Slashdot Mirror
OpenOffice.org In Swahili
linhux writes "A reported on Gnuheter (in Swedish) and elsewhere, OpenOffice.org has been translated to Swahili in a joint collaboration effort of the Department of Computer Science at the University of Dar es Salaam (UDSM) and a company called IT+46, and funded by the university and Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency. Neither Microsoft Office nor Windows supports Swahili. Currently, only the Tanzanian dialect has been completed, but Kenyan, Congo and Ugandan dialects are on their way. It's called Jambo OpenOffice and is part of the Kilinux Open Swahili Localization Project."
Sigs cause cancer.
How much of an emerging market is Africa? Is Swahili a real barrier to entry for a potential African Consumer? Really what I ma asking is is there a market that MS is missing out on in Africa by not having Swahili? If so this is a major blow to them, if not, then I'm not sure this makes much difference at all.
I tried for 5 years to come up with a clever sig...only to realize that I am not clever.
Neither Microsoft Office nor Windows supports Swahili.
How much profit do you think MS is losing by not translating to Swahili? I'm guessing you don't see a Swahili version because they wouldn't get enough profit to support it.
Granted, I don't want to take away from OO's success here. Open source finding its ways into (technologically) underdeveloped countries will go a long way to making it more standard worldwide.
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
Opensource shines in small under-served markets. Its allows small communities and organizations to bring effective computing power to everyone, not just the rich first world. I have been using Openoffice for over a year and it is a 95% replacement for Microsoft Word.
Well done Openoffice team!!
Q. What is Calvin's monster snowman called? A. The Torment Of Existence Weighed Against The Horror of Non Being
Jambo is swahili for hello (AFAIK).
Shurely shome mishtake...?
Find Japanese addresses in English on Google Maps Japan: http://diddlefinger.com/
where Open Source really shines. You have some interested part[y|ies] that have a desire to translate software package(s) to a desired lanuage(s), and with some helpful cooperation, it can be accomplished. Whereas in a commercial environment, such a decision to translate the closed source software is overlooked because the percentage of users is too small to justify the cost of paying translators and developers.
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est Pro patria mori
Ughh... please don't give them any ideas.
Next thing you know we'll have LOTR Linux and ST: Enterprise Linux.
When openoffice is used more than MS office, we'll have a story. This is cool, but minor, news :)
Now that it supports Swahili, OOo is ready for prime-time!
$8.95/mo web hosting
...refer to OOo as Uhuru Software, now?
Yes, I know it's a bit ropey...
How is this a bad thing or a waste or time? It's one more developing place of the world that has a chace to use good, quality software. It's not like this venture is a going to make them charge you more for the OpenOffice.org suite, now is it?
Both Redhat and Suse already have Enterprise Linux
Paying taxes to buy civilization is like paying a hooker to buy love.
Now only Kilingon and Yiddish remain..
Simon.
Who needs Swahili? I'm waiting for them to release the Khoisan language pack for Openoffice.
Click..Click---click..click^%#$%click=!~@$CLICK
Yawn. I'll be impressed when it's available in esperanto.
-Colin
In Korea only old people speak Swahili...
---- Take the Space Quiz!
It's always nice to see OSS being used anywhere.
On another note, is there a good reason for OOo to be running as root?
If your life is so full of "things to do" that a 20 second difference between the loading of MSOffice and OpenOffice is that important to you, how come you're wasting time on Slashdot?
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
I think some NGO's would find this very interesting as it would make it easier to use local staff and train them in computer use. Also, you can't ignore that, allthough having software in English is probably not a significant barrier for most African computer users, being able to use it in your native tongue will definitely make you more inclined to use that particular software.
Nothing is impossible. We just haven't quite worked out how to do it yet.
The Baganda (a tribe) whose native language is Luganda and from who the country name Uganda was coined, are very proud people. To this end there is a Mozilla project that was completed in Luganda. http://www.mail-archive.com/lug@linux.or.ug/msg015 66.html
I wish them success, but doubt there will be any impact in that country called Uganda.
where's the news?
This is a big deal - and is part of the reason that I'm starting to commit to really learning to use the Linux desktop environments.
I'm involved with a number of groups that are doing relief work in Africa. The problem that we're particularly involved with is the growing population of orphan children being created by the devastation of the AIDS virus. There is an immense amount of basic education that needs to happen so that these children will be able to begin rebuilding the society they are going to inherit.
