tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sun Dec 21 21:21:55 2003
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Re: Please start GNOME/KDE translation project for Klingon (Klingon Computing)
On Saturday 20 December 2003 21:31, David A. Wheeler wrote:
> I'd love to see someone start a GNOME (and KDE) translation project
> for Klingon.
I'm a new member of the KLI, and an older member of the OpenOffice.org
(OOo) project. As I have mentioned a couple of times in the past on
this list, there is interest in localizing Klingon for OOo. Please
contact me of the list if you are interested in participating. Due to
Paramount's interest in its intellectual property, and due to the fact
that the KLI already has a good legal relationship with Paramount, I
personally would like to see interested persons become paid members of
the KLI, if they're not already. Doing so will have the mutually
beneficial effects of strengthening the KLI, and it will also make
sure that the localization proceeds in a legal fashion from the point
of view of Paramount.
Please feel free to email me or phone me at 415-351-1300. Of course,
OOo is a free office suite which is compatible with Microsoft Office
(MSO), and it is possible to share files with MSO users.
My role in the project is to solicit Klingonists and computer
programmers so that the more experienced Klingonists will be able to
coordinate the translation, and the programmers will be able to take
their work and plug the translation into the correct digital pidgeon
holes.
I do know that lots of work has been done to get Klingon localized on
various computer programs, such as var'aq for Linux, linked here:
http://www.geocities.com/connorbd/varaq/
So it appears that we are not exactly writing on a blank slate. I have
figured out that if we can get 15 Klingonists each translating 2 words
per minute, then we can get the initial list of 11,000 words and
phrases translated in a total of 6.11 hours per Klingonist, and those
11,000 words will put us well on the way to having completed the
localization of Klingon into OOo.
We _can_ make this project a reality!
Christian Einfeldt
>
> The Linux kernel folks built some support in for Klingon many years
> ago. The GNOME folks have been apparantly expecting some such
> effort to start up, and seem to believe they're ready for it
> (see Owen Taylor's comments at:
> http://beast.gtk.org/mirror/gnome-news/946276088.html
> Owen Taylor heads up GTK+, the key infrastructure of GNOME.)
>
> GNOME and KDE are in general open to supporting other languages.
> For example, Alan Cox (a key Linux kernel developer) recently
> discussed how Welsh support was being added to GNOME:
> http://www.itwales.com/cgi/showsite/showpage.cgi?998973
>
> Back in 2000 there was discussion among the GNOME
> folks. Here's a direct quote:
> "If a person thinks
> that it really sucks that GNOME isn't availiable in Klingon, he goes
> to the gnome.org pages, reads about the GNOME translation project,
> and reads the instruction about how to create a Klingon translation
> team and provide Klingon translations. Eventually, he will have
> company by others who also thinks the same about Klingon and want to
> help." This is from:
> http://mail.gnome.org/archives/gnome-web-list/2000-November/msg00331
>.html
>
> Here are GNOME's statistics for support of various languages:
> http://developer.gnome.org/projects/gtp/status/gnome-2.6/
> Still no Klingon, because no one has decided to lead it (yet).
>
> I notice that back in 2001 there was some discussion about
> this, e.g.:
> /tlhIngan-Hol/2001/July/msg00195.html
>
> I have more contact with the GNOME folks, but I agree with earlier
> messages that a great deal of the translation effort can be shared
> with KDE (many key phrases like "File", "New", "Open File", etc.
> occur in both environments). Even a small effort could quickly
> handle the most common phrases. I suspect once a small set was
> created,
> others would join and make it grow. Especially if it was pointed to
> by the KLI, the Klingon FAQ, etc. And heck, even a small one would
> make great eye-candy :-).
>
> As the Klingon FAQ notes, there are also semi-official Unicode
> positions for real Klingon characters, using them would make it easy
> to have the "real" characters displayed. See the FAQ for how to
> generate those; it should be easy to let people enter the ASCII
> transliteration, and then store/display the "real" characters.
>
> Obviously there's the problem that some words may not have known
> translations, but existing words may be assigned additional meanings
> (as has happened in English). Perhaps Dr. Okrand can even be talked
> into helping. And whoever heads up the effort could always post to
> lists like this "How should 'File' be translated?" etc if all else
> fails, in the hopes that many minds might find solutions to the
> occasional sticky problem.
>
> Anyway, I think it'd be fun to see. I'm hoping to encourage someone
> to actually give it a try.
>
> --- David A. Wheeler <[email protected]>