Translation Charter of the Corpus

Note on the translation — This translation re-fixes the source text without displacing its substance. A few terms of the corpus have no obvious equivalent in English; the choices made, and how they are to be read, are set out in the section “Translation choices” at the end of the volume. This translation is not frozen: it will evolve with readers’ feedback and with the improvement of the means of translation. The French version is authoritative.

v2.1.0 — VALID. A living document: a constructed source, intended to be stable, not frozen — it improves as feedback comes in and as the means of translation are perfected. The French version is authoritative. This version incorporates the contributions of the second edition of the corpus: twenty-two more locked terms, and the translator’s notes they call for.

Location: volumes/charte_de_traduction/ in the corpus repository, next to volumes/lexique_canonique/ (the document it extends). It governs the corpus; the organization of the translation (roles, tree structure, states of the volumes) is described in traductions/README.md.

Use. This document is passed as an instruction to a translation model. The instruction asks it first to immerse itself in the corpus (§0), then to read the charter, then to translate:

“First acquaint yourself with the corpus — at the very least the canonical lexicon and the trilogy — to immerse yourself in its concepts (the principle of re-fixing, the substance/form distinction, drawing, the datum as a constituted entity, distinct from the trace). Then read the translation charter (volumes/charte_de_traduction/01-e2_charte_de_traduction-file.md), then propose a translation into the desired language of the volume volumes/<slug>/, applying in full the methodology (§1–§2) and the table of locked equivalents (§4), extensions included.”

§0. Before Translating: Immersing Oneself in the Corpus

The charter uses the vocabulary of the corpus — re-fixing, substance/form, drawing, constituted datum, copy without division, the reader’s share. These terms are not neutral technical instructions: they carry the ontology that the translation must serve. A model that read the charter without knowing the corpus would apply rules whose reason it does not grasp — and would betray the substance while believing it preserved it.

Before reading the rest of this document, the translator therefore acquaints themselves with the corpus, in this order:

1. The canonical lexicon (volumes/lexique_canonique/01-e2_lexique_canonique-file.md) — the single definitional source: it fixes the meaning of each term that the charter uses again.
2. The trilogy (the three tomes) — the substance in its unfolding. It is from the trilogy that drawing, freshness, lapse and the canal (Tome 1), fixation and copy without division (Tome 2), the situated reader (Tome 3) and the trace (Tome 1) come. The principle of re-fixing, on which the whole charter rests, extends the fixation of Tome 2: the datum navigates because it is fixed; translating is re-fixing it on another medium of meaning without dividing it.
3. Failing reading everything first, for a quick way in: the architecture volume (volumes/volume_d_architecture/01-e2_architecture-file.md) gives the systematic register of the trilogy — twelve theses, looped diagram, minimal ontology. Its threshold states its status: neither a summary, nor a fourth tome.

Only once immersed in these concepts — when “re-fixing without dividing” and “preserving the substance, translating the form” have become self-evident and not formulas — does the translator read the methodology (§1) and carry out the translation.

§1. Methodology for the Translation

The Principle: A Re-fixing

Translation is a re-fixing: the datum — the substance of the corpus — is, when the re-fixing preserves the declared invariants, duplicated without division — a new occurrence of the same datum — and, if one of them is altered, a descendant datum that opens a filiation; in both cases, the operation and the source text are inscribed in the provenance. Only the inscription carried by the medium changes. The physical medium is not what changes: it is the inscription that changes language while indicating the same value, so as to make the datum intelligible and to allow the practicable share of a reader who has a different knowledge. The translator does not rewrite the argument; they change the language in which the argument is inscribed.

The Six Guiding Principles

1. The canonical lexicon is authoritative. Each locked term of the corpus receives a single equivalent per language (table §4). No synonymic drift: one term, one translation, throughout the corpus. A conceptual term absent from the canonical lexicon is outside the corpus and is not translated by improvisation — it is reported.
2. Substance/form preserved. The substance (what is true of the datum, independently of any technology) is translated with its greatest finesse, without paraphrase, without omission, without addition. Dated examples (figures, tools, sectors) are translated as they are: they illustrate the form and are replaceable, but it is not for the translator to replace them.
3. The founding images are translated by the image, never by jargon. The canal is a canal dug in the river (irrigation), never a communication “channel”; the source is a source of water (a spring), never an IT “data source”; drawing is a situated gesture (the register of a blood draw), never an industrial extraction. The extended lexical fields (water, digging, craft) are translated by the same extended lexical field.
4. The craft remains to be created. “Artisan de la donnée” is always translated accompanied, at its first occurrence in each volume, by the precision equivalent to “a craft yet to be created” — never presented as existing or established.
5. Civilian scope. The translation introduces no defence/dual-use content. Checked before delivery.
6. Prevention of biases. The translator does not “naturalize” the argument into the target culture to the point of displacing its substance: when an idiomatic equivalent would displace the meaning, literalness takes precedence and a translator’s note explains. Conversely, the servile calque that would make the text illegible betrays the re-fixing: the datum must remain practicable for the target reader. In case of tension, the order of precedence is: substance > locked term > fluency.

