Re: An Attempt in Emacs Translation

[Jai Vetrivelan <jaivetrivelan@gmail.com>]

Hello,

On 2024-03-07, 21:21 +0000, Arun Isaac <arunisaac@systemreboot.net> wrote:

> These translations are alright, except for Kill. In Emacs jargon, kill
> not only means to delete, but also to copy into the kill ring.

“வெட்டு” seems closer to kill’s modern equivalent ‘cut’, but it doesn’t
seem like an apt translation.

> So, kill is really "kill+copy". But, somehow this added meaning has
> come to be implicit in English usage. Getting the same nuanced
> translation in Tamil will be very difficult.

I don’t understand the need to imply the exact meaning in the
translation. When we used Emacs for the first time ourselves, we did not
know what ‘kill’ meant in Emacs jargon, which was explained later.

So unless we get a better alternative for ‘kill’, the current
translation should suffice.

> We really need a large body of Tamil Emacs users who are willing to
> use these words everyday and create the subtle shades of meaning that
> is so easy in English.

Are there even significant Tamil Gnu/Linux users, let alone Emacs or
Guix? I’m writing these translations hoping that it serves some future
user, but currently how widely are our works acknowledged? Are we
echoing to the void?

> Also, Delete could be translated as அழி.

I’ll consider that while proofreading.

-- 
Jai Vetrivelan