Here is short piece written by journalist Keith Nuthall, published in The Lawyer Magazine. Please feel free to comment! (I can sense a debate here...Blue! Choubine! waddaya say?)
"An initiative bound to irritate any lawyer practising in English, a highly connected Francophile international group is pressing for the French language to have precedence in any translation dispute regarding European law. Why? Well, it's simple, secretary of the Academie Francaise Maurice Druon told the European Parliament this week: "The language of Montesquieu is unbeatable." M Druon claimed that while "the Italian language is the language of song, German is good for philosophy and English for poetry, French is best at precision, it has a rigour to it. It is the safest language for legal purposes." His Committee for the Language of European Law (CPLDE), supported by former Romanian prime minister Adrian Nastase and Polish MEP Bronislaw Geremek, wants French versions of EU law used when there are disputes over translations. These have occurred, for instance over appointing the director of EU anti-fraud office OLAF: in French, the European Commission must consult MEPs and ministers; in German and Polish, it must secure their agreement."
Thursday, March 01, 2007
Calling all cunning linguists
Scribbled madly by Bridges @ 2:23 PM
Labels, love Translation humour
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
4 people had something to say:
Hmm interesting idea. How about we set up a committee to further study this? Fill the committee with "unilingual" persons representing all languages. Lock them up in a room. And wait :)
Hum...that would only lead to COMPLETE MAYHEM #0! I think it would be much more amusing to have all these persons try to speak in French, as it is, as per Maurice Druon, "unbeatable"... I'm sure a few people would enjoy seeing how "unbeatable" M. Druon actually is, as they bitchslap him around a little...
C'est curieux de voir l'anglais présenté comme la langue de la poésie et le français comme la langue de la précision. Tout le contraire de ce qu'on entend d'habitude!
Je ne m'y connais pas trop en langue juridique (tu devrais demander à Liette), mais je déteste avoir à traduire des textes juridiques. Je dois faire du collage avec des expressions toutes faites qui sonnent "artificiel" au possible et ne sont pas trop compréhensibles pour le commun des mortels alors que l'anglais me semblait accessible.
C'est vrai que c'est étrange, moi aussi je crois que l'anglais est plus adapté pour le langage juridique; mais que sais-je donc??? :)
Il faut dire qu'il s'agit de l'avis de M. Druon...et pas d'un linguiste anglosaxon....
Post a Comment