[PD] call for translations for new Pd GUI

Mathieu Bouchard matju at artengine.ca
Fri Aug 21 20:57:57 CEST 2009


On Fri, 21 Aug 2009, George Ker wrote:

> I recommend for terms like: Object, Atom Box, Symbol, Bang, Slider, 
> Patch etc that no Greek translation should be done. Yes, of course I 
> know what an "Object" means , and "Atom Box" could easily be translated, 
> but wouldn't it be a drawback for users?

When I originally got 17 translations of Pd some years ago, what I 
received mostly translated "Slider" into their own language (a majority of 
the 16 non-English language files), instead of keeping it as-is. It 
depends on which word. Toggle was less often translated, and Bang was 
almost always kept as-is.

I think it's mostly better to translate the words than not, even though a 
fair amount of the population sticks with English just so that the 
computer vocabulary is in English. There is plenty of room for 
localisations that would use the English words for computer vocabulary, 
but somehow, it seems no-one ever bothers making any.

I live in a society where the opposition between the two manners of 
speaking is intense. Basically, we're so self-conscious about how much 
English we use in talking about computer things, that we can't possibly 
write a book with those words: all those words have to be translated to 
French. AFAIK, other places in the world are becoming more sensitive to 
that. I just happened to live in a place where it mattered more and it 
mattered earlier.

> Even for me, the translator of the app would be confusing if all 
> tutorials / help patches/ lists were using them... and then I had to 
> face with terms: Object, Slider, Patch, DSP etc translated in Greek 
> language in my installed App! I asked a friend of mine and he wouldn't 
> use the translated app either! I find it like translating the MIDI 
> acronyms. Too ugly and scary...

Where's the ugliness coming from? a shame insidiously infused into your 
people by the American Empire? You didn't question the beauty of the 
English words when you learned them, did you? I didn't either. I talk like 
that because it's a problem that I'm all too familiar with. It took me a 
long time to figure out the "ugliness" factor... and factor it out... to 
the extent that we can.

Besides, much of my computer is running in English, because I've ran it in 
English for way too long, out of habit, just like you; yet if I set up 
Linux in some (French-language) institution, I install it in French 
without asking anyone's advice. It's just normal. I may switch my own 
computer to French someday, and I already switched the default language of 
webpages to be French (but it only works on multilanguage pages that 
support it and detect it).

> I don't mind about the licence but wouldn't it be right for me to 
> impress girls in my college more easily after my work in translation of 
> the PD app????

Contrast this with the DesireData translations in which not only the 
translator's name is at the top of the file, it's also in Help->About. I 
am very proud of having gotten translations. But then, DesireData's 
translations cover much more than 10 times the amount of text that Hans' 
project does. Perhaps it's a matter of scale and eventually more 
translators would demand that credit is given where credit is due.

> 	-The last and more serious problem is that I can't test my gr.po 
> file. Everything needs to be done with sudo to run and be installed 
> properly

From the experience of my own project, I can say it's a lot nicer to be 
able to test things without having to do "make install".

To skip the sudo, you could use ./configure's --prefix option combined 
with a custom PATH (if you need one).

  _ _ __ ___ _____ ________ _____________ _____________________ ...
| Mathieu Bouchard - tél:+1.514.383.3801, Montréal, Québec


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