Status: RO
This cannot be a problem that we alone have faced...?
I do not think it wise to create new terminology where existing terminology
suffices. Translation is, I believe, the right sense of what we are
promoting, even if there may be nuances that are different.
I am wondering if uncertainty about this is in anyway reflecting some
discomfiture about declaring one representation of DC (the english
expression) the standard representation?
I am still of the opinion that we need to do this... not because english is
in any way a better medium of expression, but rather that we need one
foundation representation that others are based on. Put another way... would
our advice to, say, the Indonesian translator of DC be to translate DC from
the Thai version, or the English version?
I think we would always recommend translating from the English version, even
though the resource description conventions of Indonesia might be in some
cultural way closer to those of Thailand than to the UK or the US or
Australia (A completely fabricated assumption, only for purposes of
example).
stu
-----Original Message-----
From: Thomas Baker [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Wednesday, November 18, 1998 6:29 AM
To: Dublin Core in Multiple Languages
Cc: [log in to unmask]
Subject: "Versions" of DC?
Dear all,
As I write the article for D-Lib Magazine, I find myself uncertain as
to what we should call versions of Dublin Core in multiple languages.
We have been calling them "versions," but as someone recently asked,
would DC-Finnish 1.1 then be a version of a version?
One alternative is "expression", as in the progression from work to
expression to manifestation. I like this idea, but somehow it doesn't
seem to work. It makes sense to talk about "the Dublin Core expressed
in Indonesian," but does it also make sense to talk about "creating an
expression of Dublin Core in Indonesian"?
Another alternative is, of course, "translation". But as we have
discussed in meetings, "translation" seems kind of mechanical and one-way,
whereas creativity is required to ensure that the element definitions
"make sense" to a target audience and correctly convey the intended
semantics. On the other hand, we do recognize that "translations"
of complex or literary works can be works of art in their own right.
Please let me know what you think -- preferably soon!
Tom
____________________________________________________________________________
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Dr. Thomas Baker
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AIT - Asian Institute of Technology, Thailand
ERCIM - European Research Consortium for Informatics and Mathematics
DCML - Working Group on Dublin Core in Multiple Languages
http://www.cs.ait.ac.th/~tbaker/DC-Multilingual.html
Personal : c/o FES, GPO Box 2781, Bangkok 10501, Thailand
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