Subject: Re: [OT] "Of course ..." in your language
To: None <netbsd-users@netbsd.org>
From: Martijn van Buul <martijnb@atlas.ipv6.stack.nl>
List: netbsd-users
Date: 10/03/2005 06:34:11
It occurred to me that Stefan 'Kaishakunin' Schumacher wrote in gmane.os.netbsd.general:
> That is normal, languages differ in concepts they can describe. Thats
> why foreign words are imported. Of course .. can be translated without
> problems into German, since English and German are related. I guess
> this applies to other Germanic languages like swedish and dutch too.
It can be translated into dutch alright, but it would end up having a
slightly different meaning. It would either mean "Ofcourse NetBSD can
run on this hardware" or "Ofcourse NetBSD is the currently installed OS".
or something.
> However, it is almost impossible to find a slogan that can be translated
> into any language available. So we should keep it. English *is* the Lingua
> Franca of the internet and computer science, so we can expect the user
> to understand at least basic english.
In my experience, slogans don't translate. What's wrong with having a
localized slogan, if that would fit better?