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Voting is inconsistent in English to Chinese and English to Portuguese
Thread poster: Henry Dotterer
José Henrique Lamensdorf
José Henrique Lamensdorf  Identity Verified
Brazil
Local time: 09:57
English to Portuguese
+ ...
In memoriam
The same happens in many languages Oct 11, 2009

The contest is about written languages, not spoken.

So, for our current issue, it seems that MSA (Modern Standard Arabic) would be one same language everywhere, in spite of the huge area of the globe covered by Arabic.

Let's take what I think is a similar case within a much smaller area: Italy. The kind of Italian I learned to speak works fine from Rome up (North). However anything spoken in any of the Southern di... See more
The contest is about written languages, not spoken.

So, for our current issue, it seems that MSA (Modern Standard Arabic) would be one same language everywhere, in spite of the huge area of the globe covered by Arabic.

Let's take what I think is a similar case within a much smaller area: Italy. The kind of Italian I learned to speak works fine from Rome up (North). However anything spoken in any of the Southern dialects sounds inextricable to me. Though I'm not sure, it should be a safe bet that most books, magazines, and newspapers published there are written in standard Italian. Only regional pubs might use the local dialects.

Early this year I met a couple from Sicily visiting Brazil, in a hotel by the beach. I chatted with them for hours while our kids played together in the swimming pool. As at that age kids don't have a clear notion of the world, it didn't bother them not having a language in common. We communicated easily in "standard" Italian. Nevertheless, when husband and wife talked to each other, they used a dialect that meant nothing to me. So these dialect speakers are all bilingual.

Let's move to English. Years ago I met a film producer from Texas, and had a hard time understanding what she said. We were in New Jersey. As soon as she learned that I was not American, but visiting from abroad, she immediately switched to what I consider standard US English. In that conversation, I took the chance to comment on one actress in her film, who had an amazingly clear enunciation: in spite of her fast pitch; any second-year ESL student would understand anything she said. The producer told me, "She's from Houston, like me. We were classmates a long while ago.", and explained "Everybody in the movie and TV industry in Texas is bilingual. If they have any trace of Texan accent noticeable in their English, their life in the trade is very, very short."

In Brazil we have all kinds of regional accents, and they remain quite noticeable, even if the speaker moves to the most formal register. Nevertheless, the perfect enunciation and grammar sounds quite pedantic, so one can safely say that our spoken language is strikingly different from the written one. Any Brazilian properly written text, if read aloud, sounds several times more formal than if said ad-lib by the most educated speaker.

Summing it all up, this contest is about written language; translation and not interpretation. So unless there are strong cultural differences in the way of writing, the "standard" variant of the language should be adopted.

Since Proz is a translation business e-venue, it's a matter of checking whether a client should specify a variant when requesting translation into some language or not. (If clients actually do it, or fail to do so on their own ignorance, that's another issue.)

[Edited at 2009-10-11 12:07 GMT] ▲ Collapse
 
jyuan_us
jyuan_us  Identity Verified
United States
Local time: 08:57
Member (2005)
English to Chinese
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For the Chinese case, Oct 11, 2009

Good Chinese is good. Poor Chinese is poor. It doesn't matter that much whether the translator is from China, Taiwan, HK or USA. The voters from Mainland China can still judge whether the translation skills of someone from Taiwan, HK or USA are good. The opposite is also true.

I remember in one of the national contests held in China, the winner, from hundreds of, if not thousands of, entries, is a Singaporean, while the voters of that contest are ALL from mainland China.
 
axies
axies  Identity Verified
Australia
Local time: 22:27
English
+ ...
Thank you José Henrique Nov 16, 2009

José Henrique Lamensdorf wrote:

manuel seixo wrote:
I could not help noticing how there was a sort of ‘Erradication process’ going on – Portuguese against Brazilian as in a soccer match to put it blatant.


Manuel, I'd like to make things clear for the non-lusophone audience. There is NO such erradication process anywhere. People in Brazil and Portugal coexist happily in full awareness of the difference, and neither one is trying to make their variant prevail.

The imminent agreement covers spelling (hence writing) only, and will not change either variant's way of speaking, nor of otherwise using the language.

manuel seixo wrote:
1. Of the last 18 finalists, judging from the language variant, 12 came from a Brazilian background.


