On Aug 12, 2007, at 18:29, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
It did not take long for both of them to realize that the language of lacemakers in Germany is like a secret code!! The American (woman) translated things literally, explaining various "options", and between the two of us, we were able to sort out a number of the descriptions in the book...
The "secret code" factor is true of every language, in every specialised area. Early in my lacemaking "career", I got a Dutch book on Russian Tape lace. Not knowing any Dutch and curious about the contents beyond the (excellent) diagrams, I ran it past two native Dutch speakers I know in town. Neither was a lacemaker and neither could make much sense of the text, by herself. But, with me being able to understand the subject matter and with them being able to tell me what needed to be done first and what later... We managed. Amidst a lot of laughter; neither knew that you "nailed" your threads to the pillow...
At the other end... I once helped a Polish engineer at the Warsaw Polytechnic translate an article from an American book. It was something on the subject of building tunnels in different conditions (sand, clay, etc) and at different depths. Just about none of the article made any sense to me, when translated "raw" but it seemed to make sense to him. Sometimes, it needed another sentence, a paragraph or so later, for him to puzzle everything out but, since he knew the subject, he was able to. Another "translation experience" I had was a year ago, when the son of an old friend needed to translate a precis of his master thesis into English, for publication. The boy knew enough English to do the basic translation -- he'd spent a year in US -- but he wanted me to check for things like word order (quite different from Polish) and grammar in general. But it took two weeks of e-mail back-and-forth to untangle some of the problems, because I didn't know anything at all about the -- fascinating, actually -- subject matter: advantages and disadvantages of various scoring systems used in Special Olympics and other games involving physically and mentally handicapped players.
Every area of life develops its own jargon, hermetically closed to everyone else; quite often, you won't understand a speaker or writer, even if they're using your own language... :)
-- Tamara P Duvall http://t-n-lace.net/ Lexington, Virginia, USA (Formerly of Warsaw, Poland) - To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
