Translate.org.za Newsletter May 2004

Hi Alastair,

This is what the translate project has been up to todate.

Cheers
Dwayne


Translate.org.za :: Opensource software translation project

May 2004 Newsletter
+++++++++++++++++++

Translate.org.za is a project translating Opensource software into all
of South Africa's official languages and offering assistance and
creating tools to help other language teams.

To subscribe to this newsletter send an email to
[[5]translate-announce-request@lists.translate.org.za] with the word
"subscribe" in the subject line. You could win some exciting prizes.
If you think a friend might be interested in this newsletter then
please forward it to them.

News Headlines
==============

Competition
-----------
We will be sending one goodie bag to a lucky subscriber every quarter.
The contents will include CD's, T-shirts and various things from time
to time. Only subscribers to the announce list are eligible. Become a
subscriber by emailing
[6][translate-announce-request@lists.translate.org.za] with the word
"subscribe" in the subject line.
        
Translate-athon                                               
---------------
Together with the [[8]Western Cape Language Committee] we hosted our
very first Translate-athon at [[9]The University of Cape Town]. Many
dedicated language professionals, professors and students gave up
their Saturday to help translate OpenOffice.org into Xhosa. There was
much fun and laughter and the work of these dedicated people will be
incorporated into our future Xhosa versions.

Spellcheckers                                               
-------------
In the last newsletter we mentioned that we hoped to produce a free
spellchecker. We have been successful in this and have released not
one, but three key spellcheckers which you can download and try out
([[12]Zulu], [[13]Kiswahili] and [[14]Afrikaans]). Each has a story
that reiterates the fact that languages benefit from Opensource. And
we'll see many more spellcheckers covering all of South Africa's
languages in the future.

Sponsors take us further                                   
------------------------
We have received funding from [[17]The Shuttleworth Foundation] to
provide translations for the Gnome desktop on Linux. [[18]The
Department of Communications] together with the [[19]CSIR's Meraka
Opensource Centre] have committed to supporting the project for the
next two years.

Other News
----------
         
Apple Mac OS X builds of OpenOffice.org
Using computer time on an Apple - [[21]Mac OS X] kindly donated by
[[22]bridges.org] and a build system created by [[23]Pavel Janik] of
the Czechoslovak team we have been able to create Mac builds of
OpenOffice.org 1.1.2 beta. If you are a Mac fan then download the
[[24]English], [[25]Northern Sotho], [[26]Afrikaans] or [[27]Zulu]
versions.

Tools to make translation easier
Without good tools translation can be a very difficult task,
especially for those who are not technically minded but passionate
about seeing software in their language. Find out more about what we
have been doing to make translating easier. Or [[28]download the
Mozilla and OpenOffice conversion tools]

More Translations
We have translated the [[30]Gnome desktop] into Afrikaans for version
2.6 and will contribute Northern Sotho and Zulu in the next few weeks.
This work was sponsored by [[31]The Shuttleworth Foundation].

Development Mailing List
In an effort to involve more people with the project we started a
development mailing list. All discussions about the direction of the
project, contributions by volunteers and more are discussed here. You
can join by emailing
[[32]translate-devel-request@lists.sourceforge.net] with the word
"subscribe" in the subject line.
  _________________________________________________________________

If you feel that somehow your language has been left out then contact
us and be the first to volunteer or to offer financial support.  We
have much more in store for the rest of  2004 - we will keep you up to
date on our progress.

Sincerely,
Dwayne

Dwayne Bailey
Director Zuza Software Foundation
Project Manager Translate.org.za
  _________________________________________________________________

Translate-athon
===============
We ran a successful Translate-athon at UCT as part of the Western Cape
Language Boards Xhosa awareness week. Much fun was had by all, and we
have a number of volunteers who want to see their language on the
computer and are prepared to help ensure that it happens.

This event was a trial run and we learnt much about how to run such an
event. We want to run similar events around the country. If you would
like to see a Translate-athon in your area or in your language then
please get in touch with us.

The ideal candidate translators are:
  * Language professionals
  * First language speakers

The Xhosa team has established a mailing list to discuss the
translation effort. You can join by emailing
[[33]translate-discuss-xh-request@lists.sourceforge.net] with the word
"subscribe" in the subject line.

If you would like to lead a similar effort in any other language then
please contact us and we can set up a mailing list for you.

Spellcheckers for everyone
==========================
Translate.org.za has released an Afrikaans and Zulu spellchecker and
together with Jason Githeko, released a Kiswahili spellchecker in
March. The hardest part of the Afrikaans spellchecker was tracking
down the various developers and getting them to re-license their work
under an [[34]Opensource] license. Why is it so important that we use
an Opensource license? There are very few resources available in
African languages and every time someone creates a new language
resource but limits language speakers rights to use that work, they
effectively hold the language back. The Afrikaans spellchecker as well
as all our other spellchecker work is released under the [[35]LGPL
license]. This license states that all the work is copyrighted by the
contributors, but that users and developers are free to make use of
the word lists in free or non-free software. But they must note that
any improvements that they make to the word lists must be released
under the same terms and thus given back to all the users of the
language. In this way we ensure that all the work remains free and
helps produce more free language resources.

We encourage all other language practitioners including translators,
dictionary creators and spellchecker creators to contribute their work
in this way for the greater good of the language.

The Zulu spellchecker was based on the words found in the Zulu Bible.
These seed words are used to find other words on the Internet. We
still, however, need humans to validate words that are found. If you
feel that you could help contribute to building the Zulu spellchecker,
please contact us.

