23 January 2017

City? Town? Village? How we spent the last three weeks....

So do you think you know what a "town" is? Or a "city"? Or a "village"? Intuitively, we all know. But these terms have technical, administrative meanings, not just their loose meanings in our everyday language.

In the U.S., matters relating to the organization, structure, and terminology used by and for local government authorities are left to each state to decide. We learned this the hard way, working with the translator who drafted French-language versions of our birth certificates.

Good translators — especially court-certified, officially accredited translators working with legal documents — need to be precise and accurate. They don't "adapt" the texts the way they might if they were translating a novel or a magazine article. They don't leave anything out. Every word and sentence on the document needs to be translated, or the translation needs to be annotated to explain why some of the information is not included. For example, a signature that is illegible might call for a note saying signature illisible.

The birth certificates Walt managed to get from the state department of health in New York state were our biggest headache. They were chock full of sentences that were "helpful" instructions and examples for the person who was filling out different fields on the form. For example, in the Occupation field, there were examples like "silk mill worker." The problem was that they were in tiny type that was blurred because the printouts from microfilm were so bad. It was frustrating, but Walt and I deciphered all that we could. We couldn't find a model of the form on-line, so we had to do our best. Translators, of course, don't want to just take your word for it. They want it clear. We worked through it as best we could.

Then there were the words and expressions that were legible. That was almost harder. For example, in everyday French, there are really only two words to describe something we have three words for in English — town, city, and village. In French, you have ville and village. The ville can be une petite ville (town) or une grande ville (city) but those are not technical terms.

In France the official, technical term for these incorporated local entities is commune. But it doesn't really correspond to a term in English — at least not in American English. We don't have communes, in the French sense. Communes are not exactly villages, towns, or cities, but at the same time commune is the name for all of those. The commune we live in has a bourg ("burg"), which is the village center, and a dozen or more hameaux (hamlets) or settlements. Just to help things along, these unincorporated hamlets are called villages by the local population. Bourg (village center) is not an administrative or technical term but just a colorful expression. Another term for it might be agglomération (the built-up area).

Have a look at the differences between the terminology and organization in just two U.S. states, New York (where Walt was born) and North Carolina (where I was born). Here are some of the things I have learned about New York: everybody who lives in the state of New York lives either in a town or a city. Some people live in a village, a town, and a county at the same time. Others live in a city and a county. Towns and cities are two completely — well, almost completely — mutually exclusive entities, but towns and villages are not. At the same time, both cities and villages are incorporated municipalities, so they are equivalent on some legal level.

It turns out that a town in New York is not at all what most of us think of when we use the word "town" in the rest of the U.S. A New York town is what many states call a township. It's an unincorporated area that can contain villages and hamlets that all have placenames. In many states, townships have cities in them, but not in N.Y. Cities stand alone. Meanwhile, the largest village in New York is larger than many of the state's cities. The states largest town (official usage) is larger than any city in New York with the exception of New York City (which spans five counties and has no towns or townships embedded in it).

Meanwhile, in North Carolina, everybody necessarily lives in a named township. Some people live in towns, which by law, can also be called villages or cities. In other words, there is no distinction, legally, between a village, a town, and a city in N.C. Local people who get the authorization to incorporate a government for their settlement can call the place a village, a town, or a city as they please. The state doesn't care. For example, the place where I was born and grew up is called "The Town of Morehead City."

Okay, I guess I've made that point. You probably don't care any more. A New York town can't have a city in it. A North Carolina town is a city if it says it is. The complications of all this can make your head spin. Imagine — there are 50 U.S. states, and every one is probably different from the all others, by some order of magnitude, where the details of the terminology it uses at the local level of government is concerned.

And then the poor translator has to sort it all out. What is a New York "town" in French terminology? It's not a commune. It's not a ville. It's not a village. As a translator, you can't just make up a term for it. A New York town doesn't have a mayor. But if there is a village in the town, the village has a mayor. France has terms like canton, lieu-dit, and arrondissement, but none of them seems to mean town or township — a subdivision of a county.

On the New York birth certificate, to specify birthplace, the form includes afield for the name of the Town, and another field for Village or City. Walt's parents lived in a Town (an unincorporated area outside Albany) but not in a village. The field for Village or City was filled in with the name Albany. Maybe that was just an error, but there it was, and it had to be dealt with. While people in New York and elsewhere in the U.S. know intuitively that Albany NY is a city, but a non-American translator might not. How can you live in a town and in a city at the same time? Actually, you can't, in New York, but your mailing address (post offices being a federal, not local, institution), if you live outside but close to the border of a city, can be the name of the city.

We've been going around and around about all this. The differences in the way different countries and states are organized and the terms are used make it nearly impossible to do a translation that is 100% accurate. Even if you know that a lot of this doesn't matter to the few government employees and functionaries who will be the only ones to ever read these translations (if they do), when you are in the throes of the job of getting everything right you can't let yourself be distracted by that. Does anybody care that my father was born outside of town, in a township, while the French translation of his birth certificate says he was born in the town? Or that Walt's parents lived in a town but had a mailing adress in the city? Probably not.

Don't worry, there won't be a quiz on all this...

26 comments:

  1. My head just melted!
    We needed our birth certificates translated for the Carte Vitale....
    our accredited translator lived near Montrichard.... in fact, in Centre there were only three...
    she is in fact.......
    Scottish and very nice!!

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    1. I didn't know about the Scottish translator in Montrichard. We once consulted an Englishwoman translator in Rochecorbon. I wonder if she's still in the business.

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  2. I don't know for sure, but I think the NC version of things is more typical in the US. At least in my experience.

