I have thought for a while, whether I should say/write this here. Finally I made my decision.
In November this year a world conference about acupuncture (WFAS 2016) will be held in Japan. People working in this field probably know this for a long time already.
When I registered the other day via the website set up for the WFAS 2016 I noticed, that the English of that website is of embarrassingly poor quality. Although I contacted (mail) first the secretariat of the conference and second the secretariat of the "Japan Society of Acupuncture and Moxibustion" (JSAM = organizer), neither of these offices considered it necessary to reply to my mail .. or what would have been MUCH better .. correct the mistakes.
I have been trying to 'advertise' the good aspects of Japan (and/or Japanese acupuncture) to the world for about 20 years.
This website looks to me like a deliberate attempt at demonstrating to the world at large, that the Japanese are stupid and don't give a dime about what other people think. Thereby also thwarting my efforts to promote the "MADE IN JAPAN" brand.
I am not really open to the suggestion/excuse, that the organize has not enough money. The general participation fee is about USD 500. Assuming 500 participants register, a not very unrealistic figure, the organizer collects USD 250,000 to run the show. There surely should be 500 USD to ask an agency to draft a proper text. If anybody would ask me (which nobody does!), I would call it a disgrace.
Please! Send them a note. Maybe if a number of non-Japanese people would complain about the strange English, the people in charge might finally wake up ...
Showing posts with label Japan. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Japan. Show all posts
6/03/2016
10/26/2012
Facebook - racial discrimination?
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| English: Table of katakana characters, and the kanji from which they derive. Français : Évolution des katakana à partir des kanji. Русский: Таблица символов катаканы (слева) и исходные иероглифы, из которых они развились (справа). (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
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| English: Japanese "alphabets" in Diderot Encyclopedia (18th century) -- actually syllabaries, (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
To understand the following, I have to explain a a little something about Japanese.
The Japanese language uses basically 4 different character sets:
* Chinese characters
* Japanese alphabet for native terms (called hiragana)
* Japanese alphabet for foreign terms (called katakana)
* roman alphabet
Facebook requires everyone to provide his/her REAL name. That is my case (I am a German) naturally written in roman alphabet.
However, facebook also asks, whether you (anybody) would like to display this name also in a different language. For me here this would be Japanese.
For me that would be Thomas (first name)
-> rendered in katakana 「トーマス」
Here the syllable for "tho" is extended to match the pronounciation.
BUT ... and I had the same problem before with NHK = the national TV station - facebook tells me: oh no, there is no name that would be pronounced "thomas" (with a prolonged "tho" instead of the short form used in English).
I ***MUST*** use a rendition of my name that simply is NOT(!!!) my name.
The same applies to my family name.
So, what is it with these facebook idiots.
On the one hand they demand that I provide my real name,
but on the other hand they force me to use a fake name.
That is, what it comes to: a false name! NO (!!!) official document related somehow to me would be recognized/accepted with the forced (Japanese) spelling.
How stupid!
10/15/2012
Translator as "Bookfinder"
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| English: Štefan Konzul, croatian translator. (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
Translator as "Bookfinder"
(This article has been published in Japanese in the March 2003 issue of "e-Trans" and posted as a "contribution" at "www.gotranslators.com")
Not to far in the past there was time, when the military used scouts,
sometimes also called "pathfinders" (Merriam Webster:
path.find.er n (1840): one that discovers a way; esp: one that explores
untraversed regions to mark out a new route -- path.find.ing n or adj.),
to find their way through unknown country. Literally, these were people that
could find a path not visible to anybody else. During a recent conference on
translation, a certain question appeared in several different sessions: what
actually is the job and/or function of a translator?
The answer to this question appears on first sight very simple and
obvious, but many of the attending translators and agencies presented widely
varying definitions and concepts. This motivated me to write this little article
and express an idea, I did have for quite a while now, but that so far failed to
find any resonance. I.e., translators should also (or maybe predominantly) be
"bookfinders" in analogy to the above mentioned pathfinders. Below I
will try to explain why.