The Asterisk Convention

In table §4, an asterisk (*) marks a term open to discussion: ambiguous, tendentious, or one whose chosen equivalent results from an arbitration that could be contested. Each asterisked term is taken up in a note (§5) with the definition that corresponds to how it is to be read in the work. The asterisked terms are choices made, not open questions: the translator applies them as they are and does not reopen the arbitration.

§2. Directives for Execution (for the Translation Model)

0. Having read the corpus (§0). Begin no translation before having immersed oneself in the canonical lexicon and the trilogy: the charter can be understood only through them.
1. Translate document by document, in the order of the volume, as a complete re-fixing — never a summary, never an omission, never an addition, never a reorganization.
2. Consult table §4, extensions included, before each occurrence of a locked term. If a conceptual term of the corpus is absent from the table in the target language: do not improvise, report it (rule of what is outside the corpus) to the translation controller, with a proposal; while waiting for the controller’s decision, write the proposal between ⟦? and ⟧ and carry on — none of these marks remains at delivery. The translation controller decides, by delegation from the author, and records the decision in traductions/termes/journal.md and in the subsection “Extensions decided during the translation” (end of §4). If the whole target language is absent from the table: first apply §6 (extension of the table), deliver the extension to the translation controller, who validates it by delegation from the author, and carry out the translation only after validation.
3. Preserve the Markdown structure identically: headings, hierarchy, emphases, separators, tables, conceptual italics. For languages without typographic italics (Chinese, Japanese, Korean), render the conceptual emphasis by local conventions (quotation marks 「」/『』, 《》 for the titles of works in Chinese, emphasis dots where appropriate).
4. YAML header (the meta.md of the translated volume): lang updated (en, es, ar, zh, ja, ko, ru, hi); version takes up the source version with the language suffix (e.g. 5.2.0-en); dir: rtl for Arabic; provenance fields source-version, source-commit, traduction-date and traduction-modele (see traductions/README.md); a mention added, in the traduction-mention field and on the title page: “Translation produced by generative artificial intelligence, under the supervision of the author.” (translated into the target language).
5. Register: a sustained but limpid literary essay. Arabic: modern standard Arabic, Arabic punctuation (، ؛ ؟). Chinese: simplified characters (a traditional edition may derive from this one). Latin technical terms (LLM, IndexedDB, cron…) remain in Latin characters in all languages.
6. Translator’s note: inserted according to the model of §3.
7. Delivery: each translated volume is delivered in traductions/<code>/volumes/<slug>/, under the same file names as the source volume volumes/<slug>/ — the meta.md, each complete *-file.md file, the covers that carry text —, with a delivery note LIVRAISON.md that carries Statut : livré (see traductions/README.md). Complete files, never a diff. Validation falls to the translation controller, by delegation from the author: the controller’s verdict (traductions/controle/<code>/<slug>.md, “bon à intégrer” or “à corriger”) decides the integration of the volume.
8. Final check: check by search the absence of synonymic drift on the locked equivalents; check the civilian scope; check that the translator’s note is present and compliant; check the quotations (directive 9); run python3 traductions/outils/controle_auto.py <code> <slug> and correct what it finds.
9. Quotations: when the target language is the original language of a quoted work (Naur or Naisbitt in English, for example), the translation takes up the original text of the quotation, and not a retranslation from the French. In the other languages, the quotation is translated from the original when it is accessible, otherwise from the French; this second case is reported in the section “Translation choices” (§3), as is the case of an original text that cannot be found. The references of the quoted works appear in the annotated bibliographies of the tomes; copies of some are in ../Ressources-externes/, read-only: nothing is copied from them into the repository beyond the quotation itself.

