From tefera በ mekuria.com Sun Jul 2 11:28:11 2006 From: tefera በ mekuria.com (TG) Date: Sun Jul 2 11:18:56 2006 Subject: [am-translate] Updates and questions Message-ID: Selam Daniel and all How did it went the presentation at world bank? Any good news? I am trying to garner participation from Ethiopians in all directions. There are quite few platforms that we can do that. I have been lurking around in paltalk, since there are lots of Ethiopians lurking around to find something interesting and fruitful. Each time I opened a room with in an hour i get between 20 to 40 participants, who many think the project and the idea is some thing they would consider "doable" and exiting. That is good news. But the bad news is the room mainly discusses computer problem related issues. I was unable to stop that. So i decided to implement a rule. That is any one who is helped in that room promises to go in to the translation pages, read how it is done and translate 10 or 20 strings. The biggest problem for me is time. With regard helping participants with computer problem there are few who do it so well i usually have to do nothing more than interject now and then. Any any one of you who are interested in opening the room are welcome to get the key. I have been discussing about the possibility of holding a Translateathon http://translate.sourceforge.net/wiki/guide/translateathon with friends who have access to facilities. Will report on the progress. How is it coming synchronization of the Rosetta and the Gnome/Gnu translation sites? we need to to move upstreams as much as possible. I believe it is good idea to coordinate the gnome/Gnu translation to Rosetta as it will have maximum exposure and a good coordination possibility. Some gnome translation teams such as dutch https://launchpad.net/people/gnome-l10n-nl and Georgian https://launchpad.net/people/gnome-l10n-nl moved their translation page. The waiting for miracle has to end somewhere. We need to push in every direction as hard as possible. It is really a shame that we have not accomplished this job by now. One more questions. It is unclear every where i see. is the ISO 639-2 code "wal" "walamo" is it for the wolayta language?? cheers tegegne From tefera በ mekuria.com Sat Jul 8 06:49:06 2006 From: tefera በ mekuria.com (TG) Date: Sat Jul 8 06:40:02 2006 Subject: [am-translate] The name of months Message-ID: Selam all. This is a question especially to Daniel while i was working i when ever i come across Nam's of months I get an uneasy feeling, translating them into September(ሰፕተምበር), October(ኦክቶበር)...etc. It doesn't quite feel right. But in most of the translations that has been done this has been the practice. But from what i have noticed most people in Ethiopia who need to refer verbally or in writing the European date use for September መስከረም, for October ጥቅምት...etc with an understanding that it has some difference with the Ethiopian dates. Every country has names for months, and why not use our own. My question is therefor any technical problem such as conflict with the Ethiopian calender which prevents us from using our own names for the name of the months? tegegne From locales በ geez.org Sun Jul 9 09:25:49 2006 From: locales በ geez.org (Daniel Yacob) Date: Sun Jul 9 09:25:55 2006 Subject: [am-translate] The name of months Message-ID: Tegegne, Some quick responses while I have the moments right now. The presentation at the world bank went well, there was a lot of interest but the attendence was lower than we hoped. In part this was because it was arranged very quickly and they didn't have much time to promote it, even within the world bank. The time to prepare was likewise limited and I think I slept 10 hours in 3 days. Anyway I was to have a follow up phone conference with some of the managers there, but that still has not happened (the US holidays interfered some amount), so maybe this week I can talk with them. I was waiting for this before responding. They plan to put the presentation online also, so I will send a link when they post it. "wal" is for Wolayta, somehow "Walamo" became the ISO name for the language, there even other varients. ISO 639-1,2 support only 7 languages of Ethiopia if I remember correctly. ISO 639-3 is based on the Ethnologue codes and covers all languages, but it isn't supported by the localization infrastructure yet. I don't think the Rosetta or GNOME teams are working on enhanced synchronization, it is left to the translators to update in both places. I haven't forgotten the conversion of the AAU software glossary. I started it a month ago and found right away that it is 20% Unicode and 80% non-unicode and I was having trouble exporting the data from Excel in such a way that the non-unicode text could be converted accurately. I need to try with an older version of Excel but have not gotten back to it. For calendar month names, the localized apps that apply them are mostly (all?) doing so in calendar applications or certainly under