the Word template and local character attributes. From the outset authors and translators should use non-breaking spaces (NBSPs), aka hard spaces, non-breaking hyphens, and any other relevant tricks to ensure that layout and proofreading progress as smoothly and quickly as possible.
4) When the translation work proper has been completed, the translators should run Stanislav Okhvat's TransTools to ensure the consistent use of apostrophes, quotation marks, non-breaking spaces (NBSPs) and the like.
5) The layout team should now be able to import the Word file (including its template) directly into Adobe InDesign as detailed in Moving Text From Word to InDesign with maximum efficiency.
6) Ask the layout team to fine-tune the layout then generate pdfs to send to the translators and others for proofreading. Again, this step should now be far more efficient than using less sophisticated workflows.

This workflow calls for a lot of preparatory work, understanding, commitment and rigour. As a result, it may not be feasible in the case of a one-off project. In the case of regular projects using the same authors, translators and layout team, it should, however, prove a real time saver.