International Organization for Migration (IOM) as the coordinator of EMN activities in Slovakia presented the EMN Asylum and Migration Glossary during the 14. Slovak Terminology Network conference which took place in Bratislava on 15 November 2018. This multilingual and explanantory dictionary which is compiled within the EMN by the EU Member States and Norway, aims to unify the usage and understanding of migration terms and their definitions in order to enhance the comparability of such terms in the EU.
Among sources in preparation of the Glossary is EU legislation and policies related to migration and international protection, but also increasingly the area of external dimension of migration and EMN studies. Since its creation, the Glossary is regularly – the last time in May 2018 when the European Commission published its sixth version. That version contains 468 migration terms together with their translations into 23 European languages including Slovak. Each term includes not only translation of the term, but also its definition, source(s) of the definition, synonyms and related, narrower and broader terms. Additional notes to the definitions are added value of the Glossary, explaining European or national context of individual EU Member States. Terms cover all migration areas; mainly legal migration, international protection, irregular migration and returns. Translation of terms will be gradually incorporated into IATE, EU’s multilingual terminology database.
Definitions under all terms in the latest Glossary version are being translated from English to Slovak, about which informed Adela Böhmerová from the Comenius University in Bratislava. As the lexicographical supervisor of the Slovak texts in the Glossary, she devoted her presentation during the konference to interlingual equivalence, pointed out problematic translation of certain terms and highlighted the specifities of migration terminology.
Apart from the publication, the Glossary is available also as online tool on the European Commission’s website and as a free mobile application for Android.
All conference inputs were streamed online for Slovak translators and interpretors based in various EU institutions.