Peat dictionary

94 Etabli par le Professeur Serge Paul, presi-

evolutif, tant dans ses bases scientifiques que

dent de la Commission Ministerielle Franqaise de Terminologie de la T(~ledetection

dans ses multiples applications. L'effort de

Aerospatiale, assiste de trois sp(~cialistes (t~l~detecteur, photogramm(~tre et g(~ophysicien), cet ouvrage est le premier dictionnaire de t61edetection en langue franqaise. Son utilite est d'autant plus certaine que cette discipline a fait na~tre un vocabulaire qui, pour une bonne part, lui est propre et qu'il est necessaire d'uniformiser le langue des praticiens. D'autre part, chaque terme introduit et d~fini etant accompagne de son ~quivalent anglo-americain et deux lexiques

clarification et de raise en ordre des concepts et du vocabulaire entrepris par les auteurs du dictionnaire n'en est pas moins important et utile: I'ouvrage pourra servir de reference & un travail progressif d'affinernent et d'accroissement de precision de la terminologie de la t('H(',=detection. Maurice Carbonnell, Saint-Mande

International Peat Society, Helsinki, 1984. Peat Dictionary. In Russian, English, Ger-

f r a n q a i s - a n g l a i s , a n g l a i s - f r a n q a i s , avec renvoi au dictionnaire lui-m~me, @tant ins(~res en fin de volume, celui-ci peut aisement ~tre utilise pour les traductions.

man, Swedish, and Finnish, 595 pp., c. 6300 entries, indexes.

Pour les 737 termes par lesquels on entre dans le dictionnaire, o n trouve d'abord une

The dictionary originated as a trilingual (En:Ru :De) glossary prepared by the All-

abreviation et, s'il en est besoin, la variante orthographique, les synonymes, les renvois d'autres termes. Puis vient la definition,

Union Scientific Research Institute for the Peat Industry in Leningrad in the 1970s. Later, British, West German, Finnish and Swedish

souvent accompagnee de courts developpements qui forment une petite note technique, laquelle peut introduire des termes compl@-

national committees participated to make the present edition. Main entries and alphabetic arrangement are by the Russian terms with

mentaires (environ 400 pour I'ensemble du dictionnaire). Enfin sont indiquees, Iorsque

supplementary indexes to first words only of terms in other languages (e.g. 'absolute

cela est apparu necessaire, les limitations d'emploi du terme et les formes a proscrire. II faut noter aussi que I'ouvrage ne presente

weight' is indexed only under A). That the last entry on a specialist subject

pas seulement le vocabulaire strictement relatif a la t(~l~letection, mais comporte aussi des termes concernant des domaines voisins etroitement associes, tels que la photogramm(Hrie, I'electronique des equipements spatiaux, te traitement d'image, etc. Une telle publication est principalement destinee aux specialistes, chercheurs et etudiants p o s s ~ l a n t un bon niveau de connaissances scientifiques. Un repertoire des sigles et abreviations franqais et anglo-americains usuels en teledetection aerospatiale apporte aux utilisateurs une aide certaine. Soulignons aussi la qualite de la composition typographique, claire, a(~r(~e, utilisant une gamme de caracteres soigneusement hi(~rarchisee et facilitant la consultation. II reste a savoir si tous les termes retenus et toutes les d(~finitions avancees recueillent bien I'accord unanime des tel(~detecteurs avertis. II n'en est sans doute pas totalement ainsi et il n'y a pas a s'en ('~tonner darts un secteur technique encore aussi nouveau et

like peat is numbered 6934 is awe-inspiring. (Some entries have been deleted, so that the actual number of terms is at least 10% less.) The preface indicates the scope as "the most common terms" used in "characterizing a peat deposit or a developing one; producing, processing, storing or transporting peat, using peat or peat products for various purposes, doing chemical or physical analysis of peat composition; and a selection of general technical terms". The language coverage is justified as the three working languages of I.P.S. plus the languages of the countries with "advanced peat industries". This might imply a bias towards the industry rather than the science of peat, since it thus excludes the working language of the countries where peat soils have been most thoroughly studied, i.e. Dutch. Some of the necessary groundwork had been done by Crompvoets in his study of terms on peat cutting in the Dutch-speaking parts of Belgium. The coverage can be superficially surveyed by a sample of every 500th term:

