Hello everyone,

I would like everyone to slow down a bit and give a think about this:

English is not the primary language for the vast majority of people.   are
a thing and a lot of people, actually, work with PHP that either does not
know English at all or, know the basics and rarely have the English skills
to a level that allows them to easily understand subtleties of things.
What you need to consider, that some alternatives that are being talked
about, may not have a translation. Like at all. Here's a case and point for
the Russian language - there is no alternative, as far as I can tell, for a
"blacklist" that has the meaning blacklist or exclude list can be
translated. The only Russian phrase that I know of (and I tried searching
for alternatives) is a literal translation of the phrase "black list".
Anything I could think of just didn't fit - there is just no other word
that describes an "exclude list" - it translates literally to "black list"
anyway.
 Same goes for the Latvian language - the only word we have for it is a
literal translation and nothing else.

And I suspect, it might be the case for many other languages too for a
simple reason - the term came from English first and got adopted one way or
the other into the language because there was no counterpart for it in it.

On the other hand, Russian has a great translation for the "master/slave"
combo - ведущий/ведомый that has 0 association with anything slavery
related. But the literal translation to English is "master/slave", and it
does not translate correctly to "Primary/Secondary" or other alternatives
I've seen around, because it looses all meaning that Russian words describe
for the technical implications of how things work in mechanics, engines and
so on. it's also actually used in aviation too between Commander and Second
Officer. Closest I can translate it is "Leading / One who is led by the
leading".

Just my 0.02$ as food for thought, because PHP is not a regional project.
This is a global project and it's userbase overall, probably, is not
primarily English speakers. A lot of us just revolve around in English
speaking tech bubble, because it is the international language and it is
easiest for everyone who is involved in OSS projects and international
companies. But I'm not, personally, an English speaker - English is my 3rd
language.
 I also live in Russian tech space and it is pretty common to have
developers who do not know English to a level of speaking and/or reading
and relly on documentation translations and those established
industry-standard terms that they know and/or use google translate.

P.S. I just run "exclude list" through google translate into Russian and
Latvian - let's just say that translations were confusing at best because I
can't judge how bad they would be for a person who does not know English
well or at all.

Arvīds Godjuks

+371 26 851 664
arvids.godj...@gmail.com
Skype: psihius
Telegram: @psihius https://t.me/psihius

Reply via email to