Language + style guide for translators
Alanna Irving
Public
Seen by 251
Background
Loomio is part of a movement towards new forms of organisation, new social relationships, and new experiences. We don't necessarily have the language for these new forms yet.
As Marina Sitrin says in the translator's note at the start of Horizontalism "old words cannot define new things - a new language is necessary [...] We must try to listen to the experience before attempting to translate it into the language of our own experience."
"So, today we're constructing something different. And, in the process, a whole new language and new forms of expression come into being. Horizontalidad, direct democracy, sharing and effecting one another's movements, contamination, articulation, organizing in networks: these expressions are not often heard from the traditional left. There are many words from the past that could define today's situation, but since they're old words used to define new things, they create confusion."
It has been a significant challenge to translate some of these new organisational concepts into English words; I expect the challenge will deepen as we expand into other languages.
Word choices and tone/style
Overall, we aim for an informal, conversational tone throughout the app. Think about how people talk when they meet as equals in a friendly collaborative meeting. Clarity is the highest priority.
We've deliberately avoided language with strong connotations of traditional formalised majority-rules political decision-making. Rather than talking about elections or parliament or voting or quorum or any of that political jargon, we talk about people having discussions, building shared understanding and making collaborative decisions together. Loomio is motivated by the concept of everyday democracy - the idea that participating in decisions that affect you should be a part of daily life.
Here's a few key words in the app and the reasoning behind them. All these choices are up for discussion :)
Proposal
A proposal is a suggested course of action, made by an individual to a group. In the codebase this is known as a 'motion', so you may see references to that word occasionally. We chose 'proposal' over 'motion' because it is slightly less formal and more flexible.
Position
Individuals state their position on a proposal. There are times in English where 'vote' is a more convenient word (as it can function as a noun and a verb), but we've explicitly avoided using it. 'Vote' carries connotations of majority-rules adversarial decision-making, where-as a 'position' is more deliberative and collaborative.
Decision
A proposal with a collection of positions together make up a 'decision'.
Group/subgroup
A group (occasionally referred to as a 'parent group') contains all the individuals for a given organisation. A sub-group is a smaller collection of individuals. There is no hierarchy or superiority built into the group/sub-group model, it is simply a way of dividing up an organisation into smaller parts.
This concept is ugly to explain in English, so I expect a better choice will emerge eventually :) It's easy to explain in mathematics: the 'group' is a superset and the 'subgroup' is a subset
Miguel Prados Rodriguez Sun 5 May 2013 11:40AM
@noelia Colaboración en entornos de código abierto o colaboración en herramientas de código abierto, depende del contexto.
Noelia Sun 5 May 2013 11:42AM
@miguelpradosrodrig sal del sitio y ve a la pagina principal para que lo veas.. y me dices :)
Miguel Prados Rodriguez Sun 5 May 2013 11:45AM
@noelia Colaboración en código abierto
Francisco George PP-ES Sun 5 May 2013 12:29PM
@noelia Recientemente ha habido polemica en España sobre los usos de los terminos de "Software Libre" y de "codigo abierto" que segun algunos se usan de manera equivocada. Desde PIRATA escribimos a Richard Stallman, padre del concepto.
Su respuesta avalaba este articulo de Pablo Manchon
http://www.eldiario.es/turing/Software-llamen-libre_0_117238356.html
Asi que mejor lo volvamos a leer para no errar en los conceptos
Florian Aurich Thu 3 Apr 2014 3:05PM
Something interesting has come up in our work on the German translation concerning how we address users. You’re probably aware that German (and other languages, such as French and Spanish) have different forms for addressing people based on their relationship and the formality of the situation. Now, I’d say that “informal, conversational tone” and “how people talk when they meet as equals in a friendly collaborative meeting” favours the less formal German “Du” (=you). This is also what’s been used throughout the German translation of the main resource. But when @christianmairoll translated the subtitles for the “how it works” video (thanks for helping!), he used the more formal “Sie” (=you). If I’m not mistaken, the French translation seems to be using the more formal form “vous” while the Spanish is using the less formal “tu”.
I’m aware that the differences in formality between these words aren’t necessarily equivalent across languages, but I’d be glad to hear other people’s thoughts about this!
Christian Mairoll Fri 4 Apr 2014 8:42AM
To be honest I didn't check the existing translation before I started with the video texts. For me it was kind of natural to use the formal variant "Sie" because the very informal German "Du" might be perceived by many people as aggressive marketing (just see how many people feel heavily offended by companies like IKEA who always use "Du") in their commercials. As I understand, we're looking to build credibility for Loomio. That simply clashes if you treat your users like kids. The potential that someone feels unformfortable with informal "Du" is much higher than the potential that someone feels treated too anonymous/formal with a "Sie".
I think it depends on the situation. In a promotional video or website I'd always expect formal wording while in a chat community when talking to others I know, I will always use the informal variant. But talking to others is something different than communicating information on a 1:n website.
A. Renato Mon 7 Apr 2014 1:05PM
In fact, there are some words that seems aren't the best choice even in the original language. For example, “discussion” reminds something to do with confusion, even though it must be only a kind of “debate”. This last word calls for a moderator, what isn’t the Loomio proposal. So, “dialogue” would be better in my opinion, although people in internet are more used to the discussion word and English isn't my first language, so I better be quiet about it. The point here is do choose the right words which fits better in a fluid conversation that brings a feeling of good will and mutual understanding.
About the power of words:
“But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought.”
George Orwell, 1984
Richard D. Bartlett Mon 7 Apr 2014 7:47PM
You're so right @renato, 'dialogue' is definitely closer to the meaning we're after. It could be argued that 'discussion' is a more common word though, so that could be taken into account.
It might be interesting to raise a proposal to switch discussion for dialog, and see what the group thinks? If you want to, it would probably be best to do it in the Feature Ideas group :)
Alanna Irving Tue 8 Apr 2014 2:27AM
Don't raise a new thread! Just revive this in-depth one about "Discussion Vs Dialogue"
Noelia · Sun 5 May 2013 11:33AM
@miguelpradosrodrig @franciscogeorgeppe como traducirían "open-source collaboration" ? Colaboración de código abierto? o Colectivo de código abierto? o tmb se usa open source en español?