I have been a translator for about 18 years and during this time spent
nearly 100% of my time with activities, involving rendition of a certain meaning
in one language into another. At times, in particular when the source text is of
rather poor quality and/or ambiguous, this also involves a more less significant
portion of re-writing or copy writing. Nevertheless, the basic idea is always
the same: change A into B. In my memory very few, if any, people I happened to
work with have ever questioned or even challenged this view. This is simply the
job and function of a translator.
Yet, if you are a translator in any specialized field, show a
professional interest in extending your horizons, or conduct a little research
in your own or other fields of expertise, then you will certainly do some
reading.
This puts the translator in a unique position. He or she is not only
capable of professionally handle and evaluate two or more languages, but will be
reading reference books on certain topics in these languages. Sometimes there
are equivalents or even translations of certain valuable references, but most
often not. Under these circumstances the translator is put in a position where
he or she can evaluate several books that might be worth translating from both a
linguistic and a technical point of view.
I believe that a look at the currently available selection of translated
books shows clearly, that the choices are certainly not always professional.
They are made by publishers based on information and recommendations of not
always certain origin. This provides the general population with a selection of
translated books influenced by a possibly one-sided and - naturally - profit
orientated choice made by the publishers. But this could also mean, that the
average man has access only to a distorted view of the world.
Today, the internet provides the so-called information highway, which
offers users so much information with an incredibly short turnover time that
nobody can ever handle. Yet, fast access to a terrifying amount of information
could also block the view for the more distinct, practical, comprehensive and
interesting information a book can provide. After all, reading should also be
fun.
Often access to the information highway is highly appreciated, but who
would like to live in a house with the front door opening right onto the
highway? I would prefer a little distance from it and like the quiet small back
roads. This is, where books come in. It takes much longer to publish a book than
to publish and then update a web site. Naturally this means, that books are
always somewhat "behind their time", but that does not reduce their
value.
For example, I am a native German living in Japan. I know of literally
"uncountable" translations of German literature, science etc.
available in Japanese bookstores. Yet, conversely, whenever I visit Germany and
look through large bookstores, I can find at best a handful translations of
Japanese books. A very illustrative little episode happened, when I visited the
annual Tokyo International Book Fair a few years ago. There I asked a German
publisher if they might be interested in the publication of translated Japanese
books. The representative at that booth said: "No, why? Publisher XXX
already has published two books." Of course, this is hardly any kind of
representation of a nation that publishes several tens of thousands of new books
every year!
Thus, in spite of the information highway and Japan being an economic
superpower with a major impact on the entire world, it still remains largely
uncharted territory (a sort of a black hole), because there is so little real
information about it available.
Now, here is a field, in which the translator can offer a real
contribution to international understanding: by selecting and recommending books
worth of translation. The translator who recommends certain books might even do
the entire translation. In many cases this would be not only be good for the
translator, but also the translation itself and the final reader.
Information - Japan
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| The Great Wave off Kanagawa (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
Japan imports and domestically spreads a wealth of information from all over the world. Every small town bookstore is filled with Japanese translations of valuable foreign literature.
Yet, "ALIENS", as foreigners are called in Japan, in their own countries usually have very little if any information about Japan. In (large) bookstores I recently visited in Germany I probably could have counted German translations of Japanese books with one hand! And those books, materials acutally present did not really appear to me as representative and informative examples of Japanese culture and concepts.
As an ACUPUNCTURIST I am probably best able to judge the situation in relation to my special field, oriental medicine. Some of the available translations rather bring shame on the more than 1000-year long tradition of oriental medicine in Japan.
I really wonder why in the face of the booming popularity of so-called "alternative therapies" so few of the many GOOD books (here I speak for Japan and Japanese books) are translated.
Recently I participated in a national conference on acupuncture in Japan. A guest speaker representing the NIH held a lecture detailing the establishment of guidelines regarding research into and application of acupuncture in the United States. This lecture revealed, that the incentive to start studies of acupuncture are already more than 20 years old. Yet, the consensus conference supposed to provide the relevant answers for the issues at hand could not reach any conclusions until the mid-ninties, because there were "too few data/usable research". The persons in charge had been looking in China and throughout the world - except in Japan. Here the kind of research had been conducted since the mid-sixties.
