Talk:Chamber of Deputies

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[edit] Translation issue

(was on Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous))

Hi. I've come across a series of articles (click here for links) that seem to have mistranslated a term into English. It is rather common to see the words deputado (in Portuguese) and diputado (in Spanish) mistranslated into English as "deputy", when the correct word is congressman. Now, I've just found that Câmara dos Deputados (Portuguese) and Cámara de Diputados (Spanish) have been mistranslated apparently into "chamber of deputies", when it would appear that the correct translation would be House of Representatives. Even worse, as I said, a series of articles have been created using the mistranslation. Before we start moving all those articles, however, I wanted to make absolute sure that this term "chamber of deputies" cannot absolutely be used. Has anybody (from English-speaking countries) ever seen or heard it used? That looks completely wrong to me. Thanks for the help. Regards, Redux 23:46, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for bring this up here first. I have seen "Chamber of Deputies" used many many times in respected English-language publications; it is a perfectly acceptable and appropriate term. English is a language that is not uncomfortable accepting more than one meaning for a word.--Pharos 01:54, 20 August 2005 (UTC)

Imho, deputies is the better translation. Calling them congressmen would seem to be putting an American spin on the translation. -Splash 02:02, 20 August 2005 (UTC)

I certainly wouldn't use congressman. Agree house of representatives seems to be a good, probably better, translation of Câmara dos Deputados and Cámara de Diputados, but as these are proper nouns, another alternative is not to translate them at all. See Wikipedia:Naming conventions (use English); The question is, do English speakers most normally use the translated name? In this case, it's a line call IMO, so personally I wouldn't translate. Andrewa 04:08, 20 August 2005 (UTC)

If the term is perfectly usable, all the better for us – less moves and probably less controversies. There might have been a generalization though. Perhaps the terms "congressman" and "House of Representatives" would be more fitting for countries with a bicameral Congress — many of them actually copied the U.S. model, with just minor modifications (e.g. Brazil and Argentina). We could also consider leaving the terms untranslated, as Andrewa suggested.. Regards, Redux 13:55, 20 August 2005 (UTC)

Sometimes, foreign institutions have official English translations. For example, the Czech Statní zdravotní ustav literally translates to "State Health Institute," but the organization calls itself the "National Institute of Public Health" in its English-language publications. I don't know how Spain translates Congreso de Diputados, but the International Parliamentary Union translates it as "Congress of Deputies" [1]. The Brazilian Câmara dos Deputados calls itself the "Chamber of Deputies" in English [2]. As a result, I think "deputies" is the best translation. Mwalcoff 03:32, 21 August 2005 (UTC)

Very interesting. Indeed, it would appear that "Chamber of Deputies" would go for most cases. I now believe that the current names in those articles should be changed only for the cases where the institution in question might call itself differently in their English-language publications or website (which many of them have). We should use the name that the institution itself uses in their official references in English (and use redirects to make sure that querries like "Brazilian House of Representatives" find the appropriate article). Regards, Redux 14:38, 21 August 2005 (UTC)

Good idea. It would be useful to create redirects. (Do we have "redirects are cheap" as official policy somewhere?) –Hajor 19:48, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

Chamber of Deputies and deputy are certainly correct, but can cause confusion, especially in the U.S. where deputy means "deputy sheriff". I'd usually say something like Chamber of Deputies (lower house of parliament) or deputy (member of parliament). -- Jmabel | Talk 22:26, August 21, 2005 (UTC)

That's in the back of my mind. I'm familiar with both U.S. and British English and I also know my way around Australian English. But still, whenever I hear "deputy", I think of second-in-charge. Could that be a relevant factor when it comes to the average reader? This being the English-language Wikipedia, I believe the decisive input here should come from users hailing from English-speaking countries. Regards, Redux 02:01, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

Italy has a Camera dei Deputati. It describes itself in English as Chamber of Deputies. It also says The deputies are the representatives of the citizens who elected them: the word "deputy" actually means "representative".

Luxembourg has a Chambre des Députés which is translated either as Parliament or Chamber of Deputies. The Czech Republic has a Poslanecká sněmovna which they translate into English as Chamber of Deputies. A search of the web reveals the term 'Chamber of Deputies' is used in respect of Bahrain, Belgium, Bolivia, Chile, Egypt, Lebanon, Mexico, Romania, Tunisia, Turkey, and Paraguay. The EU spends a lot of money on translation and employs a lot of translators. It uses the term 'Chamber of Deputies' as the translation in several places. The term means to have power on behalf of somebody. That is why 2nd in charge sometimes has the title Deputy Something'. A deputation is a group of people sent on behalf of others. For British English, I think the term Chamber of Deputies is better than House of Representatives. Similarly, unless a term like 'Member' is used, it seems self-evident that a Chamber of Deputies has Deputies. Bobblewik 18:05, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

In absolute agreement with Bobblewik, but let's not make this a UK/US thing. The translations of the world's couple of hundred national legislatures used on our Politics in XXXland page are very good and, of course, all those "politics in..." pages originally came from the guys at www.state.gov. In serious (encyclopedic) writing, surely it's better to use translations of the official name, rather than hamfisted attempts at localization or the transferring of one country's concept to another's context (as referring to Brazil's CoD as either a House of Representatives or (shudder) a House of Commons would be). –Hajor 18:41, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

(In case anyone's unaware of its existence, we have our own consolidated list, displaying global diversity in all its glory, at List of national legislatures. –Hajor)

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Hi everyone. I'm totally new to this project but I'd like to be actively engaged in it. I'm not too clear if there are any rules that preclude from just jumping in the middle of a conversation but I'd like to add my two cents here. You are discussing a translation issue and apparently some of you are native speakers of English, but there is an established method professional translators use to solve problems like this and it's researching the authoritative dictionaries and standard current usage. I don't see anybody providing a Dictionary reference in here.

In this case for "chamber" the American Heritage (2000) has "legislative or judicial body" as the 6th accepted meaning, Merriam Webesters Law (1996) has it as the 2nd (of two) and Princeton's WordNet (2003) has it as the 4th. Additionally, all major English-speaking countries call their lower chamber "House of" ("Commons" in Canada and UK, Australia; Representatives in New Zealand and US). You can actually see this in the "Members of Paliament" page in wikipedia).

Similarly for "deputy" American Heritage has "memeber of a legislative body" as 3rd and last and WordNet as 3rd out of four. I think this makes it pretty clear that though people might understand what "chamber of deputies" refers to, it really isn't a good translation. Usage is critical in defining the appropriate terms for translation and in this case "chamber of deputies" is clearly not current standard usage. I think House of Representatives is the best possible solution, as commons is obviously not applicable. Anita in the tropics 09:32, 21 January 2006 (UTC)Anita in the tropics

I would be strongly in favour of the status quo on this page. There are other terms that don't translate directly into English or vice versa, but are left as they are. For example, the presiding officer of most legislative chambers would be known in English as the President, not the Speaker. Similarly, we don't call Japan's Diet the Parliament, or its upper house, the House of Councillors, the Senate. The Dutch Parliament's lower house is known as the Second Chamber, even though in English this would refer to the upper house, which in the Netherlands, is called the First Chamber.

Belgium's lower house is known in English as the Chamber of Representatives, which corresponds with Chambre des répresentants in French and Kamer van volksvertegenwoordigers in Dutch. The German equivalent is, however, Abgeordneterhaus - 'haus' (house), not 'kammer' (chamber).

The only justification for using 'House' instead of 'Chamber' is in countries where English is one of the official languages, like Canada and Malta. Hence we do not call the Canadian House of Commons the Chamber of Commons, or its members Deputies, although these would correspond with the French equivalents. The Maltese parliament is known in English as the House of Representatives, not the Chamber of Deputies, but there is some confusion over its name in Maltese. The official website calls it Kamra tad-Deputati, but there are other official references to Kamra tar-Rappreżentanti[3].

There are instances where Deputy is used in English-speaking jurisdictions. Members of Dáil Éireann, the lower house of the Irish parliament are referred to in English as Deputies, although their official Irish language title is TD Teachta Dála or 'Dáil messenger'. In the Channel Islands, the term Deputy is the official title for certain members of the States of Jersey, and all members of the States of Guernsey. There was talk in Jersey of scrapping the term in favour of 'MSJ' (Member of the States of Jersey) but this didn't happen.

Quiensabe 22:16, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

Under Burma/Myanmar's original constitution, the lower house of Parliamnet was known in English as the Chamber of Deputies, the upper house being the Chamber of Nationalities. As a former British colony, you'd expect something like 'House of Representatives' instead, but it was definitely the Chamber of Deputies.Quiensabe 23:39, 13 May 2006 (UTC)