Recently, on Twitter, me and some friends had an interesting argument over translating tech terminology in greek, whenever possible. The discussion was based on my ranting, since I think that the greek word for blog, ιστολόγιο (istologhio), feels all kinds of ridiculous and fake to me. Reminds me of people (bloggers) that get themselves as too important creatures, bloggers that think highly of themselves.
And there are few things in this world that piss me off more than arrogant bloggers.
Anyway, back to topic. Back then, I did not have a real proof of why I despise this kind of holistic translation. These days, I re-found one:

For those Greeks out there, Blogger.com translates Dashboard as Πανόπτης (Panoptis). RSS as Ροή δικτυακού τόπου (Roi diktiakou topou). Posts as αναρτήσεις (anartisis).
This is ridiculous. I don’t consider myself a british citizen, but I surely understand the english terms more than their greek translation. It’s so farfetched! It should be done with simpler words, in the first place.
Not to mention that most greek translations in web or offline apps are littered with grammatical and syntax errors.
And this is not rare; more than once, users have contacted us for support and we couldn’t get a clue of what they were saying, because they had (mis)learned the terms in greek.
I don’t say that we should all become Americans or British, but this is getting old. I understand why people who don’t speak english cling to this notion, but I cannot possibly see how RSS is more difficult than Ροή δικτυακού τόπου for a tech guy or gal.
english, greek, blogging, translation