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List:       kde-i18n-doc
Subject:    Re: translation gUI in Piemonteis
From:       Steffan Donnelly <steff () dotmon ! com>
Date:       2002-09-18 17:57:06
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On Wednesday 18 September 2002 2:01 pm, Andrea Rizzi wrote:
> > Quite possibly, but how much of this is due to past linguistic
> > chauvinism?
>
> If so what?
> Is there *now* someone that write in piemonteis (not "just for fun") ? No
> Is there someone that understand only piemonteis? No
> Is there a "minor" community that read or write in that language? No
> No matter how we reach this situation, but now this is the situation.

That isn't an argument for perpetuating it.

> > lack of spoken forms.  And on that basis no current European language
> > would ever have been formalised - we'd all still be writing Latin.
>
> What? There thousands of Italian Grammar and every guy in Italy learn it at
> elementary school.

That's true NOW, but each current European language has a "primal text", ie 
the first text written in that language that is recognisably that language.  
Some of those texts will be on a continuum (eg Latin to Italian), and some of 
them will just appear out of nowhere (eg Anglo-Saxon, Welsh), but the same 
point applies to all of them:  at some point before that text the language 
they were written in did not exist as a written language.  That didn't stop 
them *becoming* a written language, although in fact there were probably a 
good few abbots in the scriptoria who were not at all amused if they found 
their copyists working on "vernacular" languages instead of Latin.

> > I take it that you are not suggesting that, if a full translation of KDE
> > into Piemonteis ever gets done by someone, it should be rejected - I am
> > only a newcomer here, but I think such a policy would be very
> > unfortunate.
>
> Ok, so I can get the italian translations, modify it a little and get a
> perfect translation in "Marmmano" a dialect spoken in southern tuscany so
> we can include it. I can also do it for "Livornese" or "Pisano" and we
> should insert in KDE distribution all the Tuscanic dialect that are very
> close to italian and that needs few modification from italian to be "fully
> translated" so that rule is not so good in my opinion.

I agree that difficulties would be caused if dialect versions of every 
"standard" language started sprouting up - I am not sure how many takers 
there would be for KDE in the Shropshire dialect, or in the Lancashire 
dialect, although they undoubtedly exist.  But my point is that those 
difficulties are not in themselves reason to ban dialect translations if 
someone wants to put the (possibly misguided) effort into doing them, IMHO.  
If someone wants to translate KDE into Cornish, for instance, which was 
revived about 40 years ago and has only a few hundred speakers, and could be 
considered a dialect of either Welsh or Breton, I don't see why they 
shouldn't.  

Should their translations then be given space on KDE servers?  Again, I don't 
see how you can refuse, and still hold to the principles of open-source/free 
software.  Is disk-space really so expensive?  Will bandwidth, if these 
minority efforts will have so few people interested in them as you suggest, 
really be saturated by the translation updates they make?  

The only really valid difficulty, IMHO, would be the increase in the size of 
the KDE packages (although they are hardly slim and svelte to begin with).  
But in that case, it would surely be possible to make a policy decision to 
distribute as default only those languages that are officially recognised in 
some political jurisdiction, and leave the others to be downloaded separately 
from i18n.kde.org by avid speakers of non-official linguistic entities.  

> I think we do not discriminate anyone rejecting piemonteis, ask to
> everybody in Piemonte to understand what a Piemontese can think about that
> project.

I agree with you that it is indeed up to Piemonteis speakers themselves to 
decide whether or not they want KDE in that language.  But I continue to 
think that if they do (and produce the translated texts to prove it), it 
would be presumptuous to reject it.  I know there are various political 
overtones (Northern League et al), but this should surely be looked at purely 
as a linguistic matter insofar as it applies to KDE. 

As I said, I am a newcomer here, and don't want to rock any boats or step on 
any toes, so I'll sign off on this topic now.  But it seems to me that 
offering everyone open-access to the possibility of a computing environment 
in their own linguistic entity should be a point of principle for the KDE 
project.  The removal of choice is something I associate with global 
corporations, and not with the open-source/free software community.

Best wishes

Kevin

-- 
KDE yn Gymraeg - KDE in Welsh
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