From: Keutgen, Walter (walter.keutgen@be.unisys.com)
Date: Wed Mar 15 2006 - 03:59:38 CST
Philippe,
misunderstanding: 'Jeu' and 'Satz' are only an example of what could happen if one would translate without knowing the subject. I used this example in my e-mail as an argument against translating 'measured by' into Hungarian unless one knows what it is about in mathematics. I took the first word in the dictionaries to remove any subjectivity from the example. I know that 'jeu' also (mainly) means 'game' and that there is a 'théorie des jeux'. I believed that I was clear, as a gave the correct translations blessed by mathematical usage beforehand (set = ensemble = Menge). Your answer confirms what I have written i.e. not to translate out of context.
I definitely believe that translating something like 'm above equal' or 'equal sign with m above', describing the glyph, is the only solution because nobody (among the Unicoders at least and on the www) remembers the usage in mathematics or physics of this symbol as described in Unicode, Stix etc.
Best regards
Walter
-----Original Message-----
From: Philippe Verdy [mailto:verdy_p@wanadoo.fr]
Sent: mardi, le 14 mars 2006 20:30
To: Keutgen, Walter; "Gusztáv Jánvári"
Cc: philip chastney; unicode@unicode.org; Hans Aberg
Subject: Re: Need help in interpreting symbol 225e (measured by)
From: "Keutgen, Walter" <walter.keutgen@be.unisys.com>
> However, as to translate the Unicode character name, one must be more careful. A simple example of my little math knowledge. See the following correct translations of 'set' from the mathematical set theory:
>
> English French German
> set ensemble Menge
>
> Look what would happen, if one would make common sense translations (the 1st in the dictionary):
>
> set jeu Satz
I disagree here for French at least. French mathematicians never use the word "jeu" for the mathematical concept of sets. "jeu" has another more common meaning in French and this designates a game. And in mathematics, the concept of games is studied very formally, using *sets* ("ensembles") of possibilities.
Don't be confused by the terms "jeu de caractčres" (character set). The term "jeu" isappropriate because it designates a very arbitrarily chosen subset of typographical characters, chosen only because they canbe correct representant of the same class (mathematicalconcept) of characters (those that are designated as "abstract characters" in Unicode). So the term "jeu" implies some random selection among a set of equivalent characters (it represent this *physical* subset).
In the same order of idea, we speak about "jeu de clés" (a set of keys, used to open doors or start cars). The term "jeu" means that there exists different limited subsets of distinct items chosen in an arbitrarily large set, but that have equivalent function, and a "jeu" is one such subset. This concept does not translate as "jeu" in mathematics but as "sous-ensemble de classes d'équivalence" (subset of equivalence classes).
If we had to use mathematical terms to translate "character set", we would need to use the term "set of abstract characters" (where the "abstract character" designates in fact an "equivalence class of characters"), so this would be finally a "set of equivalence classes of characters"...
Note that the French terms "jeu de caractčres" comes rom typographic tradition. It normally designates a particular set of characters having the same style, size, slant, and blackness (and in mechanical typography, the same construction material, and the same mechanisms for their alignment on a composition row; all characters having these same characteristics were sorted in the same box called "case", "casse" in French, which would translate as "class" in mathematics...)
So "jeu" in French designates a very particular type of "ensemble" (which is relaxed and does not restrict the type of elements in the set)
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