§3. The Translator’s Note (Model)

On the model of the annotated bibliography of the tomes: a summary at the start of the work, a detailed section at the end of the work.

At the head of the volume (after the header, before the introduction), a brief box:

Note on the translation — This translation re-fixes the source text without displacing its substance. A few terms of the corpus have no obvious equivalent in this language; the choices made, and how they are to be read, are set out in the section “Translation choices” at the end of the volume. This translation is not frozen: it will evolve with readers’ feedback and with the improvement of the means of translation. The French version is authoritative.

At the end of the volume, a section “Translation choices” which takes up, for the language concerned: (a) the major arbitrations (the datum in the singular, drawing, lapse, canal, actualized, datum of origin, the titles), each with its reading-definition; (b) the asterisked terms of table §4 that appear in the volume, with their note from §5. Ten to thirty lines depending on the volume — the note says how to read the word, it does not replay the demonstration of the corpus.

§4. Table of Locked Equivalents

One term, one translation. The asterisks refer to §5. The table is enriched with new languages as they come (§6), and with the terms decided during the translation (“Extensions decided during the translation”, end of §4).

The Titles

Table A — English, Spanish, Arabic

Contributions of the Second Edition

Table B — Mandarin, Japanese, Korean

Contributions of the Second Edition

Table C — Russian, Hindi

Contributions of the Second Edition

Extensions Decided during the Translation

Terms added to the table by the translation controller, by delegation from the author (decision of 11 October 2026): the conceptual terms of the seventeen volumes that the previous tables did not cover, the compositions that §5 left to each language, the homonyms that must be separated from a locked term, and the labels of the translator’s apparatus (§3). The titles that the volumes cite from one another and the formulas taken up from one volume to another are fixed, with the same authority, in traductions/termes/titres_et_formules.md. Each decision is recorded, with its reason, in traductions/termes/journal.md.

The first table gives, once for all the languages, the reading of each added term and its locus; then comes one table per language, in the order of tables A, B and C. A cell that separates several terms with a semicolon or a slash gives them in the order of the FR column. The “Note” column takes the place of the note of §5: a term whose note is filled in is treated, in the section “Translation choices” (§3), as an asterisked term. These extensions have the same authority as the tables that precede them: one term, one translation.

Common Reading of the Added Terms

English (EN)

Spanish (ES)

Arabic (AR)

Mandarin (ZH)

Japanese (JA)

Korean (KO)

Russian (RU)

Hindi (HI)

§5. Notes on the Asterisked Terms

Each note gives the reading to be made of the term in the work. The terms that are not asterisked follow the definition of the canonical lexicon, transposed as it is.

English - drawing / to draw — the gesture of drawing from the flow (the register of drawing, not of statistics); sample/sampling is banned: it weakens the intention and shifts the meaning towards statistical sampling. - datum / data — the corpus requires the datum as an individual (it is born, can circulate, can go stale for a use); datum in the singular is unusual but exact, acknowledged from the translator’s note onwards. - lapse — the only English option that carries the temporal relation that widens, without a connotation of deterioration (“rotting”); expiry/expiration reserved for regulatory contexts. - canal — never channel (communication jargon): the image is the dug canal, irrigation. - canal-keeper — a coinage modelled on lighthouse-keeper; the digger-keeper of the canal. - verisimilar — formal, but exact: guaranteed by a model, not by the real; plausible would weaken it. - spring — the source of water (T2), never data source. - recounting — the recounting in the technical sense: re-inscription following the rereading of a lapsed datum. - the agreed — a deliberate substantivation; the shared language in which an activity draws.

Arabic - المُعطاة — the singular of معطيات; literally “the datum/the given”, the same etymology as datum. Unusual in the singular, acknowledged from the translator’s note onwards. - التقادم — legal register (prescription): it says the temporal relation, not the deterioration of the thing. - القنّاء — an attested classical term (Muʿjam al-Wasīṭ: the one who digs irrigation canals, قنوات). Validated by the author. - الصنيعة — the work as a thing shaped by the hand; distinct from الأثر (the trace).

Spanish - sustentante / sustentada — a choice made by the author: the sustentante supports and maintains (active element); the sustentada is supported and maintained (passive element). It sets aside the collision with portada (= cover).

