Dear all, Some of you will be aware of the OIDFA Translator which my husband, David, has been developing. This focusses on about 40 (currently) core lacemaking terms (primarily bobbin lace) and attempts to solicit the vocabulary from native speakers of different languages. Currently 15 languages are represented, although with varying degrees of completeness. The URL is http://www.oidfa.com/translate.html .
David has asked me to post the following about the latest update, which is Russian. Now we appreciate that the members on this list are mainly from the US, Great Britain, and other English-speaking countries, but - especially in the US - there are always members for whom English is not their mother tongue. Russian is a particular problem in that there is a continuing tradition of lacemaking there, but few Russian lacemakers speak English. A set of Russian terms would therefore be particularly useful, but correspondingly difficult to obtain. The translations I have so far are via a French intermediary! I have tried to use pictures to clarify terms for non-English or non-French speakers (the two languages of OIDFA), but sometimes it is difficult to select a picture that is unequivocal. There is also the problem that different types of lace techniques have different vocabularies, and that different languages may express things in different ways and lack nouns used in other languages. So I suspect that there are some problems with a few of the Russian terms, and I wonder if there are any native speakers on this list who are able to help out. These are the problems: 1. In English there is a general name to refer to things like half-stich, cloth stitch, cloth-stich-and-twist, namely 'stitch'. Although Google translate suggests several words for stitch, it is not clear which, if any correspond to this idea. Unfortunately the image I have is of a particular stitch which confused the Russian translator (suggestions for something better appreciated). My question then is whether such a word exists in Russian. For example, how would one translate the following sentence? "Which stitch do I use next, cloth stitch or half stitch?" Is there a general term for the stitch which is the second word in the sentence, or would this be translated in Russian without a noun? e.g. as in: "What do I do next, a cloth stich or a half stitch?" 2. Nouns for the concepts of 'head-side' and 'foot-side' may or may not exist in different languages. I am suspicious that the translator has tried to translate the components of the English terms, rather than the concepts they are used for. 3. Likewise for passive v. weaver/worker. Let me emphasise that I am most grateful to the translators for providing translations for the grunge work of providing the bulk of terms, but that nobody is perfect and the essence of mounting this on the web is that corrections can be made and continue to be made at no publishing cost. If I waited until the work was perfect I'd wait forever. But if anyone can help improve it in the meantime I'd really appreciate it. David P.S. The Slovenian is still in progress and I am sure will be complete by the next OIDFA Congress. The Greek, Polish and Finnish have only been checked by a couple of people, so any further scrutiny would be especially welcome. Other languages, too, but mainstream European languages are perhaps not the priority. - To unsubscribe send email to majord...@arachne.com containing the line: unsubscribe lace y...@address.here. For help, write to arachne.modera...@gmail.com. Photo site: http://www.flickr.com/photos/lacemaker/sets/
