Gerhard Killesreiter wrote:

Morten Wulff wrote:

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-snip initial description-

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Translation proposals for "node":

• Inhaltselement: A somewhat complicated word

This is the solution I have chosen for the Danish translation ("indholdselement").

According to the dictionary, "knude"/"Knoten" is a valid translation but it doesn't really get the meaning across. I considered using the word "knudepunkt" but that sounds too technical and not quite right.

The question is if the word node is immediately known as a meaning for content to an English native speaker. I have some doubt about this, and therefore would just use the literal translation Knoten. Also, the word "node" should not show up in the end-user visible strings anymore due to its technical nature.

Not that I speak German, but about nodes, we in the Spanish translation take it as Drupal word, which we translate as 'nodo' because it's a Spanish word so it sounds familiar to people, and it is also the Spanish translation of some of the other meanings of 'node' in English, but not all of them. Also, I don't think node in English has any real meaning like the one it has in Drupal: http://www.thefreedictionary.com/dict.asp?Word=node

What I mean is that it doesn't matter whether it has that exact meaning in your language because we are really creating or extending words here. So the really important thing may be that someone reading 'nodo' in Spanish knows that it is the same that 'nodo' in English when talking about Drupal. This 'estending our existing vocabulary to mean these other concepts' happens all the time when you translate technical words from English, specially about computers.

Hope this helps

Hi,

I think you could use the translation for "content" or something alike. For spanish I used "contenido" a couple times instead of literal translation "nodo".

Konstantin Käfer wrote

thanks for the answers so far. It would be really interesting to know what a native speaker associates with the word when he hears "node".

I've asked on #drupal:

21:22 < killes> http://lists.drupal.org/pipermail/translations/2005-December/000050.html <== can any native English speaker comment on that? 21:23 < killes> I can collect the answers and mail them.

21:24 < eaton> 'node' is a pretty bland word to my ears, like 'set'. 21:25 < eaton> it's like using the term 'locomotion' because you have to cover walking, running, driving, riding, etc.

21:34 < Morbus> killes: i think he confirmed our definition of "node" pretty immediately. 21:35 < killes> Morbus: who he? 21:35 < Morbus> "a term that stands for something that is connected - not a single content element" - he's right. node/123 is not a single content element. It is the a nexus of sidebar, headers, footers, comments, and usually far more. 21:36 < Morbus> So, his definition of node, something that is connected and NOT a single thing, is quite right, and quite right for usage in Drupal

21:42 < eaton> I wouldn't say that 'node' is technical in nature. It just means nothing to end users. 21:42 < eaton> It's a content-free word.

But I somehow can't cotton on to using "Knoten". A node/knot is rather a term that stands for something that is connected - not a single content element.

Translators should not try to make the original better. ;)

On the other hand, the same "problem" exists probably also in english but the inhibition of giving a word another meaning is

• at least that's what I think - higher in the german language.

No, Germans are just pretty anal about chosing _just_the_one_right_word_. ;p

And that's possibly also the reason why we prefer "importing" english words into the german language rather than inventing new ones or using others.

I just hate this. This is one of the reasons why I don't bother to help with the actual translation to German, btw, I have discussed this (and other issues like Du vs Sie and which orthography to use) too often to be interested.

Gerhard, what exactly do you mean with

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Also, the word 'node' should not show up in the end-user visible strings anymore due to its technical nature.

We have removed the word "node" from most of the strings that need translation. I think it still shows up in a few of the admin help texts. I count 12 occurences when grepping for "node ".

Cheers, Gerhard

Regards, Konstantin _______________________________________________ translations mailing list translations@drupal.org http://lists.drupal.org/mailman/listinfo/translations