RFC: German translation vocabulary

Dear all,

as git-gui has now picked up the i18n features and the initial German translation has been included as well, it is about time to discuss and finalize the actual translation wordings of git terminology in German.

In particular, for all keywords of git and git-gui one needs to find corresponding keywords in German, which will then be used consistently throughout all of git-gui translations. Those keywords and (for some of them) their english definition are contained in the "glossary" file, see [1]. I would like to invite all German-speaking readers here to review the German keyword translations that have been chosen in the glossary, and I'll denote the most important ones below for immediate feedback.

(I'll mostly stick to an english discussion so that other languages can use this as a model on how to discuss this, if they want to.)

One word on the intended audience for the translated git-gui: The translated form of git-gui is *not for you* :-). In other words, it is not intended for those who are reading this list and, by doing so, are completely familiar with all the English terminology of git. Instead, the translation is intended for German developers who know *some* English, but feel much more comfortable with a fully German development environment and probably wouldn't touch an english-language git-gui anyway. Hence, the translation should try really hard to find German words wherever possible.

Also, other version control systems have worked on their German translation as well. If you want to check the wordings that have been chosen there, I'd recommend looking into their translations [2].

I'll list the most important glossary terms here, starting with the easier ones:

repository - Projektarchiv revision - Version staging area - Bereitstellung branch [noun] - Zweig branch [verb] - verzweigen working copy, working tree - Arbeitskopie [commit] message - Meldung (Nachricht?; Source Safe: Kommentar)

For some of them you can see alternatives considered in the glossary [1], but overall the above ones were rather easy. Now for the difficult ones:

commit [noun] commit [verb] checkout [noun] checkout [verb]

I'm still rather unsure what to do about them. One problem here is that both words are used in several different meanings all at once. For example, the "commit [noun]" is used interchangeably with "revision". I'm actually inclined to translate it with "Version" for exactly that reason. And then "checkout": The noun is probably used interchangeably with "working copy". Hence, it could be translated as such. OTOH the verb means "to update the working copy", and it could be translated as such instead of one single word. This would leave only "commit [verb]" as the last tricky issue for which a single-word translation must be found. "übertragen" is my current favorite but I'm absolutely open for further proposals here.

As you can see in the glossary file, I'm still unhappy with the translations for those, but anyway here's the current status (not taking into account the discussion of the previous paragraph so far):

msgid "checkout [noun]" msgstr "Auscheck? Ausspielung? Abruf? (Source Safe: Auscheckvorgang)"

msgid "checkout [verb]" msgstr "auschecken? ausspielen? abrufen? (Source Safe: auschecken)"

msgid "commit [noun]" msgstr "Übertragung (Sendung?, Übergabe?, Einspielung?, Ablagevorgang?)"

msgid "commit [verb]" msgstr "übertragen (TortoiseSVN: übertragen; Source Safe: einchecken; senden?, übergeben?, einspielen?, einpflegen?, ablegen?)"

Regards,

Christian Stimming

[1] http://repo.or.cz/w/git-gui.git?a=blob_plain;f=po/glossary/de.po;hb=HEAD (note: the file is in UTF-8, but repo.or.cz's webserver claims it is latin1, hence the messed-up Umlauts)

[2] 
* http://tortoisesvn.net/docs/release/TortoiseSVN_de/index.html (very good)
* http://msdn.microsoft.com/de-de/library/ms181038(vs.80).aspx (MS Visual 
Source Safe, commercial)
* http://cvsbook.red-bean.com/translations/german/Kap_06.html (not so good)
* 
http://tortoisecvs.cvs.sourceforge.net/tortoisecvs/po/TortoiseCVS/de_DE.po?view=markup 
(not so good)
* http://rapidsvn.tigris.org/svn/rapidsvn/trunk/src/locale/de/rapidsvn.po 
(username=guest, password empty, quite bad)

Am Sun, 16 Sep 2007 14:38:37 +0200 schrieb Christian Stimming:

Hi Christian,

thank you for bringing up the topic, it's really worth discussing it.

