Google Translate does a great job through connecting people, cultures and nations around the globe. We really admire your service! The purpose of this letter is to describe the idea and main goals of our project “Kyrgyz Language in Google Translate” (KLiGT). We hope that this letter will stimulate your interest to include Kyrgyz language in Google Translate service.
The Kyrgyz Republic is a multilingual country, we use the Russian language as an official and Kyrgyz language as a national language. Some 70 per cent of the country’s population is ethnic Kyrgyz. Therefore, there is great demand for free and quick translations into Kyrgyz language among ordinary people, companies and organizations, including the government. However, existing local online translation services such cannot meet the demand since they provide only words translation but not massive texts. In the summer of 2011, the team of “Kyrgyzstan Internet Chapter ISOC” and a group of enthusiasts came up with the idea of promoting the Kyrgyz language to get it into Google Translate. We thought that making the Kyrgyz langauge part of the Google Translation service would give impetus to the development of Kyrgyz language and also would provide our nation an excellent instrument for browsing websites in different languages. Technical implementation of the project is done through www.enetil.kg, which has an instrument to automatically create tmx files. Any crowdsourcer if he has an account on social networks can log in and upload texts in Kyrgyz and corresponding translations in Russian and English. This text is stored in a database and then converted into a tmx format. Then, every week generated tmx files are uploaded into Google Translate Toolkit. Currently most of the texts are created by professional translators (6 full-time translators in staff), and then entries are double-checked by Chief Translators (2 part-time staff members). This ensures best quality of translation pairs. All texts are currently given in Kyrgyz and English versions. At the moment there are 1 052 426 translated words in our database, 702 715 of them have been approved by professional translators and uploaded to google translate toolkit. The project was widely supported by whole Internet community, individuals and private and public organizations. But main supporters and sponsors are Beeline (mobile operator), US Embassy in the Kyrgyz Republic, Soros Foundation in the Kyrgyz Republic, the Kyrgyz President’s office and the National Center for Information Technology. Also, local media outlets support us since the beginning of the project, and members of the team have been invited to several local television programs and dozen of articles were published in different news websites. In December 2011 our project was given the Best Social Project of the Year award at the National IT Forum (KIT http://www.gipi.kg/kit/). Our nation of only 5 million people is the only democracy within 3 000 miles. We have the highest rate of Internet penetration level in the region and absolutely free Internet policy compared to our neighboring countries. We believe that introducing the Kyrgyz language into Google Translate Service will give the following advantages: Give impetus to the development of the Kyrgyz language in IT and as a whole; People who speak in Kyrgyz will have an opportunity to get more information from Internet and use it more effectively; People who don’t speak Kyrgyz can translate information in Kyrgyz into their own languages; Anybody who wants to learn Kyrgyz will have a powerful translation service available anytime and anywhere. People of the Kyrgyz Republic and those abroad really want the Kyrgyz Language in Google Translate! Best regards, Atai Zhunushov, KLiGT Project Manager Contact: phone.: +996/ 312 64 18 48 e-mail: [email protected] web: www.isoc.kg, www.enetil.kg address: 27 Molodaya Gvardiya Ave, office 413, Bishkek, Kyrgyz Republic -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "General" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/google-translate-general?hl=en.
