Additional languages

The l10n of Pale Moon. Rawr.
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Moonchild
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Additional languages

Unread post by Moonchild » 2021-02-18, 09:14

Hey folks,

I've been wanting to do this for a while but simply never got around to it (and since we're still without an l10n manager it is falling on me, primarily), but on CrowdIn there are quite a few languages that are almost complete, as in 97%+, and I honestly see no reason to not publish them in that state (i.e. with a little bit of English left here or there) since they are, after all, a convenience and don't necessarily have to be 200% perfect. Of course it would be great, but since this is all volunteer effort I'm being realistic here in that it is "best effort".

So, I'm planning to add the following languages to the available line-up as published languages on the add-ons site:
  • Arabic (ar)
  • Chinese Traditional (zh-TW)
  • Croatian (hr)
  • Danish (da)
  • Finnish (fi)
  • Galician (gl)
  • Indonesian (id)
  • Icelandic (is)
    This one is only at 93% but all the main interface stuff should be done and I'm aware the number of people involved in this language will be extremely limited.
  • Japanese (ja)
  • Romanian (ro)
  • Serbian (cyrillic) (sr)
  • Slovenian (sl)
  • Thai (th)
Some of these languages have been (near) complete for quite a while but our previous l10n manager found it more important to be perfectionist than to make more available, apparently, holding back availability of all these languages to the public.

As always anyone who is fluent in these (or other!) languages is welcome to join the other translators on CrowdIn to help complete (and maintain!) existing languages.
If you would like to start a new language, let me know -- but be aware that the browser has a lot of localization strings that aren't immediately apparent when you look at the GUI.

Languages that need a little bit more love but are almost there are Persian (fa), Vietnamese (vi) and Kannada (kn),
"Sometimes, the best way to get what you want is to be a good person." -- Louis Rossmann
"Seek wisdom, not knowledge. Knowledge is of the past; wisdom is of the future." -- Native American proverb
"Linux makes everything difficult." -- Lyceus Anubite

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Tharthan
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Re: Additional languages

Unread post by Tharthan » 2021-02-18, 18:57

Question re: Icelandic—

Icelanders have prided themselves on their language maintaining its Icelandishness, and thus it is the official policy in Iceland to try to not arbitrarily use anglicisms/foreignisms, and instead coin new terms in Icelandic.

This approach has generally been supported by the people of Iceland, with only a few instances where it has not succeeded (ex. native bifreið is a chiefly formal term, whereas Latinism bíll is the widespread usual term).

Does the Pale Moon localisation respect this practice, and use the usual Icelandic terms even if they are markedly different from the terms used in other languages?
Last edited by Tharthan on 2021-02-18, 20:00, edited 1 time in total.
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Moonchild
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Re: Additional languages

Unread post by Moonchild » 2021-02-18, 19:55

What suddenly makes you an expert on Iceland?

Also, you should be aware that the avoidance of barbarisms is a point in many Western European languages and there's always the linguistic vs. technical translation conflict. I know this very well first-hand with 7 years of professional translation background, so yes, I am well aware. But we also have to be realistic in that this isn't a paid effort and we are all doing our best as a community.
Maybe you didn't get my gist from the original post yet but I simply want to stop this previous practice of keeping languages unavailable to users when they are, in fact, "good enough". And if they aren't good enough I welcome anyone to help improve it. In fact releasing additional languages will likely get more native speakers of those languages involved since, you know, they are actually using the langpacks.

I do trust that any translators into Icelandic are actually familiar enough with the language to know what is acceptable and what isn't.
"Sometimes, the best way to get what you want is to be a good person." -- Louis Rossmann
"Seek wisdom, not knowledge. Knowledge is of the past; wisdom is of the future." -- Native American proverb
"Linux makes everything difficult." -- Lyceus Anubite

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Re: Additional languages

Unread post by Kendo » 2021-02-19, 06:24

Do it. I found that most of the missing 3-5 % was for messages that the user will probably never ever see :-)

Mind you I did fill some gaps by Google language crunching, but hey, that service has improved.

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