h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Hi Lady P - wonderful to see you back!

I was just thinking about you the other day, because I was hoping to ask you a question. Not that I don't like talking to you just about nothing at all, but this was one I thought your expertise might come in handy on...

I'm doing layout for an exhibition catalogue, and it's quadrilingual - English, German, Polish, and Hebrew. (We've already figured out that if we put the Hebrew at the end, it will be at the beginning ) Unfortunately, the layout program (InDesign) doesn't recognise anything other than left-to-right text, so the Hebrew all comes out backwards. So we used a mirrored font and mirrored the whole text box, and thought we had a solution - but of course, that messed up all the vowels!

Have you got any tips for us, short of just putting the whole thing in as image files?

Hello hello! It's nice to be back.


As for the question... errrrg, I'm not sure. This seems to mostly be a software-related problem, rather than a language-related problem. I might be able to look for some people who know something about graphic design, and ask them, if you want. InDesign is a fairly well-known product, isn't it? I think even I might have heard that name. If that's the case, there are probably a number of Israeli graphic designers who work with it, and there must be a way to deal with the headache-inducing direction stuff.
What did get me curious, language-wise, in what you wrote. You mentioned the vowels getting messed up - I assume you mean vowel-marks, yes? (it's not like Hebrew has any other sort) Now, this is a subject that makes me a bit wary, because the fact is that very very few people in Israel know how to use those correctly (there are a bunch of rules that are somewhat archaic, e.g. in that they represent a whole range of long and short vowels while modern Hebrew no longer has that differentiation). Vowel-marks are hardly used in Hebrew nowadays, with the few exceptions being mainly children literature, biblical texts, and poetry, and I have seen many instances where they are being used in a ridiculously wrong manner (for example, people who write poetry and then, because they know poetry 'needs' to be vowel-marked, put it through one of the automatic programmes without even checking that the results make sense - and in a language with so many homographs that can lead to some really dumb stuff). So, I'm sure you guys made sure to hire a proper translator and all, but the whole 'vowel' stuff still makes me wary, as I said.
Would you mind very much sending me a copy of the text, so i can look over it and let you know if the vowel-marking is okay, or would that be terribly presumptuous of me? It feels a bit presumptuous. I don't mean any disrespect to your translator, of course. I'm just a bit of a pedant, and this issue is going to drive me crazy now...

Ah, ok - I thought there might be a common trick because *everybody* must have those problems - though I suppose the localised versions of the programs are actually compatible with other languages...

And yes, I mean vowel-marks. The translator is Polish, and insists that without vowel-marks it will be too difficult to read the text. I don't actually know what the text I currently have says. I can't read a word of Hebrew myself. She's not done translating yet and just sent me "some to try it out", so I have no idea whether it's a chunk of the actual text or just some sort of lorem ipsum. It will also be a translation of a translation (the original source is German, I'm doing the English, someone else did Polish, and it's going from Polish to Hebrew), so I'm expecting it to differ from the original anyway...

But if you say vowel-marks aren't really in use anymore, I'll just pass that back and maybe it will solve our entire problem. It's all a litlle complicated because we're all working in different places. (I live in Northern Ireland now.)

Okay, whoa. I don't want you to fire the translator or something - and the fact she's foreign actually means it's possible she knows vowel-marks better than the common Israeli person - but a translation through a mediating language is always a tricky subject, and I kinda want to just tell you to gen a German->Hebrew translation instead of this roundabout way. But it'd be mean to say that without knowing anything about her work.

Anyway, yeah, regular Hebrew is hardly ever vowel-marked - take a look at any Hebrew online site (e.g. http://www.haaretz.co.il or [plug!] my own bilingual blog at http://www.foundsandfragments.blogspot.com ) and you'll see that at most, people add a vowel-mark here and there in words that might be trickier to understand. For beginner Hebrew-readers this makes things frustratingly difficult, of course, but us natives manage alright that way. So 'too difficult to read the text' is kind of a relative thing.

As for your actual question, there very well might be a common trick, I just have no idea what it is... if the problem remains, let me know, and I'll see if I can ask someone.

Thanks, I'll have a look when I get back to my own computer, the work one won't allow it.

I suppose we can't be too hard on the poor translator - everyone's doing this on a volunteer basis - but translating via a second language is certainly less than ideal. Now I'm just wondering how good her grasp of Hebrew is; from what you've said, I have to assume she doesn't use it day to day!

