tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6848882470329418857.post6939383748078546903..comments2023-12-16T06:36:33.190-08:00Comments on Indigenous Tweets: In the shadow of Pinatubo: José Navarro on KapampanganKevin Scannellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11102683404376963361noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6848882470329418857.post-84615636458321599282011-09-14T05:10:51.191-07:002011-09-14T05:10:51.191-07:00Facebook has a simularly meaningless statement Joi...Facebook has a simularly meaningless statement <a href="http://www.facebook.com/apps/application.php?id=4329892722&sk=info" rel="nofollow">Join our community of translators and make Facebook available in your language.</a><br /><br />Of course I'm game to try but I suspect that those statements about "in your language" are just grand words.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6848882470329418857.post-87390280312959577062011-09-10T13:33:21.642-07:002011-09-10T13:33:21.642-07:00I just took a look at population figures for Googl...I just took a look at population figures for Google's 140+ interface languages, from <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_languages_by_number_of_native_speakers" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_languages_by_number_of_native_speakers</a> and Ethnologue for the smaller languages.<br /><br />About 4.6 billion people are native speakers of some Google interface language. Even if we assume some of these speaker numbers are out-of-date and underestimate the actual populations, I'd say there are at least 1-2 billion people who can't use Google in their native language. Even taking just the 50 biggest "missing" languages from the Wikipedia page above, that's 700 million people unable to use Google.<br /><br />I'd say this is a powerful argument to make to a company whose stated philosophy is <a href="http://www.google.com/about/corporate/company/tenthings.html" rel="nofollow">"to facilitate access to information for the entire world, and <i>in every language</i>"</a> (my emphasis).Kevin Scannellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11102683404376963361noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6848882470329418857.post-14192189613752044622011-09-08T15:20:22.199-07:002011-09-08T15:20:22.199-07:00Hi José,
Would you be interested in adding Kapa...Hi José, <br /><br />Would you be interested in adding Kapampangan to the Three Monks Project? We already have Tagalog and Sinugboanon (Cebuano), and just recently the promise of Tagbanua and Cuyunon:<br /><br />http://www.smo.uhi.ac.uk/sengoidelc/donncha/tm/ilteangach/teangacha.php<br /><br />Dennis KingDennis Kinghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16257272622416604133noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6848882470329418857.post-37429284303931782682011-09-07T13:45:32.741-07:002011-09-07T13:45:32.741-07:00Yes, I agree with Kevin. We had a quick exchange o...Yes, I agree with Kevin. We had a quick exchange off site where I suggested just that, a more long-term solution to localisation.<br /><br />My main concern is that we'll be forever behind the big boys and pestering this giant or that giant to do something for a subset of languages. And when Google goes the way of AltaVista and Facebook is the new VHS, we'll have to start all over.<br /><br />I just floated ideas at Kevin, I didn't realise my suggestion of some sort of external interface localisation might actually work.<br /><br />I'd personally rather we pool sources and manpower to get a long-term solution like that off the ground rather than reinforce the ratrace. And who knows, if we do come up with a workable solution, some of the big boys may eventually come round to help integrate such a solution better with their software.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6848882470329418857.post-89137254894125427942011-09-07T13:37:30.612-07:002011-09-07T13:37:30.612-07:00Hi Carl, glad you're enjoying the interviews a...Hi Carl, glad you're enjoying the interviews and thanks for the comments above. A lot of food for thought here.<br /><br />Regarding points 2 and 3... I've been planning a blog post with a kind of "what-can-I-do-now" list of high impact open source software projects and a quick HOWTO on localisation. I wrote a paper a bit like this for the (Native American) Indigenous Language Institute a few years ago (<a href="http://borel.slu.edu/pub/ili.pdf" rel="nofollow">PDF</a>). And my friend Friedel Wolff from translate.org.za has a newish l10n guide with more concrete advice and less philosophizing, <a href="http://www.africanlocalisation.net/foss-localisation-manual" rel="nofollow">here</a>.<br /><br />Regarding point 1, I'd be excited to try and make some kind of lobbying effort a reality. There are dozens of language groups simultaneously trying to "get in" with Google and Facebook, and only a small number have had any luck. Let me start by putting together some statistics on the languages not currently supported by Google for starters and I'll post those here (or maybe in a separate blog post).<br /><br />Out of frustration with this situation, I've been pondering the idea of moving the localization process out of the hands of Google/Facebook, etc. entirely, and creating client-side addons which will translate web content "live". Since very few of our languages have machine translation (none of it very good), the idea would be to use crowd-sourced translation memories, maintained independently from the web sites themselves. My student Michael Schade posted some of these ideas <a href="http://mschade.me/a-voyage-into-the-universalization-of-localiz" rel="nofollow">on his blog</a>.Kevin Scannellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11102683404376963361noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6848882470329418857.post-82409154355548995342011-09-07T10:11:57.259-07:002011-09-07T10:11:57.259-07:00Greetings from Wales. These interviews have been f...Greetings from Wales. These interviews have been fascinating - thanks.<br /><br />The issue of support from web-based services like Twitter, Google, Facebook and so on is becoming a common theme in the small languages.<br /><br />I wonder if there is a way we can unite the language communities that have an interest in digital media. I can think of three things straightaway.<br /><br />1. united 'lobbying' of companies to show them the importance and value of supporting small languages and best practice (how to structure strings to be translated, why flags should not be used to denote languages, etc.) - I'm sure that in aggregate we can represent millions of people.<br /><br />2. perhaps a commonly maintained list of contacts and/or how-tos for translating various web services<br /><br />3. A what-can-I-do-now list, perhaps aimed at the casual observer who is interested in contributing to translation and localisation efforts in their language, e.g. go to GlotPress and help WordPress code to be translated into your language<br /><br />Regarding 3 I think that working on open source software can be a huge step for the speakers of the language, for deciding on terms etc and can actually sometimes influence the proprietary services to adopt your language.<br /><br />Any thoughts on the above?Carl Morrishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13640977571634553517noreply@blogger.com