CANADIAN LEGAL RESOURCES
Canada is a major resource for legal French English terminology. Canada is not the only country where two legal traditions —the common law and the civil law— coexists. Its constitutional bilingual —French and English— drafting requirements is not unique. But the combination of the two, that is a bijural and bilingual legal system, stands alone worldwide. This produces an enormous wealth of resources for the English to French and French to English legal translator. The following is an attempt to organize these resources scattered in many many different services of the Ministry of Justice.
CTTJ
Centre de traduction et de terminologie juridiques - Université de Moncton
cttj@umoncton.ca
Established some thirty years ago by the Université de Moncton Faculty of Law to further the implementation of bilingualism within the legal systems of Canada's common law jurisdictions. It is today an international authority in the use of common law in French.
- Juridictionnaire
Recueil des difficultés et des ressources du français juridique, de Jacques Picotte. Two versions:
- PDF version: http://www.cttj.ca/documents/juridictionnaire.pdf
- Online version: http://www.btb.termiumplus.gc.ca/tpv2guides/guides/juridi/index-fra.html?lang=fra
- Juriterm
http://www.juriterm.ca/
Comprehensive data bank for English-French terminology of the Common Law.
Contains over 17,700 entries in every field of private common law, including the complete standardized French vocabulary of the common law as well as hundreds of definitions in French borrowed from La common law de A à Z (Jacques VANDERLINDEN, Gérard SNOW, Donald POIRIER - Éditions Yvon Blais)
- Mallette de la traduction juridique
List of Language Tools for Legal Translation in Canada
http://www.cttj.ca/documents/outilspourlatraductionjuridique_copiemaitresse_.pdf
Very rich and complete bibliography (21 pages!) Compiled by Micheline BOUDREAU, Sylvette SAVOIE THOMAS and Gérard SNOW. Updated in November 13, 2018. See the list of Canadian printed legal dictionaries in our selection Legal Dictionaries in Print.
CRFJ
Legal French resource center - Université Saint-Boniface
http://sites.ustboniface.ca/crfj/index.htm
The Centre de ressources en français juridique, or legal French resource center, is the showcase for French legal language consultation tools created by Université de Saint-Boniface over the years. It encourages justice sector stakeholders to access and read legal texts in French. These documents include legal info-sheets, French legal language difficulties as well as case summaries. The showcase also includes mini-glossaries that are useful for drafting legal documents.
- Juricourriels
http://sites.ustboniface.ca/crfj/juricourriels/juricourriels2.htm
A service launched several years ago by the University of St. Boniface to encourage justice sector stakeholders to read, at least occasionally, a short legal text in French.
- Capsules linguistiques
http://sites.ustboniface.ca/crfj/capsuleslinguistiques/capsuleslinguistiques.htm
Language points on a term, an expression or a legal notion.
- Mini-lexiques
http://sites.ustboniface.ca/crfj/mini_lexiques/mini_lexiques2.htm
Terms more particularly used in common law regimes. Alphabetical entries.
- Other resources
http://sites.ustboniface.ca/crfj/ressources/ressources2.htm
A non-exhaustive list of resources that could be of interest to anyone offering services in French in the legal field or called to express themselves in legal French.
CTLD
Centre for Legal Translation and documentation - University of Ottawa
http://ctdj.ca/outils/lexique-lois-reglements-de-lontario/
The CTLD was created to set up the necessary legal documentation for the practice of law and the carrying out of legal services in French, first and foremost in Ontario but in the other common law provinces and territories as well. The terminological efforts of the CLTD are currently directed at standardizing French common law in different areas. The bilingual English/French Lexique fédéral is an extremely valuable resource : (http://www.ctdj.ca/index.cfm?Voir=sections&Id=11397&M=3096&Repertoire_No=2137989513)
MULTILINGUAL TERMINOLOGY DATABASES
Both Canadian terminology databases, the Le Grand Dictionnaire terminologique (GDT) and Termium Plus are used on a daily base by most professional English to French and French to English translators and interpreters. Both online databases are very rich in legal terminology.
GDT
http://gdt.oqlf.gouv.qc.ca/
Le Grand Dictionnaire Terminologique is a terminology databank produced by the Office de la langue française of the Government of Quebec. It includes over 800,000 entries, over 3 million technical terms (English and French), and more than 160 general and 2000 specific subject groupings. Though officially bilingual, the Quebec database is mostly unidirectional with a preferred French term definition.
Termium Plus
http://www.btb.termiumplus.gc.ca
Government of Canada's terminology and linguistic database. Launched in 1976, it now contains over 3.9 million up-to-date terms, covering virtually all areas of human activity. It has been enhanced by some 210,000 Spanish terms and also provides 14 writing tools. Managed by the Translation Bureau, the authority on language and terminology standardization in the public service.