Part of that education needs to be computer based - and involves simply skills like typing, using the mouse, writing reports, etc. Having a version of an office suite that is going to be available in the children's native tongue removes one significant obstacle from this process.
A group of us are in the process now of getting ready to travel to southern Africa to do a needs assessment. We need to find out what sorts of tech might work and how to get it set up and running. Linux is a pretty obvious answer - since we can install it on older hardware, and one reasonably beefy computer can serve a number of thin clients in a classroom.
Yay for group that is doing this particular localization.
In illa quae ultra sunt
I disagree. Anyone who wants to translate Open Office into Klingon shouldn't be a part of regular society and is best left to working hard in their basement on the "Klingon translation project" instead of wandering free and pestring the rest of the civilized world.
So by all means, translate away! =)
How many people who are able and prefer to use Swahili actually going to use a computer to do it or is this yet another vanity computer project like Google in Klingon? Why is it progress to do something to insure that more people are isolated from one another?
In a move IBM offices are hailing as a major step in the company's ongoing worldwide telecommunications revolution, M'wana Ndeti, a member of Zaire's Bantu tribe, used an IBM notebook computer yesterday to crush a nut.
Ndeti, who spent 20 minutes trying to open the nut by hand, easily cracked it open by smashing it repeatedly with the powerful computer.
"I could not crush the nut by myself," said the 47-year-old Ndeti, who added the savory nut to a thick, peanut-based soup minutes later. "With IBM's help, I was able to break it." Ndeti discovered the nut-breaking, ThinkPad R51 yesterday, when IBM was shooting a commercial in his southwestern Zaire village. During a break in shooting, which shows African villagers eagerly teleconferencing via computer with Japanese schoolchildren, Ndeti snuck onto the set and took the notebook computer, which he believed would serve well as a "smashing" utensil.
IBM officials were not surprised the longtime computer giant was able to provide Ndeti with practical solutions to his everyday problems. "Our consulting services offer people all over the world solutions that fit their specific needs," said Herbert Ross, IBM's director of marketing. "Whether you're a nun cloistered in an Italian abbey or an Aborigine in Australia's Great Sandy Desert, IBM has the ideas to get you where you want to go today."
According to Ndeti, of the Thinkpad's many powerful features, most impressive was its hard plastic casing, which easily sustained several minutes of vigorous pounding against a large stone. "I put the nut on a rock, and I hit it with the computer," Ndeti said. "The computer did not break. It is a good computer."
Ndeti was so impressed with the ThinkPad that he purchased a new, state-of-the-art IBM OpenPower (TM) Linux server, complete with a 1.5 GHz POWER5 (TM) microprocessor, an internal DVD-ROM drive and two 10/100/1000 ethernet adapters. The tribesman has already made good use of the computer system, fashioning a gazelle trap out of its wires, a boat anchor out of the monitor and a crude but effective weapon from its mouse.
"This is a good computer," said Ndeti, carving up a just-captured gazelle with the computer's flat, sharp internal processing device. "I am using every part of it. I will cook this gazelle on the keyboard." Hours later, Ndeti capped off his delicious gazelle dinner by smoking the computer's 200-page owner's manual.
IBM spokespeople praised Ndeti's choice of computers. "We are pleased that the Bantu people are turning to IBM for their business needs," said company CEO William Allaire. "From Kansas City to Kinshasa, IBM is bringing the world closer together. Our cutting-edge technology is truly creating a global village."
For those that are wondering what "gnuheter" means; it is a composition of the english word "GNU" and Swedish word "nyheter" (for news), so in English I guess it would be something like "gnuws". uhm.. :)
Great.. Now M$ has the code and will include it in the next patch, no problem. Thanks for all the fish. :)
or is a database created- with pointers to a 'use this word' list, so that the 3rd and further languages can be added by merely updating the list of available translations?
the second, while far more work, makes additional translations something any native speaker of english+desired language can assemble
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
Microsoft has gotten into trouble internationally with cultural problems. Free software has a natural immunity from that.
Because FOSS developers rely on the people closest to the problem to solve the problem, such cultural difficulties are minimized. It's a built-in advantage: rather than translating the program for a language, people who live in a different culture will, without thinking about it, translate the program into that culture.
