fuel-discuss January 2010

fuel-discuss@lists.fedorahosted.org

6 participants
3 discussions

Re: (ir)relevence of English words in translations
by Nitin Nimkar 10 Feb '10

10 Feb '10

Hello, I read your email on FUEL with keen interest. I totally agree with what you are saying about Firfox Gujarati Browser, because I am experiencing the same problem with Marathi browser. I do not know how much you are familiar with Indian social and educational environment. However I would like to inform you that all these so called computer engineers simply do not know their own mother tongue properly. They are taught in English medium schools right from pre primary stage. They simply do not consider that they need to have proper knowledge of the Indian Languages, neither they respect the one who speaks Indian languages. If you expect neologism, it is too much for them. They simply do not have that capability. All these smart computer geeks consider their own mother tongue as a down market thing and do not wish to transact their business in Indian languages. We have arrived at this stage due to the neglect by all the successive state governments as well as central Governments towards the development of Indian Languages as a storehouse for the modern science. These efforts are ought to be done by the responsible governments and can not be left to just voluntary efforts. The 5% English speaking Indian population who had the privilege in getting the knowledge from English, simply do not wishes to part this knowledge to the Indian language speaking brothers . You have given the example of France and you say that nobody in France would care to use computer if it is not in French language. Here in India state and central Governments are planning to change the mother tongue of 100 Billion population in to English to learn modern science, computer and computer science. I am sure, even though you are able to speak English, your pre primary and primary education as well as post graduation is done in French language in a French university if you are brought up in that country. Even after 60 years of Independence we still do not have any Indian Language University which teaches Modern Science in Indian Languages. Apart from Firefox, I would like to inform about 75% of the 100 Billion Indian population is now a days using mobile phone, yet no Indian Language is available by default on any of the Mobile phones sold in India. If you dial any help line of these mobile companies, they only speak English or sometimes little bit of Hindi. They have the audacity to tell the customer that they are working for Multinational company like Vodafone and we do not speak any Indian Languages. No Gujarati no Marathi. Same is the case with Open Office localization as well as Microsft's localization. I have personally interacted with the officials of Microsoft as well as the CDAC's officials, which is responsible for Open Office and Firefox localization in Indian Languages. they are the owner of this FUEL list. I have tried to bring this sorry state of the localization efforts to the many participants in this FUEL list personally as well as on other lists and also to the responsible state government officers, but I am yet to meet a person who agrees to these views and takes the cognizance . You are the first with whom I totally agree. I am dejected. Regards, Nitin Nimkar ________________________________ From: Bernard Massot <bmassot(a)free.fr> To: FUEL project <fuel-discuss(a)lists.fedorahosted.org> Sent: Sun, December 20, 2009 11:42:40 PM Subject: (ir)relevence of English words in translations Hello, As you can guess from my name, I'm not Indian. I'm French and I'm living in France. My mother tongue is French but I also speak and read/write fluent English and Hindi, and I understand Gujarati to some extent. My wife is Gujarati and knows Gujarati and Hindi, and a little French. I believe people should always be able to do everything in their language, that's why I'm interested in FUEL. The reason for my writing this e-mail is I don't like the very large use of English in current translations into Indian languages (at least Hindi and Gujarati, I guess it's the same for all Indo-Aryan languages, but I'm not sure for Dravidian). There are a lot of translations which are in fact transliterations from English. Maybe the question is : do we translate to make Indians already using computers able to use them in Indian languages, or to make computer use available to non-English speakers? Most Indians who currently use computers know English and do it entirely in English. That's why, I guess, using non-English technical words feel weird to them and they end up using pure English terms. However such words remain incomprehensible for most Indians, even when written in native scripts. I installed Gujarati Firefox for my wife (who makes use of computer and Internet on a daily basis and is not bad at it, she types in Hindi and Gujarati to look for things in google for instance), but she often doesn't understand what Firefox tells her because important words are just English words. Some of these words already have nice equivalents in Gujarati, and some other could be translated by neologisms that would be understood far more easily than English words. It seems to me that you're ashamed of using native Indian words in computer science (and other sciences), but you shouldn't. Here in France almost nobody would use computers if it made necessary to learn English. Most computer users don't even know the meaning of "computer". They only know what an "ordinateur" is. The same way, they use a "souris" (the word for the little animal, as in English) to clic and a "clavier" (the part of a piano that has keys) to type. We also never use words such as "file", "window", "bookmark", "tab", "shortcut", "filter", "desktop", "download" or "configure". Once again, according to me, if the goal is to make computers usable by non-English speakers, stopping using so much English is mandatory. -- Bernard Massot _______________________________________________ fuel-discuss mailing list fuel-discuss(a)lists.fedorahosted.org https://fedorahosted.org/mailman/listinfo/fuel-discuss

5 10

Re: FUEL Evaluation workshop - Gujarati
by Ankit Patel 07 Jan '10

07 Jan '10

--- On Wed, 23/12/09, Ankit Patel <ankit644(a)yahoo.com> wrote: > Hi all, > > A workshop on standardizing FUEL translations into Gujarati > is organized on 26th and 27th December 2009 @ Ahmedabad. It > will be hosted by Infineon Infotech India Pvt. Ltd. > Including two linguists there will be Gujarati Localization > community members to work continuously during the workshop > to achieve the FUEL evaluated translations for Gujarati. > > There are seven people confirmed for this event, which > includes two linguists. Any other community enthusiasts are > also welcome. Please let me know, if you are attending the > workshop. > Hi, A FUEL workshop for Gujarati was completed successfully and evaluated translations are available here attached in this email. Requesting FUEL admins to upload the files on fuel upstream. More information regarding the event could be found in my blog post: http://www.ankit644.com/?p=180 Thanks! Ankit The INTERNET now has a personality. YOURS! See your Yahoo! Homepage. http://in.yahoo.com/

4 5

FUEL Tamil - 12, 13 December
by ஆமாச்சு|amachu 01 Jan '10

01 Jan '10

Dear all, Frequently Used Entries for Localisation event for Tamil language has been scheduled to happen on 12 & 13 of Decemeber at, CDAC, Taramani, Chennai. We have also arranged for an parallel IRC session for participants who could not make it out physically. Channel: #fedora-tamil at irc.freenode.net The event will commence at 10.00 AM and will continue to happen till 5.00 PM on both days. Related information can be found at: https://fedorahosted.org/fuel/wiki/fuel-tamil -- Sri Ramadoss M

2 2

2025

2024

2023

2022

2021

2020

2019

2018

2017

2016

2015

2014

2013

2012

2011

2010

2009

2008

fuel-discuss January 2010