[www-it-traduzioni] Fwd: Re: Translation of "General Public License"

[Francesco Potortì]

Richard,

sorry, I forgot to include you among the recipients.

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Date: Wed, 28 Jan 2015 17:37:58 +0100
From: "Francesco Potortì" <address@hidden>
To: "Traduzioni italiane delle pagine di www.gnu.org"
        <address@hidden>
CC: Dora Scilipoti <address@hidden>
In-reply-to: <address@hidden> (address@hidden)
Subject: Re: [www-it-traduzioni] Translation of "General Public License"

Dora Scilipoti:
>  > This correlation of meanings is broadly found also in Spanish, French and
>  > Portuguese. But only Italian uses "generica."

Richard Stallman:
>Do you mean, only the Italian translations of gnu.org use "generica"
>in the translation of the words "General Public License"?  I think so,
>but could you confirm?
>
>Anyway, it is clear that "generica" is the wrong word for this in
>Italian.  It is the translation of English "generic", not "general".

In Italian "generica" and "generale" have very similar meanings, and the
differences are nuances that depend on the context.  In most instances,
they can be exchanged without any change in meaning.  In fact, this
topic has been discussed at length on the Italian list of GNU
translators.  Most of us think that it's not obvious which is better,
and that the difference may be so subtle that it is not really important
enough to justify a change.  Moreover, if a change should be done, it
may be better to remove the Italian translation and just leave the
licence name untranslated: times are changing, Italian people are more
and more getting used to use English words, especially with proper
names, and the original name is widely used by now even in Italy.  As
far as I can tell, this tendency makes the Italian area quite different
from the French and Spanish ones.  We are trying to reach some consensus
on all these issues before making an adjustment to a more than ten years
old translation.

>                                                 TTBOMK, the derogatory
>  > connotation is found only in Italian.
>
>That connotation means that "generica" is not merely incorrect;
>it is incorrect and harmful.

The derogatory meaning depends on the context, and would be really out
of place in a license's title.  In fact, the Italian translators who
have expressed an opinion on this think that this issue does not seem
really relevant.

>Please replace that with the Italian word for "general".
>In Spanish we say "Licencia Pública General".

I think that the best course of action is to wait until a consensus is
reached among the Italian translators, who have already spent some time
debating this topic.
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