some calendrical context. Overloading the context of the month names where meskerem could refer to either a European or Ethiopian month would be very hazardous and we could never be certain what calendar system a person was referring to. The Eritreans did drop the Ethiopic calendar and mapped the Tigrinya month names to the Gregorian calendar. This can be understood when dates are restricted to an Eritrean context. But will be confusing elsewhere. In Eritrea "Meskerem" is "September", legally, but in Ethiopia "Meskerem" is only "Meskerem" and should remain the same on an computer localized for Ethiopia. I do not agree with all of the transcriptions of the Gregorian month names into Amharic, I would have done them differently. But I think any two people would transcribe them differently. The transcriptions though come from the English-Amharic dictionary of Dr Amsalu Aklilu where the pronounciations are based on British English. They may not make perfect sense to an Ethiopian living in Germany, France or other countries where they have some of the same names with slightly different pronounciations. Here though we should target Ethiopians living in Ethiopia where English is the largest spoken European language. The other alternative is not to translate the Gregorian names and let the terms default to the "fallback" language which may be set for English, German, etc. This may not be a good option if we want to assume an Ethiopian user does not know English. The problem to be addressed, as I see it, is to note where calendars are used in Ubuntu, then address those applications to support the Ethiopian calendar. The software resources needed to support the calendar are available but the developers have to be directed to them. It would be good to begin keeping notes in the wiki for what applications need to be enhanced to support the calendar, as well as other Ethiopian conventions. cheers, /Daniel From tefera በ mekuria.com Sat Jul 15 05:42:32 2006 From: tefera በ mekuria.com (TG) Date: Sat Jul 15 05:33:16 2006 Subject: [am-translate] Progress Message-ID: Selam all This message is being sent to two lists. Since some are not subscribed at geez dot org yet. We need to better coordinate this thing. Thanks Daniel for the reply and i hope some thing worth while will come about those high almighty world bank, UN and all those organizations. I know they can make real difference, but making them move their ever dead slow moving body is a challenge. Though I feel like a fly trying to push the elephant let us know if we can help in any way. Yes that would have been the shortest way of getting to where we want to, but we can not stop and wait. There is a long narrow volunteer way and we should keep on moving in mean time until the beast gets out of the short way. As i suspected the name of months have problem. So i will just continue to translate them as they are. Reminder of guide lines for my self. 1. Keep the name of month as it is pronounced in English. 2. The Accelerator keys are Roman characters at the end of the command in a braket and _ sign. eg.(_A) Ubuntu is coming along nicely. It is really exiting because it gets better in front of your eyes. Locally it updates it self every day and the language pack is updated at ubuntu repositories every week. what ever we translate updated. Every week my copy of ubuntu changes it's face from English to Amharic magically. I know now how it feels to give birth. A slow painful but sweet process (stop me people:-). Have you seen your karma lately??? :-( I, shewan, fantaw with other Ethiopians help have been trying to lure people at paltalk to our cause. I realised that there are many computer professionals who are willing but that we have not utilised their expertise yet and most other Ethiopians are willing to contribute as long as they are convinced that it is not beyond their ability. We have been trying to raise their ability by giving instructions on how to read and write Amharic on computers and on web. Once they do that it is a very short road to getting involved on translation or testing and reviewing. The ideal situation for reviewing would have been to build an Amharic's live CD and let them look through it and get feed back from them to determine if what we translated make sense. Ubuntu makes all that easy and possible. May be i am aiming too high but making people install an ubuntu with Amharic environment and update it and get feed back on how it feels. It certainly is not that much more difficult than installing an e-mail program on windows system, and most have done that and more. The most effective way to translate is to import the po file translate it and upload back to the system. We do not need to translate and finish it. We can work as much as we can in as much time as we have for one session and upload it immediately. Though translating online is easier it is much more slow. I keep on promising myself to write a መመሪያ on how to do that. If any one of you need