Localisation of the languages of India
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Localisation of the languages of India
by Gerard Meijssen-3
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Hoi,
India is a big country populated by many people speaking many languages. It is no surprise that there are many wikipedias in languages spoken in India. As you are active in organising a chapter for the Wikimedia Foundation, I want to ask your collaboration on the localisation for the Indian languages in MediaWiki. When you look at the statistics for the localisation of MediaWiki and its extensions, you will find that the Indian languages are not really supported. This in marked contrast with the experience when you visit for instance the hi.wikipedia.org. I want to ask you to collaborate on the central localisation of MediaWiki in the "BetaWiki". Central localisation has big advantages, a user interface will be properly supported in all Wikimedia Foundation projects and the language will also be supported in Wikis outside of the Wikimedia Foundation. At the moment more then hundred MediaWiki extensions are supported in MediaWiki. Some are of specific importance for projects or languages. As BetaWiki is appreciated more and more as the place to be for MediaWiki localisation, this number grows and with it the potential for collaboration. The first step is to import the existing localisation from your active projects in to BetaWiki. The next step is to make sure that all the messages do not contain information that is specific to Wikipedia so that it is indeed useful in other projects. Localisation of MediaWiki is important and this makes it a requirement for new projects in a language. What is of more relevance is that it is easier to edit a Wiki when the user interface is consistent from one project to the next. When we make it easier for people to read and edit MediaWiki, we will grow the community of people that make our projects a success. Thanks, GerardM http://translatewiki.net/wiki/Main_Page BetaWiki http://translatewiki.net/wiki/Translating:Group_statistics Statistics _______________________________________________ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@... http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l |
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Re: Localisation of the languages of India
by Anirudh Bhati
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Hi Gerard,
Thank you for your interest in the development of MediaWiki interface in Indian languages. Rest assured that the participants of the chapter and the local-language Wiki projects would contribute as much as they can. Best wishes, --Anirudh On Dec 25, 2007 7:48 PM, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen@...> wrote: Hoi, _______________________________________________ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@... http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l |
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Re: Localisation of the languages of India
by Akash Shah
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Hi.
I started working on the Gujarati translations in Betawiki a few days back. http://translatewiki.net/wiki/Special:Contributions/Aksi_great . The biggest hurdle in translation for me is that there aren't any words for some terms in Gujarati (eg. password, username, login, logout, etc). I guess I'll take a look at what hi.wiki are doing and follow suit. I think it would be better if we model all translations based on the bigger Indian wikis like Hindi, Kannada, Tamil, Bengali, etc. To all those who speak Gujarati, please help me out at Betawiki. You'll find http://translatewiki.net/wiki/Translating:Intro to be very useful. Akash On Dec 25, 2007 7:48 PM, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen@...> wrote: Hoi, _______________________________________________ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@... http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l |
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Re: Localisation of the languages of India
by Anirudh Bhati
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Transliterating English words into Devanagari script is the common practice on most of the websites with content in Hindi and other Indian languages.
On Dec 25, 2007 9:18 PM, Akash <akash.great@...> wrote: Hi. _______________________________________________ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@... http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l |
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Re: Localisation of the languages of India
by Akash Shah
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Some of the users of guwiki were against the practice. But I think transliterating the words is much better than just keeping them in English
On Dec 25, 2007 9:24 PM, Anirudh <anirudhsbh@...> wrote: Transliterating English words into Devanagari script is the common practice on most of the websites with content in Hindi and other Indian languages. _______________________________________________ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@... http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l |
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Re: Localisation of the languages of India
by Anirudh Bhati
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Well, I can certainly empathise with the reservations they might have with such a practice. But, IMO, not many users of the internet from India, who like to view and use content available in vernacular medium, are very fluent in what we call the pure and unchaste form of Indian languages, and specially Hindi.
