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Noviembre 16, 2004
How Do You Translate LOL?
From Rocko's Blog
En efecto, se ha anunciado que a partir de 2005 estará disponible la versión Windows XP en quechua, que no sólo será de distribución gratuita, sino que la traducción del programa informático a la lengua de los incas está siendo realizada por académicos de Perú, país donde existe la mayor cantidad de quechuahablantes de Sudamérica, donde, en total, se estima que alrededor de 10 millones de personas comparten este idioma.
Too many modern words have no real translation in Quechua. If you would listen to a radio broadcast in Quechua, you immediately pick up bits and pieces due to the Spanish words sprinkled throughout. During the campaign for the Referendum on gas, the government created radio spots in Quechua, Aymara and Guarani'. Modern words like "REFERENDUM", "INDUSTRALIZACION", "GAS NATURAL " were used in their Spanish form because no translation exists.
Keeping words in the original language has already happened in Spanish, where many English words relating to computers and the internet have remained. It's not worth the effort to try and come up with a worthy translation. For instance, E-mail is short for Electronic Mail. In Spanish, correo electronico does not keep that trend (it is not correo-e). Rather e-mail is still e-mail, but pronounced with the "i"-sound (which is pronounced like the English "e"). Windows is not Ventanas; and the invented word "chatear" from the word "chat" is a commonly used phrase nowadays.
So it would be interesting to see how the Quechua version of Windows manages these late 20th Century words.
Posted by eduardo at Noviembre 16, 2004 04:51 PM