Hi jp, thanks for answering!
You know, in some formats (for example, as in the case above of a letter), there may be different
correct punctuation styles in different languages:
For example, it seems to me that in French
Cher monsieur
and
Cher monsieur,
would both be possible at the beginning of a letter, but in English
Dear Sir
without a comma would be a little strange...
On the other hand in English
Dear Sir
:
would be okay, but in French
Cher monsieur
:
would be a little strange, right?
Maybe in Danish letters, it is correct to put a period after the salutation
Kære Taya.
But it English,
Dear Taya.
would
never happen, so it looks very strange...
Some texts have their different "punctuation rules" in different languages that maybe should be followed accordingly, and not blindly followed au pied de la lettre. (In the same way as we have to change the
capitalization of "dog" to "Hund" in German to maintain its correctness, for example?)
So if the translator knows that the punctuation in the source text is correct, he should then write the correct punctuation in the translation. Of course, it should be as
close as possible to the original, but if the exact same punctuation would be
strange in the translation (although it was
not strange in the source text), then he should have the license to arrange it according to the punctuation rules of the language of the translation.
So
if
Kære Taya.
is correct punctuation in Danish, we should be able to translate it as
Dear Taya,
in English.
Otherwise, we make a perfectly
normal original into a
strange translation?
What do you think?
CC: cucumis