Thus, because other countries are not really
looking, and Japan itself not actively providing
this information, Japan has been and apparently
still is a sort of "undiscovered island"
along the so-called information highway!
If publishers should be interested in providing such materials, I would be glad to offer my services. Maybe this would also help a large portion of the world population to get finally access to a large body of valuable information on Japan.
8/06/2012
Rate? --- No problem!
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| Patent drawing of flight simulator by Rougerie (France - 1928) (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
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| Japanese Language Book (Photo credit: born1945) |
The other day I was asked, whether I can translate FOUR related patent specifications, 2 from Japanese and 2 from English, into German. The Italian company (CAESAR SRL) wrote in its mail:
"We evaluated this job as:
- 5055 words from English / - 4000 words from Japanese
approx. qty: 9055 words / fixed price: € 780,00 --> 0.086 Euro/Word"
0.08 Euro/word for a patent specification from Japanese to German???
A few days after I reclined the offer, I got a mail from "wagner-international", asking me, whether I can do PRECISELY the same job (J-G portion only).
That made me celebrate. WONDERFUL!!!
Apparently nobody else is working for so low rates (for material of this complexity). And I told Wagner so.
That company says of itself: "We specialize in cost–effective, expert communication and media solutions ..."
Meaning: we squeeze every last drop of sweat and tear out of the translator to provide clients with CHEAP (the magic word of our time) product.
If it kills a few (thousand) translators ... well, that is their problem.
On the other hand ...
I got an inquiry --- by telephone! --- about a patent translation from France.
Once I had a look at the text, got a better readable PDF file here in Japan and told them my rate (the due date was fixed up front), the person at the other end of the line said: Rate? -- No problem!
That was not a translation agency, it was a patent office:
International Patent-Translation Bureau (IPTB)
On the one hand you have the agencies (sounds like "agent" from the movie "Matrix") that try to cheat and possibly kill translators,
and on the other hand you have companies knowing that some things simply have their price.
Opting for "cheapest is best" will run people/companies into trouble sooner or later. I have seen it many times ... those companies for which I was too expensive receive claims from their customers and then ask me (or anybody else) to have a look at the tranlation and "brush it up a little" ...
Oh, how stupid!
7/28/2012
It's HOT ... too hot for the equipment ...
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| Weather (Photo credit: Jen SFO-BCN) |
Personally I ride my bicycle for excercise even in this weather.
However, when I cam home last night and wanted to continue my translation work, the monitor shortly lit up and then simply faded out. By that time temperature was already down to I guess 29 to 30 degrees.
So I had no choice and used my note PC to do some work and came to the conclusion, that the monitor has finally reached its life span.
However, I also noticed, that TWO digital clockes showed missing digits in their display.
This morning I tried (with little hope) and switched my monitor on --- and it worked.
Apparently the weather was too hot for my equipment!
The monitor yesterday had suffered a heat stroke.
I also noticed, that the ventilation fan of my computer seems to be working VERY hard.
I have to finish one translation today.
It seems I have no choice to turn on the air conditioning to keep my equipment online. And that in the face of the current insufficient electricity supply.
6/26/2012
Rates ... fees ...
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| English: title page of the catholic bible translation into German from Hieronymus Emser, an opponent of Martin Luther; published 1527 in Dresden, Saxony Español: pagina principal de la traducción católica de la biblia en alemán de Hieronymus Emser, un adversario de Martin Luther, publicado 1527 en Dresden, Saxonia (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
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| Saint Jerome in his Study, fresco by Domenico Ghirlandaio, 1480 (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
I don't know about everybody else, but whereever I look, whoever I ask - it is always "lower your rates", "sell your product (=translation) cheaper", "give us your "best" = cheapest rate" .......
Well, maybe nobody has noticed, but the costs for our daily living has and is constantly INCREASING. Right now, they decided in Japan to raise taxes. One of those taxes that applies to everything -> thus making EVERYTHING more expensive.
If somebody asked me to name a product or service that has actually become cheaper over the last 10 years ..... I would have a really(!!) hard time to think of something.
