History of the letter eñe

Posted On February 20, 2013By TranspanishIn Did you know?, Languages, Spanish Language, The origin of.../  No Comments

Most people associate the letter eñe with the Spanish language. Yet it is actually present in no less than nine different alphabets spanning the globe, including the modern Latin alphabet, Galician alphabet, Asturian alphabet, Filipino alphabet and Guarani alphabet, among others. Additionally, it is currently used to represent the [ŋ] in the Tartar and Crimean languages, along with the Chamorro, Mandinka, Mapudungun and Tocharian languages. Considering the usage of eñe, it quickly becomes clear that the letter is present in a variety of geographical locations, and is used in languages stemming from different language families.

The tilde that sits atop the n to form what is now a separate letter in its own right, originally began as shorthand. It represented a double letter, in this case nn, which was used more frequently in Old Spanish. The word año, for example, was formerly anno and derived from the Latin word annvs. While this usage spread to many languages at the time, most of them eventually dropped the tilde. Meanwhile, Spanish retained its usage as shorthand for a double letter.

As far back as Medieval Latin usage, that tilde came to represent a nasal sound following a vowel (then also used on the letter m). The presence of eñe in Spanish has since expanded to all instances in which the palatal nasal sound is present, even when it does not represent a former double letter, such as with señor.

More recently, there has been cross-linguistic usage in native languages located in or near predominantly Spanish-speaking areas. These languages include Aymara, Quechua, Basque, Leonese, Yavapai, and Tetum. The orthographies of these native languages and others with cross-linguistic usage of eñe all have some basis in Spanish. It is also present in English words borrowed from Spanish, such as jalapeño, piñata, and piña colada.

 

Spanish Keyboard Layout – Latin America. The letter eñe is on the right of the L.

Tip!
Alt key code for the letter eñe: ALT + 0241.

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Tools for translators: A powerful desktop search tool

Posted On February 18, 2013By TranspanishIn Tips for Translators/  No Comments

Copernic Desktop Search is a software tool that makes it simple and easy to find anything on your PC. By indexing your hard drive and providing a user-friendly search interface, a person can instantly locate more than 150 file types, including images, multimedia and emails (it includes an optional web search engine.) If the user so chooses, the tool can also index Contacts, Favorites and web surfing history.

Many people are already aware that Windows has a function that performs more or less the same tasks. What makes Copernic Desktop Search different is the fact that it is much more powerful than the built-in Windows tool and can instantly locate a file hidden anywhere on your computer. And it has a free version that contains more bells and whistles than you would normally expect from a free version.

So, how is this relevant to translators and other professionals within the translation industry? For starters, anyone who has worked in the industry for any length of time knows how quickly those translation files can pile up. And without a detailed organization system combined with an excellent memory, it can be easy to lose track of what you have saved and where. This tool is particularly helpful when a client from long ago suddenly resurfaces and requests additional translations based on a previously established style/standard. Looking up those old files becomes necessary, and finding them quickly is essential. There are a number of other situations that might call for a file search, and whenever one of them arises, it would be a good idea to have Copernic search available.

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Translating your website to promote your business

Posted On February 13, 2013By TranspanishIn Spanish Translation, Translation Buyers/  No Comments

A business website is more than just a mode of offering information about your business, and it’s more than just marketing a product or service. Your website also communicates authority, or legitimacy, if you will. The internet is full of websites representing fly-by-night companies. Making sure that your site doesn’t seem like one of those is essential to ensuring that it truly fulfills its purpose and potential to help your business grow.

These days, not only are businesses increasingly going international, but customers are too. Today’s customers no longer require that their service provider or the manufacturer of a product be right down the road, or even in their own country. This offers a plethora of new opportunities for businesses. But reaching those audiences often means communicating with them in their own language, on their own terms.

As a result, website translation is no longer the sole territory of large, multi-national conglomerates. It’s relevant to any business that wishes to grow by capturing that global potential. Yet many companies go about translating their website in a way that is ultimately counter-productive.

