TERMINOLOGY DETAILS AND PUBLICATIONS

TRANSLATING SOME TERMS, PROFANITIES, AND SLANG WORDS

Translating terms means selecting them. When selecting terms, translators, editors, and proofreaders are constantly at risk of making a mistake. Most often, this happens because the systems of word meanings in the source and target languages do not match, and because word forms are often deceptively similar. For example, English has the word minute, while Lithuanian has minutė. Yet many of us do not even realize that the English word is semantically much more branched: it has not only distinctive meanings, but also homonyms. Therefore, Lithuanians may find it strange that the expression to keep the minutes means “to take the minutes.” This is because English also has the word protocol, but it is used only when speaking of diplomatic protocol. Lithuanian words can also be confused. For instance, the English term dabs is translated as fingerprints (=impressions) in at least two good English–Lithuanian dictionaries (ALTŽ and DALŽ).

It is fairly common for a term to exist, yet the translator cannot find it and instead uses a description of the concept, for example: lawnmower – a machine for cutting lawn grass (=lawnmower), banns – a public announcement of a marriage in church (=banns), bet – something one bets on (=wager), and so on. In other cases, an English word may seem highly specialized and untranslatable, even though it is in fact the name of an ordinary concept. For instance, it was proposed that the loanwords pirsingas, hospisas and so on be adopted. There is no need to do this, since they are easily translated: piercing – body piercing, hospice – nursing home.

The term slang is a synonym for the terms cant and jargon. It comes from English. Slang words are characterized by coarseness and a mocking tone. Some slang words have even penetrated the terminology of English economics, medicine, law, and certain other fields. Since they are usually easily translated

101

They are, then, translated literally as well. For example, in English economic terminology we find the words bear and bull. Economists and legal specialists most often translate them as bear and bull. In general bilingual dictionaries, however, they are translated indirectly as stock-market speculator. Some highly purist terminology dictionaries do things differently still, namely: bear – an investor who sells shares in the hope of buying them back more cheaply; bull – an investor who buys shares in the hope of selling them at a higher price. In this case, terms are not sought at all; instead, only the concepts are described. A literal translation is still somewhat possible here (a person can be called both a bear and a bull), but in other cases it may be wholly unjustified. For example, in computer terminology, the labels hard goods (hardware) and soft goods (software) began to appear at first. These were translations by non-specialists, people wholly unfamiliar with the concepts in the field. Specialists translated them accurately: hardware – equipment, and software – software.

Translating jargon and slang words literally can lead to complete nonsense. This happens when the English word screwdriver is translated by the Lithuanian word atsuktuvas (ŠAKV 15). That would be fine, except it is not the name of a tool, but of a drink made with vodka and orange juice. Drinks should not be called by the names of tools, either literally or figuratively. Quotation marks cannot help here, either.

Worse still is when English profanities are rendered with Lithuanian profanities. These are primarily colloquial names for certain organs and physiological processes, which cultured society avoids using in public. For instance, no Lithuanian dictionary contains the vulgar words familiar to everyone, whose neutral standard-language equivalents are penis and buttocks. Meanwhile, in some of the latest English–Lithuanian dictionaries (DALŽ), the word knob is translated by the profanity “b.”, and the word arse by “š.” Similar “equivalents” can be found for the English words crap, fat-ass and others. As V. Krėvė puts it, this kind of translation aims for the head but hits the tail.

102

Abbreviations

ALTŽ – Armalyte O., Pažūsis L. Anglų–lietuvių kalbų teisės žodynas. Vilnius, 1999.

DALŽ – Piesarskas B. Didysis anglų–lietuvių kalbų žodynas. Vilnius, 1998.

ŠAKV – Skopinskaja L. Šnekamosios anglų kalbos vadovėlis. Kaunas, 1997.

Kazimieras GAIVENIS

Kazimieras GAIVENIS, Institute of the Lithuanian Language, 6 Antakalnio St., LT-2055, Vilnius

Received 2000 06 12

103