The funny thing is, that the market(s) for cheap translation labor (like Proz.com) are INCREASING their fees too.
Somehow this does not match.
We (translators) as service providers are forced to constantly lower our rates, while the agencies (I am rather sure they do) and the websites all raise their prices / fees.
This will very soon lead to translators falling below the "break even" point, where they just cannot to "afford" working as translators any longer.
What remains in the translation industry? Google translate??????
I pity the customers ........
5/28/2012
Register first ...
I have seen/experienced the following so many times, it makes me sick.
The following is a summary of mail communications. Since the first message was in Japanese, I take the liberty of summarizing its contents in English.
Here I refrain from naming the company or involved person.
I am called a "rude, impolite person, giving inappropriate answers".
Is that really the case???
I wonder if someone not involved here could provide some feedback, since I don't like to be rude, but am tired of being "requested" to go to all sorts of trouble, only to be told later: "this won't work".
First message:
We are a newly established company in Japan. Having a look at your profile on a translators directory, we would very much like to establish a business relationship with you.
First of all, please register with us, by clicking on the following link. Our coordinators will provide support with the registration process.
My response: (also English transcript of Japanese message)
Good morning
Thank you for the invitation.
However, I checked your website and tried the "instant quote" function.
This shows, that your customers would have to pay 50% of my usual rate, meaning that you would most likely offer me something like 30% (maybe less) of my usual rate.
Working for so low rates would make me homeless, even during fulltime occupation.
Unless there is some room for negotiations about the rate, I believe, registering would be a futile effort.
Since the company in question did not respond at all,
I sent a second short message:
Good afternoon
No response to my mail ...
I presume this means, my assumption about the rate(s) was correct.
Pity.
But I have to survive too ...
Second message from that company:
After receiving your second mail I checked the first message once again and hardly could find any questions there that I should answer. You refused to register in quite impolite manner, which is not very appropriate in business world and I understood your position.
As per German language rates, we are in the process of reviewing our rates because as you probably noticed the company is very new and we empirically learn how to match the market in Japan.
Thank you for informing us your opinion and we wish you all the best in your translation activity.
My response to that message:
Good evening
Thank you for your feedback.
With all due respect, but I do not think there was anything "rude" in my first mail. It was also not intended to be impolite, offensive etc.
Since I am working in this "business world" for over 27 years already, I believe, I have had sufficienct chance to learn a few things, including "appropriate" answers to mails.
In my long experience the following has happend MANY times:
1) I get a mail offering me work / collaboration
2) This mail requests (often demands) that I "first of all" register.
3) I take the trouble (trouble it often is; sometimes also very time consuming) to register.
4) Later I get a mail: "you are too expensive" (stated often in a language you would consider (to put it mildly) impolite )
-> All the (my) effort was in vain.
Here is the exact same scenario.
I just took the liberty of checking the information listed on your website before registering - based on above mentioned experience.
The results showed, that the effort of registering would most likel y be in vain.
Then I informed you of that result. There was not anything impolite or inappropriate.
I can assure you, I have seen MANY(!) VERY rude mails in my time.
Mine was not one of those.
Thank you.
/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
A man should look for what is, and not for what he thinks should be.
Albert Einstein
The following is a summary of mail communications. Since the first message was in Japanese, I take the liberty of summarizing its contents in English.
Here I refrain from naming the company or involved person.
I am called a "rude, impolite person, giving inappropriate answers".
Is that really the case???
I wonder if someone not involved here could provide some feedback, since I don't like to be rude, but am tired of being "requested" to go to all sorts of trouble, only to be told later: "this won't work".
First message:
We are a newly established company in Japan. Having a look at your profile on a translators directory, we would very much like to establish a business relationship with you.
First of all, please register with us, by clicking on the following link. Our coordinators will provide support with the registration process.
My response: (also English transcript of Japanese message)
Good morning
Thank you for the invitation.
However, I checked your website and tried the "instant quote" function.
This shows, that your customers would have to pay 50% of my usual rate, meaning that you would most likely offer me something like 30% (maybe less) of my usual rate.
Working for so low rates would make me homeless, even during fulltime occupation.
