[Israel.pm] class and the Academy

[Uri Bruck]

Shlomi Fish wrote:
> I'm CCing to perl at perl.org.il. I hope it's OK.
Sure.
> 
> On Sunday 09 July 2006 21:25, Uri Bruck wrote:
> 
>>Hi,
>>found מחלקה for class in the 1985 Academy math dictionary. The
>>introduction with some of the credit isn't online, but I have it in
>>hardcopy.
>>It's just two pages. I can scan it and send it to you if you like.
> 
> 
> No, that's OK. Of course 1985 was somewhat before Object-Oriented Programming 
> became so hyped and popular. There's some semantic difference between "Class" 
> in Mathematics and "Class" in programming (in OOP&D etc.). One could also 
> check that at http://hebrew-terms.huji.ac.il/ .
מחלקה  is used for class in other disciplines as well.  This is a 
dictionary where I happened to have to credits on-hand. I think in 
programming it's borrowed from math.
Anyway, in the url you cite in the programming dictionary
מילון: מידע - 15: שפות תכנות
It's still listed as a proposal, so the academy it comes from in this 
context is CS depts in universities.
Anyway, all subject specific dictionaries are prepared by professionals 
in the specific fields with assistance the from the Academy.

> 
> I should note that I'm one of the only people I know who consistenly 
> uses "מדריך" for "directory" instead of "ספריה"(which is "library")
> or "תיקיה" (which is "folder")[1] - even trying to do so in everyday 
> speech. "מדריך" is somewhat abmigious with "guide", but I guess we have to 
> deal with it, unless we want to say "directory" in the middle of Hebrew 
> speech.

The מדריך in this case is not a guide but rather more like a מדריך טלפונים.
A directory being a system file that tells you where on the disk you can 
find the files listed in that directory.
I don't use מדריך myself. While etymologically correct, it doesn't 
reflect the metaphore we use. We don't say "this file is listed in the 
/etc directory"
we say "a file is in a directory" or "a file is under a directory". So 
we don't think of it a directory where files are listed, but rather more 
as a container.
ספריה is indeed confusing in this context, especially for programmers.
מחיצה,  as you footnote, is the standard translation for partition. A 
mis-translation, IMO, but still, it has become the standard.
תיקיה is almost always fine. No collision with other terms. It conforms 
to common GUI metaphores. It works well with non-GUI metaphores.

> 
> Regards,
> 
> 	Shlomi Fish
> 
> [1] - Much less such Evils as "מחיצה", which means "partition".
The reason מחיצה is a mis-translation for partition is that partition 
means not only the dividing walls between sections but also the sections 
divided by the walls, "A part or section into which something has been 
divided." (M-W), and even the act of dividing.
מחיצה only translated one of those meaning, and not the right one.
A hard disk partition is a section of storage.
A better translation would have been חלוקה which has all three meanings, 
or חלקה, which is a good translation for a section of storage, with 
חלוקה  being the act of partitioning.

> 
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> Shlomi Fish      shlomif at iglu.org.il
> Homepage:        http://www.shlomifish.org/
> 
> 95% of the programmers consider 95% of the code they did not write, in the
> bottom 5%.


-- 
Thanks,
Uri
http://translation.israel.net