Terminology work in the Irish language

1. Terminology work in the Irish language Evaluation criteria

2. Differences • Context • Approaches • Results • Evaluation criteria?

3. Context • Sociopolitical and economic factors • Language of the poor and marginalised • Low status • English for progress and emigration • Domain loss, lack of domain cultivation /gain /expansion, domain renouncement • Little or no terminological corpus material

4. Liberty for ¾ of island brought • Effort to revive and sustain Irish as national language • Irish-medium education • Necessity for technical terminology for school curricula and exams

5. Approaches • Committees and subcommittees established to coordinate and approve terms • Priorities identified for domain conquest • Science, maths, biology, geography • Domains identified for domain reconquest • Trades, crafts; later flora and fauna, literature, sailing

6. Dissemination • Bilingual glossaries published, updated, revised, expanded • No definitions: terms come through English – all speak English, know or can research terms in English • Material input in online databases • Terminological advice service to public • Talks given in universities and other venues

7. Domain conquest and expansion: approaches • Find native words, prefixes etc • Adapt native words • Import scientific terms: transliterate from Greek & Latin • Devised principles for term formation and transliteration • Focus on secondary school curricula mainly – terms for textbooks • Traditional link with university in west where some 3rd level courses taught – professors on subcommittees

8. Domain reconquest • Solicited lists of native terms from teachers and others in Gaeltacht (= Irish-speaking area) • Collected from folklore material in archives of Folklore Commission • Subcommittees formed to review, revise, expand • Compiled and edited lists for publication • Some included in general purpose dictionaries • Specialized terminology lists and dictionaries published

9. Some examples • Flora and fauna • Birds (éin) • Magpie (snag breac) • Azure-winged magpie Cyanopica cyanea (snag breac gormghlas) • Bats (ialtóga) • Long-eared bat Plecotus auritus (ialtóg chluasach) • Dragonflies (snathaidí móra) • Keeled skimmer Orthetrum coerulescens (scimire na sruthlán)

10. Cultivating new domains • Computing and IT • First dictionary compiled by Science Subcommittee during 1980´s • Revisited in 1990´s with revisions and additional terms • Published as book, CD and online • At beginning of Microsoft localization project 90% of terms already published • Irish users tend not to use IT terms in English

11. Results • Instead of extracting terms from corpora, corpus material contains terms provided by Terminology Committee • Published as special-purpose lists or dictionaries (20+) • Miscellaneous terminology arising from stream of enquiries from the public • Some technical, some jargon, some translation or grammar problems • Tag miscellaneous terms with general domain fields: Biol., Lit., IT etc

12. Other sources • Media • Liaise with us • Legislation • Access to our sources but devise their own terms

13. Evaluation criteria for term devisers • Concept-oriented • Natural • Identifiable • Easy to use • Easy to remember • Grammatically uncomplicated • Coordinated within field, across fields • Accessible in sources

14. User evaluation • Identify user groups • Teachers and students • Translators and editors • Media • Specialists • General public

15. Feedback • Teachers/students say technical terms too difficult • Underlying problem: • language registers, language levels, • technical terms difficult in all languages • English disguises semantic relations • Translators/editors happy resources are available • Media use resources, may simplify • Specialists liaise with us and support the work voluntarily with generosity and good will • General public • Those who acquire Irish as second language accept • Many native speakers cynical, prefer English terms to devised terms, use caveats such as “As the new Irish calls it”

16. Challenges • To meet demands • To maintain transparence • To raise public awareness about terminology as universal phenomenon • Relating to language registers • Relating to language rights