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GNOME In Hindi
whacker9 writes "IndLinux.org has released GNOME interface in Hindi which is the most commonly spoken language in India. The interface is called "Milan" which is Hindi for "union". Check out the press release on New Indian Express, the release page and some screenshots (for those who understand the lingo).."
Have you even lived in India? First of all India has 14 different principal languages and most of them have a separate script of their own. There is a huge number of people who speak their native languages properly and find it difficult understanding English (even if they can read the letters, it does not mean they can understand messages and prompts!).
Hindi being the most widely spoken in India, the translation of Gnome into Hindi, is a great first step. Lets hope it inspires other efforts in order to port Gnome to other Indian languages.
This is but a small step towards promoting Linux among a wide number of users in India who might want to deal with computers in a language they are most comfortable with
Inevitable, in fact, IMHO, necessary.
The reason I believe is this:- unlike other language users, Hindi speakers like me are essentially bi-lingual (penta-lingual in my case). Which is to say, even if we type/speak in Hindi, we're used to a more English version of things. I mean, really, how would you translate "OK" to Hindi? Theek hai? For a natural language speaker who's used to an English interface, nothing could sound more funny. Which is also the reason why many of Devnagari commands on the menus are direct transliterations of actual English commands. The translation, as opposed to transliteration, is actually less than it seems.
The problems don't stop there of course. Like most Americans and most other Indian programmers, I'm used to the 101 US keyboard with ASCII layout. I have five Indian language (Telugu) word processors on my system, but rarely use the regular keyboard interface that comes along. Reason:- it easier to type with an ASCII layout keyboard than the ISCII one. More used to it.
Professional DTP folks back in India also apparently have a similar problem; most seem to prefer SreeLipi, which uses the traditional typewriter layout for keyboards, instead of iLeap, which uses the ISCII layout. This, I think, is IndLinux's biggest drawback. How many would like to change their typing habits, especially in languages with complex glyphs?
And finally, despite all appearances, this is not the first Indian language layout for Linux. Tamil Linux, apparently, got there first.
More than mere navel gazing.