Mothertongue Blog

Facebook’s crowd-sourced translation app has helped the company translate Facebook into over 100 different languages quickly and cheaply. However, the company (and many of its users) just discovered one of the downsides of crowd-sourcing- vulnerability to online pranksters.

The problem was discovered on July 28th, when Spanish and Turkish-speaking Facebook users logged on to find their pages filled with profanity in both English and Spanish. For example, according to this article on The Register, the Turkish version of Facebook’s IM error message, which is supposed to read “Your message could not be sent because the recipient is offline,” was changed to say:  “Your message could not be sent because of your tiny penis.” That’s pretty much the only example that’s even printable.

Why did Facebook suddenly start cursing at its users?  Facebook’s translation app depends on users to vote for the most accurate translations for each piece of text. That works great, as long as the people are voting are honestly trying to be helpful. Unfortunately for Facebook, members of a Turkish online forum called Inci Sözlük worked together to create the profane “translations” and vote them up. This vulnerability is inherent in any sort of crowd-sourcing unless precautions are taken. For example, when young Canadian pop star Justin Bieber tried to “crowd-source” a stop on his world tour, his contest was hijacked by the internet pranksters at 4chan, who promptly voted to send him to North Korea.

Rik Ferguson, a security consultant at Trend Micro, told the Register that this prank should serve  as “teachable moment,” both for Facebook and for other companies that use crowd-sourcing:

“Perhaps it is fortunate that the hole has been exposed through a prank in the first instance and not something more nefarious. Any online service, whether it’s translation or reputation services, which solicits user generated content would be well advised to quality check that content before going live with it.”

Posted by Caroline Mikolajczyk in Machine Translation, Translation Errors on 5 August 2010

The word “Ruckizuckifutti” is not only a mouthful — it doesn’t evoke a sense of American lifestyle like its English equivalent “fast food,” either.

But when the German Language Foundation called on Germans to find an alternative for the English term, “Ruckizuckifutti” was one uniquely German suggestion.

The campaign is one of several by advocacy groups who are intensifying their fight against the massive use of English and “Denglish” — a hybrid of the two languages — in Germany’s advertising, television and everyday parlance.

“We don’t want to be language purists, but we want people to be aware of how they speak and that certain linguistic imports just don’t fit into German,” said Cornelius Sommer, a former German ambassador and one of the leaders of the campaign.

Another advocacy group, the German Language Club, has called on telecommunications giant Deutsche Telekom to stop using terms like “Blackberry Webmail” and criticized national rail operator Deutsche Bahn for similar misnomers.

They face an uphill battle in Germany, where English is widely spoken and English expressions and Anglicisms are common.

For the past four years, Sommer asked the public each month to come up with one German equivalent for a borrowed English expression, with special focus on Anglicisms which use the original English incorrectly.

Sommer cites the word “handy,” which in Germany refers to a mobile phone, as a prime example of how the false Anglicisms not only harmed the German, but the English language, too.

“I’m not only trying to protect German, but English too,” Sommer said. “The English language is not just a pile of rubble from which we can pick and choose what we want.”

The wide use of English has social consequences, as large sections of the population — especially older generations who are less proficient in English — may feel excluded.

Sommer also criticised businesses and academia for adopting English as their lingua franca.

“University courses taught by professors with poor English to students with poor English — that can’t be good!”

UPHILL BATTLE

The campaigns to name and shame linguistic miscreants have had some recent success.

Deutsche Bahn announced in February that it would refrain from using English at train stations, replacing the terms “Kiss & Ride” and “counter” with their German equivalents.

This came after German Transport Minister Peter Ramsauer banished Anglicisms from his ministry in January.

But academic linguists are still sceptical about the long-term success of campaigns to limit the use of “Denglish,” saying imports are part of the organic evolution of languages.

“No one cares about what groups like the German Language Club suggest,” said linguist Rudi Keller. “No one uses the German word “Klapprechner” instead of laptop — the suggestions are just silly.”

Keller points out that movements to protect German are nothing new, starting with attempts to minimize French influence in the 17th and 18th centuries. Certain French terms were adopted but the majority soon disappeared from the vocabulary.

Perhaps surprisingly, despite the drive to accentuate all things Germanic, language purification was not a part of Nazi rule, as Hitler encouraged the use of foreign words to give National Socialism international flair.

Keller sees subtle nationalism lurking somewhere in the language purity debate but said he was certain the people running the main lobby groups had no such motives.

English is a popular import because it is pronounced similarly to German and because it is associated with a cultural sense of coolness no other language possesses, Keller says.