an immediate help then we can meet at paltalk or telephone and guide you through it. thaks to voip my telephone is free to europe and americas. I use poedit to translate. AND BEHOLD, I AM DOING IT IN AMHARIC ENVIRONMENT IN UBUNTU!!! That feels good!!!!! Well this is a complaint to Daniel. Sorry to say but the keyboard sucks. I got SCIM with KMFL http://kmfl.sourceforge.net/ working finally. But some times it does things it should not do. eg. it takes the last character to the next thing or page or where ever your next job is if you do not finish it with space. if you try to move the cursor with the arrow key the characters change in to roman..go figure.:-). May be Daniel is the only actively engaged professional in the coding department but he is not the only professional. Can some of you please respond to this i believe should be easy question? I know there are at least at least 4 computer professionalise are here. Sorry I do not mean to put you on the spotlight but we need to do this things. I think this will be my last request for this week. I wil be quite busy next week but i will be chacking the the translations and mails. have a good weekend tegegne From tefera በ mekuria.com Thu Jul 27 21:00:51 2006 From: tefera በ mekuria.com (TG) Date: Thu Jul 27 20:51:01 2006 Subject: [am-translate] The glossary project Message-ID: Hello again to the glossary team. http://www.aau.edu.et/ictglossary/amharic/a_index.php I am happy to see the the glossary page started functioning again. I am also happy to see a team well organized and being run by competent people. What remains is the result, which is quite disappointing considering the capability of individuals organizations who are involved in this project. Many developing countries with less population and less budget has already implemented not only the glossary project but a complete operative system and user application translation. "...Bhutan, a country of 700,000 inhabitants that sits between China and India, now has its own Debian-based operating system in the national language, Dzongkha...." http://www.computerworld.com.au/index.php/id;1239885333;fp;2;fpid;1 Please look at this initiative http://wiki.laptop.org/index.php/EMGP. This Glossary team can make a truly historical difference if it takes this initiative under it's wing and See it through. The team has called on the public to participate on it's initiative by saying "...Full participation of the public is critically important for the success of the project...". Now it is time for the team to show the public it is meant what it wrote by taking the participation of the public seriously. Please do not take the tone of this message as negative. The tone is not directed towards the individuals in the team or the team, but it is meant to show the urgency of the problem. Those of you who worked on the localization and translation know how frustrating it is the lack of standard terms for our contribution. I would like all to use and improve this glossary page so that it can be completed as soon as possible so that we can get on our work without worrying tomorrow all our efforts will be worthless when the terms change. best regards tegegne tefera Partcipant EMGP From tefera በ mekuria.com Fri Jul 28 12:01:35 2006 From: tefera በ mekuria.com (TG) Date: Fri Jul 28 11:51:53 2006 Subject: [am-translate] Re: The glossary project In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: selam all The email address at http://www.aau.edu.et/ictglossary/amharic/a_index.php given as glossay@aau.edu.et and was bouncing back. but i changed it to glossary@aau.edu.et and sent an e-mail yesterday evening. And i was waiting for it till now and nothing has come back. I presume i found the right address and my message has made it through. I hope the maintainers of the page correct this minor error but that defeats the whole purpose as soon as possible. That said I would like to request a feature on the glossary page. At the moment to get to a word one has to go through some time up to 100 pages sequentially. There is no search facility to take one directly to the word. That wastes a lot of precious time and hope the maintainers of the site consider adding a search facility. On 7/28/06, tegegne tefera wrote: > Hello again to the glossary team. > > http://www.aau.edu.et/ictglossary/amharic/a_index.php > > I am happy to see the the glossary page started functioning again. I > am also happy to see a team well organized and being run by competent > people. > > What remains is the result, which is quite disappointing considering > the capability of individuals organizations who are involved in this > project. Many developing countries with less population and less > budget has already implemented not only the glossary project but a > complete operative system and user application translation. > "...Bhutan, a country of 700,000 inhabitants that sits between China > and India, now has its own Debian-based operating system in the > national