Summaries 1/2000

• New faces

• TSK's newsletter 20 years

• Vocabulary of novel foods

• Insurance glossary

• Finnish IT terms

• New mobile station vocabulary

• Literature

New faces

TSK's new executive director is Mr. Kristian Miettinen. Before he came to TSK, Miettinen worked in the field of marketing and advertising and as an executive director of two foundations. He took his DKK degree (diploma in translation) in 1976 in Turku Language Institute where he studied English and French.

Miettinen expresses his thanks to TSK's board of directors for the task he has been given. He also thanks Olli Nykänen and Heidi Suonuuti, TSK's former directors, and TSK's personnel for their contribution in making TSK a respected expert organization, and says that this is a good basis to start from.

Miettinen promises to continue to improve TSK's position and operation by extending the co-operation and service network, by starting new forms of activities and by brightening TSK's public image. One example of this brighter image is this new Terminfo with its new layout, typography, paper and visual appearance.

Our warmest thanks to graphic designer Michael Diedrichs for creating this new look. Minna Isoherranen will be Terminfo's editorial coordinator from this issue onwards.

Vocabulary of novel foods

In Finland the interest in biotechnics research has increased rapidly, and it is even expected that biotechnics will be Finland's next "Nokia". This development has created new concepts in the food industry. TSK's terminologist Mari Suhonen has prepared a mini vocabulary of novel foods.

The vocabulary consists of 13 basic concepts in the field of novel foods with Finnish definitions and equivalents in Swedish and English. Because many of the concepts are new, the terms are not always established. For example, there are at least 24 English designations for products that improve health or prevent disease. This vocabulary contains only the term functional food, because it is used widely and it is also the model on which some corresponding Finnish and Swedish terms are based.

Insurance Glossary

Auli Haapajärvi and Irma Partanen, students at the University of Helsinki, Institute of Translator Training, compiled an insurance glossary as a part of their master's thesis. The glossary contains insurance terms in Finnish, Russian and English. The glossary deals with basic private insurance terms, and is meant as a practical tool for the personnel of insurance companies and for translators.

The glossary is based on the Finnish insurance concept system. The Russian insurance system is compared to the Finnish one. In Finland the insurance business is quite established and therefore the terms and concept relations are also established, whereas in Russia the present insurance business has just been created after Russia has changed to the market economy system. This difference between the development stage of the Finnish and Russian systems caused some problems. For example, modern insurance literature in Russian was scarce.

The glossary consists of two parts: a vocabulary part arranged alphabetically according to Finnish entries and an index part containing three indexes in all three languages. The glossary is descriptive, and usually it gives many Russian equivalents to one Finnish term. The most preferred equivalent is given first and a definition or note in Russian follows it.

English was used as an intermediary language when the glossary was compiled, and it also contains English equivalents. The reason for using English was that the Russian experts who participated in the project were familiar with the English insurance terms used in the market economy system. Finnish and Russian experts were used throughout the project to clarify unclear concepts, to give Russian equivalents and definitions, and finally, to check the whole glossary.

Finnish IT terms

The Finnish Group for IT Terminology has now worked for one year. The purpose is to give recommendations on Finnish information technology terms. The work is organized into three groups: co-ordination, meeting and reference groups. The co-ordination group selects the concepts to be dealt with taking into account the average users of computers. The co-ordination group also suggests recommendations and definitions, and sends them to a comment round to the meeting and reference groups. After the comments have been received, the co-ordination group makes necessary corrections and places the material on TSK's web site (www.tsk.fi/termitalkoot). So far there are about 60 Finnish term recommendations with definitions and English equivalents.

This service has been built up within a project called WebIT/EFCOT, part of the MLIS-programme (Multilingual Information Society) of the European Commission. Greece, Norway and Sweden participate in this EFCOT project, too. Later in the spring it will be tested whether harmonized English versions of the definitions written by the different participants can be drafted.

The EFCOT project will end in June, but the idea is not stop the work done by the Finnish Group for IT terminology. If the necessary funding is found, TSK will continue to co-ordinate the work in the autumn.

New mobile station vocabulary

Mobile communication and the terminology related to it have developed very fast during the last decade, and the old vocabulary of mobile station terms (TSK 19) published in 1993 is not quite up-to-date anymore. Therefore it was decided that it needs to be revised. The new version should be ready in the spring 2001. The new mobile station vocabulary will contain about 300 concepts and also some names of products, systems and organizations. The vocabulary will be based on the Finnish concept system. The terms will be given in Finnish, Swedish and English. The Finnish definitions will be translated into Swedish and English.

A project group including TSK, Finnet Group, Nokia Networks, Nokia Mobile Phones, Radiolinja, Siemens and Sonera is drafting the new vocabulary.

TSK's newsletter 20 years

TSK's newsletter has been published for 20 years now. The newsletter was named Terminfo in 1981, and this name is still used. The purpose of Terminfo has remained the same too: to inform about terms of current interest, vocabularies and terminology projects. Since 1996 parts of Terminfo have been published on TSK's web pages, for example the English summaries.

Literature

Public Buildings in Finland
Public Buildings in Finland - Names and Translations contains the names of 17 Finnish state buildings and their main parts in both the national languages of Finland, Finnish and Swedish, together with recommended translations in English, German, French and Russian.

Illustrated Building Dictionary
The Illustrated Building Dictionary contains building terms in Finnish, English and Russian. The dictionary includes about 800 illustrations and 3000 entries. The content is divided into different subject fields, such as building site and electric tools. The book also contains alphabetical indexes in all three languages and a separate glossary of urban and regional planning.

Swedish life sciences terminology
The Joint Group for Swedish Life Sciences Terminology (Svenska biotermgruppen) is a network which co-ordinates Swedish terminology within life sciences such as biotechnology and molecular biology. The network consists of scientists, journalists and terminologists. Their concept definitions, Swedish term recommendations and English term equivalents are available on this web site: www.tnc.se/bioterm.