There are national organisations, including governmental, which have chosen to use transliterated words rather than the so-called "pure" words, most of which are non-existent. But, this is just a suggestion. Best wishes, --Anirudh On Dec 25, 2007 9:28 PM, Akash <akash.great@...> wrote: Some of the users of guwiki were against the practice. But I think transliterating the words is much better than just keeping them in English _______________________________________________ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@... http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l |
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Re: Localisation of the languages of India
by Hari Prasad Nadig
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Hi Gerard,
Long time since I visited betawiki too. Do send in the details about kn translation on betawiki off-the-list. We had translated namespace strings in addition to the translation of other strings earlier and we also had got them committed to the cvs. Kannada pack had complete translation on earlier versions but looks like as in the latest stable release of mediawiki, some new strings are to be translated and several old translations are to be modified. - Hari Prasad On Tue, 2007-12-25 at 15:18 +0100, Gerard Meijssen wrote: > Hoi, > India is a big country populated by many people speaking many > languages. It is no surprise that there are many wikipedias in > languages spoken in India. As you are active in organising a chapter > for the Wikimedia Foundation, I want to ask your collaboration on the > localisation for the Indian languages in MediaWiki. When you look at > the statistics for the localisation of MediaWiki and its extensions, > you will find that the Indian languages are not really supported. This > in marked contrast with the experience when you visit for instance the > hi.wikipedia.org. > > I want to ask you to collaborate on the central localisation of > MediaWiki in the "BetaWiki". Central localisation has big advantages, > a user interface will be properly supported in all Wikimedia > Foundation projects and the language will also be supported in Wikis > outside of the Wikimedia Foundation. At the moment more then hundred > MediaWiki extensions are supported in MediaWiki. Some are of specific > importance for projects or languages. As BetaWiki is appreciated more > and more as the place to be for MediaWiki localisation, this number > grows and with it the potential for collaboration. > > The first step is to import the existing localisation from your active > projects in to BetaWiki. The next step is to make sure that all the > messages do not contain information that is specific to Wikipedia so > that it is indeed useful in other projects. Localisation of MediaWiki > is important and this makes it a requirement for new projects in a > language. What is of more relevance is that it is easier to edit a > Wiki when the user interface is consistent from one project to the > next. > > When we make it easier for people to read and edit MediaWiki, we will > grow the community of people that make our projects a success. > > Thanks, > GerardM > > http://translatewiki.net/wiki/Main_Page BetaWiki > http://translatewiki.net/wiki/Translating:Group_statistics Statistics _______________________________________________ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@... http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l |
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Re: Localisation of the languages of India
by Hari Prasad Nadig
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On Tue, 2007-12-25 at 21:28 +0530, Akash wrote: > Some of the users of guwiki were against the practice. But I think transliterating the words is much better than just keeping them in English Translating them would be much better option. Transliteration is needed, but not on all strings. For those strings that do not have an alternative word that a native speaker readily understands, we could make do with transliteration. In fact, that is the way we've done the Kannada language pack for mediawiki. In Kannada context I can say that in cities, English words are predominantly used in the spoken language. But as you go outside metros, the usage of English words narrows down to only those that do not have alternative Kannada words. For instance, "Bus", "CD", "Cigarette" etc. We should keep the larger audience in mind rather than just Urban users when translating/transliterating since Internet penetration outside cities is increasing by every passing day. - Hari Prasad _______________________________________________ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@... http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l |
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Re: Localisation of the languages of India
by Utkarshraj Atmaram
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On Dec 26, 2007 12:13 AM, Hari Prasad Nadig <mail@...> wrote:
> > In Kannada context I can say that in cities, English words are > predominantly used in the spoken language. But as you go outside metros, > the usage of English words narrows down to only those that do not have > alternative Kannada words. For instance, "Bus", "CD", "Cigarette" etc. > > We should keep the larger audience in mind rather than just Urban users > when translating/transliterating since Internet penetration outside > cities is increasing by every passing day. I agree, simply transliterating English words into Indian languages is a bad idea. But, IMHO, it's even worse to coin new equivalents that do not exist in the language already. For example, using "સંગણક" ("Sanganaka") for "Computer": http://gu.wikipedia.org/wiki/વિકિપીડિયા:ગુજરાતી_અનુવાદની_યાદી I've read the term "संगणक" (Sanganaka) in some Hindi-Marathi textbooks, but even the people in the remote Hindi/Marathi rural areas use the term "कम्प्यूटर" (Computer) to refer to the machine. In many such cases, it's much better to use use the popular English words, which have entered local languages. Nobody in Hindi-Marathi speaking areas (including the remotest villages) uses "दूरध्वनि" to describe a telephone, everybody calls it a टेलिफोन (or टेलिफ़ोन, to be more accurate). Using newly-coined words that'll remain limited to books or news broadcasts on government is of little practical use. -- Utkarshraj Atmaram http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Utcursch _______________________________________________ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@... http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l |
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