austraLasia #1758

Translateathon!  Your help would be appreciated - and you can learn something

ROME: 12th February 2007 --  Something with a difference today.  Call it a translateathon or anything else you like, but it is an extension of an idea floated some months ago via Boscowiki.  Collaborative effort throughout the English-speaking world where it is possible to do this - via what is known as a 'wiki' (meaning, in Hawaiian, 'very fast').
    While there is an official translation of the full texts of the Salesian Proper, two things happen - Salesian 'holiness' is an ongoing thing, along with Vatican processes - so new people are constantly being added, well ahead of the printers' ability to keep up things!  The other is that language sensitivities change or are culturally conditioned, so a number of places and people make small adjustments in things like Collects, bidding prayers and the like.
    So that's the basic background.  We are talking of private efforts rather than public ones in this (good) world of immense variety.  Fr Mike Mendl from New Rochelle has been beavering away at a range of Collects, working from the original language back into English, and has come up with some revised versions.  I think they are pretty good, but inevitably need some touching up here and there.
    All these Collects are available in their English freshened up versions on the translation page for Boscowiki. If you need that link in its raw form here it is: http://www.bosconet.aust.com/pmwiki/pmwiki.php?n=Main.ProperPrayers-Collects-ForSalesianSaints.
    That should take you to the page with the prayers on it, all 12 of them. It just may take you to the edit version, in which case simple switch up top to 'view'.
    To work on these (and for the most part you may wish to just change a word or short phrase) you simply click on 'edit'.  You will now see a version with what is called 'markup', additional symbols (all very obvious and simple ones which create the end result.  It is called wiki markup).  In fact, if you are just changing words, you can ignore all markup and just change the words.  It is that simple!
    Do not forget at the end to go to the bottom of the edit page and hit 'save' (not 'save and edit').  It would help if, in the summary box there you put int he words you changed but it is not absolutely necessary. I can trace every change and if needs be go back to earlier versions.  If you think you know enough wiki markup to put your changes in green, then do so.  You would put %green% in front of the changed word(s) and %% immediately after.  Done.
    Looking forward to wide contribution - you can add in comments too of course if you wish.  Remember always to make a clear space between one line and the next (that is, hit 'enter' twice to make two paragraph breaks).  There - you have now learned how to contribute to wikis anywhere in the world, including wikipedia!  Good luck - and let's show how the English-speaking world can actually collaborate on translation.
    Question?  The originals?  Well, three possibilities - the translator (MM) is overall accurate - it is a question of improved language phrasing, vocabulary, so the originals are not really needed.  The best we can offer is the Italian on www.sdb.org under 'santità', then look for 'liturgia' or 'eucaristia', but try the English of all that too for the official translations, viz., Salesian Saints, then choose from Blesseds or Saints or whatever to find your man (or woman).
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