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).."

Comments

Kind of unimpressive

[0x0d0a]

I mean, good work, translators, and there are a *hell* of a lot of people out there to whom the software is now actually usable, but I don't think any of those screenshots showed a completely translated application. They all had English menus or text mixed in somewhere.

Re:Kind of unimpressive

[JohnFluxx]

I thought this at first, but when you think about...
At some point you are going to need English. The program names are English, and so are the directories. So are usernames (?) or at least 'root' is. Further than that I cannot say. Whether doing the application menu in english is a design plan, not possible yet (mixing of english (program name) and hindu description, on one line), or a to-be-done, I don't know.

Re:Kind of unimpressive

[The Cydonian]

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.

Re:Kind of unimpressive

[SuperSnooper]

I work for a news network in India that has both English/Hindi channels. We use a software called Ism2000 by CDAC, and I don't know if it supports an ASCII layout or not, but the layout we're using is non-ASCII. And I've seen people at work who were never computer-friendly to begin with, settle down with Hindi typing within a day or two.
Basically, it's all just a matter of getting used to a layout. I type in hindi on this interface, and never skip a beat when switching from the non-ASCII layout for Hindi to the ASCII English layout. Personally, I've tried iLeap, and never liked using the ASCII layout...took me quite some time getting used to, but the layout we're using in office (don't know if it was pre-configured or specially designed by my company's tech department....some geek I am huh) took me much less time to get working with.

Re:Kind of unimpressive

[The Cydonian]

The Inscript layout has the vowels on the left side of the keyboard and the consonants on the right. The idea is you to type the consonant first and then *mould* the glyph using the vowels. It's the same layout for all Brahmi-scripts, which includes Sinhalese, Thai etc as well. Nifty idea, I'd say, but again, needs some getting used to.

Generally speaking, all CDAC software is Inscript, so it's quite possible that the layouts you've been talking about are Inscript. (The keyboard layout is actually called Inscript, while the character-lookup is called ISCII. Slight difference, sorry forgot about that in the earlier post)

Re:Kind of unimpressive

[shashank]

Ind linux does not use ISCII encoding they use unicode. For typing in the respective languages you will have to map your keyboard for that language. You can try downloading their input methods from there website and check them out (it works only for redhat didn't work on my debian m/c). I don't think they will be any different from the popular phonetic layout.

And yes you were correct about the Tamil version of Linux, Hindi verion is not the first one.

Re:Kind of unimpressive

[The Cydonian]

My mistake; I meant to say 'Inscript', which is the Indian keyboard layout, when I said 'ISCII'. I pointed this out later in a reply to someone else's reply.

You're right though; IndLinux uses Unicode and not ISCII.

Cool Enough

[fm6]

The screenshots are pretty cool even if you don't speak Hindi. I'm sure they gave all the Gnome I18N people a warm fuzzy feeling.

I remember seeing some of my own work translated into Japanese. Can't read a word, but it was still neat to see.

Re:Cool Enough

[JohnFluxx]

One of my howto's was translated to hungary ( I think) and I've had tons of hungarian spam email now ;)

It's not Indian Express...

[heytal]

It's Ind Press that the link refers to...

Sanskript?

[KDan]

Will they do a version in Sanskript too? Ancient Egyptian GNOME would rock, too :-)

Daniel

Re:Sanskript?

[The Cydonian]

Sanskrit uses the same alphabet, Devanagri. And official (sarkari) Hindi, ie, Hindi in governmental legalese, uses a lot of Sanskrit words, so you could argue that Sanskrit is waaay closer to a Linux port than most other Indian languages.

Re:Sanskript?

[KDan]

*Bites tongue off*

That will be my blame for spelling it with a 'p'...

*runs to get bandages for bleeding mouth*

Daniel

Sanskrit is too recent

[fm6]

Hey, consider who you're talking to! Certain other languages have a higher priority.

Re:Correct me if I am wrong.

[ydeepakjois]

In india, everyone who is educated knows basic English, enough to make out what all those menus mean.

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

Figures. Figures. Figures.

[The Cydonian]

18 official languages (check a recent rupee note). 845 non-official, but recognised. 1053 dialects. :-)

Also, as I said in my earlier post, this is probably not the first Indian language port; Tamil got there first. Any case, IndLinux, the group behind this particular port, has sub-groups for all official Indian languages.

Running as root?

[rubinson]

Does anyone know how to say "Don't run as the root user" in Hindi?