Terminology

[SM5POR]

I saw that this forum has a section labelled "Integrity" and described as meant for "big brother issues". According to The Concise Oxford Dictionary, "integrity" means either "moral uprightness; honesty" or "wholeness; soundness". These two meanings also apply to the corresponding Swedish word, "integritet".

However, "integritet" is today often used as a shortening of "personlig integritet", which is a concept I doubt has a good English translation, and "personal integrity" sounds a bit "Swenglish" to me. I believe the concept relates to the "wholeness; soundness" meaning above. Every person deserves being treated as a whole individual with a unique set of desires and needs, not as a mere "client", "customer", "viewer", "pair of eyeballs" or "social security number" unrelated to everything else. When an airline company or a government confuses a suspected terrorist with a six-year-old boy just because they have identical names (or whatever) and refuses to consider the obvious differences, this constitutes a violation of that boy's "personliga integritet".

Could any of you native speakers of English let us know what you consider an appropriate term for what I describe above?

The word "privacy" doesn't make it; that translates to "privatliv" (private life) in Swedish, and doesn't imply any consideration for someone's "wholeness". Unfortunately, the term "personlig integritet" is sometimes misunderstood also in Swedish as a synonym for "anonymity" or "privacy", which has led to a rather confusing debate.

Maybe we should compile a multi-lingual glossary of terms that are of central importance to pirate parties worldwide? We may not agree on exactly how much privacy is desirable, but we could at least agree on what the word "privacy" really means, and so on for "intellectual property", "moral rights" and whatever.

Privacidad, intimidad, integridad, propriedad intelectual, derechos de reproducción, propriedad industrial, patente, Integrität, Privatleben, intellektuelles Eigentum, Urheberrecht, droit morale...

[pululante]

Hey, you know a lot of Spanish words!!!

It would be useful to have that common dictionary of words, as I hope many texts will have to be shared and translated among all Pirate Parties.

[Nicklas W Bjurman]

Alright that is a good idea. One section of international terminology dictionary is ordered as above for the frontpage.

[SM5POR]

Hey, you know a lot of Spanish words!!!

No, estudioando español por como un año (1977-78, as my third foreign language), but I have a 1,400-page Oxford Spanish-English/English-Spanish dictionary sitting almost unused in my bookshelf.

It would be useful to have that common dictionary of words, as I hope many texts will have to be shared and translated among all Pirate Parties.

Precisely, and it may be useful as a general reference glossary as well, also without any immediate translation needs. As I mentioned above, there is confusion even among speakers of Swedish about the meaning of "personlig integritet". It certainly helps to understand the words you use before you begin translating them into other languages, and a sound political agenda should not be based on mistranslations...

This is not a problem with pirate party issues only, but with political issues in general. When Sweden joined the EU in 1995, a unilateral declaration was made with respect to the legal status of what in Swedish is known as "allmänna handlingar" (documents held by a public agency). A simple translation is "public documents", but that is sometimes misleading or plain wrong as the documents may be classified (secret). If I recall correctly, the English translation of the 1995 declaration used the term "official documents" instead, but it remains to be seen whether all EU member states interprets this term as covering also letters sent by private citizens to some local government agency.

By the way, how would you express "personlig integritet" (or "the quality of being treated as a whole and unique individual") in Spanish?

[Mab]

I´m a native swede aswell, so take my comments for what they are. A swedish online dictionary actually uses the following example after concluding that integritet translates to integrity:

skyddet för den personliga integriteten---protection against intrusions on personal integrity

This is a swedish site though, so what you call "swenglish" (swedification?) migh well be in work here.

If you take an american site about philosophyand reads what they say about personal integritythey seem to link it foremost to the concept of integrity as a virtue and this would imply that the english personal integrity does not correlate with the swedish personlig integritet.

The best translation I find is actually privacy, even if it misses the mark somewhat. See for example privacy (especially the part about privacy from government interference) or Right of privacy. The case may be that privacy is actually a better word for what we´re aiming at than the swedish concept of personlig integritet and that instead of seeing it as a flawed translation we should consider the possibility that it´s a better interpretation of what we want to strengthen and that it is the swedish language that lacks a proper expression for our third pillar.

[SM5POR]

A swedish online dictionary actually uses the following example after concluding that integritet translates to integrity:

skyddet för den personliga integriteten---protection against intrusions on personal integrity

It's interesting that they use it as an example, but since they don't explain the concept, it could really mean anything, and not necessarily involve privacy at all.