Unless there is some room for negotiations about the rate, I believe, registering would be a futile effort.
Since the company in question did not respond at all,
I sent a second short message:
Good afternoon
No response to my mail ...
I presume this means, my assumption about the rate(s) was correct.
Pity.
But I have to survive too ...
Second message from that company:
After receiving your second mail I checked the first message once again and hardly could find any questions there that I should answer. You refused to register in quite impolite manner, which is not very appropriate in business world and I understood your position.
As per German language rates, we are in the process of reviewing our rates because as you probably noticed the company is very new and we empirically learn how to match the market in Japan.
Thank you for informing us your opinion and we wish you all the best in your translation activity.
My response to that message:
Good evening
Thank you for your feedback.
With all due respect, but I do not think there was anything "rude" in my first mail. It was also not intended to be impolite, offensive etc.
Since I am working in this "business world" for over 27 years already, I believe, I have had sufficienct chance to learn a few things, including "appropriate" answers to mails.
In my long experience the following has happend MANY times:
1) I get a mail offering me work / collaboration
2) This mail requests (often demands) that I "first of all" register.
3) I take the trouble (trouble it often is; sometimes also very time consuming) to register.
4) Later I get a mail: "you are too expensive" (stated often in a language you would consider (to put it mildly) impolite )
-> All the (my) effort was in vain.
Here is the exact same scenario.
I just took the liberty of checking the information listed on your website before registering - based on above mentioned experience.
The results showed, that the effort of registering would most likel y be in vain.
Then I informed you of that result. There was not anything impolite or inappropriate.
I can assure you, I have seen MANY(!) VERY rude mails in my time.
Mine was not one of those.
Thank you.
/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
A man should look for what is, and not for what he thinks should be.
Albert Einstein
5/13/2012
With all due deference ...
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| Human brain (Photo credit: EUSKALANATO) |
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| Ishibutai Kofun in Asuka, Nara Prefecture, Japan. 日本語: 石舞台古墳, 奈良県明日香村 Camera: Sony DSLR-A700 Lens: Sony SAL1680Z (Carl Zeiss) (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
To quote from the Wikipedia(1):
"(language as) A tool for communication
Yet another definition defines language as a system of communication that enables humans to cooperate. This definition stresses the social functions of language and the fact that humans use it to express themselves, and to manipulate things in the world."
Again from the Wikipedia, pertaining to communication(2):
"Human communication
Human spoken and written languages can be described as a system of symbols (sometimes known as lexemes) and the grammars (rules) by which the symbols are manipulated. The word "language" is also used to refer to common properties of languages. Language learning is normal in human childhood. Most human languages use patterns of sound or gesture for symbols which enable communication with others around them."
Problems arise, when people of one specific region try to communicate with people in or from other regions. These problems arise already during communication related to common things like food, housing, directions etc., occasionally even among speakers of different dialects of the same language, but become much more complex in areas of high specialization. Oriental medicine is one such area. Even if one assumes, that the people who try to study and/or communicate about oriental medicine are already experts in their field, communication of specific concepts using different languages may represent a very challenging task. Assuming that there is a wealth of valuable information, which I will define for the sake of this discussion as information originating in Japan, this is and remains of very little use. That is because it is (encrypted) in Japanese, which mainly precludes access to it by most people of the world and information becomes only then really useful, if it is made available/accessible.
I am not a scholar and do not speak on behalf of any particular group of people or organization, but would like to formulate a few of my personal concepts related to this topic. In particular I would like to focus on aspects of the Japanese language, how it seems to be currently handled and understood in this field of learning and what potential future students of oriental medicine might expect or would like to see.
As stated above, language is used to convey concepts among people. This is an extremely simplified statement, but since I do not want to/can delve into all the complexities of research into language, communication and information exchange, I would appreciate, if you will permit me to leave it standing as it is.