That is, they run their content through a translation tool like Google Translator, and call it done. Or, what more and more companies are starting to discover, they go to a freelance site like oDesk or Elance and offer bargain basement rates for anyone who claims to know a language, to translate their site. To be sure, freelance marketplaces are full of qualified workers, including translators. But using them as a cheaper, easier alternative to going with a professional agency has definite drawbacks.

First, localization is an important aspect of translation that software tools often miss, as well as less-than-professional translators. Marketing history is full of incidents in which one mistranslated word of an ad campaign left an entire country either laughing or horrified at what was inadvertently communicated. This hurts credibility and causes people to miss the real message you’re trying to send about your business. But there’s also the issue of really connecting with the audience that you’re trying to reach. Translation is more than linguistic adaptation, it also communicates to your audience that they are valued customers. So sending the right message, with the right understanding of the target language’s terminology, etc. is essential.

Finally, translating your website and reaching out to a larger, global audience means setting your company up for the long term. When economic conditions or other factors temper your domestic market’s interest, you’ll have another area to focus resources and build your brand. Naturally, getting the right message across in other countries is equally important as here at home.

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The Origin of the Word “Carnival”

Posted On February 12, 2013By TranspanishIn Did you know?, Languages, The origin of.../ 4 6 Comments

The term Carnival (or Carnaval, in Spanish), has an etymology that can find little accord among those who explain its origins. Perhaps beginning with the question of whether the roots of the word date back to latin, and which terms they seem to derive from, several theories about the origin of Carnival persist, each with its own explanation.

Free image courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net

 The timing of Carnival celebrations around the world also plays an important role in these theories, in particular as it relates to Christianity. Taking place in February, Carnival occurs just before Lent, a time in which Christians all over the world choose to fast, involving the avoidance of eating meat as dictated by the Church. In this context, one theory claims that the term is derived from the latin carne and vale, literally, saying goodbye to meat. Others who support this theory link it to the Italian expression, carne levare, with the same meaning.

In this explanation — often referred to as “folklore” by proponents of other theories — Carnival represents the final blowout before saying goodbye to eating meat. More broadly, a similar theory also states that it could represent a farewell to matters of the flesh, or carne, in general. The essence of the celebrations of Carnival, in their displays of excess and letting go, contrast with the mood of Lent in which the matters of the spirit outweigh the importance of worldly things.

An alternate origin involves the Roman festival Navigium Isidis (ship of Isis). In this traditional festival, the image of Isis was carried in a procession to the shore in order to bless the beginning of the sailing season. The procession involved elaborate masks and a wooden boat that was also carried. These characteristics could be the precursors of modern Carnival tradition involving floats and masks.

The etymological connection with this last theory rests in the term carrus, meaning car, as opposed to carne. The festival mentioned above was known by the latin term carrus navalis. It should be noted, however, that this festival was associated with both agricultural seasons (taking place just before the beginning of spring) and sexuality. As a result, it is also possible that when the festival became Christianized some time later, these two aspects were simply replaced by carne vale, a more appropriate beginning to Lent.

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The Origin of Hashtag

Posted On February 7, 2013By TranspanishIn Did you know?, The origin of..., Tips for Translators, Translation Buyers/  No Comments

This week we’re starting a new blog series called “The Origin of …” In it, we’ll be discussing the origin of a new word each week, including it’s translations or adaptations in other languages. We begin the series with a word that has become widely recognized among Internet parlance in a short amount of time: hashtag.

Going Viral

Most people recognize the hashtag (#) as a symbol used on Twitter to introduce a topic or conversation so that other Twitter users may search for, follow and contribute to the conversation. Of course now it is so popular that it’s not uncommon to see the symbol pop up on other social networks as well, but without the corresponding search function. Yet the hashtag was not an original creation from Twitter’s founders. The concept was originally thought up and given its ubiquitous symbol by a user experience designer working on Google+. That designer, Chris Messina, pitched the idea to Twitter’s guys in August of 2007 as a way to organize groups on the social network, giving him the nickname “hash godfather.”

