Somehow the mail client ate most of my email, reposting, sorry...
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Sorry for the delay in responding, I'm travelling.
I think I disagree with most things that have been said in this discussion
so far.
Let me try and go through them one by one...
1) Orthography
Terrible reason to turn down a project. Most l10n projects LO has involve
languages where spellling is a potentially contentious issue. Perhaps the
really big locales have very settled spelling systems but even they are not
immune. For example, I doubt that anyone is enforcing either pre or post
spelling reform spellings in the German project. Some locales actually
deliberately use l10n to help standardize spelling.
2) Team size
Errr no. 1 dedicated locaizer is more than enough. I have a day job and I
also do virtually all the l10n work on Mozilla, LO, WorPress (both), VLC,
and several other projects. In fact, a single localizer can be more
effective in some instances provided they put in sufficient time and
effort. In fact having a team for Scottish Gaelic initially would have been
a hindrance, not a help because there would have been ENDLESS debates
around terminology and spelling. In a non-standardized language, a single
translator can produce translations which are superior than those of a
team, provided they are fluent and generally good with technology.
3) It's extinct or critically endangered
Well, so is Scottish Gaelic, less than 60k speakers is hardly a stadium
full of people... l10n is a key part of any revitalization effort in a
society which is not cut off from technology. It is perhaps the one way in
which a marginalized language can gain a foothold on the screens of the
next generation, small as it may be. A program with a UI in a marginalized
language has a big wow factor if done well. If you localize Diablo III into
German, people just expect that, it's not news. Translate it into Nipmuck
and it'll be all over the airwaves.
Wikipedia or even Ethnologue are not the pinnacle of information when it
comes to smaller languages. On several occasions have I come across
languages marked as extinct in one, but not the other or vice versa or even
where both were simply wrong. For example, they had a Basque Creole lumped
in with a Romani language code in once instance.
4) Better to translate literature
Yes and no. I'm a very good localizer but I'm totally useless at
translating literature or poetry or songs. It's called a specialism, no
translator worth their money translate EVERYTHING. I'd be equally useless
at writing non-technical content.
5) Start with documentation/help
No.It would raise the wrong expectations, if you give the average user a
screen that says Fàilte, unless highly cynical, they would expect the rest
in the same lingo too.
As to the Help, who reads the Help? Ever? Unless they don't have web
access. Even if some folk use it, it's the worst starting point and a
soul-destroying task.
6) Professors say to prioritise proofing
Maybe but that depends on the locale. To create a spellchecker you first
need either really good dictionary or ody of well spelled texts, plus
someone who can do code to some extent because doing a Hunspell package is
not entirely straight forward. Grammar checkers are equally nice but not a
priority to begin with I would say. Small languages often have not codified
their grammar fully and thus if you just write some rules, you'll just
annoy everybody.
In the end, these are just opinions. They are neither uniform (I disagree
for one) not are they based on research.
7) Firefox
That is actually the best alternative suggestion I've heard in this
debate. It might make sense to look into that. But either way, LO and
Firefox are both must-haves really so it doesn't make that much of a
difference which one you start with. Firefox, since it has Android and iOS
versions now, would get you more bang for your buck faster though to begin
with
8) Machine Translation
Worst idea ever. MT relies on massive bilingual corpora - and that's just
the start of the headaches. The last thing a language like Nipmuck needs is
a MT system that cost them huge resources to produce and which outputs
semi-gibberish at best. Irish is in a much better position regarding
English/Irish data and yet Google Translate produces Irish which either
makes you laugh yourself silly or makes you cry.
Long story short, my view is, welcome to both, just have a moment to
consider the implications regarding time/effort/other challenges and if you
still think it's a good idea, good on you.
Michael
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