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The Translator's View

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Introduction 0

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-GNU is going international! The Translation Project is a way -to get maintainers, translators and users all together, so GNU will -gradually become able to speak many native languages. - -

-

-The GNU gettext tool set contains everything maintainers -need for internationalizing their packages for messages. It also -contains quite useful tools for helping translators at localizing -messages to their native language, once a package has already been -internationalized. - -

-

-To achieve the Translation Project, we need many interested -people who like their own language and write it well, and who are also -able to synergize with other translators speaking the same language. -If you'd like to volunteer to work at translating messages, -please send mail to your translating team. - -

-

-Each team has its own mailing list, courtesy of Linux -International. You may reach your translating team at the address -`ll@li.org', replacing ll by the two-letter ISO 639 -code for your language. Language codes are not the same as -country codes given in ISO 3166. The following translating teams -exist: - -

- -
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-Chinese zh, Czech cs, Danish da, Dutch nl, -Esperanto eo, Finnish fi, French fr, Irish -ga, German de, Greek el, Italian it, -Japanese ja, Indonesian in, Norwegian no, Polish -pl, Portuguese pt, Russian ru, Spanish es, -Swedish sv and Turkish tr. -

- -

-For example, you may reach the Chinese translating team by writing to -`zh@li.org'. When you become a member of the translating team -for your own language, you may subscribe to its list. For example, -Swedish people can send a message to `sv-request@li.org', -having this message body: - -

- -
-subscribe
-
- -

-Keep in mind that team members should be interested in working -at translations, or at solving translational difficulties, rather than -merely lurking around. If your team does not exist yet and you want to -start one, please write to `gnu-translation@prep.ai.mit.edu'; -you will then reach the GNU coordinator for all translator teams. - -

-

-A handful of GNU packages have already been adapted and provided -with message translations for several languages. Translation -teams have begun to organize, using these packages as a starting -point. But there are many more packages and many languages for -which we have no volunteer translators. If you would like to -volunteer to work at translating messages, please send mail to -`gnu-translation@prep.ai.mit.edu' indicating what language(s) -you can work on. - -

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Introduction 1

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-This is now official, GNU is going international! Here is the -announcement submitted for the January 1995 GNU Bulletin: - -

- -
-

-A handful of GNU packages have already been adapted and provided -with message translations for several languages. Translation -teams have begun to organize, using these packages as a starting -point. But there are many more packages and many languages -for which we have no volunteer translators. If you'd like to -volunteer to work at translating messages, please send mail to -`gnu-translation@prep.ai.mit.edu' indicating what language(s) -you can work on. -

- -

-This document should answer many questions for those who are curious -about the process or would like to contribute. Please at least skim -over it, hoping to cut down a little of the high volume of e-mail -generated by this collective effort towards GNU internationalization. - -

-

-Most free programming which is widely shared is done in English, and -currently, English is used as the main communicating language between -national communities collaborating to the GNU project. This very document -is written in English. This will not change in the foreseeable future. - -

-

-However, there is a strong appetite from national communities for -having more software able to write using national language and habits, -and there is an on-going effort to modify GNU software in such a way -that it becomes able to do so. The experiments driven so far raised -an enthusiastic response from pretesters, so we believe that GNU -internationalization is dedicated to succeed. - -

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-For suggestion clarifications, additions or corrections to this -document, please e-mail to `gnu-translation@prep.ai.mit.edu'. - -

- - -

Discussions

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-Facing this internationalization effort, a few users expressed their -concerns. Some of these doubts are presented and discussed, here. - -

- - - - - -

Organization

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-On a larger scale, the true solution would be to organize some kind of -fairly precise set up in which volunteers could participate. I gave -some thought to this idea lately, and realize there will be some -touchy points. I thought of writing to Richard Stallman to launch -such a project, but feel it might be good to shake out the ideas -between ourselves first. Most probably that Linux International has -some experience in the field already, or would like to orchestrate -the volunteer work, maybe. Food for thought, in any case! - -

-

-I guess we have to setup something early, somehow, that will help -many possible contributors of the same language to interlock and avoid -work duplication, and further be put in contact for solving together -problems particular to their tongue (in most languages, there are many -difficulties peculiar to translating technical English). My Swedish -contributor acknowledged these difficulties, and I'm well aware of -them for French. - -

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-This is surely not a technical issue, but we should manage so the -effort of locale contributors be maximally useful, despite the national -team layer interface between contributors and maintainers. - -

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-The Translation Project needs some setup for coordinating language -coordinators. Localizing evolving programs will surely -become a permanent and continuous activity in the free software community, -once well started. -The setup should be minimally completed and tested before GNU -gettext becomes an official reality. The e-mail address -`translation@iro.umontreal.ca' has been setup for receiving -offers from volunteers and general e-mail on these topics. This address -reaches the Translation Project coordinator. - -

- - - -

Central Coordination

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-I also think GNU will need sooner than it thinks, that someone setup -a way to organize and coordinate these groups. Some kind of group -of groups. My opinion is that it would be good that GNU delegates -this task to a small group of collaborating volunteers, shortly. -Perhaps in `gnu.announce' a list of this national committee's -can be published. - -

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-My role as coordinator would simply be to refer to Ulrich any German -speaking volunteer interested to localization of free software packages, and -maybe helping national groups to initially organize, while maintaining -national registries for until national groups are ready to take over. -In fact, the coordinator should ease volunteers to get in contact with -one another for creating national teams, which should then select -one coordinator per language, or country (regionalized language). -If well done, the coordination should be useful without being an -overwhelming task, the time to put delegations in place. - -

