Who is meant by "Indians" ? Native inhabitants of America or people of the Indian sub-continent?

@Tamy
It can be either. You can add two translations.

In fact, I can hardly imagine that someone is talking about the gifts for India inhabitants. I know no historic fact about any kind of offerings for the people from India. On the contrary, there are a lot of mentions about offerings that Spanish Conquistadors made for native Americans (American Indians).
I clearly understand that original sentences can be ambiguous but it's not an excuse for ignoring historic context as well any other possible contexts.

@Demetrius:
Thanks for your answer!

@sharptoothed
What about if for example the Dalai Lama would have offered a valuable Buddha statue to the Indian inhabitants of Dharamsala?
Would this be out of history? Or only beyond your imagination?

Well, maybe I gave a reason to cavil at every word of mine, but there's only generalized character about "Indians" I know: American Indians. If there was a fact that Dalai Lama presented something to the people of Dharamsala, it was just a present for the people of that town, not for the people of India and, thus, not for the Indians in that sense.

@sharptoothed
Do you think sentences like "The Statue of Liberty was built by the French" to be nonsensical then? Certainly statue-builders were the minority of the French people, just like the people of Dharamsala are the minority of the Indian people.

2Demetrius
Certainly I don't think this way. "French" is a personification here so nothing's wrong with it. But talking about Buddha statue for Indians we have to take into account that only less than 1% of population of India are Buddhists so it's a different case.
Please, don't get me wrong but, again, all that I'm trying to say is that we have have to try to use any kind of available context. Or instead of visiting Kyoto we will attack it. :-) I'm really not sure if we have to add all possible translations including literal ones.

We don’t have to, but we can.

>> But talking about Buddha statue for Indians we have to take into
>> account that only less than 1% of population of India are Buddhists
>> so it's a different case.
No, it’s just the same. In fact, I think less than 1% population of France actually had to do something with the Statue of Liberty.

Please also have a look at this (somewhat extreme) example: http://tatoeba.org/sentences/show/349900

Well, I am willing to concede that no French were involved into the Statue of Liberty building at all, but it changes nothing since the Statue were presented on behalf of French nation and, thus, it's fair to state that French presented it. That's exactly what "personification" means. In Buddha case it's oblivious that Indians in a whole is unlikely the nation that accepts such kind of presents every now and then. That's something than "context" can suggest.

Great example, btw! Nice illustration of "Beware of literal translation." principle. :-)

oblivious that Indians -> obvious that Indians
sorry :-)

>I am willing to concede that no French were involved into the Statue of Liberty building at all

« Selon certaines sources, Bartholdi se serait inspiré du visage de sa mère, Charlotte Bartholdi (1801-1891), dont il était très proche, pour donner à la statue son visage sévère8. Le National Geographic Magazine appuie cette hypothèse, en précisant que le sculpteur n'a jamais expliqué ni démenti cette ressemblance avec sa mère9. C'est également la thèse soutenue au Musée Bartholdi de Colmar où l'on peut admirer de nombreuses ébauches de la statue....C'est Gustave Eiffel qui fut engagé pour réaliser le pylône métallique massif qui soutient la statue, ainsi que le squelette secondaire interne qui permet à la « peau » en cuivre de la statue de tenir d'elle-même en position verticale. Les pièces de cuivre furent fabriquées dans les ateliers de la société « Gaget-Gauthier », en 1878. Les feuilles de cuivre furent données par Pierre-Eugène Secrétan. Les travaux de précision furent ensuite confiés par Eiffel à Maurice Koechlin, l'un de ses proches avec qui il travailla aussi sur la Tour Eiffel. »
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/St...a_Libert%C3%A9

> In fact, I think less than 1% population of France actually had to do something with the Statue of Liberty.

Indeed, the then 50 million French do not all have to do with construction of statues...Some, would you believe it, do other businesses such as agriculture, defense, energy, railways, aeronautics, finance...

@sacredceltic
I didn’t intend to diminish the role of French in either statue-making or other business.

I’ve just wanted to give an example that «the <nation name>» doesn’t neccessarily mean «every person of that nation» or «the government on behalf of every person of that nation» (as sharptoothed tries to argue), but it can refer to any number of people of that nation.

Hm... Perhaps my wording isn’t correct. Neither did I intend to represent Indians (either Indian or American) as one nation.

I'm just trying to say that all depends on context, neither more nor less than that. :-)

Hello sharptoothed!
Your argumentation is not convincing to me.
In this case (i.e. Sentence nº45584) there is NO LINGUISTIC CONTEXT which would allow to decide unambiguously which is the meaning of “Indian”. Therefore I tried to ask the author which was his (or her) intention. What’s your problem with this procedure?

2Tamy
Hi!
In fact, there was a kind of linguistic context. At least there was a fact that we could consider as such context: English translation was made from Japanese sentence about American Indians. This demonstrates once again: we have to use any available context or we'll end up stuck in ambiguities. In this sense, your practice of asking authors about the meaning they put into the sentence is maybe the best decision a translator could made and I can only salute it in every possible way. (I mean, I have no problem with this procedure. :-))

2CK
Thanks for clearing the situation! I've noticed that you've started (or maybe you always did so?) to provide your sentences with comments whenever ambiguity is possible. Quite an exemplary practice, I have to say! :-)

>> At least there was a fact that we could
>> consider as such context: English translation
>> was made from Japanese sentence about
>> American Indians
Probably you’ve noticed that when you click on ‘Add a translation’ link, all the other translations disappear. This is not incidental. Only one sentence is translated, not all of them.

Please see the rule «3. Do not pay attention to the other translations» in «How to be good contributor in Tatoeba» [1].

[1] http://blog.tatoeba.org/2010/02...eba.html#rule3

Heavy artillery has appeared on the scene. (Tatoeba article, I mean):-) OK, I'm giving up, you won. :-) Still I'm sticking to the opinion that no good translation is possible without knowing a context.

@sharptoothed and “to whom it may concern”

After this profound discussion there seems to be a sufficient
consensus about good translation practice.
At this point I imagine the INDIANS would say “It’s time to bury the hatchet”. ☺

Agree. As Russians say, "худой мир лучше доброй ссоры". :-)