Between April 8 and July 5, 2013, Laura Castaing and Jean-Pierre Hufen, both in their final semester of a Master of Trilingual Legal Studies at the Université de Nantes, translated several hundred articles of the Louisiana Civil Code from English into French. The title on the law of sale was completed and much progress was done in the translation of Book II, ‘Things and the Different Modifications of Ownership.’
For the first time in this three-year ongoing project, use was made of translation software: a translation memory keeps track of all translations made since the inception of the project. Our interns developed the database so that it would also include the bilingual versions of the Civil Code of Québec and of the Louisiana Digest of 1808. The translation memory favors better informed translator decisions and optimizes consistency in the translation work. It allows the translators to quickly verify the translation of similar articles or particular concepts in the Civil Code of Québec and the Digest of 1808.
This year’s effort will soon appear on the website of the Louisiana Civil Code Online project.
Besides code translation, Laura and Jean-Pierre have done a wonderful work translating legal doctrine. Laura helped translate a law review article from Spanish to English (published in the Journal of Civil Law Studies, Vol. 6.1) and both translated a law review article from French into English (forthcoming in Vol. 6.2 of the JCLS).
Our two interns’ visit was sponsored by a PUF (Partner University Fund) triennial program, Training Multilingual Jurists, based on a cooperative arrangement between the Université de Nantes and LSU Law (2012-2015).
Photos feature them with Prof. Moréteau and Daniel On, exploring South Louisiana and attending a conference in Lafayette.
