NATO Conference: the world of terminology meets in Brussels

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I would prefer to abandon the terminology of the past. ‘Superpower’ is something which we used during the cold war time. Why use it now?

CaptureThese words, pronounced by Russian President Vladimir Putin during an interview in 2006, were chosen to introduce the NATO Conference on Terminology Management that will be taking place on the 19th and 20th November in Brussels.

With a wide range of speakers gathering from all over the world to discuss how terminology can be put to good use beyond translation, the programme promises to be a very interesting one. Organised by the NATO Standardisation Office (NSO), the two-day event aims at exchanging ideas and information on how large institutions organise, standardise and otherwise coordinate their terminology. TermCoord will seize this opportunity, with Mr. Rodolfos Maslias, Head of Unit, being among the participants.

Since it was first established in 1949, specialists’ communities within NATO have felt the need to organise terminology. However, it was not until the NATO Policy for Standardisation was approved in 2000 that an ad hoc programme was created. Managed by the NATO Terminology Office (NTO), the NATO Terminology Programme (NTP) aims at assessing which terms, based on the Policy’s statement according to which all NATO documents and communications of all kinds must use “NATO agreed terminology”, can be considered for approval.

bannerYou can find further information on NATO terminology on the website, where free access to non-classified NATO glossaries and documents is given, as well as to other useful tools such as NATOTerm, an English and French termbase that contains non-classified military and non-military terminology relevant to the organisation.

Written by Maria Bregolato
Terminology trainee at TermCoord