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Paul asks: <<Could you illuminate me as to what a translator of an
Arabic-based language would want in a style guide?>>
Providing and/or working out a style guide and glossary is standard practice
with major translation companies, and I would expect that any translator
worth his salt would appreciate having them at the start.
The requirements for Arabic languages would probably be the same as for any
other languages. For the style guide, you should specify how to handle
issues that are pertinent to that language and culture. For example,
somebody wanting a translation to English might be concerned about how to
handle the plurals of acronyms, the serial comma, trade service markings,
spaces between sentences, etc. The glossary is there so that there should be
no doubt what you mean by any specialized words you're using, especially if
you use the same word in multiple forms (e.g. display as both a noun and a
verb).
A search of the Internet ought to turn up examples of these translation
tools, at translation company websites for instance.
~ Bill
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