this post was submitted on 30 Aug 2025
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My experience is that using software translated into my native language, Croatian, is weird and confusing in general. As if it uses overly everyday vocabulary, without the adequately "techy" associations - when I paste (Cro. zalijepiti) something in real life, I do it with glue and it makes an object stand in place; when I paste (Cro. pejstati) something on my computer, I do it with ctrl+v and it results in a moved or duplicated file. Translated software uses the former Croatian word for the latter meaning as well, but to me the associations are much too different.
Alternatively, the terminology is coined consciously and spread top-down, so it's alien both to the original English and to everyday Croatian. Some of these terms have ended up accepted (sučelje = interface; probably from the verb sučeliti, to face something), but even after years of exposure in school I can't digest datoteka (Latin data + theca) for file. So, I stick to English whenever possible.
Croatian prescriptivists also love making up replacements for those pesky loanwords, but much like the French Academy's proposals (even those that aren't a parody: "jeu video de competition" instead of "e-sports") are cumbersome, overly literal multi-word constructions. They're not words at all, and I think they're particularly likely to not be accepted by the speakers. (This could be related to Shkovsky's idea of defamiliarisation, if you happen to be familiar with that by any chance...)
Same, I actively avoid using Croatian translations wherever possible because they're typically bad and sometimes lead to confusion when they translate some feature or option you're looking for in an unexpected way and then can't find it.
Yup, the same as the old lady - all those associations you make between a word and its meaning working against you, in a way a borrowing wouldn't. And if I had to guess:
Main difference is that "arquivo" and "pasta" are already well established within the community*; she isn't tech-savvy.
The Italian Crusca also behaves like this. I feel like those people are trying to treat a language like a bird, and "protecting" it by placing it in a cage.
(Note to self: check if the ABL or Pasquale [a local prescriptivist] prescribe something for ahegao, shimaidon, oyakodon, hentai, etc. They probably don't.)
*there's also "ficheiro" for "file", but it's mostly in European varieties. And "dire[c]tório" for "folder", but it's pretty much exclusive to Linux users.