In Georgia, Terminology Matters

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III INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON TERMINOLOGY - HERITAGE AND MODERNITY

From 29 October to 3 November 2022, the Head of TermCoord, Rodolfo Maslias, visited Georgia, where he attended as keynote speaker the Conference “Terminology, Heritage and Modernity”, organised by the Institute of Linguistics in the State University of Tbilisi. He had a series of meetings with the stakeholders of the very important terminology and lexicography work done in this applicant country, in view of the potential addition of Georgian to the EU languages, as well as with other universities participating in the academic cooperation of TermCoord, “Terminology without Borders“.

At the third yearly conference on terminology, perfectly organised by Lia Karosanidze (Head of Department of Scientific Terminology and Translating Dictionaries at TSU Arnold Chikobava Institute of Linguistics) and her team, were also present as keynote speakers: the President of the European Association for Terminology (EAFT), Henrik Nilsson, and the President of Infoterm (the terminology association created by UNESCO), Christian Galinki. As fourth representative from the European Union, Rute Costa from the Nova University of Lisbon made an interesting presentation online.

Rodolfo Maslias presented all the new features of IATE which turn the European terminology into an open source for the wide public, as well as the possibilities of an academic a cooperation with the European Parliament, also in non-EU languages, within the project “Terminology without Borders”. Four Georgian universities are already participating  in various fields of this project. Other important topics on which the European guests focused their contributions were the international terminology standards, the optimisation of the Georgian Term Bank and the coordination of terminology work in Georgia based on the model of other countries who joined the EU, like the Institute of Lithuanian Language, whose Director, Albina Auksoriute, was also present and participated in the opening panel.

During his stay in Tbilisi, the Head of TermCoord visited together with the organisers of the conference and the President of EAFT the office dealing with applications for the European Commission’s Horizon projects in order to explore the possibilities of a financial support for the creation of the Georgian Term Bank. He gave a lecture on European terminology to the students of the Tbilisi and Kutaisi State Universities and met with Mariam Keburia and Linda Giorgadze who are coordinating the teams of students working with TermCoord on food terminology. He also visited the historical premises of the Linguistic Institute and the Vukol Beridze Terminology Association and participated in a live television broadcast together with Tsitsi Gabeskiria, a very important figure of Georgian lexicography.

After the end of the conference, he had the opportunity to meet with the Director of the Bureau of Translation of International Agreements in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Nikoloz Memanishvili, accompanied by the certified translator Nana Gogia (who is also working with TermCoord on terminology projects) in order to advise on what tools could ease the translation of EU documents by the Georgian ministries and the extraction of the relevant terminology. Last but not least, Rodolfo Maslias met with the professor of the Ilia State University Tinatin Margalitadze who participates with her students in the “Terminology without Borders”  projects of Medicine and of Finance. As you can read in her interview published on termcoord.eu , Tinatin Margalitadze has created an impressive terminology tool, the Comprehensive English-Georgian Online Dictionary which can be used by all institutions and universities of Georgia to collect, augment, store and share all terminology data in English and Georgian. Finally, under her coordination, a fourth university, the University of Batumi, will soon start participating in the projects managed by TermCoord.

As it results from all this activities and contacts, Georgia is one of the most active countries in terminology and lexicography and the cooperation with the EU in this field will be of mutual interest and serve as a perfect pilot for the preparation of terminology for all EU-candidate countries.

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