Dear Neil,
based on the book "Ärztlicher Dolmetscher" by Dr. Gert and Uta Hoyer hardworking volunteers of the Budapest Medical Esperanto Expert Group around Dr. Lajos Molnár and Dr. Julianna Farkas with the help of a network of international volunteers and supported by the UMEA created trilingual translation tools that contain simple sentences from typical dialogues between helpers and patients in Esperanto and Ukrainian, with the addition of one other language each. Versions in Slovak, Portuguese, Albanian, Flemish and Danish are already ready for use.
The book "Ärztlicher Dolmetscher" during the first two editions of the publisher Johann Ambrosius Barth, which no longer exists since 1999, contained easily comparable texts of basic dialogues between doctors and patients in 17 languages, including a version in Esperanto. After the copyright had been taken over by the publishing house Springer, the Esperanto chapter was deleted. Springer did not allow us to use the content of the 3rd current edition without a separate expensive contract or self-compulsion to only a limited edition quantity. We were not ready to enter into such a contract for fear of potential legal complications and to avoid commercial costs. However, Dr. Hoyer, authors of the book, held the copyright for all the material that is not found in the Springer edition - ie. the Esperanto chapter. They generously allowed us to use the Esperanto text of the book at our discretion to help the care of refugees. For that we are very grateful. So the added trilingual translation aids are already useful in themselves, but combined with one of the editions of the printed book add up to even more comprehensive and easy-to-use tools for translating simple conversations between patients and doctors from many different countries.
The second edition of "Ärztlicher Dolmetscher" is still available on various online second hand book stores.
The third, current edition can be ordered from Springer:
https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-662-48739-6 <https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-662-48739-6>
You can download the Esperanto-only text or the trilingual supplements with the Ukrainian text by clicking on the images on our homepage:
http://umea.fontoj.net/projektoj/ <http://umea.fontoj.net/projektoj/>
Please note that our homepage is only available in Esperanto. However, Esperanto can be easily and quite reliably translated into English by e.g. „Google Translator“.
Kind regards,
Christoph Klawe
HIFA profile: Christoph Klawe is a Consultant Neurologist and President of UMEA, Universala Medicina Esperanto-Asocio (UMEA), Germany / Esperantujo. Professional interests: Language policy in health care, bridging language gaps in health settings, promoting the international language Esperanto, improving the quality and range of the journal "Medicina Internacia Revuo", neurology, psychiatry, psychotherapy. Email address: umea AT uea.org