As this story shows, markets for which commercial software companies can't find an adequate profit potential are ripe for introduction of FOSS. All you need is one user, one willing programmer, and one native translator - and in fact, those can all be the same person.
sigs, as if you care.
Given the typical Liverpudlian disdain for actually paying for things, does anyone know if there's a plan to translate OSS into Scouse?
Slashdot: News for Nerds, Stuff that matters only to them
Why the joking about the Swahili translation? Yes, it seens to be a small market. But please remember that Swahili is something like the 7th most commonly spoken language in the world. It's a well-known trade language in East- and Central Africa, and in a hugely polyglot culture, the trade languages are very important. Swahili is an official language in Kenya, and Tanzania, and probably in Rwanda and Uganda as well. Think about this: it could be that the proliferation of high-tech tools in underdeveloped areas is hindered by the lack of working software in local languages. Would you like to learn Swahili just to read the help files in Gnumeric? This is a big deal - most especially because it was done by Swahili speaking techs at a Swahili speaking school (Okay, so Tanzanian colleges teach in English mostly - all the students speak Kiswahili.) The fact that a local community took sofware and adapted it to their needs is the very essence of open source. Nafurahi Chuoo Kikuu Cha Dar Es Salaam cha kufasiri OO.O! (I love the University of Dar for translating Open Office.)
Yup.
Expect long lectures about how Western intellectual imperialism is destroying the nascent African software development industry
Slashdot: News for Nerds, Stuff that matters only to them
The one thing I think needs much much more attention is the OS X (Cocoa/native interface) port for OOo2.
It is apparently in a dire state at the moment (Ooo Mac Homepage), I have some Cocoa experience but am only a student so I lack enough experience to help at the moment, but I find it very depressing to hear again and again how the native Mac port is slowing down, or is *way* behind the X11 port.
If anyone wants to help, I know they need you.
This sig has been deprecated.
Open office has in-built support for these. At least, so they claim To quote: "support for complex text layout (CTL) languages (such as Thai, Hindi, Arabic, and Hebrew) and vertical writing languages."
Nothing is impossible. We just haven't quite worked out how to do it yet.
And where is OpenOffice for Mac OS X, not X-11, but X? If they can translate it into Swahili why can't they translate it into Cocoa?
I know a lot of people are making jokes about this, but it actually is a pretty big deal.
Swahili is a very common language in east Africa with around 60 million native or second-language speakers. It is much more a lingua-franca in Africa than the patchwork of imported European languages.
Remember, people speak Swahili, or dialects of it, in Kenya (colonized by the British), Tanzania (Germans), Mozambique (Portugese), Congo (French), and countries in between.
It is correct to say this market has largely been ignored for being too poor to support the costs of translating commercial applications, but this is the strength of OSS, isn't it?
Granted, one could ask what the point is in developing local-language software in places where few beneficiaries have the prerequisites to take advatage -- like electricity, let alone computers.
Nevertheless, it is definitely a step in the right direction, especially considering that PCs will only become more common, and increasing the potential access to those PCs to people who don't speak English (or whatever language MS ships/gets pirated there) will help the countries involved. Not to mention the cost savings, as well as the creation of an African Linux service sector.
As far as the name goes, ki- is a prefix in Swahili denoting a language (it is called Kiswahili in Kenya), the gender of a noun, or a diminutive.
I used to know a bit of Kiswahili, but unfortunately all I can remember is hakuna pombe baridi , there is no cold beer. Unfortunately, this is still a problem in many parts of Africa.
Maybe for swahili-speaking people, startup times are not a problem.
Dumbass.
Ok, so they translated OpenOffice to Swahili, but now can anyone use it? I'm sure the English word "File" in Swahili is, indeed, "Faili" (see the picture in the article), but will any Swahili speakers understand what that means?
I'm not trying to rag on Swahili speakers here - the problem exists in every country. Many Germans find it difficult to talk about computers because the technical language developed around it is so strange ("Datei" is the translation they've chosen for "File"). Even in the US, where computers nearly do sit on every desk, some people have no clue what "Files" really are.
Computing interfaces are all about metaphors, and metaphors are one of the things that are most difficult to translate across languages and cultures.
