[Sca-cooks] Translation Criteria

[Debra Hense]

Thomas wrote:
<<It is a very valuable idea to break down the duty of a judge into
certain component parts of this duty and to formulate criteria to make
these components more easy to handle. I find most of the criteria very
useful, including the 3 pages criterion. It is a matter of time and
energy, and, clearly, one can get some idea from three pages, whether or
not a translation is probably a 'good', a reliable one, what kind of
translation it is, how the translator has done his/her work ...
>>

Thank you for recognizing the time element.

<<
Allow for a further remark: I did not recognize one point in your list,
that seems to be of some importance in the judgement of translations:

    CORRECTNESS (say 140 points)

Is there some use of a translation that is splendidly documented, of
some lenght, phantastically worded in idiomatic English, on a subject
matter of some intricacy, if the translation is wrong or partly wrong?
As I can say from experience, there are many ways to go astray in
translating old texts. Sure, some cases are a matter of dispute and
interpretation, but others seem to be clear cases of right or wrong.
>>

I am perhaps trying to do two things with the criteria, and perhaps not doing either well.  One is to grant credit for the attempt at translating the document, and the other to ensure that they researched it as best as they could.  I would hope that correctness would come through and that they would have sufficient knowledge to acknowledge where their translation is weak, or be brave enough to state they are making an unsupported assumption in translating a word or phrase.

<<
Judging a translation is checking a translation and that involves in
part a redoing of the translation. And that requires at least some
expertise in the subject matter and some mastery of the language
involved.
>>
hmmm.  You are right, I did not allow for correctness in the criteria.  But, I am not certain how we would be able to consistently find judges for it.  It would be easier if this criteria was only to be used at interkingdom events such as Pennsic or Estrella where it would be easier to find the judges who would have the knowledge needed to judge for correctness.  In this kingdom, Calontir,  which only has two cooking laurels - both of whom have left kingdom BTW, it's very hard to find judges with the level of expertise to judge a translation of a medieval foreign language.  We do have several research laurels - but none in medieval french, german, italian, or even english that I am aware of.  We also have several laurels who are very good cooks and very knowledgeable in the area of medieval cookery, but that does not translate to direct knowledge of translation correctness.

So, the criteria has to be designed to allow someone who may or maynot be able to read and translate the language the translation came from.

<<As I am not a cook nor a recreationist, but only sort of an
old-text-freak, a question about the rule of the competition game comes
to mind: How can someone who is a specialist in say Early Modern
embroidery, but who isn't into cookery, legal history or fencing nor
into 15th century English judge translations of 15th century cookery or
legal or fencing texts?>>

The criteria evolved to meet a need.  In the Kingdom of Calontir, we have major competitions twice a year - Queen's Prize: for novices, those without higher level awards and all entrants are assume to be entering at the novice or most basic level, and Kingdom A&S.  Kingdom A&S has two componets, tri-levels where individuals pick the level at which they want to be judged (novice, intermediate, advanced) and Kingdom Championship - where the entrants must enter three projects that are all judged at the advanced level.  Kingdom Championship entrants are competing to become the Kingdom A&S Champion for the next year.

I knew Vincente was entering his translation into the Tri-levels competition.  The category which came closest was Research Paper.  Well, he loses points right off the bat, because his paper is a translation and doesn't have a thesis or supporting arguements. So, I tried to come up with a criteria that would allow him to enter his translation, but still be useable for other non-cooking translation projects.  Unfortunately, I didn't start distributing the criteria soon enough to get them into general usage.

<<If judging a translation is to be more than looking if all the relevant
documents, a sufficient number of notes and idiomatic English are there,
then there should be some judgement of accuracy and correctness too. To
make such a judgement requires both knowledge and time/energy. There is
no problem to spend two hours or three days to puzzle out ONE medieval
recipe if you come across a hard one.

Judgements on accuracy/ correctness may be the beginning of a dispute,
but as I can say from experience (again): dispute is the engine of
progress.

Thus, how about two additions to your list:

-- accuracy/correctness as a further criterion for translations

-- A requirement for any person to act as a judge is some degree of
expertise on the subject matter and some mastery of the language(s)
involved. [e.g.: if you want to judge a translation from Meister Johann
Liechtenauers 'Kunst des Fechtens', you must know something about late
medieval fencing and its techniques and you must know late medieval
German.]

Th.
>>

I wish we could do that, really I do.  But, given practical considerations, I don't think it can work for us right now.  Down the road, perhaps the people in the kingdom will have gained enough knowledge that this would be doable.  And at that time, I would hope that the criteria would be revised to allow for correctness.

Hopefully waiting for the day when the SCA has many people who are semi-medieval language scholars.

Kateryn de Develyn