I committed a haft way Malay translation for Drupal about a year ago. My last estimate says I need another two months to complete the translation which I barely have. It's already Drupal 6 now so another "diffing and merging" is required.
Apart from European languages I believe translating Drupal to other less technical language like Malay is a tedious task. Please don't start laughing on the terms you going to use in Malay. I have a suggestion. How about organizing a collaborative website to translate Drupal into other languages using Pootle. However, Pootle requires Python based web hosting. We need a sponsor to host Pootle.
I received an email recently from terry.fido@swsw.co.uk asking for Drupal's Malay translation. He has a client waiting.
najibx,
You'd shown interest on the Malay translation from one of your emails. How about this idea?
Comments
i have looked at the
i have looked at the contribution. i see 1 file in txt format and the rest in po format. i presume that a simple text editor is enough to do the job.
since you do not have the time, why dont you just supervise the translation work ? just list out the po that needs to be translated, put a post on what needs to be done, then any one of us could spend a weekend (or 2) to translate then pass back to you to check and submit.
wrt to phyton hosting, try with khairul who is with undp.
Raja Iskandar Shah
Born in Kuala Lumpur and at home in Kuala Terengganu
Raja Iskandar Shah
Born in Kuala Lumpur and at home in Kuala Terengganu
http://software.krimnet.com
It'll be very much easier to
It'll be very much easier to collaborate on the net. Offline, I use poedit which is very helpful than notepad. The Englist2Malay.txt is the list of terms I used, it is not required by drupal. Frankly, I hate most of the malay terms available. Language and culture go together. When we translate we only need to take the meaning of the original 'language' and blend it with our 'culture'. Well, that may take a generation or two to verify. Worst, for most of the term for the malay translation must either be borrowed or created new.
general.po is the most important one. We need a po for every module. Drupal 6 has 28 core modules, but most of them are small. Well, I haven't read what is new for Drupal 6 regarding translation. And the entire Drupal contribution has 'wow' number of modules. To qualify a translation all core modules must be translated. If you want to use a third party module than that module must be translated as well. And each new drupal upgrade introduces new things to be translated. How to make all translation manageable and consistent? I think we need a tool to manage the malay translation.
Emm... more weekends definitely. Let's start with the translator's guide.
Updating translations for Drupal 6
Here is some note from drupal.
There is going to be a Localization Server on Drupal.org, but not yet ready. It is inspired by Launchpad.
sorry not much of a contribution
our site uses http://www.successideaweb.com uses i18n for language translation (content). but all interfaces are in English.
it's already tedious task in translating content ...menu, block, front page ..and of course nodes. now interface of so many modules ...arghhh.
-najibx -
<a href="http://www.successideaweb.com>Drupal web developer | designer in Malaysia
It'll be nice if we can have
It'll be nice if we can have automatic translation from English to Malay. I used to know Dr. Zaki who was doing that sort of things. There is a method to translate English to Malay automatically. Translate English into Interlingua and then translate Interlingua into Malay. However, we are short of the later step. That way we should be able to translate from many languages, if not all, automatically.
bahasa melayu translation
since my malay translating skills are not so good, can i suggest that we adopt or co-develop the malay translation from an existing translation work such as:
this way we gain with having at least 50% of the terms translated and contribute back to the original translation for new terms such mash / tags / etc ( i shall not embarrass myself with attempting a malay translation of mash-ups )
plus if someone can put the po into csv format, then can use a spreadsheet to pick up the translated word from the openoffice.org tanslation (for example).
Raja Iskandar Shah
Born in Kuala Lumpur and at home in Kuala Terengganu
Raja Iskandar Shah
Born in Kuala Lumpur and at home in Kuala Terengganu
http://software.krimnet.com
Let me add one more - Gnome
Let me add one more - Gnome Malay Terminology.
In Drupal we have to translate a string at a time. A string can be a phrase, a sentence, a paragraph, or a text. There are thousands of these strings. However, the most tedious part is the terminology. Malay is not a Romance language and that make it tough to translate an English term into Malay. That is why we can easily see many other Romance languages in Drupal, or in other system in general.
A language is very much coupled with its culture. Unfortunately, Malay scientific culture has not been nurtured into expectation at par. But that doesn't mean it won happen. Malay is a very young language so it is a great chance for us to inject it with enough doses of scientific culture.
A term is very much cultural. Why do we call that pointing device a 'mouse'? A 'pointing device' could be just a good name. But that thing really looks like a mouse. Pronouncing 'mouse' is easier than 'pointing device'. So we call it 'mouse' and we already used to it. After all Micky Mouse is a cartoon superstar.
But 'tetikus' for 'mouse' in Malay is very bad. Tikus means rat, and a rat is bad. If your house got tikus you may go crazy like killing it, and you kill it. I suggest we use 'maus' in Malay to refer to the pointing device. After all, we are so used to call it mouse even in our Malay conversation. It will make us feel better, like holding a Micky Mouse.
DO NOT TRANSLATE A TERM LITERALLY. Translate according to the sound is okay. Otherwise, we must take extra step to understand the context of a term, and find a word or create a new one that can express the context clearly according to Malay/Malaysian culture. Be very patient, take a word at a time. Since we are already in the computer realm so we should be able to contribute.
How do I attach files here?
I suggest to install
I suggest to install Localization server on Drupal.my, while waiting for Drupal localization server. This will ease the localization and collaboration using the localization client.
I've been doing the Malay translation based on initial work of chelah. Attached are the updated English-Malay terms. I'm looking for suggestion for those marked with ** which are ambiguous. Instead of borrowed words (kata pinjaman), original malay equivalent are used if available. The diff is for those who want a quick view of changes.
References:
- http://sbmb.dbp.gov.my/knb/cadangankata/nb_cadangan_kata_istilah.aspx (Bidang Komputer, Teknologi Maklumat or Semua)
- http://sbmb.dbp.gov.my/knb/cariankata/nb_carian_kata.aspx
- http://www.citcat.com/green_ov.jsp?lang=1
- http://utmk.cs.usm.my:8080/ebmt-controller/servlet/EBMTServlet2 (Domain: Tactics - technical manual, etc.)
CK Ng | myFineJob.com
consultation • web design & development • content development • site domain, hosting & maintenance • software design & development
CK Ng | myFineJob.com
Some translation
Some translation updates.
I'm in the process of correcting chelah initial translation and translating core modules based on updated terms. Will post the updated terms in the next few days (there are changes and new terms compare to the attachment in previous post). I mainly focus on text that normal end user will see instead of admin, as that is what I needed. The terms list is becoming very handy during translation.
I've manage to correct the ambiguous terms based on suggestions from translators feedback at proz.com.
Additional translation references:
http://www.proz.com/?sp=ksearch
http://www.proz.com/kudoz
CK Ng | myFineJob.com
consultation • web design & development • content development • site domain, hosting & maintenance • software design & development
CK Ng | myFineJob.com
I've committed the latest
I've committed the latest core translation I've into the CVS. The English-Malay terms has been updated as well.
CK Ng | myFineJob.com
consultation • web design & development • content development • site domain, hosting & maintenance • software design & development
CK Ng | myFineJob.com