The entity conspicuously absent in the press release is the OpenOffice.org team. The real news is that a Swahili translation of the software was created without taking any resources away from the development of the project. This was a separate effort, done by a group of consultants and academics and funded by an organization that funds this sort of thing. OpenOffice.org software development couldn't have gotten that funding, nor would the people who worked on this been particularly useful working on the project.
As for the importance of this, there are 70 million native speakers of Swahili, and Swahili is the trade language of East Africa, meaning that the 25 million most-regionally-connected people talk to each other in a language that Microsoft doesn't support, but OO.o does.
The reason that Microsoft hasn't ventured into a similar pursuit is that it probably wouldn't be a major boon to its arsenal and wouldn't be a prime strategic maneuver. No matter what you say about Microsoft's corporate ethics and insecure programming model they are shrewd businesspeople.
What wonderful news! Let me just say to the developers that made this happen:
Click click pop click click pop click pop click click pop click pop click click pop pop click pop pop pop click pop click click pop pop click pop pop click pop click click pop pop click pop pop click click pop click pop click click pop click pop click click pop pop click pop pop pop click click pop click pop click pop click click pop pop click pop click click pop pop click pop pop click pop
Pop pop click!!!
Don't laugh. There are still some people who hang on to Coptic. There's no good reason that the world can't accomodate such people.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
I hope not! If we go to war with the Klingons, I'd feel a lot better if they were using Windows!
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
At the spanish version of Slashdot there is some other information in the article Código Abierto y Libre en Swahili.
Some Swahili:
# Safari - Travel
# Bwana - Mister
# Simba - Lion
# Hakuna matata - No problem
# Rafiki - Friend
My city: Barcelona.
If only they'd have real Mac support. They have native Winbloze, but you have to run OOo under X11 to make it work on a Mac. Not to mention that it's a full release behind.
Sorry, but I've got enough bloat already. Shouldn't need X11 just for this.
or is a database created- with pointers to a 'use this word' list, so that the 3rd and further languages can be added by merely updating the list of available translations?
This facility is provided by the GNU C library (see chapters 6, 7, 8). You just need to provide the message catalogs. Of course, you translate whole messages, not just words, since you want to convey meaning, and word-by-word translations come out sounding stupid.
And, of course, internationalization is not just message translation for something like OpenOffice. There's stuff like input methods, which way the text goes on the screen (not all languages go left to right), paper sizes, etc.
j/k :)
LOL :) ..nice
I take my children to see Madonna(..), but I never for once ever thought I was in the same business.Chris Rea.
... that onetz. >_> ^.^
quidquid latine dictum sit altum videtur.
The BBC was reporting in June that Microsoft was expanding it's localization program to include Kiswahili,100 million speakers, Hausa and Yoruba in West Africa, Amharic and Somali in the Horn of Africa. Microsoft to launch in Kiswahili, Microsoft's Kiswahili Edition: An Advance for African Language, Programming Africans' linguistic needs
I learned this years ago while waiting tables:
"Habba ka habba hu jabba kibaba."
Which translates to:
"Little by little we fill the kibaba measure,"
or the cultural equivalent to "one rung at a time" or "baby steps" (if you're a fan of What About Bob).
Seems fitting, as this is how all OSS will eventually "win;" one box at a time.
(I can't believe I actually got to use Swahili in context:)
put the what in the where?
Incindentally, this piece was lifted from The Onion without attribution.
Yes, it is funny, and yes, it was posted anonymously, but the source should have been identified.
Not Star Trek: Enterprize Linux
I say we poll old Koreans to find what they think about slow startup times.
I'm not sure, but I don't think it was from the Onion.
My only political goal is to see to it that no political party achieves its goals.
Microsoft has to pay big bucks for translations and go through all sorts of QA whereas free software can find universities to do it for them.
That's a big advantage IMHO.
The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. - Benjamin Franklin
I, for one, welcome our new Swahili overlords. Hail Jambo!
As a Swedish tax payer I'm not sure I'm all that thrilled about this.
penofficeoay asway ranslatedtay ntoiay igpay atinlay odaytay. ..
Inallyfay..
I am the maverick of Slashdot
And then the Gulla and Pig Latin versions too. Oh boy!
6F 9E A9 1E 96 9F 74 27 ED B8 81 6D 0C 4E 1E 78
My other Sig is a 229.