Mandarin - 《流之考验》 — “the trial of the flow”; the title condenses, the translator’s note makes “tried by” explicit. - 汲取 — drawing (water) from the flow: keeps the hydraulic image of the gesture; 采样 (statistical sampling) and 提取 (industrial extraction) are banned. - 刻写行为 — the act of incising-writing: echoes the prehistoric notches of Tome 1. - 数据 — Chinese does not mark number; the datum as an individual is rendered by the classifier (一笔数据, 这笔数据) whenever individuality matters. - 参照文库 — the corpus that surrounds the datum and makes it legible; 语料库 (linguistic corpus) is too narrow. - 失效 — the loss of validity as a regulated relation; never 过期 (expired foodstuff), which would say deterioration. - 渠 — the dug irrigation canal; 渠道 is banned (commercial “channel” jargon), 频道/信道 too (telecoms). - 开渠人 — “the one who opens canals”: the canal-keeper. - 观测最优 — the optimum as a setting, not as a maximum. - 似真数据 — “resembling the true”: guaranteed by a model, not by the real. - 情境化的接手或处理位置 — established translation of situated (cf. 情境知识, situated knowledges) for 情境化; 接手 renders reprise as the taking charge of an arrived datum, never 再开 (restart) nor 再解读 (interpretive resumption). - 包络 — the envelope in the mathematical sense: the curve that envelops a family; what envelops the drawings and keeps them attuned.

Japanese - 『流れの試練』 — the trial of the flow; the translator’s note makes the nuance “put to the test by” explicit. - 採取 — drawing in the register of the specimen (採血, a blood draw): the intentional and situated gesture. - データ — the datum as an individual is rendered by 一つのデータ when individuality matters; the etymology of the “given” (与件) is set out in the translator’s note, without being used in the body of the text. - 水路 — the dug waterway (irrigation); never チャネル (jargon). - 水路守 — a coinage on the model of 灯台守 (lighthouse keeper): the keeper of the canal. - 尤もらしいデータ — “which looks true”: guaranteed by a model, not by the real. - 定着 — fixation, in the photographic register (定着液, the fixer): the inscription fixed on the medium. - 控え — the copy kept in reserve (traditional register of the preserved double): the frozen double, written once, never rewritten. - 語り直し — the technical recounting as “re-telling”: the re-inscription that makes the meaning legible again. - 包絡 — the mathematical envelope (see the Mandarin note).

Korean - 『흐름의 시험대에서』 — “on the test bench of the flow”: idiomatic, exact. - 새김의 행위 — the act of engraving (새기다: to incise, and “to engrave in the heart”): an echo of the founding notches. - 수로 / 수로지기 — the waterway and its keeper (a coinage on 등대지기, lighthouse keeper); never 채널. - 상황 지어진 인계 또는 처리의 위치 — established calque of situated (cf. 상황적 지식) for 상황 지어진; 인계 says the taking charge, by transfer, of an arrived datum, never 재개 (restart). - 비축본 — the copy put in reserve: the frozen double. - 서사（기술적 의미） — the recounting in the technical sense of the corpus, distinct from the literary narrative. - 포락 — the mathematical envelope (see the Mandarin note).

Russian - забор — drawing in the exact medical register (забор крови); the homonymy with “fence” dissolves in context. незабранное derives from it (the undrawn). - данное (pl. данные) — the substantivized singular of данные: literally “the given”, the same etymology as datum. Unusual, acknowledged. - истечение — lapse as the running out of the term (истечение срока); the word also carries “to flow out” (истекать): a deliberate double hydraulic resonance. - канал — in the hydraulic sense (the dug canal); the sense “television channel” is set aside by the context, and the translator’s note says so. - канальщик — the canal worker, attested: the canal-keeper. - стремнина — the impetuous current, literary; поток is reserved for the flow (T2: «От истока к стремнине»). - ситуированная позиция принятия или обработки — established academic calque of situated for ситуированная; принятие says the taking charge of an arrived datum, never возобновление (resumption of activity). - пересказ — the technical recounting as re-telling with an accepted loss. - условленное — a substantivation: “what has been agreed”.

