| A translation relay is a really cool thing done by members of the CONLANG email list about once a year. It's a cross between puzzling out foreign texts on minimal information and the game of 'Telephone'.
Basically, the way it works is like this:
Someone from the list decides to start a relay. E writes a short text, normally less than ten lines, to be translated.
Then, e gets the email addresses of everyone who is interested and decide on the order in which the relay will go. E translates eir text into eir language, and sends it to the first person in the relay. Using information provided (normally an interlinear text and a glossary), the participant translates the text into eir lang and sends on a copy to the next participant, as well as to the person running the relay. The last person on the relay is Relay Master, the one who organized the whole thing. Finally, all of the texts are gathered together, along with translations, and put on display for everyone to see how they have changed.
For those interested, the official rules can be found at http://www.frontiernet.net/~awen/relayrule.html .
The CONLANG archives and subscription information ar at http://listserv.brown.edu/archives/conlang.html .
At the moment, I am eagerly awaiting the arrival of my text to translate. Wish me luck!\
P.S.: The results of a recent translation relay can be found at http://www.valdyas.org/irina/relay5/ . If you're interested, I'm Matthew Kehrt and my language is Eviendadhail. -1/17/02 | 
