Translating terms with no Hebrew version

The three most common workarounds when translation requires coining new terms

For Hebrew translators, terms that have no parallel Hebrew version are not rare, especially in the digital age. If the term is new in the source language, it’s not likely to have a Hebrew version. In these situations, Hebrew translators should consult The Academy Of The Hebrew Language. But, as these consultations are time consuming, and the process of coining new terms with The Academy may take a while, Hebrew translators rarely do that. What they do instead, is one of three workarounds:

• ignore the novelty of the term and use the closest dictionary translation
• omit the new term from the translation
• borrow the English term as is

To see how these three workarounds work, we can look at the way the term ‘feed’ (RSS) was ‘’translated’’ to Hebrew.

Ignoring the novelty of the new term

Obviously, this is the worst translation, as it fails to convey the true meaning of the translated term. Hebrew translators who chose to ignore the novelty of the term ‘feed’, translated it into ‘הזנה’ (hazana), which is the dictionary translation, meaning ‘nourishing’ or ‘entering data’.

Naturally, Microsoft has been leading this translation choice, translating ‘feed’ as ‘hazana’’: 

 

The only thing we can understand in this translation is the acronym ‘RSS’, that Microsoft translators left as is.

Other companies, such as Magic, translated the whole ‘RSS Feed’ as ‘hazanat reses’ phonetically ‘’translating’’ the ‘RSS’, not as an acronym, but as a word:

This is by far the most confusing ‘’translation’’ as ‘רסס’ (reses) is a known Hebrew word that means ‘sprayed matter’. Anyone wants ‘’entering sprayed matter’’?

Google translators found a slightly different way to translate this new term: instead of using the closest dictionary translation, they used another existing term that means ‘updates’. Hence, the English ‘’About Feeds’’ is translated as ‘’About Updates’’. Want to figure it out? Go back to the English source.

Omitting the new term

Closely behind the worst translation that ignores the new meaning, is the omitting translation, which forces heavy handed phrasing with vague meaning. Hence, we get the Hebrew Facebook offering ‘’a collection of news from pages’’ instead of ‘‘pages feed’’:

Borrowing the new term from the source language

Hebrew translators who borrowed the term ‘feed’ from English, phonetically translated it into פידים – which includes the English sound ‘feed’ + Hebrew suffix for plural form ‘im’ (’feedim’). You can see this translation on linguists’ blogs, such as this online dictionary blog:

This kind of translating without coining the new Hebrew term is the least confusing for the users, though we expect linguists to be the ones who bother with the process of coining new terms.

Best Practice when you don’t coin new terms

Translating a new term as an existing close term is the best way to confuse the users. Eventually, what would users look for, when they want ‘feed’? Would they look for ‘entering data’ (hazana)? Would they look for ‘updates’? Would they look for ‘entering sprayed matter’? There are simply too many choices when each brand uses the term it finds the closest.

Omitting the term wouldn’t help users who know what they’re looking for. They’d be looking for the term they know, and not for its heavy handed definition.

Borrowing the term from the source is the least confusing for the users. It allows keeping consistent terminology and it creates a new term in Hebrew, in a wrong but short process.

Borrowing leaves room for the right process

Naturally, Hebrew translators want to use Hebrew terms and may think of borrowing terms from the source as an inadequate translation. That’s why it’s important to understand that borrowing new terms is just a part of the long-term translation process. To see how long-term translation process works, we can look at the way the term ‘bug’ (software) was translated.

When we first started using 'bug' as a borrowed term, linguists argued there was no need to coin a new term for it, as we already had a Hebrew term for ‘error’. Yet, some years have passed and the borrowed term ‘bug’ has been frequently used, thus proving that there was a need for the more specific term. Eventually, The Academy of the Hebrew Language gave in and started the process of coining a new Hebrew term for ‘bug’.

So, even if we are enthusiastic Hebrew translators, using the borrowed term is the closest to doing the right thing, without going through the process of coining new terms.