Hindi - The choice of language: “Indian” is rendered by Hindi (the most widely spoken language of India); other Indian languages may be added to the table. - आहरण — drawing (register of water and of withdrawal): the gesture of taking from the flow. अनाहृत derives from it (the undrawn, Sanskritizing; the translator’s note glosses it). - आँकड़ा — a natural singular (plural आँकड़े): the datum as an individual, without borrowing. - व्यपगमन — lapse in the Hindi legal register (the lapse): the temporal relation, not deterioration; बासी (stale bread) on the contrary says the gap undergone (stale). - नहरबान — a coinage on the model of बाग़बान (gardener) and दरबान (doorkeeper): the keeper of the nahar, the canal-keeper. - उफ़ान — the flood, the overflowing: the torrent (प्रवाह is reserved for the flow). - अवलोकन-इष्टतम / संभाव्य आँकड़ा — technical compounds, acknowledged; the translator’s note glosses them at the first occurrence. - संदर्भ (कोर) — कोर for the edge (in the sense of the graph). - संचय — the reserve as a preserved store, withdrawn from the cycle of use. - पुनर्कथन — the technical recounting as re-telling with an accepted loss: the re-inscription that makes the meaning legible again. - सम्मत — “what one has agreed on”: the agreed. - संघीय अधिगम — federated learning; the borrowing फ़ेडरेटेड लर्निंग is admitted in brackets at the first occurrence.

Contributions of the Second Edition — Notes by Language

Eighty terms of the second edition are asterisked. Like the previous ones, they are choices made: the translator applies them and does not reopen the arbitration.

English - persistence package — deliberately echoes the information package of the archival science of digital preservation; the echo is intended, the kinship claimed. - over-throughput — the arrivals exceeding the capacity of reading (λ > μ); neither overload (load) nor overflow (memory). - referent — the person of recourse, never the semantic referent. - state lapse / use-by limit — the threshold set for a use; see lapse. - transport medium — the material vehicle of transport; never media, nor fixation medium.

Spanish - ejemplar — for occurrence: ocurrencia is banned, it means a witticism. Ejemplar speaks the language of textual criticism, which is that of the corpus. Corollary: the intention of the occurrence is said intención del acto. - actualizado — an absolute lock: the meaning is that of the act (actus), never that of updating a file. - sobrecaudal — caudal, the hydraulic flow rate, exceeding the capacity of reading; never sobrecarga.

Arabic - التعيُّن — for occurrence: the singular determination on a medium; مِصداق is the recorded alternative. - معقولة — a classical term of Arabic philosophy for intelligible. - المتفاوتة — “by degrees”: avoids the differential-calculus flavour of تفاضلية. - الصلاحية — carries the resonance of the use-by date (تاريخ انتهاء الصلاحية): the image of lapse travels with the word, and that is intended. - النزاهة المُفكَّكة — read “made decomposable into seven places”, never “corrupted”. - ابتلاع — ingestion as absorption without drawing. - أمانة النقل — fidelity as the fidelity of the thing handed over. - فيض التدفّق — the overflowing of the flow, relative to the window. - المرجِع — the person of recourse, distinct from الإحالة (reference, the edge). - سُبل عدم التحقُّق — compounded on مُتحقِّقة. - مُعادة التداول — which circulates between machines without reading.

Mandarin - 已实现 — for actualized: the accomplishment of an act, not updating. - 再解读的条件 — the most legible compound form for the conditions of interpretive resumption. - 分解的操守 — read “probity made decomposable”, never “corrupted probity”. - 操作时间 — the usual compound for operational times. - 持久包 — an acknowledged calque on the persistence package. - 超流量 — never 过载 (overload). - 参照人 — the person of recourse, distinct from 引用（边）. - 不实现 — on 已实现. - 再流转 — circulation between machines, never 回收.

Japanese - 出現 — for occurrence: an open proposal, an alternative to be recorded if usage settles otherwise. - 作用している — an adjectivized verbal form for operative. - 差異的追跡可能性 — a heavy term; the borrowing トレーサビリティ is the usual alternative. - 三つの構成系統 — 系統 (lineage) is kept distinct from 系譜 (filiation): the two notions must never be confused. - 制度的データ — based on the established vocabulary of institutional facts (制度的事実). - 分解された廉直 — read “made decomposable”, never “corrupted”. - 運用時間 — the usual compound for operational times. - 超過流量 — the excess of arrivals over the capacity of reading. - 参照者 — the person of recourse.

Korean - 출현 — for occurrence: an open proposal, as in Japanese. - 분해된 청렴 — read “made decomposable”, never “corrupted”. - 흡입 — absorption, not 수집 (collection). - 초과 유량 — the excess of arrivals over the capacity of reading. - 참조자 — the person of recourse.