Simply compare the population of Brazil with the sum of all other lusophone countries' and you'll realize that Brazil was probably under-represented, numerically. Maybe Proz stats, disregarding lusophones living elsewhere, will show that there are more PT translators per inhabitant in Portugal than in Brazil.

manuel seixo wrote:
4. The context, I have no doubt, has gone against the minority in the group. Is this due to numbers? That I can’t answer.


Most likely. I'm guessing the figures, and might be grossly wrong, but I get the impression that 9 out of every 10 lusophones in the world speak Brazilian Portuguese. Nevertheless, European Portuguese is unwaveringly strong as always in the areas where it is spoken.

manuel seixo wrote:
6. This pattern is also clearly visible in proZ.com Kudoz. More Brazilians help with questions than Portuguese but I have to say that more Brazilians ask questions as well.


Again, it's a matter of proportion. Though it's a different phenomenon, UK English in no way is losing ground to US English.

manuel seixo wrote:
In conclusion, like José Henrique and Ligia Dias I also thought that Conventions existed between the two Countries; where Portuguese was One and the Only Language.


A minor confusion here, The convention, or agreement, is about spelling alone, as I said above.

What I meant by one and the same is:
The Brazilian Constitution says:
Art. 13. A língua portuguesa é o idioma oficial da República Federativa do Brasil.
The Portuguese language is the official language of the Federal Republic of Brazil.

The Portuguese Constitution says:
Artigo 11.º §3. A língua oficial é o Português.
The official language is Portuguese.

Neither mentions any variant.

manuel seixo wrote:
Well I found out already in 1983 that it isn’t the case; Here is a good exemple: I had to sit and pass my NAATI exams in Brazilian Portuguese. There wasn’t an European Portuguese variant with NAATI, then. Now there is. So yes, it is time to have two distinct groups at www.proZ.com. I believe.


I wouldn't be so radical. I think PT-PT and PT-BR are one language as source, but should be treated as two languages as destination. So contest-wise there should be two contest from any language into Portuguese, however only one contest from Portuguese into any other language is perfectly possible. Of course there will be complaints if the text in Portuguese is too "typical" of either variant.
 
axies
axies  Identity Verified
Australia
Local time: 22:27
English
+ ...
thank you José Henrique Nov 16, 2009

Thank you José Henrique,
Almost by accident I came across this in Google and what you wrote re: Voting is inconsistent in English to Chinese and English to Portuguese and the letter I wrote to Proz.com.
I like to thank you for what you said and the way you explained it all. I like to say that in me using the expression ‘’eradication process’’ in that letter wasn’t with some regret after wards. So much that I tried to access the document to revise it and instead a second co... See more
Thank you José Henrique,
Almost by accident I came across this in Google and what you wrote re: Voting is inconsistent in English to Chinese and English to Portuguese and the letter I wrote to Proz.com.
I like to thank you for what you said and the way you explained it all. I like to say that in me using the expression ‘’eradication process’’ in that letter wasn’t with some regret after wards. So much that I tried to access the document to revise it and instead a second copy of same doc. was generated leading to access denied by proz.

I like to say that I meant no offense in saying that to any of the parties involved. I was simply pointing out that a division or inconsistencies in the marking of contestants have to exist when Portuguese Brazilians and Portuguese Europeans revise each other texts. Economically Portuguese Br. has to be the dominant variant. One only has to compare the size and populations of the two Countries to believe this. Not necessarily true of course.
In all fairness to proz.com in general and as announced by RominaZ email (Dec.17) in this last contest we were given the choice to define our language pairs – PT-BR>PT-EU. Even though we were still asked to enter ‘’likes and dislikes’’ for both nationalities while voting. In proz.com reversing this decision – ‘’ being allowed voting in one single variant’’ is the right direction and the right decision to make and I take this opportunity to congratulate the decision makers at proz.com for that.

I take also the opportunity to express another view and that is: I hope that other regulatory bodies, T/I Professional Associations recognize this fact as well; particularly in the examining process of translators and interpreters. ‘’ batatinhas’’ in Brazil and ‘’batatinhas’’ in Portugal might be the same crop but might be translated differently at times or am wrong on this?
My best wishes to all,

Manuel ▲ Collapse
 
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Voting is inconsistent in English to Chinese and English to Portuguese






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