I prefer "Kommentar" here. It describes better what the commit message is
about. "Meldung" has some co-notations that don't fit (like e.g.
"Meldung" often involes other people, like you "meldest" something to
somebody).
 

Really hard. I would prefer some larger explanations if they fit into the application and make sense on every label in the gui.

Übertragung fits well, but for me it has a co-notation that something is transfered from one point to another (e.g. using an internet connection) So this translation would fit perfectly for centralized versioning systems, where the changeset is really "transfered" to somewhere. I would prefer the term "Einspielung" as I think it reflects better, that the commit is locally.

David

David Soria <sn_@gmx.net> writes:

"Beschreibung"?

David Kastrup <dak@gnu.org> writes:

Oder "Zusammenfassung"?

probably the best translation yet

On 070916 14:46, Christian Stimming <stimming@tuhh.de> wrote:

"Vorgang"? (think Beamtendeutsch)

Ciao,

Alexander Wuerstlein.

Alexander Wuerstlein <snalwuer@cip.informatik.uni-erlangen.de> writes:

Buchung, Einbuchung, Verbuchung, Registrierung?

On 070916 23:34, David Kastrup <dak@gnu.org> wrote:

Transaktion?

Ciao,

Alexander Wuerstlein.

Hi,

On Mon, 17 Sep 2007, Alexander Wuerstlein wrote:

The real problem is that we use "commit" in two senses:

- the action ("to commit", but also, "to do a commit") of making a new 
  revision, but also

- the revision in the revision graph ("is this in the commit abcdef?").

So I do not think that any proposals reflect the ambiguity of "a commit". I actually talk about "Revision" in German, when I refer to a commit.

Ciao, Dscho

Am Montag, 17. September 2007 11:17 schrieb Johannes Schindelin:

This is exactly the noun vs. the verb ambiguity. This is exactly why those are mentioned as two different entries in the glossary.

Yes, that's what I am leaning towards as well. Let's see.

Christian

Alexander Wuerstlein <snalwuer@cip.informatik.uni-erlangen.de> writes:

Well, I might be biased against anything not from myself, but "Transaktion" is anything with a permanent effect, so I find this term too unspecific: it would equally well cover resetting, tagging, and a number of other things.

Hallo,

Christian Stimming wrote:

Just "Archiv" would be fine as well in most places, I think.

The Windows world uses this word as a translation for "deployment", i.e. making binaries available to end users.

Maybe "Vorbereitung" would be better here.

"einspielen"? Problem is that this cannot be properly turned into a noun.

"Erstellung einer Arbeitskopie" (gets less awkward when you make proper sentences from it).

    Simon

Simon Richter <Simon.Richter@hogyros.de> writes:

Agreed.

[Thank you, Christian. I'll use your mail as a template for the Italian speakers, as most issues apply here as well. For those interested, s/German/Italian/ :). Appended there's a draft of the Italian glossary.]

On Sunday 16 September 2007, Christian Stimming wrote:

These are the terms currently used in it.po:

repository - archivio, repository
revision - revisione
staging area - area di preparazione
branch [noun] - ramo
branch [verb] - creare ramo (well, git-gui never uses "branch" as a verb,
                actually)
working copy, working tree - directory di lavoro (git-gui uses the espression
                             "working directory")
[commit] message - messaggio
fetch - recuperare, prelevare

Note: in it.po, "repository" is sometimes left untranslated and sometimes
traslated as "archivio". Also, git-gui uses the term "database" too.
Should it be translated in the same way? Currently is left unchanged. We
probably should use the same term throughout all the translation. The
same applies to "fetch"; which one is better: "recuperare" or "prelevare"
(we currently use both)?

These are currently left untranslated in it.po. "commit [verb]" becomes "effettuare un commit". Other SCM suggest "depositare" or "inviare". If we translate "repository" with "archivio" we may as well translate "commit [verb]" with "archiviare".

Following these advices, "commit [noun]" will be "revisione", "checkout [noun]" "revisione attiva", and "checkout [verb]" "attivare revisione".

