Language facts: Hindi

Standard Hindi, also known as Modern Hindi, is mutually intelligible with Urdu, another Indian language. Hindi is the official language in India and has borrowed its vocabulary heavily from Sanskrit. Hindi has close to 500 million speakers including Hindi dialects (41% of the population in India) which makes it the 4th largest language of the world, after Chinese, Spanish, and English.

Taj Mahal, India.
Source: DollarPhotoClub.com

Language as a political tool

Standard Hindi is based on Khariboli, a dialect of Delhi and surrounding regions. In the 17th century, this dialect acquired linguistic prestige and became generally known as Hindustani or Urdu. After India became independent, a language reform led to Standard Hindi with a modern grammar and orthographic standards. While many Hindi and Urdu speakers claim these are two different languages, this is largely due to religious nationalism and communal tensions between Hindus and Muslims. It is in a fact hard to tell the colloquial languages from each other. In the Indian constitution from 1950, Hindi was declared the principal national language of India, instead of Urdu. This "settled" the dispute politically (also with a contribution of Mahatma Gandhi who criticized the division), although certain resistance persists until today. 

One country, 22 languages

Mumbai, India.
Source: DollarPhotoClub.com

It may be worthwhile to note that English is the secondary national language due to historical and cultural development of India. Fluency in English is considered a social advantage. English is India's lingua franca and is widely used in higher society, politics as well as in business. Apart from official Hindu and English, there is over 20 officially recognized languages in India, including Urdu, Assamese, Punjabi, Tamil, Telugu, Bengali, Nepali, Kannada, Gujarati and others.

Alphabet

The main script of Standard Hindi is Devanagari, it is also the most commonly used alphabet for writing Sanskrit.

अ ब भ क च छ ड/द ध/ढ़ इ फ ग घ ह ई ज क ख ल म न/ण ऑ प फ क्यू र स श ट/त ठ/थ उ व व क्ष य झ

When machine translation turns UNESCO heritage into "Refrigerator"

It suggested to "Translate this page". So they did :)

As strange as the headline sounds, this particular issue has amused Czech and Slovak internet readers for several days now. As informed by Czech news portal iDnes.cz, the official web site for promoting tourism in South Moravia Region www.jizni-morava.cz relied on machine (read Google) translation to localize the content into seven languages including English, German, Russian, Slovak, Polish, Italian and Spanish (NOTE: The web site was financed by public as well as EU funds with a total cost of one million Czech crowns – approx. 37,000 EUR). What may have seemed like an easy cost-cutting measure turned out as a free promotion of the region. Unfortunately, in a negative and mocking way.

Visit Refrigerator, Pregnant or Vitriol!

South Moravia's "Refrigerator",
originally Lednice-Valtice complex landmarks.
(Source: DollarPhotoClub.com)

Welcome to Refrigerator, the cultural heritage! Yes, the precise localization tool applied on the above-mentioned official web site changed the geographical names of South Moravian villages including the world renowned Lednice-Valtice complex listed by UNESCO (the name of the village "Lednice" in fact means "refrigerator" when translated mechanically, but come on... :) ). Other translation jewels to be found were, for example, the names of villages Březí (verbatim – Pregnant), or Skalice (verbatim – Vitriol). Sadly amusing results of machine translation or better said undesired effort of bureaucrats is less amusing when taking into account the lack of responsibility for published moreover internationally and tourism-oriented content, while there are a lot of user-friendly localization solutions available.

Lesson learned

Text you need to publish should always be translated by professional, human translators. Yes, it is more expensive than free, on-line machine translation, but if you want to increase sales and awareness + keep customers and other readership it is worth it. And there are many smart ways to get it done right and for modest outlays. Read on.

Replace machine-powered app with humans

Install an interface to human pro translators in your CMS!
Stream Translation API by idioma

Without a need to export texts from your content management system, you can actually install a channel to high-quality human translation. This price-attractive service includes instant cost and delivery time estimates, professional human localization, proofreading and pre-publishing. It also features tracking of content changes  thanks to translation memory and glossary creation to further   lower translation expenses. The solution is a translation API – an interface able to handle the traffic and localize web content. It is available as the Stream Translation API™ from idioma. Just ask your web developer to integrate the API into your content management system, or download and install our pre-programmed plug-ins yourself!