“We try to impress with our use of language. Some people buy themselves a Mercedes, others use English words. That might be annoying, but it can’t be changed.”

Cornelius Sommer, who as an ambassador spent time in 40 different countries across the world, supports the adoption of certain English words, but says that the process is happening too fast for many people to catch up.

“Some English words like ‘film’ or ‘sex’ have become German citizens, and that’s fine,” he said.

“They have to be incorporated in a process which was slow and democratic, though, not one dictated by an advertising industry whose only innovative idea is to use English on a massive scale,” said Sommer.

But linguist Keller says these campaigns are bound to fail, pointing to Germany’s neighbour France as a failed example of language dirigisme.

“The French have all these strict rules about the use of French over English imports,” Keller argued. “But if a French youth likes something, he’ll say “c’est cool!”

(Editing by Stephen Brown)

Article taken from Reuters

Many of the companies that promised incredible money-back offers if Spain were to win the World Cup are not keeping to their word. After watching “La Roja” grab the golden cup, they were quick to add new conditions to their small print, and shirk their “If Spain wins, you win too” promises. Angry customers are now being told that they should have registered at the company website if they wanted to get their money back (something that was never mentioned in any of the newspapers, magazines ads or billboards that detailed the special offers in the first place).

The consumer outrage was initially voiced through the power of blogs and the Internet, but has now become “vox populi”. Even FACUA, Spain’s biggest consumer association, has taken the subject on board and set up a helpline for all those affected. The problem is that Spain’s national team has traditionally had a poor record in the World Cup, so advertising agencies and clients had thought it was safe to take a risk – only to find themselves in rather a sticky situation!

Ferran from Barcelona, Spain

BP, one of the largest global oil companies and darling of shareholders around the world has fallen from grace and, somewhere on the way down, it became British Petroleum again. Barack Obama pointed out the company’s provenance to make the oil spill in the Mexican golf less of a US problem (ultimately his problem) and more of a foreign company problem.

The reason why BP is not British anymore is that it is truly global. Similarly, when Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation grew beyond their native shores, they felt HSBC was more likely to attract customers than ‘Honkers and Shankers’ as they were endearingly known in Hong Kong.

In a similar vein, how many people would go on a booze cruise to France on a Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company ferry? (Although P&O does sound OK).

And how long will it take KFC to be disassociated with Kentucky?

It seems that starting off local works up to a point but when brands get global, they have to lose their local roots.

Guy from London, UK.

There’s a long history of emigration in Italy. However, while in the past, it was the poor, uneducated, and disparate who fled to richer countries, today this has changed. Following the heavy spending cuts in education and research, the corruption, the nepotism, the lack of opportunity for any talented young people, a considerable and worrying number of individuals have started to leave the country again. But this time, it’s nothing to do with being poor. The sons and daughters of rich and middle to upper-class families, educated and intellectual youngsters, the most talented brains of our time are choosing to go abroad to study and build their career. Italy is no longer a country for clever people.

Paola from Italy.

Thirty years ago, when the legacy of General Franco was still alive and lingering in the Spanish subconscious, it would have been an impossible name. No one would have dared to call the Spanish national team “La Roja” (the Red One), because “rojo” was a synonym for “communism”, “betrayal” and “foe”. In fact, the Spanish Civil War was fought between Franco’s army and the “rojos”. So, it also was a synonym for “loser”, an attribute that could hardly be associated with the glorious Spanish team, renowned all over the world after winning the European cup in 2008 and now – for the first time in history – being in a World Cup final.

Today, everything from soft drinks to cars is marketed under the “La Roja” name. All the big brands want to be in a picture with them and take advantage of their triumphs. However, some people have raised the issue that this popular brand name, “La Roja”, is in fact a pure euphemism coined by the media in order not to stir up the country’s nationalisms. Apparently, “La Roja” is a far more comfortable name to stomach for Basque, Catalan and Galician nationalists who face the participation of Spain in these international competitions with a divided heart. Curiously enough, marketing has acted as a political mediator: when something as passionate and controversial as the concept of a nation becomes a brand name, no one feels so prone to dispute it.

By Ferran from Barcelona , Spain

The World Cup has captivated the attention of millions of people all over the world this last month, and the finals are coming up in little more than a week.

Reason enough to take a look at the different countries’ reactions to their national team’s defeat. Do the French despair the same way as the English when watching their team lose? And what about the Spanish? Or the Dutch? This article by Tom de Castella (BBC News Magazine) sums up these different reactions nicely…

“Hysterical, deluded and thoroughly English”

England has exited the football World Cup and once again failed to live up to expectations. But why do the English fool themselves, again and again, into believing they can win, and might they actually enjoy it?

