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SuttaCentral translation style guide

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sujato edited this page Nov 22, 2021 · 19 revisions

A translation should aim to fully communicate the content of the root text in the target language without loss or change in meaning. Translation should be transparent; the translator should disappear. It is not about you or your ideas, but about helping the reader understand the Dhamma. Bearing these ideals in mind, we always strive to make our translations a more perfect expression of the Dhamma.

SuttaCentral encourages and supports the development of different perspectives and approaches to translation. It is not our role to edit or assess the work of any translations in detail. Nevertheless, we have a responsibility to ensure that translators working with us maintain a good standard of quality and reliability.

The purpose of a translation is to make the teachings available to people in their own language. For this reason, ensure that a translation be idiomatic and accessible. We encourage translators to read some background on the theory of translation so as to be familiar with the different approaches. You can start with Wikipedia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Translation

When making an idiomatic translation, ask yourself, “Does this sound like something a native speaker might actually have said?” Try to avoid using unusual or Buddhist-specific terms, especially when it comes to rendering technical terms from English. Remember that the existing English translations have evolved over more than a century of work, research, and discussion, yet still have many areas needing improvement.

A translator should try to balance consistency, readability, and accuracy. Finally, they should take care of all the little details.

Consistency

Where a term, passage, or phrase appears more than once it should generally be translated the same way, unless there is a reason to change it. Person, number, and tense may all change, but in addition the force or sense of the passage might change due to context. Don’t be afraid to render differently when required, but don’t allow inconsistencies due to inattention.

Consistency helps a reader make connections between disparate passages, and it helps search engines find things.

Readability

Readability is the ease with which a reader can understand a written text.

  • Simplify vocabulary.
  • Use short sentences.
  • Put the primary meaning of a sentence at the start, especially in the case of longer sentences, which are hard to parse by those who read word-by-word—such as many who speak English as a second language—so if the main point of the sentence is only revealed at the end, they have already forgotten the beginning; and even for those who read English natively and quickly, it is normal to scan the beginnings of sentences to grasp the basic meaning.
    • But yeah, don’t write sentences like that. Fewer than 25 words/sentence is good.
  • Avoid ambiguity or unclarity.
  • Avoid obscure or overly colloquial usages.
  • Punctuate carefully.
  • Read text aloud to see if it flows.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Readability

The UK government website has some excellent guidelines for readability.

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/content-design/writing-for-gov-uk

I recommend using no Pali or Sanskrit words in your translation. It is a translation, translate it.

Accuracy

While there is no one correct way to translate a text, there are many incorrect ways. Not everything is a matter of opinion, and your choices must be informed by the facts. If you are not an expert in Pali or other original languages, you must defer to the opinions of experts.

Generally speaking, each generation of translators has the benefit of previous translations, so they get better over time. If you see contradictions between translations, this is often because the later translator has access to more knowledge. So avoid making an “average” of different translations. If you are unsure, ask.

Accurate does not mean literal. To paraphrase Isaac Asimov, literalness is the last resort of the incompetent. Thats not always true, of course, since there is a genuine place for literal translations. However, beware the temptation to just to make a literal rendering in lieu of true understanding.

Little details

Following are the conventions for English. Conventions for quote marks, dashes, and other things vary by language, so ensure you are using the proper conventions for your language.

  • Check spelling.
  • Use correct grammar.
  • Use correct punctuation.
  • Always use Unicode. We do not support any non-Unicode text.
  • When writing Ā in Pali, make sure to use the Latin Ā not the Greek Ᾱ. They may look the same, but they are different letters.
  • Always use ellipsis (…), never three dots (...).
  • Ellipsis takes a space on either side ( … ).
  • Use dashes correctly:
    • Hyphen joins words (station-master).
    • En-dash indicates range usually of numbers (AN 3.43–7)
    • Em-dash indicates a break in a sentence—like this.
  • Dashes never take a space on either side.
  • NEVER USE ALL CAPS. Use capital case as Appropriate.
    • It is trivial for apps to reliably turn Capital Case into ALL CAPS, BUT it is hard or impossible to do the reverse.
  • Always use “proper curly quote marks” (as appropriate for your language), not "straight quotes".
  • One space after period.
  • Never use double spaces anywhere.
  • Never input newlines or no-break spaces.
  • No space before .?!:;
  • Never use [square brackets] (except for links).
  • Use the Oxford comma.
  • Use proper conventions for capitalization for names.
  • Bilara supports simple markdown
  • Never include any artifacts in your translation such as line breaks, Word or other document formatting, HTML, or anything else. Just the text.
Common questions How to fix
How to insert curly double quotes? Use alt+0147 for opening quotes and alt+0148 for closing quotes.
For a list of codes see https://unicode-table.com/en/alt-codes/.
How to remove extra whitespace? Try the following tool https://www.browserling.com/tools/remove-whitespace.
How to remove newline characters? Try the following tool https://www.browserling.com/tools/newlines-to-spaces.
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