Type of site | terminology and linguistic database |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1976 |
| Predecessor | Banque de Terminologie de l’Université de Montréal |
| Owner | Translation Bureau,Public Services and Procurement Canada |
| URL | www |
| Commercial | No |
TERMIUM Plus is an electronic linguistic andterminological database operated and maintained by theTranslation Bureau ofPublic Services and Procurement Canada, a department ofthe federal government. The database offers millions of terms inEnglish andFrench from various specialized fields, as well as some inSpanish andPortuguese.[1]
TERMIUM Plus was initially developed by theUniversité de Montréal in October 1970, under the nameBanque de Terminologie de l’Université de Montréal (BTUM).[2]: 509 The database was under the direction of Marcel Paré, with a vision to produce the most flexible bilingual language file that would be available to all.[3] BTUM was initially funded by private donors and government subsidies, subsequently growing with the help of professionals in the field of translation over the following years.[4]
At the end of 1974, however, theTranslation Bureau under theSecretary of State for Canada's department showed interest in the operation of BTUM.[5]: 594 The goal of the Bureau at the time was to standardize terminology throughout thepublic service, as well as the federal public administration.[6][7]: 235
In 1975, the BTUM was able to obtain data and user responses in collaboration with the language services ofBell Canada.[2]: 509 [8]
In January 1976, the Secretary of State officially acquired BTUM, and renamed the databaseTERMIUM (TERMInologieUniversité deMontréal).[2]: 509 The system was then transferred to the central computer of thefederal government inOttawa, and began to integrate approximately 175,000 files that the BTUM initially compiled with the files that the Translation Bureau had been working on.[2]: 509 In the years to follow, the Bureau began the sorting process, along with the input process onto the computer. The database grew to 900,000 records by 1987.[2]: 509
As terminological records grew in the TERMIUM database, the Canadian government received a proposal in 1985 from aToronto-based company to launch TERMIUM in aCD-ROM format, in order to make the database more accessible to users.[5]: 595 By fall of 1987, a pilot project for CD-ROM was launched to investigate the responses from its users, which included services under the Translation Bureau and other private Canadian companies.[5]: 595 After some data compilation and investigation, the Bureau incorporated an indexing system to improve the speed and accuracy of term extraction.
By 1990, TERMIUM on CD-ROM was commercially available through subscription (with an annual fee of $1,100 to $1,500). Updates were released every three to four months.[2]: 512 In 1996, TERMIUM on CD-ROM received an award from ATIO (the Association of Translators and Interpreters of Ontario).
In October 2009, TERMIUM Plus and an array of language tools under the Language Portal of Canada[9] were launched with free online access.[10]
TERMIUM was initially developed to contain terminological records in both ofCanada’s official languages (English and French).[2]: 510 As the system upgraded to its third-generation version in 1985, it contained records in other languages such as Spanish, in order to accommodate its growing range of users.[11]: 111 However, in these “multilingual” records, the term in the source language would be in English or French, with its equivalent in a non-official language.[7]: 237
Currently, there is a vast collection of specialized domains and fields covered by TERMIUM Plus, ranging fromadministration (includingappellations),arts,sciences tolaw and justice.
Aside from the millions of entries recorded by TERMIUM Plus, the database also contains writing tools for both the English and French language (such asThe Canadian Style, a writingstyle guide; andDictionnaire des cooccurrences, a guide to Frenchcollocations), archivedglossaries, as well as a link to the Language Portal of Canada (containing various French and English writing resources).