After a humiliating 4-1 defeat to Germany, England has once again entered an unofficial period of national mourning. It’s something the country goes through after every World Cup or European Championship exit – from euphoric anticipation to shock and despair in the space of 90 minutes.

Harry Eyres, writer of the Financial Times’s Slow Lane column, believes the passion has taken on a desperate, obsessive quality: “Too much seems to hang on it. We appear needy as a nation. There’s an extraordinarily neurotic fear and excessive expectation about watching England. I don’t think we’re in touch with reality.”

The world is entranced by the beautiful game every four years. But not everyone seems to invest as much importance in their national side.

On holiday in Spain during the 2002 World Cup, Eyres remembers pulling into a bar in Andalucia to catch the end of the Spanish team’s quarter final with South Korea. The talented Spanish side went on to lose but there was no vitriol, Eyres recalls: “It was amazing how lightly they took it. This was a working class, blue collar bar. Can you imagine a pub full of builders in England when the team get knocked out – it would be a tragedy. My impression is that in Spain it just doesn’t matter so much.”

Writer Simon Kuper sees a similar imbalance of expectation when England is compared with France, where he lives. If the English did badly in this competition, the French – finalists in the last World Cup – did even worse, getting knocked out in the first round.

But in France, says Kuper, author of Why England Lose, no-one thought the home side would actually win. What enraged the French public was not poor displays on the pitch but the mutinous behaviour of the team’s arrogant stars.

“Unlike the English the French are able to switch off the team when they’re angry with it. People are disgusted. But they don’t go into the anguish of looking at the country as a whole. They just say the team are horrible people.”

Not only do the English never learn. They appear to thrive on the masochism of outlandish hope followed by tragic defeat, he argues.

“I think people enjoy the ritual. Every four years it happens and takes you back to previous tournaments. It’s a communal moment, people sharing the pain with each other at the bus stop. It’s that thing about big World Cup games that end in tragedy – usually on penalties, ideally to Germany.”

But that ritual comes at a price, says Kuper, who sees a crucial difference between the attitude of the English side and that of his native Holland.

“When a Dutch player scores he’s happy but when an England player does it’s all clenched jaw, relief and anger. It’s very stressful for the England players. It’s like with children at school, when they know the expectations are too high and they can’t meet them.”

But if England is deceiving itself about its ability, who or what is guilty of inflating expectations unrealistically high?

“The papers set the agenda. And today we have feeding frenzies. Savage as it sounds the Madeleine McCann story sold papers and previously there was Princess Diana. The World Cup is another first class example of a feeding frenzy that electrifies the newspapers.”

What this frenzy is really about is fear of national decline, says the writer and broadcaster Toby Young: “In a sense it’s people’s anxiety about Britain’s waning influence on the international stage. It expresses itself in their anxiety about how England will fare in the World Cup.”

And that’s why beating Germany has become so important. It’s the ability of the German team to punch above its weight in football terms. And that seems to us to reflect their ability to punch above their weight economically.”

For the full article, click here.

South Africa 2010 - The World Cup

Each time I’m asked to judge an international creative competition, I’m honored. I love seeing the work. I love meeting the judges. I learn so much and I come away inspired.

There’s only one problem with judging international awards: It doesn’t work.

Don’t get me wrong. It’s fine when we’re judging global campaigns aimed at a big, broad, multilingual audience. There’s nothing wrong with a panel from around the world passing judgment on ads for universally known products such as Coke or Nike that can resonate universally. And usually a multilingual group of jurors has no problem judging purely visual campaigns for well-known products or services. The best of those campaigns are magnificent — and they deserve the gold Pencils and Lions they attract.

But the vast majority of ad campaigns — even the ones created by the hulking global agency networks — aren’t aimed at those big, broad, multilingual audiences. Rather, they’re aimed at very specific demographics.

Those groups often share one language and one set of cultural references. They’re often less critical about aspects of the work, like editing, than is a group of globetrotting creative directors, but on the other hand, they’re tuned into parts of the local zeitgeist that hotshot creatives only know about if their planners and clients tell them.

Think of it this way: How well can a creative director from New York or London or Richmond, Va., evaluate a commercial targeting Japanese housewives? What if we’ve never heard of the brand, or even if we have, we have never sampled it or interacted with it? What if we don’t know the brand’s reputation in its home country? Maybe we simply don’t know what’s topical or fashionable in Tokyo. You’d have to put a gun to my head to get me to sit through an evening of Kabuki — and yet Kabuki references might be perfect for Kabuki groupies.