95 500 peat wool (fibre) 1000 gasification 1500 firewood 2000 use; utilize; exploit 2500 Poisson's ratio

sian ispol'zovar has the meaning of both use (Ru: primenir; De: verwenden) and utilize (De: benutzen; verwerten). Though there is a heavy overlap in these words, a consistent distinction is made in usage and meaning in

3000 3500 -

most European languages and should be en-

4000 polyethylene film 4500 -

less obvious translation of ispol'zovat'. A similar problem arises with entry 4498 priznak, for which English supplies five equivalents, German and Finnish each three and Swedish only one. The English equivalent sign would correspond to De: Zeichen

5000 specific discharge 5500 pin coupling; pin joint 6000 coal-fired furnace 6500 excavation area Of the 13 expected entries, 3 are missing. (A wider sample indicated 1 - 2 omissions in pages containing 1 6 - 1 8 entries.) Of the 10 entries, only peat wool is directly related to peat. Excavation area (or excavation site) could apply to peat or any open-cast mining. Firewood and cool-fired furnace are clearly outside the scope defined in the preface. Pin

coupling lies in a different field of engineering, together with rivets, nails, screws and hinges. One might expect plastic sheeting for wrapping peat bails or as a lining under crops in nutrient solutions in a peat base, but an individual type, usually called polythene, is hardly necessary. (The word film is usually reserved for finer-gauge sheeting.) Of the two quantitative terms, Poisson's ratio (ISO and IUPAC prefer Poisson ratio) is a measure of elastic deformation, which must have limited application to peat products; specific discharge can be used firstly to describe percolation of water through a peat deposit (synonym 'apparent velocity': volume of water percolating divided by cross-section through which it flows and by time); secondly it can mean volume discharged divided by area of a water catchment (or of a reservoir) and by time. Though the second usage seems to be agreed upon by hydrologists, it is high time such usages were replaced by exact descriptions, e.g. areic volume rate of water through stream X with respect to catchment Y. The form of entry in this dictionary (without even an indicative definition) does not help the user to learn that entry 5000 probably lists equivalents of the second meaning only. (Russian has another term for the first concept.) Another general problem of polyglots without definitions comes in entry 2000: the starting language affects the result. In Rus-

couraged in specialist usage. Exploit is a

(not listed), Fi: merkki (not listed), Sv: tecken (listed) and Ru: znak. It corresponds with the Russian priznak only in such contexts as clinical signs, for which the better equivalent is symptom (De: Symptom) (both listed). Though indication and trace might occasionally be used in translating priznak they are certainly not its central meaning and are not reflected in the German equivalents listed. Characteristic (De: Merkmal; Kennzeichen) reflects a different meaning of priznak, better given in Russian by o s o b e n n o s r (which has no entry). The polyglot sticks reasonably to conventions. Hanging hyphens cause ambiguity in German parts of entries. What are we to make of Holz m., Holzstoff m., -substanz f., -zmasse f., -schiff m."? Commonsense suggests Holzmasse but it might be Holzsubstanzmasse. In the English equivalents, brackets are a source of confusion: stubbed (up) wood certainly means an optional extra up but peat w o o / ( f i b r e ) presumably means peat wool or peat fibre. From this small sample and some browsing, I conclude that the International Peat Society has produced a useful polyglot of much wider technical and scientific scope than the title suggests. There are a few 'printer's errors'. Like all such polyglots, it must be used with care but will be a valuable complement to any collection of technical dictionaries: for 5 of the 10 sample entries, I had equal or better information already to hand, except for Finnish, which is hardly essential in a five-language 'international' polyglot. J. Christopher Rigg, Wageningen