German and English

Fenexity operates in English and German. FTL defines how the two languages relate without imposing English grammar on German and without building a “German STE”.

Baseline policy

• English is the canonical language for Fenexity code, APIs, repositories, and most technical Notion content.
• German source material remains German where fidelity matters.
• FTL does not impose English grammar rules on German. FTL constrains English technical writing; it is not a style guide for German.
• German terms map to concepts, not to words. A German term should map to the same FTL concept rather than be treated as a literal word-for-word translation.
• Do not silently normalize legal, regulatory, contractual, customer, or standard-specific German terminology into a different meaning.
• Meeting summaries may be English while retaining important original German terminology where necessary.

Concept mapping

The Terminology pages record a German term where useful, for example:

State of Charge (SoC)  →  Ladezustand
Charging station       →  Ladestation
Alarm                  →  Alarm

The German term belongs to the same concept, not to the same string. When the mapping is uncertain, the term is left without a German entry rather than guessing.

German mapping relations

Every German term in the terminology data carries a mapping relation that records how strongly the German expression corresponds to the underlying concept. An agent can therefore determine not only which German term is listed but also how strongly it corresponds.

exact
    The German expression refers to the same concept with no material semantic
    qualification in the relevant FTL context.

preferred_translation
    This is the preferred Fenexity German expression, although terminology
    practices may vary.

context_dependent
    The German expression can represent the concept only in specified contexts
    or can collide with other concepts.

no_exact_equivalent
    No concise German expression maps cleanly to the concept. Preserve the
    English term or explain the concept instead.

The relation prevents translation from silently collapsing technical distinctions. For example, English Connector and Plug can both be rendered “Stecker” in some contexts even though the concepts are distinct; both entries therefore carry context_dependent with a note explaining the collision. Where two distinct concepts share a German string, the mapping is never marked exact.

no_exact_equivalent does not require a German term. When it is used, preserve the English term or explain the concept instead of inventing a German word.

Logistics and electric charging

German surface forms can hide a domain change when logistics and electric trucks appear in the same document. FTL therefore treats these words as a terminology-resolution trigger:

Do not use chargen as a canonical German expression for electric charging. Preserve it only when quoting a source and flag the terminology choice for review. In mixed-domain prose, avoid bare Charge, Ladung, Laden, or Ladevorgang; qualify the intended concept instead. The Terminology catalogue contains separate entries for Batch, Cargo, and Loading operation, as well as the standard-specific charging concepts.

Translating and summarizing

When translating or summarizing German source material, FTL applies the same preservation rules that apply to English: preserve meaning, intent, uncertainty, and modality; do not strengthen a possibility into a requirement; and flag terminology that would change legal or domain meaning if translated.

Example — German customer statement:

Wir wollen eigentlich nur vermeiden, dass morgens irgendein Bus nicht rauskommt, weil er nicht genug geladen ist.

Controlled summary:

Customer intent: avoid missed morning departures caused by insufficient vehicle charge.

Open definition: the required departure-readiness criteria are not yet defined.