Some reports indicate that the first time the hashtag was actually used was in relation to the miraculous landing of Flight 1549 on the Hudson River in early 2009. Among the many tweets flying around in relation to the event which had temporarily taken over the country’s news cycles, one user included #flight1549 at the end of their tweet. After that it was picked up by others tweeting about the incident, and quickly went viral.

Hashtag in Other Languages

There is always the question of whether new technology terms will be translated into other languages, or simply adopted as they are. As is to be expected, the French government has chosen to introduce their own word meaning hashtag in French. That word, mot-dièse, is not a literal translation, but rather means word and sharp — as in the designation of pitch in music, represented by a symbol similar to the pound (or hash) sign but without its inclination to the right.

It should also be noted, however, that not all French-speaking countries follow the lead of France when it comes to language developments. In francophone Quebec, Canada, for example, they prefer the term mot-clic.

But just as the French have done what they usually do — declare a new word to avoid adopting the English term — Spanish speakers have also done what they usually do in these situations. That is, they adopt the word with slight variations in spelling and pronunciation, effectively making it their own. Other words related to Twitter stand as examples of this: tuit (tweet), tuitear (verb of “tweet”), tuitero (a person who tweets), etc. In the case of hashtag, the literal translation would be etiqueta de almohadilla. And while this Spanish phrase is used in some areas, others choose to simply go with the original English term, adapting it to their own accent. As with French, it just depends on the region or the individual.

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Managing Work Overload

Posted On February 5, 2013By TranspanishIn Tips for Translators/  No Comments

too-much-work

Being confronted with too much work is not necessarily what every freelance translator fears when they branch out on their own. Not having enough work to make is usually higher up on the list of worries. But once you get going with your freelance business, it’s not uncommon to find yourself on the other extreme — with too many projects to finish in too little time, and more requests coming to your inbox seemingly by the minute.

Knowing how to deal with these times of too much work can mean the difference between maintaining your client relationships and managing your business for the long-term, or gradually losing control of your work.

Organize and Prioritize

When it seems like there are too many jobs coming in too fast, and you’re worried about losing track of deadlines and clients, the best way to get a hold on everything is to sit down and organize your requests. This includes grouping them into smaller jobs and jobs that will require more time. That way, you will be able to identify the assignments that you can finish quickly and cross off your list before tackling the larger ones with longer deadlines. In addition to being a great way to face the problem of too much work and get a handle on it, it can also give you some relief by shortening your to-do list.

Be Honest

The ability to be honest about how much work you’re facing is something that a lot of freelancers take for granted. They don’t want to appear as though they’re a novice who can’t manage their own work flow. But heavy times and lean times are just part of the game, and usually clients will understand that. Even if they’re not very interested in your schedule, being upfront about the overload that you’re facing can give them the opportunity to clarify that the deadline for their project is either very strict, or that it can be put on the back burner if need be. This kind of transparency could offer you an amount of much needed flexibility. Alternatively, if every client says their project is urgent, then you can either choose to turn down a few or try the next option.

Outsource When Necessary

This is a common suggestion, but an effective one. If you’ve organized your jobs and gotten the smaller, faster ones out of the way; if you’ve been honest with yourself and your clients about facing too much work all at once, but you still don’t have a solution, the final option is to outsource some of your work. Ideally, you would be able to establish relationships with other freelance translators with flexible schedules that would allow them to help when you have lots of work, and be on stand-by when things are lighter. Managing that is another thing altogether. But outsourcing in any capacity can ultimately help preserve your reputation with your clients as someone who finishes work on time, and as someone who is available to take jobs. And that will certainly help your business.

Say Goodbye to Social Sites

You are probably not aware of how much time you loose every time you comment on those photos your best friend posted or when you are checking twitter every ten minutes. Try closing all those apps and websites that are not necessary for translating and you will realize you can get much more work done.

Take Breaks

Working long hours non-stop will not help your productivity. Your body and mind need short breaks so that you can go back to work with a fresh head. Go for a short walk, take some minutes to listen to your favorite music and relax or just take 10 minutes to stretch your body.

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