http://blog.translationartwork.com/index.php/2009/07/13/language-confusion/ The right word in any language. Thu, 03 Feb 2011 11:52:16 +0200 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 hourly 1 http://blog.translationartwork.com/index.php/2009/07/13/language-confusion/comment-page-1/#comment-259 Attila Tue, 14 Jul 2009 06:32:56 +0000 http://blog.translationartwork.com/?p=201#comment-259 About the confusion in languages. Hungarian people are often informed if travelling to Hawai, New Zealand or some other part of Oceania not to enter where it is written "kapu". Kapu in Hungarian means "entry, door, main entrance", while in those polynesian languages it is synonim to "Tabu". An other exemple are the Slav languages: one knowing Serbian in the cyrillic version is allways thinking he/she will completely understood the similarly written Russian texts. Oh no ! The same word in both languages have completely different meanings. I am speaking by experience - in summer 2003 I had to translate from Ostiako-Russian a historical fiction (roman) of the then candidate to the Nobel Prize of Literature, Ieremei Aipin - a book whose title is "The Holy Virgin on the bloody snows". I read the 300 page book without the use of any dictionnaries in 20 days. It relates the events of 1933/34 when the Red Russians wanted to annihilate the Ostiaks in West Siberia, using any means to attain that goal. That caused a long lasting revolt which was annihilated in deep blood, at the end. An other possible confusion - one is always thinking Arabic is one language, while it is not the case: the Maghreb and Mashrek division (East and West) is giving terrain to a lot of confusion. 2 in Morocco is called "djuj" while in Lybia "tenin". Or the expression "good" "mzien" vs. "kwais, kwayis". But learning these - let it say - dialectal differences makes more fun the so hard learning of foreign languages. About the confusion in languages.
Hungarian people are often informed if travelling to Hawai, New Zealand or some other part of Oceania not to enter where it is written “kapu”. Kapu in Hungarian means “entry, door, main entrance”, while in those polynesian languages it is synonim to “Tabu”.
An other exemple are the Slav languages: one knowing Serbian in the cyrillic version is allways thinking he/she will completely understood the similarly written Russian texts. Oh no ! The same word in both languages have completely different meanings. I am speaking by experience – in summer 2003 I had to translate from Ostiako-Russian a historical fiction (roman) of the then candidate to the Nobel Prize of Literature, Ieremei Aipin – a book whose title is “The Holy Virgin on the bloody snows”. I read the 300 page book without the use of any dictionnaries in 20 days. It relates the events of 1933/34 when the Red Russians wanted to annihilate the Ostiaks in West Siberia, using any means to attain that goal. That caused a long lasting revolt which was annihilated in deep blood, at the end.
An other possible confusion – one is always thinking Arabic is one language, while it is not the case: the Maghreb and Mashrek division (East and West) is giving terrain to a lot of confusion. 2 in Morocco is called “djuj” while in Lybia “tenin”. Or the expression “good” “mzien” vs. “kwais, kwayis”. But learning these – let it say – dialectal differences makes more fun the so hard learning of foreign languages.

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