Tuesday, August 15, 2006
Lost in Translation
One of the hazards of living in a bi-lingual society is that sometimes the translation can go very badly wrong. This is what appears to have happened with this sign in the Vale of Glamorgan where, according to Owain Sgiv, an officer for the Welsh language campaign group Cymdeithas yr Iaith Gymraeg, the phrase 'Cyclists dismount' has been roughly translated as 'bladder disease has returned'.
My wife, who is a Welsh translator, offers an explanation as to how this error occured. She and her colleague believe that translation software has been used and that somehow the person responsible sought the Welsh for 'cystitis' instead of 'cyclist'. Easy to do I suppose.
Update: I have now edited this post to remove the point about the meaning of the word 'Dymchwelyd' as it is clearly in dispute and was distracting from the main point which is in the final paragraph. I have also deleted all the comments as they no longer refer to anything in this post.
