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Re: [wg-e] partial results



bill,

good effort!
shall we move to the next phase, experimentation of unofficial translation
for informational purpose with volunteers from the relevant country
organizations such as AFNIC, JPNIC, CNNIC/BII/TWNIC,..... in distributed
fashion so that we can find out the validity.

we have members from these organizations in WG-E, and may ask them to
elaborate first.

chon


On Fri, Apr 07, 2000 at 02:58:01PM -0700, Bill Washburn wrote:
> Dear all--
>     Thanks for the replies received thusfar.
>  
> Question #1 - With respect to the question of, "In which languages should
> ballots and other 'official materials' appear?"  I have seen suggestions for
> the following languages:
>     Arabic    - official UN language
>     Chinese    - official UN language
>     English    - official UN language
>     French    - official UN language
>     Japanese    
>     Russian    - official UN language
>     Spanish    - official UN language
>  
> plus ...  "...one of these indigenous African languages: Swahili, hausa,
> twi, zulu, xosa, yuroba."
>  
> plus... "...Bahasa Indonesia/Bahasa Melayu."
>  
> plus ... "...other widely used languages, in particular if they are
> important at a regional level."
>  
>  
>  
>  
>  
>  
>  
> Question #2 - The second question...  how to envision routine translation?
>  
>     Professionally translate into the "primary" languages.  Coordinate
> volunteer translation into additional languages.  Involve colleges and
> universites to get volunteers - utilize the ccTLD administrators to find
> translators.
>  
>     An alternative would be the use of EU and/or WIPO to do professional
> translation.  Both organizations have the additional advantage of having the
> wherewithall to certify their translations as official.
>  
>     An important distinction was drawn--it seems to me--between "official
> documents" that must be officially translated and the other documents which
> ICANN might be well advised to classify in some other way, such as
> background material.  Were this concept embraced within the ICANN culture,
> then it might be more feasible to rely on volunteer, "gist" translations for
> most documents and require official translation of only a quite limited set
> of materials.
>  
>     Also, there is the matter of a headquarters-centric model of operation
> vis a vis a distributed model of operation--with respect to language
> translation, at least.  Again an excellent question, I believe.  Indeed,
> this may be an issue on which Working Group E becomes strongly active, if we
> believe that the distributed model offers better outreach and awareness
> development capabilities.  
>  
>     
>  
>  
> Question #3 -   What to do with the question of legal or official
> translation requirements    
>  
>     ICANN must see official translation as a necessarily limited and UN-like
> requirement.  It will have to be performed by professionals, it must be
> limited in number, and it will be quite expensive.  
>  
>     Incorporate (where possible) the concept of translating merely the
> "gist" of some materials and marketing as such. 
>  
>  
>  
>  
>  
> Other questions that come to mind.  .......
>  
> cheers, bill
>  
>  
>  
>     A.  Would our working group E members recommend that the ICANN web site
> be done in ALL the same languages in which the membership at large election
> ballot was made available?