Language of documents
Posted: Mon Jan 21, 2002 12:00 am
I always advise beneficiaries to look for ways to reduce the possibilities of discrepancies. Choosing to present in a language other than that of the L/C is asking for trouble. The banks have the option whether or not to accept the presentation in another language, but if two people are asked to translate the same text, you will not get identical results. Therefore in the L/C context you run the risk (unnecessarily) of discrepancies due to interpretative differences.
The earlier suggestion of specifically nominating exclusively the language to be used may turn out to be counter-productive if strict compliance is used. If English is nominated, is this American English, British English etc; if Arabic is nominated, is this Egyptian Arabic, Saudi Arabic etc ? One can see comparisons in the software industry, where generic products are "localised" for national markets, but even top localisation specialists like Microsoft get it wrong.
Laurence
[edited 1/21/02 10:21:29 AM]
The earlier suggestion of specifically nominating exclusively the language to be used may turn out to be counter-productive if strict compliance is used. If English is nominated, is this American English, British English etc; if Arabic is nominated, is this Egyptian Arabic, Saudi Arabic etc ? One can see comparisons in the software industry, where generic products are "localised" for national markets, but even top localisation specialists like Microsoft get it wrong.
Laurence
[edited 1/21/02 10:21:29 AM]