Principles
- It is crucial that those involved in the translation, verification, validation, and approval processes are familiar with the terminological principles on which SNOMED CT® is based. It is equally important that they comply with IHTSDO Style Guides and that they are conscious of issues such as the choice of lexical variant, term requirements, translation techniques, and the importance of ensuring linguistic consistency.
Translation Project Owners (TPOs) should strive to ensure that translations comply with the principles on which SNOMED CT® was originally based (comprehensibility, reproducibility, usefulness) and that the information contained in the translated concepts is semantically equivalent to that contained in the core source terminology (international release).
The basic objective of any SNOMED CT® translation is to provide accurate and unambiguous descriptions of SNOMED CT® concepts in the target language. Therefore, a principle of concept-based translation must be used. Defining a set of national linguistic guidelines, including syntactical, morphological, and orthographic rules, to support that approach, is also crucial.
General linguistic principles
- The overall principle should be that since the target group of the national edition of SNOMED CT® are professionals, a high level of quality LSP (Language for Specific Purpose) terms should prevail. It is recommended that some preliminary, general principles regarding the choice of lexical variant are established before the translation work commences.
Recommendations or policies established by a national language council, authority or board should, in general, be followed
Planning a translation
Resource requirements
What not to do . . .
(incomplete - work in progress)