Go to api.idioma.com, or contact us directly for more information.

Benefit from a long-term translation relationship

It's been a long time since translation involved a typewriter, a printed dictionary and very skilled translator. The process of translation, as well its quality standards are taking leaps and bounds forward thanks to modern technology. Today's advanced language service providers (LSPs) utilizing computer-assisted translation tools (so-called CAT tools) have turned translation from a one-off, ad-hoc service, where only the initial price is a decisive factor, into a long-term sustainable client-supplier relationship. 

Source: DollarPhotoClub.com

Translation services: A love story

Let's explain the latter thought further: thanks to employing a combination of human translation powered by IT, considerable value has been added to translation services nowadays. There are numerous tools to ensure this, such as creation and maintenance of translation memories (read more here) or glossaries (read more here) and machine-powered quality analyses with subsequent final human input in the form of proofreading, while every single intervention is recorded and stored on clients' account. In fact, the more data and text segments (phrases, sentences, expressions) that are collected from previous translations as a result of creating glossaries, translation memories and understanding clients' specific terminology, the less content needs to be translated in future translation projects. And, as the phrases and segments used in clients' materials meant for translation tend to be repetitive (especially in technical translation and documents like catalogs, user manuals, etc.), many of them have already been translated and recorded in memories and glossaries. Eventually, this leads to a clear equation: the longer and deeper relationship with your language service provider you maintain (and the more material you have translated) = the lower cost of translation you get.

Invest in your translation healthcare

Maybe you have never thought of it this way, but an investment into your translationresources is similar to those into your health. The more you maintain an active lifestyle and a good health, the more you guard against future medical outlays. Keeping your translation resources in good condition and error-free is very similar, while it significantly and visibly pushes down your future translation costs. To achieve this, you need to find a suitable LSP that has means to clean, update, convert and store your resources. Here at idioma, we're ready to offer you such services on a whole different level, upgrading mere translation to a smart and efficient service with a long-term benefit for our clients and truly added value. 

To learn more, please visit www.idioma.com or contact us about our SMARTER translation services.

Language facts: German

German is the official language of Germany and Austria and one of the official languages of Switzerland and Belgium, as well as an official language of the European Union and the European Commission. It is used by more than 100 million speakers and belongs to the West Germanic group of the Germanic languages. Apart from Standard German of Germany spoken by 88 million, Austrian German (Österreichisches Deutsch) it has 8 million speakers, while Swiss German (Schweizerdeutsch) has 5 million speakers. Moreover, there are about 80 million non-native speakers.
FACT: German is also the second most used scientific language.

Berlin. The divided Capital.
Source: DollarPhotoClub.com

Too many dialects

German is an interesting language also because a vast number of flavors and dialects, some of which are so distant and even mutually non-interchangeable with Standard German, so they are considered separate languages (such as Swiss German for instance). Even though Standard German existed in written form, the pronunciation was (and in fact still remains) very different in every region and dialect. The Standard German pronunciation was influenced by North German (although, strange enough, it was learnt as a foreign language in Northern Germany itself) as well as the stage form of German used in theaters. 

The standardization of written German in fact did not occur until the beginning of the 20th century. It's worthy to note that the most comprehensive German dictionary was created by the famous German authors, The Grimm Brothers. Another important role in German standardization was also played with the publication of Martin Luther's Bible. 

Interesting fact: there is one German dialect (considered a separate language today) that is not written in Latin, but in Hebrew script and it is Yiddish – the old German dialect of Ashkenazi Jews, originated in Central Europe around 9th century.

West vs. East German

Although it might seem that 40 years of division between East and West Germany caused also variation in language, it had just a little influence given a too short development period. There are certain words that are culturally different in today's western and eastern Deutschland due to Russian influence (e.g. astronaut (West) vs. kosmonaut (East), or Gartenhaus vs. Datsche (Russian expression for garden house). Also brands influenced certain terms, e.g. tissue – Kleenex in the US – is termed "Tempo" in the West, after the major tissue producer in Germany, but only a general expression "Papiertaschentuch" is used in the East.