Russian - исходное данное — risk of a reading as “input data”; the alternative данное-исток is set aside because исток already names the source in the title of the second tome. - филиация — a real term of Russian textual criticism. - понятное — for intelligible; интеллигибельное is the learned alternative. - актуализированное — a lock: the act, never updating. - три намерения — намерение (plain register) rather than интенция (phenomenological jargon). - три семейства конституирования — семейство is the standard taxonomic term. - годность для использования — carries, as in Arabic, the resonance of the use-by date (срок годности). - поэлементная добросовестность — разложенная is set aside: it also says rot. Read “element by element”. - пакет сохранности — сохранность carries the intended archival flavour. - действительный читатель — actual reader: the one for whom a meaning is actualized; never эффективный, which would say efficiency. - поглощение — absorption, never сбор nor ввод. - верность переноса — верность, not точность. - сверхпоток — the excess of arrivals over the capacity of reading. - три установки — установка, attitude, never позиция, reserved for the situated position. - референт — the person, never the linguistic referent. - три пути — on актуализированное. - рециркулирующее — never повторно переданное. - носитель переноса — носитель in the material sense, distinct from носитель информации; перенос reserved for transport.

Hindi - प्रति — for occurrence; the pair प्रति / प्रतिलिपि renders occurrence / copy. - उद्गम — covers the sense “register of origins”. - विभेदी अनुरेखणीयता — a heavy term; a simplified form may be recorded if usage requires it. - व्याख्यात्मक पुनरारंभ की शर्तें — the most legible compound form. - विभाजित सत्यनिष्ठा — read “made decomposable”, never “corrupted”. - स्थायित्व पुलिंदा — an acknowledged calque. - अंतर्ग्रहण — absorption. - कालिक — temporal. - निष्ठा — fidelity. - अतिप्रवाह — distinct from उफ़ान (torrent). - स्व-प्रवर्धन चक्र — self-amplification loop. - विवेक — wisdom, distinct from ज्ञान. - मुद्राएँ — postures. - संदर्भ-व्यक्ति — distinct from संदर्भ (कोर). - सीमा-अवधि — use-by limit. - पुनःसंचरणशील — re-circulating. - परिवहन-आधार — आधार qualified by transport; never the fixation medium.

The Three Collision Locks

They hold in all languages and take precedence over any consideration of fluency.

1. Actualized means the act, never updating. The trap already exists in French; the corpus acknowledges it and names it. No language must resolve it by sliding towards the vocabulary of computer updating.
2. The occurrence is not a witticism. Ocurrencia and its misleading equivalents are banned: the occurrence is the singular inscription on a medium, what is counted when one copies.
3. Provenance is not origin. In Arabic, المَنشَأ (provenance) remains distinct from الأصل (origin, which qualifies the datum of origin); the same divide holds wherever the language allows it.

The Locked Phrases

The three intentions. Sub-phrases composed language by language, consistent with the entry: EN intention of the apparatus / of the occurrence / of use; ES intención del dispositivo / del acto / de uso — “del acto” avoids the collision with ocurrencia. The six other languages compose on the same principle; their compositions are fixed in the extensions of the table (end of §4).

The four degrees of traceability — causal marking / preserved trace / accessible trace / interpretable trace: composed by language, reusing the locked equivalent of accessible where the languages coincide; the compositions chosen are fixed in the extensions of the table (end of §4).

The five states of the scale as adjectives — constituted, accessible, intelligible, actualized, operative: taken up as they are from the corresponding entries. The order is cumulative and is not reordered.

The situated reader — human use, and title of the document The Situated Reader. A phrase composed of the locked equivalents of situated (line situated position of handling or processing) and of reader (line actual reader): the situated reader · el lector situado · القارئ المتموضِع · 情境化的读者 · 状況づけられた読者 · 상황 지어진 독자 · ситуированный читатель · स्थित पाठक. It is never said of the machine, which occupies a situated position of handling or processing and is an actual reader only if a meaning is actualized for it.

The Canal-Keeper — A Term of the Satellite Volumes

Canalier and its eight equivalents (canal-keeper, canalero, القنّاء, 开渠人, 水路守, 수로지기, канальщик, नहरबान) are kept: they serve the volume The Data Artisan and the other satellites, where the figure lives. The term does not appear in the trilogy of the second edition, where the data artisan is named alone. The translator of a volume of the trilogy will not meet it; the translator of a satellite applies it as it is.

