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List:       kde-i18n-doc
Subject:    Re: [Off-topic] What's happening with FLOSS l10n worldwide?
From:       Jean Cayron <jean.cayron () gmail ! com>
Date:       2009-09-18 11:57:44
Message-ID: c62ec50d0909180457x7a95863arba17c3597351dd8c () mail ! gmail ! com
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Hye,

Here are some answers for Walloon, minority romanic language from Belgium.

2009/9/17 Miguel Branco <mgl.branco@gmail.com>:
>
> Hi,
>
> Sorry for using this channel for an off-topic. But it's the best place I can
> think of where I can ask all this. Hope this is not too annoying.
>
> I was  contacted to give a speech on minority languages and FLOSS for a summer
> course at a local university, as I had previously gather and presented data
> about languages being translated in FLOSS (akademy-es last year).
>
> In order to prepare the speech, which is Monday, I'd like to know why people
> is localising to any given language. Everything you can tell me, I am glad to
> hear about.
>
> Questions that come to my head are:
>
> - are you translating alone or are you part of a local group that localise
> other software as well?
We are usually one translator per project but we are a pool of
translators (up to 3) for the different projects. Some are active by
phases (like Pablo hereunder). We are about 6 or 7 people on a common
translation mailinglist to discuss translations and consistency. We
see each other once or twice a year, being most part of a non-profit
cultural association. Actually the main translators are:
KDE: Myself
openSUSE: Myself
Gnome: Pablo (not very active)
Firefox: Pablo (not very active)
Rockbox: Stefane
...
There is also the Wikipedia project (wa.wikipedia.org)

> - are you supported by any organisation or government?
Not at all, it's rather not well seen by the Ministry of Culture that
wants to keep our language as a "old people dialect"

> - are you a student? a worker? are you an university graduate? on what?
I'm state worker and graduate of university. Others are informatician
and others...

> - hfor how long have you being doing this? for how long there is efforts to
> localise to your language?
It's now ten years that the work started on FLOSS. I do it myself
since more than two years.

> - Having looked at which languages are being translated to:  Why so many
> Indian, Malaysian,... languages? Why so many from South African? Why so few
> languages from the Americas and Australia? Why so many small languages from
> Europe and not from anywhere else?
I think that for Europe it's quite understandable. The level of
education and "computerisation" is high while minority languages are
disapearing because of national languages. Translating it into
minority languages is a way to promote a modern use of these
languages, getting it out of the folkloric zone. Minority language
activists are very motived and used to work for free. And it's better
for your rights (and also easier) to work for free in opensource
softwares than for proprietary ones. Some governments (not ours) also
support these efforts.

I don't know for other continents but perhaps is it the % of people
having access to a computer that can explain that: South-Africa and
India have more welfare than others. Also american-indigenous and
australian-aboriginal minorities are often out of the normal economic
process and have less access to computers, especially if they live
retired. Their cultures are for a vast majority of speeking
traditions. Only widespread languages like Quechua or Guarani could
rise easily. I've once asked the question to an colombian-indian
university teacher that made me understand that it wasn't a priority
at all for his language to have computers in their language since
there are no computers in their communities...

> - What's the background of your linguistic community?is it poor or rural? rich
> and developed? is it technologically developed? is your language endangered?
> why?
It's semi-rural, rather developed and technologically develloped as
western-countries are. My language is well endangered
(http://users.skynet.be/lorint/wallang/index.html) but not at all
dead.
>
> I promise to share the information I gather.
>
> Thank you very much in advance,
>
> Miguel
>
>
A non-exhaustive list of softwares already translated can be found there:
http://walotux.walon.org/spip.php?rubrique9

Major project are KDE, openSUSE, Gnome, Firefox, Rockbox, KOffice and
we are starting Moblin as well...

Djan Cayron
http://walotux.walon.org

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