Alphabet

The German alphabet is basically the same as the English one, exept for the addition of the special characters Ä, Ö, Ü / ä, ö, ü, ß (so called sharp S – originally scharfen S or "Eszett", sometimes replaced in writing with a double "s" (common in Switzerland). The Eszett character is rather interesting, because it doesn't have an upper case form). When sorting, these extra letters are treated like their base characters, as if the dots (umlauts) were not present. 

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z

Prague summer vistas and idioma

This July was a real Sahara in Prague. To relieve the working tension and to make a little team photoshoot, the (almost) entire Prague production center of idioma took a little walk to a nearby park called Sacre Coeur. 

With everyone wearing their Christmas present from idioma — a branded t-shirt with custom letters on the back — we enjoyed a little fun playing a large-scale human multilingual Scrabble :) 

...just a "random" chat :)

 JO... (= yeah)

JSME IDIOMA! (= We are idioma!)

idioma and Prague landmarks, including the National theatre, Old Town hall with the famous astronomical clock called "Orloj" as well as Zizkov tower.

Summer greetings from idioma Prague!

Language facts: Russian

Russian is the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages, and the largest native language in Europe. It belongs to the family of Indo-European languages.  Russian is the native language of around 165 million people and second language of an additional 110 million people.  Startling fact: Over a quarter of the world's scientific literature is published in Russian. Nowadays, Russian is spoken primarily in Russia and Belarus, partly Ukraine and is also one of six official languages of the United Nations as well as official EU language.

Moscow skyscrapers
Source: DollarPhotoClub.com

To foreigner's ears, most of other Slavic languages sound similar to Russian, although the languages are far from being interchangeable (in fact it is even less mutually similar than Romance languages are).

Language of the red Empire

Moscow - Kremlin
Source: DollarPhotoClub.com

Due to the status of the former Soviet Union as a superpower, Russian had great political importance in the 20th century and was in fact forced as a second language to all countries under Soviet influence, including central European countries and East Germany. Russian was a mandatory subject in school, even a mandatory part of school leaving exams. After the Soviet union collapsed, public attitude towards Russian language in satellite countries went to the opposite extreme, neglecting and suppressing the language out of general education while swiftly replacing it with English due to new political trends. Until today, a lot of 50+ people in post-communist countries still read the Cyrillic script (Azbuka) and have a general understanding and basic knowledge of Russian.

Alphabet

Russian uses the Cyrillic script, which is originally derived from the Greek script, but adjusted and supplemented by some letters from so called Glagolitic alphabet, developed by the brothers Cyril and Methodius, in order to comply with Old Church Slavonic sounds. Old Church Slavonic was, at that time, considered 4th liturgical language for a brief period beside Latin, Greek and Hebrew. Although a dead speech now, its still being used in the Orthodox church.

А Б В Г Д Е Ё Ж З И Й К Л М Н О П Р С Т У Ф Х Ц Ч Ш Щ Ъ Ы Ь Э Ю Я
а б в г д е ё ж з и й к л м н о п р с т у ф х ц ч ш щ ъ ы ь э ю я

idioma ranked in Asia TOP 30 by CSA Research!

Let's celebrate! :)
Source: DollarPhotoClub.com

Growing while helping others to expand on new markets with our translation and localization services. Our simple philosophy, 35 years of experience, high quality standards as well as internal research and development that ensured the most innovative and efficient processes move us and our clients forward. 

Satisfied clientele is the highest form of credit to us, but being recognized by independent world-renowned research company feels, well, rather nice as well :) 

Today we feel just that way, as idioma (with headquarters in Tokyo) scored #18 in rankings of the biggest language service providers in Asia (and #4 in Japan) in terms of revenue, issued by renowned Common Sense Advisory (CSA research).

"This is indeed an honor, but behind this recognition there is also a lot of hard work. We have our clients to thank of course, but a lot of credit should go to the people who have helped us reach this far; this is of course our staff, all our translators and other suppliers, and not the least our programmers. We are currently working on new solutions and additional services, so I am confident that we'll stay in this race and hopefully achieve an even higher ranking in coming years," says managing director of idioma's Prague production and R&D center, Steen Carlsson.

With our new internal benchmark, we already work hard on going up the ladder in 2016!