Multilingualism as International Marketing Strategy

Market globalization has made multilingual marketing communications a sine qua none for most transnational businesses. Exploring new foreign markets has thus meant translating and localizing marketing communications, so as to enable foreign consumers to have the kind of experience that may spur them into being favorable to the products or services on promotion. Conscious of this imperative, many Nigerian companies have embarked on multilingual packaging as a key component of their international marketing strategies. Although such a language-based tactic has enormous potential, Nigerian companies' use of multilingual packaging is confronted to a multitude of problems. This chapter explores four of such problems, including mis-translations (of packages), partial translation, typographic and design errors, and companies' adherence to the myth stating that English is the language of business. To address these challenges, the chapter recommends non or reduced reliance on automatic translation and resorting to the services of a professional translator, “transcreators,” and experienced marketers.

Paramārtha’s Ultimate Truth and the Development of Chinese Buddhism’s Ultimate Truth

This paper discusses the development of ideas of the ultimate in the thought of Chinese Buddhism in the Northern and Southern Dynasties. The concept of ultimate truth is, along with that of conventional truth, a core concept in Mahāyāna Buddhism. During the Sui Dynasty, Chinese Buddhism developed the unique perspective of the Three Truths, the foundation for which was formed during the Southern and Northern Dynasties. This begins with Jie jie Jing 解節經 (in full, Foshuo Jiejie Jing 佛說解節經) by Paramārtha (499–569), which is a partial translation of Saṃdhinirmocanasūtra and presents the theory of ultimate truth (paramārtha) to Chinese Buddhists. Through a comparison of Jiejie Jing with other Chinese and Tibetan translations of Saṃdhinirmocana-sūtra, we establish Paramārtha’s thoughts on the ultimate. The relationship between Paramārtha’s thought on the ultimate and the development of the Three Truths is evaluated in a comparison of Paramārtha’s thoughts on ultimate truth with the thinking of nearly contemporary Chinese monks.

Nota su Cor. xlix:13 ǧaʿalnākum šuʿūban wa-qabāʾila

During my field work in Yemen, a frequent topic of discussion has been relevance of tribes in the Yemeni society. Part of the Qurʾanic verse 13 of the sūrah al-Ḥuǧurāt (xlix, Apartments) “wa-ǧaʿalnakum šuʿūban wa-qabāʾila” was frequently cited as a legitimation of the very existence of tribes among the Arabs. But what about šuʿūb? The first occurrence of the term is attested in Epigraphic South Arabian ŠʿB, which has been interpreted as “sedentary tribe, commune, group of village communities” (Beeston et al.), with a specific reference to the South Arabian social organization, not to be confused with the (Northern-)Arab tribal one. The term does not seem to be attested in the old Arabic lexicon. Having found no satisfactory explication in the Arabic sources, my working hypothesis has been that the presence of South Arabian sedentary communities in the oasis of Medina at the time of the Prophet could suggest a possible relationship with the Qur’anic šuʿūb. Probably this peculiar South Arabian term entered into the ʿarabiyyah with the northward emigration of South Arabian peoples. In the course of time, and in a different context, its original meaning evolved into a more general one, according to the political and ethnical developments of the Islamic empire. Šuʿūb, sing. šaʿb, has been traditionally interpreted as ʿaǧam, non-Arabic peoples, races, confederations etc. Many disagreements appear in the Qur’anic commentaries, as well as in the genealogical, lexical, historical, literary sources. Among the several interpretations in Qurṭubī’s al-Ǧāmiʿ one is noteworthy: “Someone says that Šuʿūb are the Arabs of Yemen, the descendants of Qaḥṭān”. As to Qurʾanic (Western) scholarship, I did not find a specific interest nor a consistent contextualization of this Medinan verse. The problematic balance of influence among the believers in Medina, Qurayshi muhāǧirūn and South Arabian anṣār, should not be disregarded. A new possible partial translation of Qurʾan xlix:13 is here suggested: “We appointed you (South Arabian) communities and (Arab) tribes, that you may know one another”.

Taxonomy and phylogeny of the Absidia (Cunninghamellaceae, Mucorales) introducing nine new species and two new combinations from China

Absidia is ubiquitous and plays an important role in medicine and biotechnology. In the present study, nine new species were described from China in the genus Absidia, i.e. A. ampullacea, A. brunnea, A. chinensis, A. cinerea, A. digitata, A. oblongispora, A. sympodialis, A. varians, and A. virescens. Besides, two varieties A. cylindrospora var. nigra and A. spinosa var. biappendiculata were elevated to a specific rank as A. nigra comb. nov. and A. biappendiculata comb. nov., respectively. These new taxa were proposed based on a comprehensive investigation of morphological traits (such as shape and size of sporangia, sporangiospores and projections on columellae), physiological feature (maximum growth temperatures), and multi-locus sequences (including internal transcribed spacer, large subunit D1-D2 domains of nuclear ribosomal DNA, partial translation elongation factor 1 alpha gene and actin gene). All species mentioned above are illustrated, and an identification key to all the known species of Absidia in China is included.