If you take an american site about philosophyand reads what they say about personal integritythey seem to link it foremost to the concept of integrity as a virtue and this would imply that the english personal integrity does not correlate with the swedish personlig integritet.

Agreed; I didn't read the entire article, but they seem to describe in great detail the distinction between the two meanings of integrity which I found in The Oxford Concise Dictionary, where "moral uprightness; honesty" refers to the human virtue and "wholeness; soundness" is a more generic interpretation that can be applied to non-human objects as well. Thus the two meanings are not contrary to each other, but are rather used in different contexts (with respect to different objects).

That article doesn't mention the word "privacy" either, though they seem to touch on the concept under point 8, where they discuss integrity as a matter between the individual and society. To me, privacy may be a way for an individual to defend his or her own integrity, let's say by not allowing information about intimate relationships to be made public. However, an extrovert person (such as an enthusiastic "Big Brother" reality show participant) may well allow such intimate information to be made public without sacrificing any integrity at all; this is a highly individual matter.

The case may be that privacy is actually a better word for what we´re aiming at than the swedish concept of personlig integritet and that instead of seeing it as a flawed translation we should consider the possibility that it´s a better interpretation of what we want to strengthen and that it is the swedish language that lacks a proper expression for our third pillar.

Here I agree too; I think personal integrity is much too broad a concept to properly describe what the Pirate Party is about, and privacy is a lot easier to explain in practical terms. So, could someone please consider renaming that forum section now labelled "Integrity" to "Privacy"?

[infinite_emma]

Thanks for doing the research - I wasn't happy with it when putting it up (which is why I wanted to make it clearer by the big brother comment below it). Glad you sorted it out!

[pan Piotr Glownia]

I saw that this forum has a section labelled "Integrity" and described as meant for "big brother issues". According to The Concise Oxford Dictionary, "integrity" means either "moral uprightness; honesty" or "wholeness; soundness". These two meanings also apply to the corresponding Swedish word, "integritet".

In Polish I used word "nietykalnos'c' ", which means "intangible" and "unpalpable". In meaning of "without blame" or of "honor without stain". If someone would touch you with glove, then it would leave a stain on you...
So there's my Polish not-touching .

[SM5POR]

In Polish I used word "nietykalnos'c' ", which means "intangible" and "unpalpable".

That sounds like yet another connotation to me... Good, it shows that a glossary will be helpful.

In meaning of "without blame" or of "honor without stain". If someone would touch you with glove, then it would leave a stain on you...

I think I'm getting the gist of it. When browsing library shelves in the late 1970's for books on computer technology, I didn't find a lot of it, but instead quite a few books on individual privacy and the computerization of society, topics which I wasn't too interested in at the time, and I considered those books misplaced. When I later investigated the system of subject classification, I found that those books had more specifically been classified as dealing with computer security, along with technical litterature on access control, authentication, encryption, and data integrity - the issue of verifying the authenticity and correctness of stored data. I couldn't help wondering if the librarians had misread the classification guide and confused "personal integrity" with "data integrity"!

In later revisions of the classification system, new codes have been devised for societal issues relating to information technology, and the technology shelf now looks a bit more coherent. However, in the public debate "personal integrity" is still often confused with a general strive for secrecy and restricted access, while other aspects of the concept are generally ignored.

I had intended to include Polish and a number of other languages in my poll, but it turned out I wasn't allowed to enter more than ten options...

[gustafsd]

I had intended to include Polish and a number of other languages in my poll, but it turned out I wasn't allowed to enter more than ten options...

I´ve raised the maximum number of polls to 20. Remember though that if you edit the poll the votes will still be in that category. So if you change other inte polish then everybody who has choosen other will be counted as polish..

[SM5POR]

I´ve raised the maximum number of polls to 20. Remember though that if you edit the poll the votes will still be in that category. So if you change other inte polish then everybody who has choosen other will be counted as polish..

I don't intend to modify the poll, as it would be unfair to those who have already voted. It's not that important anyway; I just wanted a rough indication of what languages the readers know well.

As my catch-all option suggests, if it's used, then we need another poll... However, I don't think repeating this exercise with 19 different languages instead of 9 will do a lot of good. Instead, you may want to add a field "native language" to the user profile, and then produce all sorts of statistics from the data volunteered by the users.

[liozzi]

...Instead, you may want to add a field "native language" to the user profile, and then produce all sorts of statistics from the data volunteered by the users.

That sounds like the best idea since the demographic will probably change as the organization grows.