THEORY: Expanding in translation?
| From: | Jim Henry <jimhenry1973@...> |
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| Date: | Friday, March 7, 2008, 18:17 |
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Somewhere or other Claude Piron, responding to someone saying
that Esperanto is too verbose, points out that translation -- between
almost any pair of languages -- almost always results in an increased
length of text. I forget what he said the average increase is, but it was
something like 10%.
Is that true in your experience as well? Do y'all know of any studies
on the subject?
The only contrary evidence I can think of is our translation relay
experience; the text
fluctuates in length from one language to the next, it doesn't seem to
constantly
mushroom in size over the course of the relay.
Piron was a professional translator for the UN and WHO; maybe what he
says is true
primarily of legal documents and the like, not so much for literature?
--
Jim Henry
http://www.pobox.com/~jimhenry
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