The Japanese language is quite different from both English or other European languages and other oriental languages like Chinese. It does not use articles, rarely distinguishes between plural and singular and handles nouns and verbs differently from the way this is done in English for example(5). This may contribute to the impression, that Japanese is complicated and so difficult to learn, that most foreigners are not expected to have much success. Yet, Japanese is a highly developed, delicate and elegant language. Examples of highly refined typical Japanese literature like the "Genji Monogatari" for example, even though they use the writing system imported from China, antedate comparable works sometimes almost by centuries.
Yet, the Japanese people themselves seem to suffer from an inferiority complex about their language precisely because it seems to be so difficult and inaccessible. In a very illuminating book written by the linguist Suzuki Takao "The World of the Closed Language Japanese"(8) the author points out, that Japanese is actually one of the top 10 most spoken languages of the world. In his book he cited Japanese to be on rank 6, but while the rank has dropped to "9"(6) since its publication 30 years ago, it still remains among the most frequently, widely spoken languages of the world. There is nothing to be ashamed (shame is also a concept of special cultural significance in Japan) of. Rather on the contrary: I firmly believe that Japanese people should take more pride in their language and their achievements, which are largely expressed through this language. This in turn suggests, that materials explaining these achievements should be made assessible to the world through translation.
However, because of their fear, that other people/languages may be superior to their own and in conjunction with the aggressive promotion of a "standard TCM terminology" by the Chinese through the WHO(7), the Japanese have adopted a quite restrained behavior of promoting/displaying their own concepts and practice of oriental medicine through the use of Chinese dominated language. The result is an almost unbearable mixture of expressions, circumscriptions etc. that make even comparatively simple ideas almost unintelligible for many students of the matter throughout the world. I will try to illustrate with a few examples.
Occasionally I translate Japanese articles meant for magazines etc. that have the purpose of promoting the Japanese concepts pertaining to the use of Chinese herbal medicine, called Kampo, as well as research into acupuncture and oriental medicine in a wider sense.
Yet, while the use of Chinese herbal medicines in the Japanese way, namely Kampo, should be considered an original Japanese application, editors sometimes/often cling to the Chinese form of an alphabetical notation (there are different version in use) of the relevant terms. For example, certain editors follow the recommendations by an authoritative (Japanese) academic society for the research into Kampo medicine and thus demand from me, that I write the name for prescriptions as ONE word, listed in third place after English and Chinese like:
* Cassia Twig and Tuckahoe Pill plus Coix Seed
* Gui-Zhi-Fu-Ling-Wan-Liao-Jia-Yi-Yi-Ren
* keishibukuryoganryokayokuinin
(the Chinese characters for the prescription are NOT given)
Here I can understand the use of an English translation. That certainly facilitates access to this information. The Chinese notation at least shows the breaks between individual characters, helping the student to search in dictionaries and possibly also provides clues about the pronunciation. While the Japanese ... (12)
The above shown Japanese "word" has 29 (!) characters. There are even longer ones, like for example “ryokeijutsukantogotokishakuyakusan” with no less than 34 characters or even "yokukansankachinpihangegotokishakuyakusan" (41 characters). And, while the English and Chinese terms are treated as proper nouns and thus capitalized, the Japanese term appears here (not in all publications) only in lower letters, as if it were no proper noun.
I once asked a scholar about the necessity of expressing the Japanese terms as single words. The answer was, it would be very difficult to decide, where to put any possible breaks. Again, I have great difficulties in believing, that the current approach will facilitate the declared purpose(9) of disseminating relevant information.
For example, one could easily break down the expression for the prescription called "Keishikaryukotsuboreito"in the following way:
* Keishi = drug name
* Ka ＝ processing instruction
* Ryukotsu borei = names of TWO drugs
* To = drug form.Not even Japanese persons would consider "Keishikaryukotsuboreito" to be ONE word, even if it is ONE name. For a Japanese person the term becomes immediately intelligible by looking at its elements, in particular since the Japanese know the associated Chinese characters for this term. This latter information and the underlying structure is presumably NOT available to many possible students of the material, unless they have previously acquired a considerable knowledge of the Japanese language, and thus makes comprehension very difficult, it not impossible. This includes also the difficulties encountered during attempts of looking up the term in dictionaries, that are newly created by this notation.