Lines without an Autonomous Lexical Entry and Declared Compositions

Nine lines of tables A, B and C have no entry with an exact heading in the canonical lexicon. Their referent is declared here under one of the three admitted proofs: exact entry, justified composition, line without an autonomous lexical entry with its subtype. An image of the core remains an image of the trilogy.

• torrent — composition: the entry “Torrent / over-throughput” of the lexicon is covered by the two lines torrent and over-throughput, each locked in the eight languages; neither of the two is read alone for the whole entry.
• canal-keeper — satellite term: the insertion note, §7, attributes it to the seven satellite pieces; previous section.
• river — image of the core, established in Tome 1 from the Threshold onwards and developed in Digging the Canal and in The Wave and the Ocean.
• spring (source of water) — image of the core, established in Tome 2 from the Threshold onwards and developed in Navigating in Place and in The Datum Navigates Because It Is Fixed.
• second death — image of the core, established in Tome 3, The Trace or the Datum, “Part III — Two Stops on the Scale: the Mute Datum and the Dead Datum”, announced in Tome 1, The Two Times of the Datum; the concept is carried by the entry “Dead datum”.
• work — image of the core: the human work that regulates the datum, established in Digging the Canal, “Conclusion — The Art of the Canal”, and taken up in Tome 3, The Trace or the Datum, “Part III — Two Stops on the Scale: the Mute Datum and the Dead Datum”, and Human Reading, Automatic Reading, “Part I — What the Automaton Does, and What It Does Not Do”; the phrases “mise en œuvre” and “à l’œuvre” and the verb “œuvrer” are outside the unit.
• substance / form — term of method: the status of every terminal cross-reference of the canonical lexicon (“substance”, “form”, “mixed”) and the instruction to the translation model in the preamble of the present charter.
• distributed sovereignty — a table inheritance without active occurrence: a line inherited from the translation charter of the first edition; no occurrence in the three tomes, the architecture volume or the lexicon; kept as a table inheritance.
• federated learning — a table inheritance without active occurrence: a line inherited from the translation charter of the first edition; no occurrence in the three tomes, the architecture volume or the lexicon; kept as a table inheritance.

§6. Extending the Table to a New Language

1. Start from the canonical lexicon and from the present table (the EN/ES/AR arbitrations serve as the standard of finesse).
2. For each term: favour the founding image (water, digging, craft) over the technical jargon of the target language; explicitly ban the false friends identified (local equivalents of channel, sample, expired).
3. Mark with an asterisk any ambiguous or tendentious choice, and write its note (§5): the reading-definition, not the learned justification.
4. Deliver the extension alone to the translation controller, who validates it by delegation from the author and records the decision in traductions/termes/journal.md, before any translation of a volume into this language.
5. A term absent from the table for a language already present follows the same route (§2, directive 2): the translation controller decides, by delegation from the author, records the decision in traductions/termes/journal.md and enters it in the subsection “Extensions decided during the translation” (end of §4), where the “Note” column of the language’s table takes the place of the note of §5.

© David Bories — 2026. Translations produced by generative artificial intelligence, under the supervision of the author. The French version is authoritative.

Translation choices

These notes say how to read the English words that render the terms of the corpus; they are fixed for the whole English translation by the present charter.

• The tables. Tables §4 (the titles, tables A, B and C, the contributions of the second edition, the extensions decided during the translation) are reproduced as they are: they are the reference for all the languages, and their FR column and their French readings are part of it. Only the drafted text around them is translated.
• Quoted terms. The notes of §5 quote the equivalents of each language as they are; only their French explanation is translated.
• re-fixing (re-fixation): the operation by which the inscription changes language while indicating the same value; to re-fix renders re-fixer.
• datum / data; drawing / to draw; lapse; canal — as the notes of §5 set them out for English.
• substance / form (fond / forme): the distinction of method; background renders the ordinary fond.
• The data artisan (l’artisan de la donnée): the referent whose domain would be the datum itself, a craft yet to be created; principle 4 of §1 states the rule in its own words, which this translation follows.
• Titles. Tried by the Flow renders À l’épreuve du flux; this volume is the Translation Charter of the Corpus. The titles of documents of the tomes cited in §5 follow their English translation. The file paths and the status values of the verdicts (“bon à intégrer”, “à corriger”, Statut : livré) are kept in French: they name files and states of the repository.