I've highlighted like *this* the terms currently used in it.po:

msgid "checkout [noun]" msgstr "*checkout*, revisione attiva, prelievo (TortoiseCVS)?"

msgid "checkout [verb]" msgstr "effettuare un checkout, attivare revisione, prelevare (TortoiseCVS), ritirare (TSVN)?"

msgid "commit [noun]" msgstr "*commit*, revisione, deposito (TortoiseCVS), invio (TSVN)?"

msgid "commit [verb]" msgstr "*effettuare un commit*, archiviare, depositare (nel server), fare un deposito (TortoiseCVS), inviare (TSVN)?"

Then, I think there are some problems regarding English terms vs Git terms vs Italian terms.

E.g. these are the current translations:

reset - *ripristinare*, *annullare* (reset is used as a Git term,
        but with different meanings)
revert - *annullare* (Git term)
undo - *annullare* (English term)

I.e. there's an overlap: the same Italian word is used in three different contexts (and two of them with different Git commands). We should try to have an 1:1 relationship here. Or, at least, more different terms in Italian than in Gittish :)

See below an Italian glossary proposal.
 

* http://tortoisesvn.tigris.org/svn/tortoisesvn/trunk/Languages/Tortoise_it.po
  (username=guest, password empty)
* http://tortoisecvs.cvs.sourceforge.net/tortoisecvs/po/TortoiseCVS/it_IT.po?view=markup
* http://rapidsvn.tigris.org/svn/rapidsvn/trunk/src/locale/it_IT/rapidsvn.po
  (username=guest, password empty)

--- # Translation of git-gui glossary to Italian # Copyright (C) 2007 Shawn Pearce, et al. # This file is distributed under the same license as the git package. # Christian Stimming <stimming@tuhh.de>, 2007 # msgid "" msgstr "" "Project-Id-Version: git-gui glossary\n" "PO-Revision-Date: 2007-07-29 16:24+0200\n" "Last-Translator: Michele Ballabio <barra_cuda@katamail.com>\n" "Language-Team: Italian \n" "MIME-Version: 1.0\n" "Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8\n" "Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit\n"

#. "English Definition (Dear translator: This file will never be visible to the user! It should only serve as a tool for you, the translator. Nothing more.)" msgid "" "English Term (Dear translator: This file will never be visible to the user!)" msgstr "" "Traduzione italiana.\n" "Altri SCM in italiano:\n" " http://tortoisesvn.tigris.org/svn/tortoisesvn/trunk/Languages/Tortoise_it.po (username=guest, password empty),\n" " http://tortoisecvs.cvs.sourceforge.net/tortoisecvs/po/TortoiseCVS/it_IT.po?view=markup ,\n" " http://rapidsvn.tigris.org/svn/rapidsvn/trunk/src/locale/it_IT/rapidsvn.po (username=guest, password empty)" "Le traduzioni evidenziate con '*' sono quelle correntemente utilizzate."

#. "" msgid "amend" msgstr "correggere, correzione"

#. "" msgid "annotate" msgstr "annotare, annotazione"

#. "A 'branch' is an active line of development." msgid "branch [noun]" msgstr "*ramo*, diramazione, ramificazione"

#. "" msgid "branch [verb]" msgstr "creare ramo, ramificare, diramare"

#. "" msgid "checkout [noun]" msgstr "*checkout*, revisione attiva, prelievo (TortoiseCVS)?"

#. "The action of updating the working tree to a revision which was stored in the object database." msgid "checkout [verb]" msgstr "effettuare un checkout, attivare revisione, prelevare (TortoiseCVS), ritirare (TSVN)?"

#. "A single point in the git history." msgid "commit [noun]" msgstr "*commit*, revisione, deposito (TortoiseCVS), invio (TSVN)?"

#. "The action of storing a new snapshot of the project's state in the git history." msgid "commit [verb]" msgstr "*effettuare un commit*, archiviare, depositare (nel server), fare un deposito (TortoiseCVS), inviare (TSVN)?"

