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List:       kde-i18n-doc
Subject:    Re: Pacific Languages
From:       heiko.evermann () gmx ! de
Date:       2005-02-09 21:10:28
Message-ID: 200502092210.29549.heiko.evermann () gmx ! de
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Hi Phill,
> Hi all, after thinking and talking about this for a very long time I am
> starting to put the wheels in motion to get KDE translated into some
> Pacific Island languages. 
Good idea.
> However, we need a starting place and as we are 
> based in New Caledonia we have decided that the Drehu language is probably
> the best place to start. 
Well, if you are based in New Caledonia, then probably those languages are a 
good place to start. Drehu is a melanesian language. There is another group 
of languages that I would like to see in KDE: the polynesian languages. The 
two biggest are Fijian (Fiji, ca. 350.000 speakers) and Maori (New Zealand, 
about 150.000 speakers). Which is a lot more than Drehu (ca. 11.500 
speakers).
I guess that melanesian and polynesian are not closely related?
> So, I have a few questions, you can reply to me off list if you want, I
> need to get some sort of an idea of what is invloved to do a language from
> scratch, which will include introducing a lot of new words to the language.
Chose your words wisely. If everything works well and your words get accepted, 
people will have to live with your choices a very long time.

> How many words are involved and how long it has taken someone else to do
> it, so we can get an idea of the resources needed. We will get the funding
> to do this whatever it takes but leave everything in the public domain.
From my Low Saxon point of view, I would say that apart from everyday 
language, you will need about 200 special words for a start.
>
> I would love to hear from anyone who can give me some pointers and ideas,
> for the Drehu translation this will most probably be done from French to
> Drehu, most others will be done from English. 
The po-files are English to target language. You can cheat and look at the 
French translation, but the files are English to target language.

> My minimum would be to do the 
> KDE environment, Konqueror, KMail and KOffice to have a simple functioning
> system all in a native language that does 95% of what people use a PC for.
> What are people thoughts about that, ie KDE and KOffice as against KDE and
> Open Office ?
I think that Open Office is used a lot more that KOffice.
>
> Thanks in advance for your help and I hope to add a few new languages to
> the system soon, unless of course someone else has already started !!
Do it one language at a time. That already is quite a lot of work.

Kind regards,

Heiko Evermann
KDE Low Saxon translation team

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