1. IATE EU tool for translation-oriented terminology work
Christine Herwig
Terminology Coordination
DGT-D.3.2 European Commission
Vienna, April 2011

2. Unique? 8.6 million terms 23 EU languages + others
CAT tool for over EU translators

3. History IATE = “Inter-Active Terminology for Europe”
Objective: creation of an interactive terminology database for the consultation, storage and joint management of terminological data
IATE partners: European Parliament, Council, Commission, Court of Justice, Court of Auditors, European Economic and Social Committee, Committee of the Regions, European Investment Bank, European Central Bank, Translation Centre
Development work started in January 2000.
Internally IATE became operational at the beginning of 2005.

4. Interactive tool serving translators
European Commission
1750
Council
of the EU
650
European
Parliament
760
110
Translation Centre
100
Court of Auditors
350
Committee of the Regions and European Economic and Social Committee 30
Court of Justice
620
European Investment Bank 70
European Central Bank
Interpretation services
Lawyer-linguists

5. Interinstitutional management
IATE Management Group - IMG (one official representative per IATE partner)
Common rules and procedures (“Best Practice”, “Input Manual”)
Coordination of consolidation efforts
Coordination of terminology work for the “new languages”
Decisions on technical development
Technical support, maintenance and development

6. How DGT organises terminology work
IATE
Other EU institutions and bodies
“Terminology Coordination”
Terminology services and
organisations
Terminology projects
Terminology Board
Terminologists
Terminologists
Terminologists
Terminologists
Terminologists
Terminologists
Translators

7. How multilingual work is planned
Terminologists ask translators about their needs
Needs
Terminology Coordination Team
“WP Advisory Committee”
Draft
“Terminology Board”
Work programme

8. Translation-oriented work
systematic + ad hoc
subject-driven + text-driven
prescriptive + descriptive
multilingual + language-specific

9. European Commission - Right of initiative
The Commission’s ‘right of initiative’ means it is the main source of draft legislation.
It drafts and then implements acts adopted by the Council and the European Parliament.
New
subject fields
New
terminology

10. IATE - Present situation
Total
Commission
Concepts
1.5 million
0.9 million
approx.
60 %
Terms
8.6 million
5.7 million
Abbreviations
0.5 million
> 0.2 million
Phrases
0.15 million
< 0.1 million
7 March 2011

11. Language coverage
1958
German, French, Italian and Dutch  4 official languages
1973
English and Danish  6 official languages
1981
Greek  7 official languages
1986
Spanish and Portuguese  9 official languages
1995
Finnish and Swedish  11 official languages
2004
Czech, Estonian, Hungarian, Lithuanian, Latvian, Maltese, Polish, Slovak, Slovenian  20 official languages
2007
Bulgarian, Irish, Romanian  23 EU official languages + +
Latin
Languages of candidate and potential candidate countries: e.g. Croatian, Turkish +
Languages relevant to the European External Action Service:
e.g. Russian, Chinese, Arabic

12. Terms per language Language Number of terms BG 22 092 LA 64 623 CS
31 316 LT
43 652 DA LV
25 491 DE MT
23 239 EL NL EN PL
48 850 ES PT ET
28 293 RO
22 986 FI SK
28 626 FR SL
30 531 GA
37 030 SV HU
37 341
Others
24 661 IT
7 March 2011

13. Number of potential duplicates in IATE (Jan. 2011)

14. Main challenges for DGT terminology
Identify the most efficient way of incorporating data for the “new languages”
Respond to upcoming terminology needs (in relation to the Commission’s right of initiative)
Reduce the number of duplicates in the legacy data (consolidating IATE content)

15. Structure of IATE records
Language-independent
information
E.g.: Domain, Domain note, Origin, Problem language, Cross reference
Language 1 EN
Language 2 FR
E.g.: Definition, Reference, Note
E.g.: Term, Reference, Term type, Context, Context reference, Grammatical information
Term 1
Term 2
Term 1
Term 2

16. “Language-independent level” and “Language level”

17. “Term level”

18. Subject field classification - EuroVoc
At generic level, the thesaurus EuroVoc has a two-tier hierarchical classification:
fields, identified by two-digit numbers and titles in words, e.g.: 10 EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES
microthesauri, identified by four-digit numbers — the first two digits being those for the field containing the microthesaurus — followed by titles in words, e.g.: European Union law
Struktur
Sachbereiche und Mikrothesauri
Der Thesaurus EUROVOC ist auf generischer Ebene durch eine hierarchische Klassifizierung auf zwei Ebenen strukturiert:
die Sachbereiche, gekennzeichnet durch eine zweistellige Nummer und eine Bezeichnung, z.B.: 10 EUROPÄISCHE GEMEINSCHAFTEN
die Mikrothesauri, gekennzeichnet durch eine vierstellige Nummer, deren zwei erste Ziffern dem Sachbereich entsprechen, unter den der Mikrothesaurus fällt, und durch eine Bezeichnung, z.B.: GEMEINSCHAFTSRECHT
Die Numerierung der Sachbereiche und der Mikrothesauri ist in allen Sprachfassungen gleich.
Äquivalenzrelation
"UF" (Used for = verwendet für), zwischen dem Deskriptor und dem bzw. den Nichtdeskriptoren, für die er steht.
"USE" (zu verwenden), zwischen einem Nichtdeskriptor und dem Deskriptor, für den er steht.
Quantitative Merkmale
Alle Sprachfassungen des Thesaurus EUROVOC enthalten :
21 Sachbereiche
127 Mikrothesauri
6645 Deskriptoren (davon 519 Top terms)
6669 gegenseitige Hierarchierelationen (BT/NT)
3636 Assoziationsrelationen.

19. In-house IATE Is password-protected Allows interactive use
Has a “virtual antechamber”, Pre-IATE, for raw data and multilingual batch imports
Glossaries
Collections
...
Raw data
Pre-IATE

20. Interactive Use New entries and modifications Communication Validation
“Write” rights for translators and terminologists
Communication
A “mark” function allows users to add comments to specific entries
Validation
Is mother-tongue-based to ensure data quality

21. IATE Public: http://iate.europa.eu
Officially opened on 28 June 2007
Search words, wildcards and special characters
If you specify several search terms, IATE will retrieve entries that contain all terms, whether they occur in the given order or not.
E.g. looking for European Commission will retrieve…
European Commission
European Travel Commission
Commission of the European Communities
Putting your search term between quotes - “ - will allow you to find it in the way you specified it.
E.g. looking for “European Commission” will retrieve…
European Commission on Agriculture
You can use the wildcard characters “*” (asterisk) and “_” (underscore), e.g.
The asterisk can be used to replace any number of characters in your search term. E.g. searching for “termino*” will find all IATE entries that contain words starting with “termino”
The underscore can be used to replace exactly one character.
Search is not case-sensitive; commission will find Commission and commission.
It is not necessary to type vowels with diacritical marks ( ´ ` ^ ¨  ˜ ) and special characters (e.g.: ñ, ç). You can also use plain vowels and n, c instead.
ELμηλο finds μήλοESaccion finds acciónITuniversita finds universitàNLideeen finds ideeënPLczesc finds część PTameijoa finds amêijoa
Shares all validated EU terminology with the public

22. Thank you for your attention.