Re: [wg-e] partial results

[Kilnam Chon <chon@cosmos.kaist.ac.kr>]

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?