Teisendus

Teisendus is a term used in the Estonian language to denote the process of converting something from one form to another. It is distinct from tõlkimine (translation of language), which is the common word for everyday translation. Teisendus is employed primarily in technical, scientific, or formal contexts to describe conversion, recoding, or transformation.

In computing and information technology, teisendus covers encoding conversions (for example, changing character encodings from UTF-8 to ASCII), data-format transformations, and protocol or representation changes. In linguistics and translation studies, teisendus may be used to describe the act of transforming content across representations, including transcription, localization, or cross-cultural adaptation, though tõlkimine remains the usual term for translating text between natural languages.

The concept also appears in other domains, such as mathematics or physics, where it denotes transformations that modify the representation of a quantity while preserving its essential meaning. In practice, deciding how faithfully to preserve meaning, tone, and nuance is a central challenge of teisendus, with strategies ranging from literal mapping to adaptation.

History and usage notes: The word is formed from Estonian roots meaning change and action and is most common in technical writing. It is not a direct synonym of everyday translation but a broader concept of converting from one form to another.

See also: Translation, conversion, encoding, localization, data transformation.