#. "" msgid "diff [noun]" msgstr "*differenza*, confronto, comparazione, raffronto"

#. "" msgid "diff [verb]" msgstr "confronta, mostra le differenze"

#. "A fast-forward is a special type of merge where you have a revision and you are merging another branch's changes that happen to be a descendant of what you have." msgid "fast forward merge" msgstr "*fusione in 'fast-forward'*, fusione in avanti veloce"

#. "Fetching a branch means to get the branch's head from a remote repository, to find out which objects are missing from the local object database, and to get them, too." msgid "fetch" msgstr "*recuperare*, *prelevare*, prendere da, recuperare (TSVN)"

#. "A collection of files. The index is a stored version of your working tree." msgid "index (in git-gui: staging area)" msgstr "*indice*"

#. "A successful merge results in the creation of a new commit representing the result of the merge." msgid "merge [noun]" msgstr "*fusione*, unione"

#. "To bring the contents of another branch into the current branch." msgid "merge [verb]" msgstr "*effettuare la fusione*, unire, fondere, eseguire la fusione"

#. "" msgid "message" msgstr "*messaggio*, commento"

#. "Pulling a branch means to fetch it and merge it." msgid "pull" msgstr "prendi (recupera) e fondi (unisci)? (in pratica una traduzione di fetch + merge)"

#. "Pushing a branch means to get the branch's head ref from a remote repository, and ... (well, can someone please explain it for mere mortals?)" msgid "push" msgstr "*propaga*"

#. "" msgid "redo" msgstr "*ripeti*, rifai"

#. "A collection of refs (?) together with an object database containing all objects which are reachable from the refs... (oops, you've lost me here. Again, please an explanation for mere mortals?)" msgid "repository" msgstr "*archivio*, *repository*, database? deposito (rapidsvn)?"

#. "" msgid "reset" msgstr "*ripristinare*, *(annullare)*, azzerare, ripristinare"

#. "" msgid "revert" msgstr "*annullare*, inverti (rapidsvn), ritorna allo stato precedente, annulla le modifiche della revisione"

#. "A particular state of files and directories which was stored in the object database." msgid "revision" msgstr "*revisione* (TortoiseSVN)"

#. "" msgid "sign off" msgstr "*sign off*, firma"

#. "" msgid "staging area" msgstr "*area di preparazione*, zona di preparazione, modifiche in preparazione? modifiche in allestimento?"

#. "" msgid "status" msgstr "stato"

#. "A ref pointing to a tag or commit object" msgid "tag [noun]" msgstr "*etichetta*, etichettatura (TortoiseCVS)"

#. "" msgid "tag [verb]" msgstr "etichettare"

#. "A regular git branch that is used to follow changes from another repository." msgid "tracking branch" msgstr "*ramo in 'tracking'*, ramo inseguitore? ramo di {inseguimento,allineamento,rilevamento,puntamento}?"

#. "" msgid "undo" msgstr "*annulla*"

#. "" msgid "update" msgstr "*aggiornamento*, *aggiornare*"

#. "" msgid "verify" msgstr "*verifica*, *verificare*"

#. "The tree of actual checked out files." msgid "working copy, working tree" msgstr "*directory di lavoro*, copia di lavoro"

* Christian Stimming:

"Projekt" or "Archiv" should suffice.

"Versionsangabe", probably. I think "revision" is most used as a short form of "revision specifier".

"Index"?

Or "abzweigen", if it's used transitive.

I came up with David's "Beschreibung" independently. It fits better to "Sammlung" below than "Zusammenfassung", IMHO.

"Sammlung" and "sammeln".

How's a checkout different from a working copy?

But to be honest, I wouldn't translate "repository" and "commit", at least if they are used as nouns.

Florian Weimer <fw@deneb.enyo.de> writes:

Doesn't fit because "sammeln" is what you do _before_ committing.

Thanks for the replies so far. I'll summarize the proposals below, and I'll take the freedom to reply to them directly. (Note: Please CC: me on replies as I'm not subscribed to this list - too much traffic for me.)

One thing to keep in mind (one reader proposed to use "commit" and "repository" in untranslated form): This translation is really about translating the program, and the intended audience are those people who are *not* familiar with the English git terminology. Hence, I really really want to try hard to avoid untranslated terminology here. German really has enough words to choose from (just like every other language), so that it should be possible to avoid using untranslated English words just because we couldn't come up with German ones that fir.