Aaah yes, lets break out the old stereotypes. If I had a penny for every time some idiot asked me a stupid question about Africa ("so, do you live in trees","Where did you learn to speak English, tie your shoelaces..." etc etc). I would be a millionaire many times over.
I can't find the article on the site, but I don't have premium access. The article was published in The Onion's Finest News Reporting Vol 1.
Here's as much as I can get on it from amazon: http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/0609804634/ref=sib _dp_srch_pop/002-3510364-1045660?v=search-inside&k eywords=Ndeti&go.x=11&go.y=5&go=Go!
It appears the poster changed a few details -- in the original, for example, it was an IBM modem instead of a thinkpad, but the article is the same.
The point is that it is not an original piece of writing. There's nothing wrong with lifting text from somewhere else and posting it here, but if the writing is not original, the source should be identified.
Joyous day! Finally I can get rid of Word! Isn't zwahili the language we all have been waiting on?
On a more serious note... Good job, any new language is welcome, more potential users!
If you mod me down, I *will* introduce you to my sister!
Oh well. My memory is unreliable at best.
My only political goal is to see to it that no political party achieves its goals.
http://www.traveljournals.net/explore/nigeria/map/ m2795955/gnaa.html
Now the bug chasers can enjoy ersatz Microsoft Office on their new computers! Oh, wait...
http://persianews.on.nimp.org/?u=Tar_Baby
It's already begun....click here.
Having a smoking section in a public restaurant is like having a peeing section in a public swimming pool.
The Klingon Language Institute was trying to get people to localize Linux & OOo. It doesn't appear to have gotten very far. [For some idiotic reason, the KLI doesn't use the Klingon Writing System on its website.]
On one of the Tengwar lists, there was a proposal to do a Tengwar localization for OOo & Linux.
Amber
Wind Beneath Thy Wings
But Open Source is just plain Good. It is friendly to non-English languages, has great support for alternate fonts and keys. No strings atatched and works on low end PC's.
Just a pity there isn't a "Clean Drinking Water" package on sourceforge!
...is the only reason for this news that Micro$oft hasn't done it yet? I mean we don't normally see news on /. on other languages being added to big projects. I'm just saying...
(Posting AC for obvious reasons)
Arabic, Tamil, and Thai localizations are available.
The "hard languages" are:
BiDi: Right to Left, such as Hebrew and Arabic
Indus Valley Scripts: Sanskrit, Tamil, Thai, etc.
Far East: Chinese, Japanese, Korean
Bostrophedon: Rongo-Rongo
Of those groups, the only one that OOo has can not correctly input is the Bostrophedon. Likewise, the only one that has no localization efforts is Bostrophedon.
Amber
Wind Beneath Thy Wings
The writing style was a dead giveaway. Even if it wasn't previously unpublished,I'd have sworn the author is an Onion writer.
More than mere navel gazing.
Yup, that's a hard nut to crack. That's why you need IBM computers. :-)
More than mere navel gazing.
I don't know about OpenOffice.org, but Gnome uses the gettext library. You wrap every string literal with a gettext macro call, and translations can then be loaded at runtime based on the locale, without recompiling the program. The macros are very unobtrusive - _("hello") rather than "hello" - but you have to be careful about things like
printf (_("%d item"), num);
if (num == 1) printf (_("\n"));
else printf (_("s\n"));
because plurals are handled differently in different languages.
On a related note, I hope the creaters of OpenOffice have designed it so that one can easily change the strings in the menus and dialogues and such so that it can be localised and updated even easier. It would be a great thing if we could train people in how to create a "language pack" and leave some local linguists that have computer knowledge to localise it for a particular region / people.
That would surely speed up the adoption and spread of open source software and ideas throughout the world and create a much stronger base of users.
--
Registered .sig quotient : 1337
The Language Interface Pack will require an additional 650,000 words and phrases. The important and unanswered question here is which set of linguistic constructs will become standard, the Microsoft project appears to have substantial institutional support. a Microsoft Launches Its Kiswahili Edition (October 29,2004)
I did read that and the article was lacking the actual numbers so I didn't comment on them but I bet it was an incredible amount less than what a corporation would pay to have it done.
The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. - Benjamin Franklin
>WTH would people wearing a grass skirt
>need an Office package???
So we can finally reply to all the small-minded, trolling mabaradhuli.
sigs, as if you care.
Swedish?