De Fructibus Food Terminology Challenge

1384

Monday the 4th of June witnessed the biggest event of the Directorate-General for Translation of the European Parliament – the Babel Party. This annual event brings together the representatives of all 24 Translation Units and the support units, with the Terminology Coordination Unit among them, to celebrate diversity and multiculturalism united under the umbrella of the European Union.

It is believed that one can learn more about a culture through its food – and surely, a lot of learning was happening at this year’s Babel Party. All DG TRAD units did their absolute best to bring forward the signature treats of their respective homelands, together with occasional bits of knowledge about the culture behind them.

True to the nature of its work, the Terminology Coordination Unit decided to bring all the languages and cultures together by introducing a juicy challenge for all the Babel Party attendees. The TermCoord table was covered with a wide variety of fresh fruit, berries and nuts. The task was simple: in order to help themselves to a bit of a fresh fruit, visitors had to write the name of that particular fruit in their respective language on a provided sheet of paper.

This was the team’s opportunity to promote the I·ATE Food Term project, which is all about bringing food, language and culture together.

 


Written by Dimitri Efremov, a Communication Study Visitor at the Terminology Coordination Unit of the European Parliament (Luxembourg) and a student of the Master Programme in Learning and Communication in Multilingual and Multicultural Contexts at the University of Luxembourg.