Simon Richter thinks just "Archiv" would be fine as well in most places. Florian Weimar says "Projekt" or "Archiv" should suffice. David Kastrup agrees to this.

I think "Archiv" sounds quite unspecific, because it can be another room, or another harddisk, or another directory. Whereas a git repository is particular to this single git project. Also, when reading through the TortoiseSVN docs, "Projektarchiv" worked quite nicely. I'd still stick to this.

Florian Weimar proposes "Versionsangabe". He thinks "revision" is most used as a short form of "revision specifier".

I think in sentences like "let's switch the working copy from revision xyz to revision abc" the word "Version" would work much better than any longer form. I'd stick to this, especially since this proposal came here from the mailing list already :-)

Simon Richter remarks this German word is being used a translation for "deployment", i.e. making binaries available to end users (however, this is probably specific to some particular development environment, isn't it?). He thinks "Vorbereitung" would be better here. Florian Weimar proposes "Index".

I think the word should have a connotation of "another place which is separated from the working copy". The military term "Bereitstellung" IMHO gives this rather nicely. I haven't seen that term in the ambiguous meaning Simon pointed out; is this a problem? As for "Index": As mentioned above it should be possible to find a German word here.

No comments to this one; it seems to be just fine.

Florian Weimar mentiones "abzweigen", if it's used transitive.

In itself "abzweigen" is a nice word, but "verzweigen" gives more of the (desired) connotation of a tree's branches (uh oh! Linas will beat me for this! Of course this isn't a tree, it's a graph!) and hence for consistency I would stick to "verzweigen".

No comments to this one (or did I miss anyone); it seems to be just fine.

David Soria first preferred "Kommentar". David Kastrup proposes "Beschreibung", or later instead "Zusammenfassung", which then David Soria thinks is the best so far.

I think "Zusammenfassung" would rather describe what the diffstat is about, as this summarizes the actual commit. As we're naming "the short text that describes what this is about", I think actually "Beschreibung" is probably best so far.

Simon Richter proposed the long translation "Erstellung einer Arbeitskopie" (gets less awkward when you make proper sentences from it). Florian Weimar asks how's a checkout different from a working copy? But he wouldn't translate "repository" and "commit", at least if they are used as nouns.

I agree with Simon Richter here, just as I've already explained in my initial email: The noun should probably simply be the working copy, "Arbeitskopie", and the verb should be something with "Arbeitskopie erstellen". However, we have strings like "Checkout this branch...", and those need yet another word. Maybe "Arbeitskopie umstellen"? I'm still unsure.

Alexander Wuerstlein proposed "Vorgang" (think governmental German). Florian Weimar proposes "Sammlung" and "sammeln", to which David Kastrup replied it doesn't fit because "sammeln" is what you do _before_ committing. In addition David Kastrup proposes Buchung, Einbuchung, Verbuchung, Registrierung. Alexander Wuerstlein proposes "Transaktion", to which David replied he thinks "Transaktion" is anything with a permanent effect, so he finds this term too unspecific: it would equally well cover resetting, tagging, and a number of other things. (Also, it wouldn't work as a verb.)

I think we should try to replace this (the noun!) with "revision" and hence translate it as "Version". However, this needs to be checked in actual strings in the program.

David Soria prefers "Einspielung" as he think it reflects better, that the commit is locally. Simon Richter proposes "einspielen"? Problem is that this cannot be properly turned into a noun.

This verb appears on the one-word button "commit", which is obviously the most important button in git-gui. I think both "einspielen" and "übertragen" would work in that context, but David Kastrup's proposals of "buchen" or "verbuchen" and the others of "einpflegen", "ablegen" might also work. Yet more proposals, or other hints which one of these would work best?

Thanks for all the suggestions. This should be thought about for a few more days, and then I'll prepare an updated German glossary file to be committed to the repository.

Regards,

Christian

* Christian Stimming:

By the way, what about "eintragen"? It's got the advantage that "Eintrag" is a nicen oun.