When I showed terms like "ryokeijutsukantogotokishakuyakusan" to Japanese people and asked them to read that for me, ALL were struggling very hard or could not figure it out at all, although they could read, naturally, the term when it is written in Chinese characters. Even if the above are treated as 'single terms', I am convinced that native speakers of the respective language pronounce these terms with a certain intonational structure, revealing to the listener clues about the makeup of the relevant terms.
A little search about the use of long words in the English language showed, that the longest non-coined and nontechnical word is "Antidisestablishmentarianism" with 28 characters and the longest word in Shakespeare's works is "Honorificabilitudinitatibus" with 27 characters(4). So, for any "reasonable" discussion words of less than 20 characters should be suitable/comprehensible. "yokukansankachinpihangegotokishakuyakusan" (41 characters) is simply incomprehensible. The use of notations like "Thisisalonggreenhouseattheroadside” or "Lelangageestunsystme de signesidentifis permettantunecommunication entreune ouplusieursentits" would definitely NOT help any learner of English of French respectively. Further, I believe that MOST people will have difficulties pronouncing the English word "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" (pronounced /ˌsuːpərˌkælɪˌfrædʒəlˌɪstɪkˌɛkspiːˌælɪˈdoʊʃəs/) with 34 letters, that was in the song with the same title in the Disney musical film Mary Poppins(10), without any practice.
Following the same argument, I think it would help both foreign students as well as ultimately also the Japanese practitioners, if terms related to acupuncture like "Seppi", "Hinai Shin" etc. were left in Japanese and maybe provided with a descriptive English translation. In a similar fashion the technical terms related to Judo or other forms of martial arts are used WITHOUT translation. If the provision of such word pairs would be too difficult to integrate into every text, it should be no problem at all to set up a frequently updated online database with the relevant terms. Personally, I would like to see such an online dictionary as soon as possible.
After all, anyone who starts learning a certain subject, here oriental medicine, or a particular language, here Japanese, WILL have to refer to dictionaries and other reference materials. In this respect, with all due deference, I am under the impression that the highly educated scholars who have apparently been working on the above mentioned standard terminology, or representatives of the academic societies that strive to study oriental medicine and disseminate the relevant information, may have lost touch with basic problems learners have to face. In particular regarding the use of terminology, I firmly believe that the currently used Japanese approach is wrong.
Let's consider the use of dictionaries in an attempt to find out more about "keigairengyoto" = Jing-Jie-Lian-Qiao-Tang.
If you use a Chinese-English dictionary that provides alphabetized entries, you will know, that you are looking at a term consisting of 5 characters and can look up each according to its reading. However, there are naturally a large number of characters reading "Jing" and in ordinary language most probably no combination like "Jing-Jie". For that purpose you need a special dictionary.
The Japanese is worse, much worse. Here you are offered only ONE term. Even if the learner suspects, that this term consists for more than one character, HOW should this learner look for the relevant characters? The term could be split like:
- ke iga iren gyo to
- kei gairen gyoto
- keiga iren gyoto
- keigai rengyo to etc.
For anyone who does not know the language (Japanese), all of the listed divisions are equally possible. Depending on how the individual terms/characters are listed in the particular dictionary, this may render a search almost impossible. If the particular dictionary does NOT provide alphabetized notations, most foreign readers are denied access to this information right from the start. I have experienced this myself many times. Unfortunately, to my knowledge there are, with one little exception(11), no Japanese-English dictionaries that would help foreign students getting access to the required information. The shortest, and only, way would always require the combined use of several Chinese-English, Chinese character, Japanese-English dictionaries. Sometimes more than one of each type.
Apart from the standard dictionaries of the relevant languages there are a number of special dictionaries for oriental, in this context mostly Chinese medicine. Sometimes the tycoons in the field publishing those dictionaries argue about who has the “right” translation, which will invariably be different from what is found in dictionaries published in China and among the latter ones again, each gives something different and here the English rendition itself more often than not appears to be rather dubious. What the WHO has published recently as the “agreed upon standard terminology” still feels in many instances not right, at least to me. And, naturally, that terminology apparently assumes that everything must be based on Chinese concepts.
