Re: Die Voegel

[HPB1956@aol.com]

On Saturday, 20 October 2001 I wrote: 

> If you say "nicht-Vogel Dinosaurier" it may be correct bound sounds terribly in German. 

It should have read:
If you say "nicht-Vogel Dinosaurier" it may be correct but sounds terribly in German.

Another way to translate "non avian dinosaurs" into German may be "nicht aviale Dinosaurier".

But in general I prefer the original text in English. In many cases translations mean additional errors or a change of what the author(s) meant:

E.g. "T. Rex rexamined" in Scientific American (Sept. 1999), the German translation was in Spektrum der Wissenschaft (Nov. 1999):
- the cover title line "A kinder, gentler dinosaur? Don't count on it." became "T. Rex Killer oder Aasfresser?" (T. Rex killer or scavenger?")
- the title line "Breathing life into Tyrannosaurus rex" became "Die Wahrheit über Tyrannosaurus rex" ("The truth about Tyrannosaurus rex".
- troontodids became velociraptors in the German translation!

It would be fine to have English as kind of lingua franca in palaeontology. This would mean of course that every report in Spanish, German, Chinese etc. would have to be written by their authors also in English and used as the one valid reference. In that case it would be possible to cite, correct and keep track of translation errors in one reference and never again hearing something like "But my German translation says ...!".

Just dreaming.

Cheers

Heinz Peter Bredow