I am not deterred from thinking that a practical daily use program in the language would be a great help to those working in it and on it.
I will say that translating literature isn't my gift or talent, but I can break down technical concepts pretty well. I am interested in pursuing Firefox as a trial run, and if that doesn't break me, eventually return to LO and have a go at it. Thanks to everyone for the input, critique, and advice. If anyone knows folks on the Mozilla Firefox team I would be deeply appreciative of an introduction to their l10n effort. Thank you. Colin On Dec 9, 2015 9:31 AM, "Michael Bauer" <f...@akerbeltz.org> wrote: > Somehow the mail client ate most of my email, reposting, sorry... > > --- > > Sorry for the delay in responding, I'm travelling. > > I think I disagree with most things that have been said in this discussion > so far. > > Let me try and go through them one by one... > > 1) Orthography > > Terrible reason to turn down a project. Most l10n projects LO has involve > languages where spellling is a potentially contentious issue. Perhaps the > really big locales have very settled spelling systems but even they are not > immune. For example, I doubt that anyone is enforcing either pre or post > spelling reform spellings in the German project. Some locales actually > deliberately use l10n to help standardize spelling. > > 2) Team size > > Errr no. 1 dedicated locaizer is more than enough. I have a day job and I > also do virtually all the l10n work on Mozilla, LO, WorPress (both), VLC, > and several other projects. In fact, a single localizer can be more > effective in some instances provided they put in sufficient time and > effort. In fact having a team for Scottish Gaelic initially would have been > a hindrance, not a help because there would have been ENDLESS debates > around terminology and spelling. In a non-standardized language, a single > translator can produce translations which are superior than those of a > team, provided they are fluent and generally good with technology. > > 3) It's extinct or critically endangered > > Well, so is Scottish Gaelic, less than 60k speakers is hardly a stadium > full of people... l10n is a key part of any revitalization effort in a > society which is not cut off from technology. It is perhaps the one way in > which a marginalized language can gain a foothold on the screens of the > next generation, small as it may be. A program with a UI in a marginalized > language has a big wow factor if done well. If you localize Diablo III into > German, people just expect that, it's not news. Translate it into Nipmuck > and it'll be all over the airwaves. > > Wikipedia or even Ethnologue are not the pinnacle of information when it > comes to smaller languages. On several occasions have I come across > languages marked as extinct in one, but not the other or vice versa or even > where both were simply wrong. For example, they had a Basque Creole lumped > in with a Romani language code in once instance. > > 4) Better to translate literature > > Yes and no. I'm a very good localizer but I'm totally useless at > translating literature or poetry or songs. It's called a specialism, no > translator worth their money translate EVERYTHING. I'd be equally useless > at writing non-technical content. > > 5) Start with documentation/help > > No.It would raise the wrong expectations, if you give the average user a > screen that says Fàilte, unless highly cynical, they would expect the rest > in the same lingo too. > > As to the Help, who reads the Help? Ever? Unless they don't have web > access. Even if some folk use it, it's the worst starting point and a > soul-destroying task. > > 6) Professors say to prioritise proofing > > Maybe but that depends on the locale. To create a spellchecker you first > need either really good dictionary or ody of well spelled texts, plus > someone who can do code to some extent because doing a Hunspell package is > not entirely straight forward. Grammar checkers are equally nice but not a > priority to begin with I would say. Small languages often have not codified > their grammar fully and thus if you just write some rules, you'll just > annoy everybody. > > In the end, these are just opinions. They are neither uniform (I disagree > for one) not are they based on research. > > 7) Firefox > > That is actually the best alternative suggestion I've heard in this > debate. It might make sense to look into that. But either way, LO and > Firefox are both must-haves really so it doesn't make that much of a > difference which one you start with. Firefox, since it has Android and iOS > versions now, would get you more bang for your buck faster though to begin > with > > 8) Machine Translation > > Worst idea ever. MT relies on massive bilingual corpora - and that's just > the start of the headaches. The last thing a language like Nipmuck needs is > a MT system that cost them huge resources to produce and which outputs > semi-gibberish at best. Irish is in a much better position regarding > English/Irish data and yet Google Translate produces Irish which either > makes you laugh yourself silly or makes you cry. > > Long story short, my view is, welcome to both, just have a moment to > consider the implications regarding time/effort/other challenges and if you > still think it's a good idea, good on you. > > Michael > -- To unsubscribe e-mail to: l10n+unsubscr...@global.libreoffice.org Problems? http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/ Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/global/l10n/ All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted
