offshoot of Project Translators - Profile translation

Hi Leanne,
You can translate profiles if you know the English.
http://help.geni.com/entries/21925935-How-do-I-enable-translations-...

If you don't then perhaps there's another project similar to this one for profiles not projects.

Hi Terry, I have tried to translate a few, with some hilarious results. Rachel in Hebrew translates back as Sheep, lol. My language skills leave a lot to be desired.

I can set one up for profiles and see if it works.

Terry Jackson (Switzer), that link is about translating the SITE itself, not profiles (or projects).

Leanne M (Volunteer Curator - Australia) 🇦🇺, "translating" names does not work, as you found out.

I OBJECT to translating PROFILES needlessly. This is simply WRONG amd bad practice.

Even IF we KNOW that the person would have used A name in THAT specific language. there is NO guarantee that the person used the specific "translation" we would suggest. In many cases, people used different names PER language. For example my father was named Maury Irving in English and "Moshe Itzchak" in Hebrew. There is NO CONNECTION between these two names (other than initials). [He later changed his English legal name to match the Hebrew]

I think the ONLY case where this would be remotely relevant would be a good idea is when the person was famous enough to be KNOWN by a name in that language. But even then they would typically already HAVE an accepted or known name in that language. For example Genghis Khan of the Mongol Empire. That is NOT even his name, but assuming it was, in various languages this is pronounced rather differently. Anglophiles can't usually handle the 'kh', so he's a Kahn.

Leanne M (Volunteer Curator - Australia) 🇦🇺,

I object as well. That is something that should never be done. Geni already has enough tools to get around this. My paternal grandfather is an excellent way to show that what you why this won't work. His given name is Hanan or Chanan in Hebrew. His transliterated given name, from Russian to English, is Janan. Also his brothers who went to Argentina and were made to select Spanish given names, won't fit it as well.

Geni has cleverly built in "multi language name modules" and this works well. Depending on what language your default geni is, you will see that language in larger letters and other language names in smaller. It takes "manual" input, source based, to fill in the name. My Hebrew name, unofficially, is Ariella, so i would use Hebrew language selection in the Basics tab to add it to Geni.

You can't really have a team of translators on this, I don't think, and not machine translation tools either; the additional language names are source based and best handled by the profile manager. I've done Hebrew for ancestors based on tombstones for instance and added the English transliterations into the AKA fields -- if you provide an image, our Hebrew speakers should be able to assist, as they have done for me.

Hi all, thanks.

One downside of not translating names is that there are duplicates.

Bagdadi jews had English names but users who live in Israel have entered their ancestors entire tree in Hebrew. There is nothing wrong with that except that others can't see the duplicates to merge them to the world tree unless they are multi-lingual.

I tried contacting some profile managers but most i came across were abandoned so no help on that front.

Not sure what the solution is.

Leanne

Leanne M (Volunteer Curator - Australia) 🇦🇺, if you KNOW that these are duplicate trees, then you can ask a friendly curator to merge them. We have about a dozen native Hebrew speakers.

At the moment, the multi-lingual name modules do not take into account the scripts in which the names are written. (The big map in the project description is really about scripts, which seems to be irrelevant to this project other than being a nice graph.)

If internally Geni keeps a log that associates each "name language" with a script, then we could do a lot with it. Names can bleed through (as they do now) only within the same script, and TRANSLITERATION can and shall be automated between different scripts. (I never understood the need for the "fallback" scheme we currently have.) In case that multiple transliterations exist (historically or in different regions), users should be allowed to choose one that they are most comfortable with. I believe there are codes out there that just do transliteration. (The amazon server that Geni now uses to store images automatically converts my Chinese characters into Roman alphabet.)

That would also mean that we may help with merges that are in unfamiliar scripts.

Leanne M (Volunteer Curator - Australia) 🇦🇺 please take Shmuel up on the offer, our Israel team is terrific and very helpful with Hebrew / English issues. Maybe start one dedicated discussion and we can tag these known people (and I suspect others will jump in and help out!)

Private User nice! I've done OK with short names in other alphabets.

Good, Good. But please leave the Biblical Tree as it is.
Is not the reading of the Hebrew words that is difficult but to read from right to left is a problem

Martin Andreas Karl (Dries) Potgieter, when you write "leave the Biblical Tree AS IT IS", what specifically do you mean? Most of the Biblical tree is BOTH English and Hebrew, with many profiles also in Arabic, Italian, etc.

Where I know they are duplicates, I have been having them merged. The problem is that GENI tells me that some profiles are probably/possibly duplicates but with one solely in English and the other solely in Hebrew I am not able to say categorically they are the same person. I usually like to have quite a few points of confirmations before requesting a merge.

Leanne M (Volunteer Curator - Australia) 🇦🇺, can you read the Hebrew names?

If not, let us Hebrew speakers check them out. Obviously, as I said above, they might NOT be even remotely the same, but still the same person. Even then we might be able to determine they are the same due to identical names around them.

Shmuel-Aharon Kam (Kahn / שמואל-אהרן קם (קאן, should i create a project and then add discussions tagging the profiles under that for the ones that need translating?

Naah, such requests are too temporary for a project.

you can post the requests to the generic "ATTENTION Curators, please assist" pub;ic discussion (see it pinned at top of list).
https://www.geni.com/discussions/156925

If you want to be more focused, feel free to post the Hebrew equivalent, in the Geni-Israel portal project. You will probably get a FASTER response in the discussion ABOVE.
https://www.geni.com/discussions/93139