Yeah, I don't want to be too harsh on her as well, especially if it's all volunteer work. And she could be a great translator even if she doesn't use the language day-to-day - although then the tone of your text might be a bit too flowery for the regular Hebrew-speaking reader. Might not, though.
Well, all things in due course. If you want, though, and if it's alright with her, I'll be more than happy to proofread it for you, and let you know if the Hebrew looks alright.


Can I ask, though, what's this exhibition about, and who's the intended audience? You got me curious... From the languages mentioned I assume it's Holocaust-related, is that so?

Thanks for the offer, that would be appreciated.

Not quite Holocaust, but WWI-related. After the Germans had invaded Poland and been kicked out again, the Polish government ordered all German cemeteries destroyed (among other things), and of course that included the Jewish ones. So a friend of mine (my brother-in-law's father, to be precise) has made it a project of his to go find them (most of the families of those dead never returned, of course), take rubbings of the stones and cross-reference them with community records, tidy them up a little, and mark them on a map. Some of them have been built over long ago, but he's re-discovering others in the woods and other forgotten places.

The rubbings are really quite beautiful - some of the stones date back to the 17th Century, even. He's a sculptor himself, so I think he appreciates the craftsmanship. But it also seems to be a form of atonement for something his father did that he never talks about.

He's putting on an exhibition, anyway, so we're doing a little catalogue for him. Since he's right in the middle of Berlin, and there are a lot of foreign people who start the search for their ancestors there, he thought having it in four languages would help. Part of it is also translating the inscriptions on the stones, of course.

Sounds absolutely fascinating!

Er, sorry, make that World War II - typing too fast again!

It's a good project, and he's doing it all by himself so far - but now that he's getting on a bit in years, he's hoping to find a sponsor so he can take a helper along. Hence the exhibition.

If you like, I'll send you the catalogue as a pdf, if we ever do get it finished.

I would love that, thanks.

I don't know if you had a chance to look at my poorly-updated blog, but the last post I had there has a link to something kinda similar (but not really ) called the Mausoleum Project. It's a bit like that but on a much smaller scale - one man tracking down his family mausoleum, and some family history as well. I could only read it through Google Translate, but it seemed fascinating even so.

Sorry, not looked yet - my work computer blocks blogs, and I don't have much of a home internet connection at the moment. Does sound interesting, though!

Ah, jeez, that's alright! I don't want to push it, or anything. I just like my little blog, poorly-updated as it may be... Here's the direct link to that guy's Mausoleum Project: http://www.berger-reloaded.de/home/
I think you might find it interesting - and I know that you well definitely be able to understand more of it that I could. And if you happen to pass by 162 Kantstrasse in Berlin, just know that many years ago there was a rocking sleazy night club there.

Ooops, yet another post I never answered, too much switching between computers Sorry about that.

Will keep it in mind - I've just applied for a job in Berlin, among others.

That's okay. I've been taking a long time to answer stuff, too. But I try not to keep away for too long. It kinda becomes a habit.

And that's cool, about the job! I thought for some reason you were in Berlin right now. Not sure why...

Yes, don't go away, we need you here - you're one of hootoo's hoopiest froods!

No, at the moment I'm in the middle of nowhere, Northern Ireland. Well, only about 25km from Belfast, but it feels like the middle of nowhere.

I am working on that Berlin-based project, but that's all by e-mail and internet.

Northern Ireland! Oh, that must be lovely. I've been to Ireland once, many years ago, and I loved it so much. Haven't been to the Northern part of it, but I imagine a lot of the basic things (like how green everything is, and how nice the people are) would be similar. How do you like it there?

And again, this got buried. I'm sorry

I looooove it over here I'd rather not move away, but I'm going for a job interview in England next week... Have applied for a Master's course in Belfast though, so who knows?

It's lovely countryside, I get on better with the people here than back home, and it's so small that it's more like a village than a country. Everybody knows everybody, it seems.

And again, I need to tell you not to apologise, because I'm horrible and take ages to get to stuff. Yours is even not the worst convo (in terms of me not replying) on my list; I have one I've been procrastinating for weeks now! Eesh!

Good luck with your Master's. Although England is quite lovely as well... from what I remember, anyway. I was only there for a few weeks with my family many years ago (when I was about 12), so while I remember a lot of green and a lot of castles and stuff like that (we loved feeding the ducks), there is a lot that I would love to experience as a grown-up. You don't have as much patience as a kid, after all - especially not for city stuff, like shops and restaurants and museums and just walking around and looking at things.

So, seeing as it's next week, more or less, how did your interview go?