language, Dzongkha...." > http://www.computerworld.com.au/index.php/id;1239885333;fp;2;fpid;1 > > Please look at this initiative http://wiki.laptop.org/index.php/EMGP. > This Glossary team can make a truly historical difference if it takes > this initiative under it's wing and See it through. The team has > called on the public to participate on it's initiative by saying > "...Full participation of the public is critically important for the > success of the project...". Now it is time for the team to show the > public it is meant what it wrote by taking the participation of the > public seriously. > > Please do not take the tone of this message as negative. The tone is > not directed towards the individuals in the team or the team, but it > is meant to show the urgency of the problem. > > Those of you who worked on the localization and translation know how > frustrating it is the lack of standard terms for our contribution. I > would like all to use and improve this glossary page so that it can be > completed as soon as possible so that we can get on our work without > worrying tomorrow all our efforts will be worthless when the terms > change. > > best regards > tegegne tefera > Partcipant EMGP > From tefera.tegegne በ gmail.com Sat Jul 29 00:51:07 2006 From: tefera.tegegne በ gmail.com (tegegne tefera) Date: Sat Jul 29 00:41:15 2006 Subject: [am-translate] Re: Progress In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Selam Daniel I was not aware that the same .kmn file for keyman could be used in KMFL. At last i have installed Amharic Unicode EZ on KMFL and now it is working partially. In English locals it works perfectly. But still have problem on Amharic environment. For example in firefox as well as in epiphany the input method menu (right mouse click) does not come up. in addition though SCIM is initiated it virtually sits dead when you try to write on web pages. I can not live without my gmail. The input context menu disappearance probably is a firefox bug. But one can workaround that by choosing the "Use the same input method in all applications" in SCIM and using control + shift to change between keyboards, so we do not have to deal with the context menu. But that is not possible in amharic locals. I could not find a .kml file any where on the Internet for Amharic. only the package that contains .kmx files. and those do not install on KMFL. I had to search my external hard disk that i dump every thing to get a copy i downloaded years ago. So if it is possible to provide that at keyman site like the keyman packages would be helpful. It is the Amharic table that comes with SCIM which i had problem with previously. Do you think it is possible to twink it so it can act like Amharic Unicode EZ? It would save a lot of hassle. installing KMFL is not the easiest thing for some one who comes to the Linux world from windows. On the other note i wonder if you know about shipit https://shipit.ubuntu.com/. You do not need to send CDs to Ethiopia ubuntu can send it free of charge to any one who requested it. just provide them with the address. I have received my original dapper cd with nice stickers for free. I am sure you have seen my post to the AAU glossary team. It might not be a good idea but i decided to be a pain on the (where ever they choose) so that they could do some thing about producing a standard glossary. Some of the translations are not bad. others seem to be translated by some one who has no knowledge at all about computers. But it can be a starting point to suggest better terms if they are actively engaged in the project and update the suggestions. I hope it is not just another project designed mainly to get a budget and produce nothing. Therefore some one has to play a good cop, while i am being a nasty one. Daniel do you think you can take contact with them and may you can allow them to use the qalat database. Once you said i should not give it out since it is not finished and i still use it only my self to look up terms. By the way are Minasse and other fellow localisrs are there am-translate? I have not heard any thing from them. Are there only the two of us in this list or others are still there? If there is any one beside us please say so. I feel like in complete dark room not knowing whether there are people or not :-). It is disconcerting. thnx again Daniel tegegne On 7/28/06, Daniel Yacob wrote: > Just some updates on my end. I'm finishing off some work with OOo over the > next 10 days and sending it to Ethiopia (with some Ubunutu CD) where some > groups will continue on with it. Following that I'm freed up to work on > font issues for Ubuntu, I've contacted the font managers and have been > breifed about packaging issues. Following fonts I'd like to get into > keyboards. > > Tegegne, there are several keyboards for Amharic that work with Ubuntu, > I didn't understand which one you were having problems with. Can you > clarify? Also, with KMFL, what .kmn file are you