In my view, the best American work of the last decade has been done for Apple by TBWA/Media Arts Lab. But I once heard a European award show judge dissing an Apple iPod TV spot as “too American.” Now, maybe if the spot in question was meant for a European or African or Asian market, for example, it could have been “too American” to speak to those audiences. But none of the judges from around the world had seen the spot run in their home countries. When I asked the judge what he meant, he replied, “Americans like that upbeat stuff.” That was enough for him to blackball it. I got the feeling he thought it was the job of Apple’s advertising in America to make Americans more cynical — more, you know, European.

Of course, I could very well have been applying the same xenophobic standards in the other direction. How do I know if that sexy TV spot from Brazil or the over-the-top humor in one from Sweden is appropriate for its audience or if it crosses the line? Foreign judges know Americans like me can be prudish whether we intend to be or not.

I confess that I often can’t even tell how good the craftsmanship is on many foreign pieces of work. How do I know if the writing’s sharp or if the use of local idioms is relevant when all I’ve got is a translation?

To my earlier point, international judging just doesn’t work.

What’s hardest about this realization for me is knowing how important winning awards is for the growth and success of our agency, and all agencies, as many of us have been built partly by clients being impressed by what they see in award books. Not to mention, I want the creative, account and planning teams here to be hungry for industry honors. I want to impress tough judges.

When my agency creates international campaigns, I will gladly and nervously submit them to the scrutiny of international judges. But I’m not going to shy away from using as many words as appropriate in campaigns aimed entirely at native English speakers just to improve my chances with a judge from Slovakia. And I’d hate to think judges from those places would make any compromises in their work just to impress this ugly American.

By the way, I also don’t have much faith in the shows that purport to judge “effectiveness.”

Don’t get me started on that.

Published June 15, 2010, by Mike Hughes on adage.com

Powered by the Internet and the global media, English has evolved into the world’s language.

The alumni of the vast people’s University of China are typical of the post – Mao Zedong generation. Every Friday evening several hundred gather informally under the pine trees of a little square in Beijing’s Haidian district, in the so-called English Corner, to hold “English conversation.” Chatting together in groups, they discuss football, movies, and celebrities like Victoria Beckham and Paris Hilton in awkward but enthusiastic English. They also like to recite simple slogans such as Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign catchphrases – “Yes, we can” and “Change we can believe in.”

This scene, repeated on campuses across China, demonstrates the dominant aspiration of many contemporary, educated Chinese teenagers: to participate in the global community of English-speaking nations. Indeed, China offers the most dramatic example of a near-global hunger for English that has brought the language to a point of no return as a lingua franca. More vivid and universal than ever, English is now used, in some form, by approximately 4 billion people on earth – perhaps two thirds of the planet – including 400 million native English speakers. As a mother tongue, only Chinese is more prevalent, with 1.8 billion native speakers – 350 million of whom also speak some kind of English.

Contagious, adaptable, populist, and subversive, the English language has become as much a part of the global consciousness as the combustion engine. And as English gains momentum as a second language all around the world, it is morphing into a new and simplified version of itself – one that responds to the 24/7 demands of a global economy and culture with a stripped-down vocabulary of words like “airplane,” “chat room,” “taxi,” and “cell phone.” Having neatly made the transition from the Queen’s English to the more democratic American version, it is now becoming a worldwide power, a populist tool increasingly known as Globish.

For the full article, click here

Extract taken from article by Robert McCrum

English vs. Glob-ish

Samuel Johnson – a great Englishman, of whom we should all be proud – famously observed that patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel. If that’s the case, then there’s nothing like the World Cup to turn the English into a nation of scoundrels.

But it’s a queasy, insecure kind of patriotism, based not on a sense of superiority but on insecurity – a sense that “fings ain’t what they used to be”. Brussels and the creeping forces of globalization may slowly be taking our country from us, but they can never take our football team! And so hope gives experience its quadrennial kicking, and we all convince ourselves that this time, more than any other time, love really has got the world in motion and football is coming home. And as the crosses of St George start to flutter from cars and bedroom windows up and down the land, German skincare brands, Danish lager brewers and American confectioners all try to scramble aboard the Eng-er-land bandwagon – which of course these days has an Italian charioteer at the reins.

Once more unto the big-screen TV, dear friends …

James from London, UK