Sorry it's taken me so long to answer this. On 04/10/2006, at 2:11 AM, Martin v. Löwis wrote:
> Jean-Christophe Helary schrieb: >> There is tremendous localization activity in African countries (not >> limited to South Africa) and other developer-poor areas. See Javier >> Sola's work in Cambodia. Of course, people who work on localization >> create pools of users and developers who do not need to communicate >> in English. Do you see a lot of Chinese developers on the net >> expressing themselves in English ? If you do are they not only the >> tip of an "iceberg" of Chinese only (or close) developers who do not >> feel the need to share with English only (or close) developers ? > > This is more-and-more getting off-topic. However, I see no problem > with the gettext documentation (which is written in English) stating > that msgids should be English (or a language close to it, like > Computer English :-). Users which can't understand English won't > see that recommendation. Users which understand and disagree are free > to write their own alternative recommendations, in a language more > likely adequate for their audience. I don't think that's entirely a safe assumption, Martin. The original version of any text (usually English so far in free software) is taken as the model. Translator _translate_ it, they don't change its meaning. In any case, we don't want competing documentation in different languages: we want localization to propagate definitive information, not diverge from it. So the original text (the model) needs to be written in a way that either covers the main issues, or requests that the missing ones be described as a supplement. Languages other than English are already being used as the original stringset; they are also being used as secondary languages in translations. We have been told by representatives of several cultures that these modifications are not only useful but necessary. So I think a statement in the gettext manual that original strings, while so far usually in English, may be expressed in other languages (augmented with details as they appear), and a reference to the possible use of an intermediate language in translations, would reflect the current usage and not detract from the main "intent" of the document. from Clytie (vi-VN, Vietnamese free-software translation team / nhóm Việt hóa phần mềm tự do) http://groups-beta.google.com/group/vi-VN ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Take Surveys. Earn Cash. Influence the Future of IT Join SourceForge.net's Techsay panel and you'll get the chance to share your opinions on IT & business topics through brief surveys -- and earn cash http://www.techsay.com/default.php?page=join.php&p=sourceforge&CID=DEVDEV _______________________________________________ Translate-pootle mailing list [email protected] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/translate-pootle