using? > > cheers, > > /Daniel > > -- > Ubuntu-l10n-am mailing list > Ubuntu-l10n-am@lists.ubuntu.com > https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-l10n-am > From tefera.tegegne በ gmail.com Sat Jul 29 00:53:00 2006 From: tefera.tegegne በ gmail.com (tegegne tefera) Date: Sat Jul 29 00:43:03 2006 Subject: [am-translate] Re: Progress In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Selam Daniel I was not aware that the same .kmn file for keyman could be used in KMFL. At last i have installed Amharic Unicode EZ on KMFL and now it is working partially. In English locals it works perfectly. But still have problem on Amharic environment. For example in firefox as well as in epiphany the input method menu (right mouse click) does not come up. in addition though SCIM is initiated it virtually sits dead when you try to write on web pages. I can not live without my gmail. The input context menu disappearance probably is a firefox bug. But one can workaround that by choosing the "Use the same input method in all applications" in SCIM and using control + shift to change between keyboards, so we do not have to deal with the context menu. But that is not possible in amharic locals. I could not find a .kml file any where on the Internet for Amharic. only the package that contains .kmx files. and those do not install on KMFL. I had to search my external hard disk that i dump every thing to get a copy i downloaded years ago. So if it is possible to provide that at keyman site like the keyman packages would be helpful. It is the Amharic table that comes with SCIM which i had problem with previously. Do you think it is possible to twink it so it can act like Amharic Unicode EZ? It would save a lot of hassle. installing KMFL is not the easiest thing for some one who comes to the Linux world from windows. On the other note i wonder if you know about shipit https://shipit.ubuntu.com/. You do not need to send CDs to Ethiopia ubuntu can send it free of charge to any one who requested it. just provide them with the address. I have received my original dapper cd with nice stickers for free. I am sure you have seen my post to the AAU glossary team. It might not be a good idea but i decided to be a pain on the (where ever they choose) so that they could do some thing about producing a standard glossary. Some of the translations are not bad. others seem to be translated by some one who has no knowledge at all about computers. But it can be a starting point to suggest better terms if they are actively engaged in the project and update the suggestions. I hope it is not just another project designed mainly to get a budget and produce nothing. Therefore some one has to play a good cop, while i am being a nasty one. Daniel do you think you can take contact with them and may you can allow them to use the qalat database. Once you said i should not give it out since it is not finished and i still use it only my self to look up terms. By the way are Minasse and other fellow localisrs are there? I have not heard any thing from them. Are there only the two of us in this list or others are still there? If there is any one beside us please say so. I feel like in complete dark room not knowing whether there are people or not :-). It is disconcerting. thnx again Daniel tegegne On 7/28/06, Daniel Yacob wrote: > Just some updates on my end. I'm finishing off some work with OOo over the > next 10 days and sending it to Ethiopia (with some Ubunutu CD) where some > groups will continue on with it. Following that I'm freed up to work on > font issues for Ubuntu, I've contacted the font managers and have been > breifed about packaging issues. Following fonts I'd like to get into > keyboards. > > Tegegne, there are several keyboards for Amharic that work with Ubuntu, > I didn't understand which one you were having problems with. Can you > clarify? Also, with KMFL, what .kmn file are you using? > > cheers, > > /Daniel > > -- > Ubuntu-l10n-am mailing list > Ubuntu-l10n-am@lists.ubuntu.com > https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-l10n-am > From tefera.tegegne በ gmail.com Sat Jul 29 00:57:00 2006 From: tefera.tegegne በ gmail.com (tegegne tefera) Date: Sat Jul 29 00:47:03 2006 Subject: [am-translate] sorry for the multiple posting Message-ID: I was having a bad day with gmail. this what you call love hate relationship From tefera.tegegne በ gmail.com Sat Jul 29 02:21:35 2006 From: tefera.tegegne በ gmail.com (tegegne tefera) Date: Sat Jul 29 02:11:40 2006 Subject: [am-translate] Font contrast in windows xp Message-ID: I liked the fonts free serif and free serif. But i was having problem because they were too deam on windowsxp. out of frustration i was looking arround and found a tool at microsoft called clear type. It is realy makes the fonts crispy and nice, especially on laptop computers. So if you had a problem like me with your eyes straining then down load and use it. http://www.microsoft.com/typography/ClearTypePowerToy.mspx