The Kiswahili spellchecker demonstrated again that people cooperating
can quickly produce results. Jason Githeko had for many years been
trying to develop a Kiswahili spellchecker. He had initially tried to
develop it for Microsoft Word but was frustrated because of the lack
of help he received. At the recently held [[36]AfricaSource]
conference that brought together Opensource developers from all over
Africa Jason met Dwayne Bailey from Translate.org.za. Jason had the
wordlist and Dwayne had the tools and skills to build the
spellchecker. In less than a day they had produced a spellchecker.
Bringing together two experts and sharing knowledge has helped
Kiswahili take its rightful place as a modern language.

Funders and sponsors
====================
We have some really positive news on this front. A number of
organisations have stepped up to the mark to make this year a year of
good progress:

[[37]The Shuttleworth Foundation] is currently funding the translation
of the [[38]Gnome desktop], an installer and the update of OpenOffice
and Mozilla. Their sponsorship covers Afrikaans, Northern Sotho and
Zulu, which are our key languages.

We have finalised funding from the [[39]Department of Communications]
that will help us run a number of Translate-athons and will allow
Dwayne Bailey to commit to the project on a full-time basis. The
[[40]CSIR's] [[41]Meraka Opensource Centre] will oversee the
management of the project on behalf of the Department of
Communications.

Our Current Patrons
-------------------
These are organisations that help fund and support Translate.org.za in
various ways:
[[42]Department of Communications]
[[43]CSIR Meraka]
[[44]Obsidian Systems]
[[45]St James Software]
[[46]The Shuttleworth Foundation]
[[47]UniForum]

Tools to assist translators
===========================
Behind the scenes Translate.org.za has to work with a number of pieces
of software. Some are elegant and some are like vipers that twist and
turn, ready to bite at a moments notice. In order to tame these
dragons we have developed a number of tools. We automate many of these
so that we can produce results quickly.

In the last quarter we saw many refinements to our conversion tools
that are used on Mozilla and OpenOffice.org translations. Very
encouraging is the fact that we are now joined by the Brazilian
Portuguese and [[48]Khmer] (Khmer is the official language of Cambodia
and is spoken by over 90% of the population) translators of Mozilla,
who are using our tools on their languages too. Their enthusiasm has
helped ensure that bugs in the tools have been fixed, the tools now
run on Windows and a [[49]help manual] is now being written.

Our Mozilla packaging process is now almost complete. Mozilla
translations are contained in an XPI file while we translate PO files.
We can take an English Mozilla XPI file, unpack it, create translated
PO files and repackage the new translations into a new language XPI
file. All of this is now mostly automated with the aim of complete
automation and documentation within the next few releases.

Documentation has been a strong focus this quarter. We have documented
all our processes around spellchecking, Mozilla and OpenOffice. To
this end we hope to build a general translation guide in the near
future.

References

   Visible links
   1. http://www.translate.org.za/
   2. http://translate.org.za/main.php?category=66&subcategory=0
   3. http://translate.org.za/main.php?category=76&subcategory=0
   4.
mailto:translate-announce-request@lists.translate.org.za?subject=unsubscribe&body=unsubscribe
   5.
mailto:translate-announce-request@lists.translate.org.za?body=subscribe&subject=subscribe
   6.
mailto:translate-announce-request@lists.translate.org.za?subject=subscribe&body=subscribe
   8.
http://www.capegateway.gov.za/eng/directories/public_entities/403/404
   9. http://www.uct.ac.za/
  12.
http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=91920&package_id=106128&release_id=208678
  13.
http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=91920&package_id=113733&release_id=227205
  14.
http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=91920&package_id=103504
  17.
http://www.tsf.org.za/oscp/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=3
  18. http://www.doc.gov.za/
  19. http://www.meraka.org.za/postnukeII/
  21. http://www.apple.com/macosx/
  22. http://www.bridges.org/
  23. http://blog.janik.cz/
  24.
http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/translate/OOo_cws_srx645_ooo112fix1_Macosx_install_english.tar.gz?download
  25.
http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/translate/OOo_cws_srx645_ooo112fix1_Macosx_install_northernsotho.tar.gz?download
  26.
http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/translate/OOo_cws_srx645_ooo112fix1_Macosx_install_afrikaans.tar.gz?download
  27.
http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/translate/OOo_cws_srx645_ooo112fix1_Macosx_install_zulu.tar.gz?download
  28.
http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/translate/translate-0.7.1.tar.gz?download
  30. http://gnome.org/
  31. http://www.shuttleworthfoundation.org/
  32.
mailto:translate-devel-request@lists.sourceforge.net?subject=subscribe&body=subscribe
  33.
mailto:translate-discuss-xh-request@lists.sourceforge.net?subject=subscribe&body=subscribe
  34. http://opensource.org/
  35. http://opensource.org/licenses/lgpl-license.php
  36. http://www.tacticaltech.org/africasource
  37. http://www.shuttleworthfoundation.org/
  38. http://gnome.org/
  39. http://www.doc.gov.za/
  40. http://www.csir.co.za/
  41. http://www.meraka.org.za/
  42. http://www.doc.gov.za/
  43. http://www.meraka.org.za/
  44. http://www.obsidian.co.za/
  45. http://sjsoft.com/
  46. http://www.shuttleworthfoundation.org/
  47. http://co.za/
  48. http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=KMR
  49. http://www.khmeros.info/tools/mozilla_po_tools_documentation.htm