Kārlis Hūgenbergers 19. gadsimta sākumā latviešu literārās kultūras vēsturē

In the article, the literary works of Baltic German writer Carl Hugenberger have been explored. Anthology of his poetry translations, “Derrigs laika kaweklis” (Useful Pastime, I–II, 1826–1827), has been analysed. The anthology was significant in the emancipation of Latvian literary culture and liberation from moral didacticism as well as the development of the self-sufficient aesthetic value of literature. Thus, the anthology prepared the way for the formation of Latvian national literature in the mid-19th century. Special attention has been turned towards Hugenberger’s translations of poems by Johann Wolfgang Goethe and Friedrich Schiller. Besides, the evaluation and reception of Hugenberger’s works have been explored. The article concludes that despite the innovative role and poetic achievements of Hugenberger’s poetry, it did not gain popularity among wider circles of the Latvian reading public and met criticism regarding the shortcomings in the translation techniques that can be explained by the limits of the underdeveloped Latvian language at the time. The most important episodes in Hugenberger’s biography have been outlined as well as his religious hymns and works of popular enlightenment, including translations of “Schillings-Bücher des Rauhen Hauses”, a book series of German Inner mission, works by Jeremias Gotthelf, August Kotzebue, Gottfried August Bürger et al. Special attention has been paid to previously unidentified originals of Hugenberger’s translations – works by Matthias Claudius, Johann Hinrich Wichern, Heinrich Alexander Seidel, and Adolph Krüger as well as previously underexamined partial translation of Johann Peter Hebel’s “Allemanische Gedichte”. The literary works of Hugenberger have been interpreted within the context of the literary praxis of the late popular enlightenment in the Baltics.

On Two Barbarisms in Essays on the Journey by I. A. Goncharov “Frigate Pallada”

There is an unjust scientific understanding of barbarisms as a phenomenon which is peripheral in the language system and does not deserve attention, having quite a limited functionality in the real use. This opinion is unjust due to several reasons: 1) it is a group of words which is constantly submitted to changes, which makes it the marker of dynamic processes in the language of a certain epoch, 2) the language has nothing peripheral, nothing which cannot become an instrument of forming a feature of author individual style or a single genre. Special attention must be paid to the cases when a genre involves the usage of barbarisms (for example, in travels), but the author limits their use. In such circumstances every single case may pose an interest. The article offers the historical and cultural analysis of two barbarisms from the text of travel reviews by I. A. Goncharov “Frigate Pallada” — sugarbird and broomtree. Their use is not common for the book (there are no Russian variants of the names, the fi rst case is a calque and the second one is partial translation). The fi rst barbarism is of interest because it reflects the stage of scientific terms appearance (the author offers his own variant of terminological naming). In the second case it is not the word which is interesting, but the subject behind it because here we deal with one of the fi rst references to a Bible tree in the Russian literature (rhetheme).

New species and records of Diaporthe from Jiangxi Province, China

Diaporthe species have often been reported as important plant pathogens, saprobes and endophytes on a wide range of plant hosts. Although several Diaporthe species have been recorded, little is known about species able to infect forest trees in Jiangxi Province. Hence, extensive surveys were recently conducted in Jiangxi Province, China. A total of 24 isolates were identified and analysed using comparisons of DNA sequence data for the nuclear ribosomal internal transcribed spacer (ITS), calmodulin (cal), histone H3 (his3), partial translation elongation factor-1α (tef1) and β-tubulin (tub2) gene regions, as well as their morphological features. Results revealed five novel taxa, D. bauhiniae, D. ganzhouensis, D. schimae, D. verniciicola, D. xunwuensis spp. nov. and three known species, D. apiculatum, D. citri and D. multigutullata.

Additions to pestalotioid fungi in Thailand: Neopestalotiopsis hydeana sp. nov. and Pestalotiopsis hydei sp. nov.

Pestalotioid fungi commonly occur as pathogens, endophytes or saprobes. In this study, pestalotioid fungi associated with leaf spots and fruit rots were isolated from Alpinia malaccensis, A. galangal, Annona squamosa, Artocarpus heterophyllus, Citrus sp., Garcinia mangostana, Litsea petiolata, a pteridophyte, and Vitis vinifera in Chiang Rai, Thailand. Based on single- and multi-locus phylogenies using internal transcribed spacer, β-tubulin and partial translation elongation factor 1-α gene regions, along with morphological features, the isolates were identified as two new species, Neopestalotiopsis hydeana and Pestalotiopsis hydei. This is the first time a Pestalotiopsis sp. was reported associated with Litsea petiolata and a Neopestalotiopsis sp. recorded from Alpinia, Annona, Artocarpus, Garcinia and a pteridophyte in the world. This fungal group can be considered as an emerging pathogenic group on different hosts in different climatic conditions.

Recreating Daṇḍin’s Styles in Tamil

In Sanskrit poetics, the defining characteristics of poetry, its very life breath, are the guṇas, ‘qualities’. They make up the phonetic and syntactic fabric of poetic language without which there would be nothing to further to ornament. Many of these intimate features are by necessity specific to the Sanskrit language and defined in terms of its peculiar grammar including phonology and morphology. In the present article, I will describe what happens to four of these guṇas when they are transferred to the Tamil language in the Taṇṭiyalaṅkāram, a close adaptation of Daṇḍin’s Kāvyādarśa. I wish to demonstrate that the Tamil Taṇṭi did not thoughtlessly accept the Sanskrit model but sought, in some cases, to redefine the qualities so that they are meaningful in the context of Tamil grammar and its poetological tradition. A partial translation of the Tamil text is included.