Creating this term base began in October 2011 and was completed in June 2013. Whilst originally focusing on the language pair Greek/German the term base was subsequently extended – in cooperation with other contributing parties – to cover another five languages, namely English, French, Italian, Spanish and Turkish.
As a term base the GCMTP does not come with term definitions. To enhance its value by adding to it an informative leg with definitions would be to outstrip by far the editing team’s time limitations in the project. We have confined ourselves solely to the informational aspect of the undertaking that consists in rendering the terms in each respective target language and providing – where possible – also synonym terms. A major advantage of the term base is that it covers a wide range of terms relating to the current crisis in Greece, since their number runs to a total of 822. Additionally it is available in as many as seven versions with each one of the seven working languages featuring as the source language, thereby covering readily all possible options of translational directionality.
The basic aim of the multilingual term base on hand is to form a useful tool in the hands of the professional translator. Moreover, the editing team is hopeful that it could also be useful in grooming interpreters for work assignments related to the economic crisis (in Greece), as well as to students in translation and interpretation. Furthermore, it was deemed that, because of multidimensional topical issues of the moment being involved in the current crisis, the term base might as well be expected to whip up the interest of science fields other than Translation and interpretation Studies, such as Economics and Journalism, but also to the ordinary man in the street who wishes to be informed on the multitude of old and new terms connected to the phenomenon of the economic crisis in Greece.