- - -

National Teams

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-I suggest we look for volunteer coordinators/editors for individual -languages. These people will scan contributions of translation files -for various programs, for their own languages, and will ensure high -and uniform standards of diction. - -

-

-From my current experience with other people in these days, those who -provide localizations are very enthusiastic about the process, and are -more interested in the localization process than in the program they -localize, and want to do many programs, not just one. This seems -to confirm that having a coordinator/editor for each language is a -good idea. - -

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-We need to choose someone who is good at writing clear and concise -prose in the language in question. That is hard--we can't check -it ourselves. So we need to ask a few people to judge each others' -writing and select the one who is best. - -

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-I announce my prerelease to a few dozen people, and you would not -believe all the discussions it generated already. I shudder to think -what will happen when this will be launched, for true, officially, -world wide. Who am I to arbitrate between two Czekolsovak users -contradicting each other, for example? - -

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-I assume that your German is not much better than my French so that -I would not be able to judge about these formulations. What I would -suggest is that for each language there is a group for people who -maintain the PO files and judge about changes. I suspect there will -be cultural differences between how such groups of people will behave. -Some will have relaxed ways, reach consensus easily, and have anyone -of the group relate to the maintainers, while others will fight to -death, organize heavy administrations up to national standards, and -use strict channels. - -

-

-The German team is putting out a good example. Right now, they are -maybe half a dozen people revising translations of each other and -discussing the linguistic issues. I do not even have all the names. -Ulrich Drepper is taking care of coordinating the German team. -He subscribed to all my pretest lists, so I do not even have to warn -him specifically of incoming releases. - -

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-I'm sure, that is a good idea to get teams for each language working -on translations. That will make the translations better and more -consistent. - -

- - - -

Sub-Cultures

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-Taking French for example, there are a few sub-cultures around computers -which developed diverging vocabularies. Picking volunteers here and -there without addressing this problem in an organized way, soon in the -project, might produce a distasteful mix of internationalized programs, -and possibly trigger endless quarrels among those who really care. - -

-

-Keeping some kind of unity in the way French localization of -internationalized programs is achieved is a difficult (and delicate) job. -Knowing the latin character of French people (:-), if we take this -the wrong way, we could end up nowhere, or spoil a lot of energies. -Maybe we should begin to address this problem seriously before -GNU gettext become officially published. And I suspect that this -means soon! - -

- - -

Organizational Ideas

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-I expect the next big changes after the official release. Please note -that I use the German translation of the short GPL message. We need -to set a few good examples before the localization goes out for true -in the free software community. Here are a few points to discuss: - -

- - - - - -

Mailing Lists

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-If we get any inquiries about GNU gettext, send them on to: - -

- -
-`translation@iro.umontreal.ca'
-
- -

-The `*-pretest' lists are quite useful to me, maybe the idea could -be generalized to many GNU, and non-GNU packages. But each maintainer -his/her way! - -

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-Fran@,{c}ois, we have a mechanism in place here at -`gnu.ai.mit.edu' to track teams, support mailing lists for -them and log members. We have a slight preference that you use it. -If this is OK with you, I can get you clued in. - -

-

-Things are changing! A few years ago, when Daniel Fekete and I -asked for a mailing list for GNU localization, nested at the FSF, we -were politely invited to organize it anywhere else, and so did we. -For communicating with my pretesters, I later made a handful of -mailing lists located at iro.umontreal.ca and administrated by -majordomo. These lists have been very dependable -so far... - -

-

-I suspect that the German team will organize itself a mailing list -located in Germany, and so forth for other countries. But before they -organize for true, it could surely be useful to offer mailing lists -located at the FSF to each national team. So yes, please explain me -how I should proceed to create and handle them. - -

-

-We should create temporary mailing lists, one per country, to help -people organize. Temporary, because once regrouped and structured, it -would be fair the volunteers from country bring back their list -in there and manage it as they want. My feeling is that, in the long -run, each team should run its own list, from within their country. -There also should be some central list to which all teams could -subscribe as they see fit, as long as each team is represented in it. - -

- - -

Information Flow

- -

-There will surely be some discussion about this messages after the -packages are finally released. If people now send you some proposals -for better messages, how do you proceed? Jim, please note that -right now, as I put forward nearly a dozen of localizable programs, I -receive both the translations and the coordination concerns about them. - -

-

-If I put one of my things to pretest, Ulrich receives the announcement -and passes it on to the German team, who make last minute revisions. -Then he submits the translation files to me as the maintainer. -For free packages I do not maintain, I would not even hear about it. -This scheme could be made to work for the whole Translation Project, -I think. For security reasons, maybe Ulrich (national coordinators, -in fact) should update central registry kept at the Translation Project -(Jim, me, or Len's recruits) once in a while. - -

-

-In December/January, I was aggressively ready to internationalize -all of GNU, giving myself the duty of one small GNU package per week -or so, taking many weeks or months for bigger packages. But it does -not work this way. I first did all the things I'm responsible for. -I've nothing against some missionary work on other maintainers, but -I'm also loosing a lot of energy over it--same debates over again. - -

-

-And when the first localized packages are released we'll get a lot of -responses about ugly translations :-). Surely, and we need to have -beforehand a fairly good idea about how to handle the information -flow between the national teams and the package maintainers. - -

-

-Please start saving somewhere a quick history of each PO file. I know -for sure that the file format will change, allowing for comments. -It would be nice that each file has a kind of log, and references for -those who want to submit comments or gripes, or otherwise contribute. -I sent a proposal for a fast and flexible format, but it is not -receiving acceptance yet by the GNU deciders. I'll tell you when I -have more information about this. - -

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