IAA SPACE TERMINOLOGY ACTIVITY – A PERSONAL VIEW IN RETROSPECT
- Paper number
IAC-08.E7.1.1
- Author
Prof. Ivan Almar, MANT- Hungarian Astronautical Society, Hungary
- Year
2008
- Abstract
IAA started to work on multilingual space terminology more than 21 years ago. This was not a usual study group project to produce a specific dictionary or lexicon, but became a long process, which is continuously going on in the 21st century as well. At the beginning an ad hoc committee collected basic terms using different aerospace dictionaries. This first step had a crucial influence on the future of the undertaking: the selection of the 2600 English terms has been criticized from the very beginning. Nevertheless the terms were successfully translated to 15 other languages by a big number of voluntary experts guided by a small group of Academicians and by Dr. Contant, secretary of IAA in particular. The result has been published first as bilingual booklets (1992), later as a multilingual dictionary on floppy discs and finally on a CDRom (2002). In the meantime terminology symposia and workshops were organized almost every year – with moderate success. A selection of the terminology papers has been published as a special issue of Acta Astronautica. The next period started with the reappraisal of the original basic list, recognizing the need of up-dating the basic list and of adding correct definitions to each of the terms. Mainly our Japanese colleagues and chairman Prof. Ninomiya in particular have emphasized the importance of the internet accessibility as well. The progress in this respect was slow, but successful in the last 6 years. The necessity of the whole venture is nowadays more obvious than ever, but its voluntary character raises difficulties on the way of realizing such a big project.
- Abstract document
- Manuscript document
IAC-08.E7.1.1.pdf (🔒 authorized access only).
To get the manuscript, please contact IAF Secretariat.