illegible_text | untranslatable

As the title reads, are these tags going to be useful?

post #246295post #1159398

Untranslatable could be a good tag for posts with translation request that simply can't be translated.

I have mixed feelings. There certainly are some post that the either of those two tags might fit, but what would be the litmus for deciding when to use them?

I'm ambivalent too. But, I guess since they're not set in stone, it could be of some use, almost like a level-two translation request. If I saw some massively sloppily handwritten text and just gave up, I could see tagging illegible_text to flag it for someone else who might want to take a crack at it with fresh eyes or just a better talent for figuring out poor handwriting. I don't think I'd feel comfortable ever tagging untranslatable on anything, because really all I'd actually be saying is "I, personally, failed to translate this." It wouldn't really mean nobody could do it. Untranslatable, I'd think, would only be applicable if it was honestly intended to be complete gibberish. But in that case, I'd think that word would really be a better tag, since translation wouldn't have ever really been on the table to begin with.

Sincerely, something like 'unknown_language' makes more sense. Don't matter how well versed at languages you are, there will ever be a text that seems unintelligible and/or unidentifiable to you, despite of the language actually existing and being translatable.

But (as Strikerman said) I guess an 'untranslatable' tag could be useful for some cases of polysemy or puns that can't be translated.

e.g. post #826478

That spoiler text is similar to the notes I write when something defies meaningful direct translation. Plus, get creative and try to squish something together to represent it if possible.

But I think the big meaningful difference is - it's one thing to say "this thing can't be translated by me," and entirely another to say "this thing can not be translated ever." I guess I'm seeing the light a bit on the unknown_language idea, where it could be useful the same way as unknown_artist, understood to be a temporary tag to search when cleaning up lacking info. I think it's a distinct problem from unreadably sloppy, smudged, etc. text, and a distinct situation from ad-hoc fictional languages.