Since people are basically dealing with “Chinese medicine”, this consensus is of course not wrong, but what happened to the Japanese views and all those aspects special to Japan? The basic concepts of acupuncture and herbal medicine have initially been brought to Japan about 1,500 years ago and subsequently over centuries through imported books and by practioners who studied in China. Yet, that is a long enough period for some original, independent developments to take place. Take for example the use of guiding tubes for acupuncture: a purely Japanese invention. In conjunction with cultural, climatic and geographic differences and not least the mentality of the Japanese people this period of 1,500 years of development has led, I believe, to the establishment of conceptional systems and practical applications that are clearly distinct from the Chinese practice – even though many Japanese practitioners strongly assert, that they are practicing CHINESE medicine.
In spite of the thus historically formed system of a typical Japanese approach to oriental medicine, the insistence of leaders in the field to NOT make this information publicly known, or to choose deliberately expressions/notations that are/will be incomprehensible for many/most non-Japanese persons, is a waste of very valuable resources.
I do hope, and possible can help to stimulate the process to adopt a more enlightening approach to the “dissemination of information”, that the mountains of intellectual treasures currently hidden behind the veils of the Japanese language will be made more easily accessible to the people of the world.
References:
(4) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longest_word_in_English
(5) An Introduction to Japanese Syntax, Grammar & Language
by Michiel Kamermans; grammar.nihongoresources.com
(6) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_languages_by_number_of_native_speakers
http://www.photius.com/rankings/languages2.html
(7) WHOIST
WHO International Standard Terminologies on Traditional Medicine in the Western Pacific Region
(8) 鈴木孝夫： 閉ざされた言語・日本語の世界 (Suzuki Takao "The World of the Closed Language Japanese")
(9) From the JSOM HP:
"Objective:
The intention of the society is to hold research presentations and seek
communication, tie-up and promotion concerning oriental medicine and
contribute to the progress and dissemination of oriental medicine, and
thus contributing to the development of scientific culture."
(11)
Japanese-English Dictionary of Oriental Medicine; written and compiled
by JONG-CHOL CYONG M.D. & Ph.D.; Oriental Medicine Research Center
of the Kitasato Institute, Tokyo; ISEISHA
(12) Comment pertaining to: "WHO International Standard Terminologies on Traditional Medicine in the Western Pacific Region":
*
In this dictionary the items are listed in the order "Code – Term –
Chinese – Definition/Description". "Term" represents the column with the
English terms and "Chinese" lists the corresponding Chinese terms ONLY
in Chinese characters. That means, users cannot search the dictionary
according to reading/pronunciation of Chinese terms and MUST know, what
they are looking for in English. Or else they have to read through
entire sections of the book.
*
The only section, that provides "pronunciation" is the one listing
classical medical texts. However, this too looks to users who are NOT
very familiar with the different involved languages like a deliberate
attempt at making things as incomprehensible as possible:
Chinese: 素問玄機原病式 = Suwenxuanjiyuanbingshi"Suwen" may be known well enough, but xu-an-ji or xuan-ji?
Japanese: 百腹圖説 Hyakufukuzusetsu
Should it be "pronounced" Hyakufu kuzu setsu or Hya kufu ku zusetsu?
萬安方 Man’ampo – the approstrophe is almost a relief and very helpful!!!
Korean: 鄕藥救急方 Hyangyakgoogeupbang – I have no idea at all how this is supposed to be pronounced!
Vietnamese: 保嬰良方 Bao Anh luong phuong – even though I do not know how to pronounce that, I can clearly infer, that the term is made of 4 characters and look up their respective meaning, if I have Vietnamese dictionary (with alphabetical notation).
Even if the above are 'single terms', I am convinced that native speakers of the respective language pronounce these terms using a certain intonational structure and thereby revealing to the listener clues about the makeup of the relevant terms. Without these clues, in the above example the apostrophe shows the listener/reader, that there is a break after "Man" and the term is not read Manam Po. Considering that even native speaker among themselves use these intonational structures, imagine what will happen, if someone, who does not know the proper pronunciation of the relevant languages, tries to read those terms / pronounce / use them during communication with other practitioners.
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