    Dutch vs English systems?

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    1. We have wondered about that. NY has a long and colorful history. In NC, the township organization was an experiment after the Civil War, evidently, but is more or less vestigial at this point. Pourquoi faire compliqué quand on peut faire simple — in NC, city, town, and village all have the same legal definition — take your choice.

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  3. Are you managing to get this all done in the three-month window? I must do all this, too.

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    1. No, the translation job has taken about 3 months. Our birth certificates are years old now. I've never run into the three-month limit before, with American birth certificates. I've always heard about it though. We started working on all this back in 2012 when we went to spent a couple of weeks in Upstate NY.

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    2. I hope you paid by the word or the line and not by the hour ;) because three months seems like an awful long time to me. Getting the terminology right may be time-consuming, but it's not like trying to write literature, is it? I used to work as a freelance translator in the 80-ties, and my delays were max. 3 weeks for approx. 65 A4 pages ... And I had an office job during the day, doing my freelance work in the evening and during weekends. Anyway, good luck with the red-tape Mr. soon-to-be-Frenchman! ;)

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    3. We got a very reasonable rate from the translator, and high-quality results. The work started not long before the end-of-year holidays, which slowed things down a little, and we weren't in a big hurry. All in all, I'm pretty pleased with the service.

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  4. As interesting as it is, I am pleased there won't be a quiz. I don't suppose that the translator would be pleased if you told a fib or two to ensure things go smoothly. No, I am sure not.

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    1. You are almost required to tell a fib or two to get these translations done. Not knowingly, however. Since each state in the U.S., not to mention the U.K., Canada, and Australia, has its own vocabulary, we can always plead ignorance.

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  5. I live in Fairfax County, in the state of Virginia, but my mailing address is Alexandria, VA, in VA the area of the incorporated city, is not part of the County.

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    1. Well, the U.S. post office, a federal entity, works in mysterious ways.

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  6. I live in Arlington in Northern Virginia.

    Here is what the internet says:

    Arlington is a county located in the Commonwealth of Virginia, on the west bank of the Potomac River directly across from Washington, D.C. Although sometimes referred to as a city, Arlington is actually a county which contains no incorporated towns or cities within its boundaries.

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    1. I've never understood Arlington. It's a county. Why not, I guess. The U.S. states of Virginia and New York have an impenetrable system of organization. What makes Virginia a commonwealth and not a state, anyway?

      At one point, there was talk about describing a NY town as a ville, which it is definitely not, and the city of Albany (pop. 100,000) as a bourg. That made no sense to me, especially since Morehead City (pop. 8,000) was called a ville. Anyway, we worked it all out, as best we could.

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    2. Since Travel mentioned Fairfax County, which is adjacent to Arlington County, I was curious to know more about Fairfax City.

      The City of Fairfax is an independent city forming an enclave within the confines of Fairfax County, in the Commonwealth of Virginia. Although politically independent of the surrounding county, the City is nevertheless the county seat.

      The second sentence is priceless!

      Even more confusing is what I found for Alexandria, Virginia:

      A portion of adjacent Fairfax County, Virginia is named Alexandria, but is under the jurisdiction of Fairfax County and separate from the city; the city is sometimes referred to as the City of Alexandria or Alexandria City to avoid confusion. Confusion avoided! Government gobbledygook!

      What is separate from the city? And which city?

      Headache already?

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    3. Commonwealth is an old term for state and there are four, VA, KY, PA and MA (I googled). Being from KY I like the term a lot since it has symbolism that appeals to my left wing.
      My brother lived in Annandale which is in Fairfax county and he was proud that it always voted blue.

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  7. I'm going to take a stab at it. I would suggest that in the New York sense, "town" is a "commune" and Albany is a "ville" within that commune. My daughter lives in a hamlet of 2 homes (Le Pède -- don't get me started on Google's refusal to correct their mis-spelling of that) in the village of Ginals, which is part of a "communauté de communes" that stretches over a vast territory.

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    1. Ellen, did you know the movie The One Hundred-Foot Journey, Les recettes du bonheur in French, was shot just a few encablures from your daughter's in Saint-Antonin-Noble-Val?

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  8. What. A. Headache.
    In my research on Sears houses, I am frequently sifting through mortgage records, city directories, and census records. I've been working in NY state of late, and have encountered this township, village, city issue in Mamaroneck, Larchmont, Rye.... it's ridiculous. Additionally, since I'm dealing with records from the 1920s usually, I have the problem that some of these places have changed from being a village or township or whateeeeevvvvver, since then.

    In St. Louis, we have St. Louis City, which is its own county, too. But, all of the suburbs for miles and miles around St. Louis City, are in St. Louis County. Good luck future genealogy researchers :)

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  9. It sounds even worse than in Buenos Aires and I can't even begin to whine about that ...

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  10. In the US Army there is a rule for paperwork- fill every blank, sometimes it doesn't matter what you put in the spot, just make sure you put something. Good luck with your task!

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  11. Yes, New York, NY , USA is a mind bender for some people who work in offices in Buenos Aires too.
    But we ended up making friends with more people because of it .... they all would tell us how much they want to visit New York :)

    *some countries excel in ridiculous paperwork and how many copies and what color ink *
    This too shall pass :).

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  12. If you made a mistake, how would anyone know?
    I like what Evelyn said.
    What a nightmare!

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    1. The translator was slightly confused by the different terminology on birth certificates from different states — and understandably so. Walt and I were confused too, until we compared notes and figured it all out (we think).

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    2. The translator was slightly confused by the different terminology on birth certificates from different states — and understandably so. Walt and I were confused too, until we compared notes and figured it all out (we think).

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