[kdecat] KDE Catalan translation project

Sun Nov 26 18:29:58 UTC 2006

Hola a tothom,

Fa uns dies vaig rebre un correu on em demanaven alguna informació sobre el 
nostre funcionament. Adjunto la meva resposta, junt amb el correu inicial. He 
demanat al destinatari si podia copiar-la a la llista. M'ha contestat que no 
hi ha problema, sempre que amagui la seva adreça de treball, en ser una 
llista pública. Si algú vol afegir o matisar alguna cosa, li podeu enviar un 
correu a l'adreça que usa per a les llistes: mailto:dowobeha at gmail.com o bé 
m'envieu un correu i jo us passaré la seva adreça privadament.

Cordialment,
Sebastià
---------- Correu adjunt ---------------
Hi Lane,

A Dilluns 20 Novembre 2006 17:54, vàreu escriure:
> Sebastia,
>
> First off, I just want to say thank you for your work on the KDE
> Catalan translation. Although I am a native English speaker, I am a
> strong believer in the value of localized software. I am a PhD
> student at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, Minnesota,
> USA. My main research is in statistical machine translation.
>
> However, I am doing a small side research project looking at the
> process of software localization and some of the challenges involved
> in translating software. As part of my research, I'm focusing on
> three or four languages - Catalan is one of them.
>
> I was hoping that, as the KDE Catalan project coordinators, you might
> be willing to answer a couple questions about the process. If you
> don't have time or would rather not, that's totally fine. If you know
> of someone else who would be better able to answer any of the
> questions, I would appreciate any pointers.

To start with let me apologize for taking a whole week before answering your 
kind email. I've been quite busy this week and I didn't want to slap together 
a quick answer. I'll try to answer all your questions, putting a list of 
references at the end of this email. If you want more information or need to 
clarify some issue, don't hesitate to contact me again.

First, let me give you some context information about the Catalan language. 
Catalan used to be the official language of the territories where it is 
spoken. But since the end of the Spanish Succession War (1714) it lost all 
the official status, was forbidden to teach and even to speak. Even the 
priests had to tell their sermons in Spanish. As a result the literary 
language languished. At the end of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th 
a literary movement (la Renaixença or Renaissance) revived the language, and 
Pompeu Fabra (an engineer turned linguist) devised a set of grammar rules 
that were accepted by all the catalan speaking territories. Besides, the 
Spanish 2nd Republic (1931) gave autonomy to Catalonia and the Catalan 
language recovered official status. But the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) and 
the ensuing Franco's dictatorship (1939-1975) meant a huge setback for the 
Catalan language. It was forbidden to teach, newspapers in Catalan were 
forbidden to publish and the printing of books was subject to censorship. 
Even the Catalan names of people and places were forbidden to use and had to 
be translated to Spanish. As a result Catalan native speakers were deprived 
of the benefits of their own cultural environment. I can talk about myself: I 
am 47 years old and have a degree in Physics. But I've never received formal 
teaching of catalan, since all my primary and secondary education were under 
Franco's dictatorship.

This long, and maybe boring explanation is to make you aware of some of the 
problems we are facing. Besides the difficulties that all non-English 
languages have in order to create and adapt words for the new concepts of the 
current technology, economy and society, we must also revive a cultural 
tradition and fend off the influence of our powerful neighbor, the Spanish 
language.

> Here goes:
>
>
> 1) Does your team collaborate with other Catalan software projects
> (GNOME, OpenOffice.org, etc) or any standards bodies to try to ensure
> consistent use of terminology?
>
> In other words, how do you make sure that the Catalan translation for
> terms like 'File', 'Print', 'Case Sensitive', 'Show Fonts', and
> 'Standard Modem Port' are used consistently across KDE applications,
> and that those translations match with those used in other software?

There are two main bodies: Termcat and Softcatalà. Termcat is the official 
organization in charge of the creation of Catalan terminology. Softcatalà is 
a NGO that translates software to Catalan, run by volunteers. They translate 
GNOME and OpenOffice. We collaborate with both organizations, although we 
disagree with them regarding some issues. The main difference is that both 
Termcat and Softcatalà have a rather top-down approach, and we favour a 
bottom-up one. Besides we started our translation effort at the end of 1997, 
beginning of 1998. At that time Free Software was not well known, so Termcat 
rather ignored us. And Softcatalà were translating Netscape Navigator in 
parallel of our effort to translate KDE 1.0 and unknown to us. In the 
beginning Softcatalà focused on translating proprietary software. Only later 
they shifted their efforts to Free Software. So we did most of our early 
efforts on our own. We use Termcat recommendations and Softcatalà list of 
terms. But sometimes we disagree with their recommendations and choose 
instead our own terminology. In some cases our term was previous to theirs.

To ensure the consistent use of terms we use KBabel features. KBabel is the 
translation tool created by the KDE project. It includes the ability to 
create a repository of all the translations. This repository can be searched 
and used to create new translations (raw translation). To summary we use:
- KBabel facilities: repository, raw translation, dictionary search
- Termcat online term search (Cercaterm)
- Softcatalà list of terms
- Other online resources (see list at the end of the email)
- Our own internal mailing list for advice and discussion
- Existing paper dictionaries

To end with this question, I personally believe that a bit of inconsistency is 
not that bad. On one hand this mimics the non-technical spoken and written 
language, full of inconsistencies, and technical English is not free of 
inconsistencies. On the other hand inconsistency, if properly used, can be a 
powerful communication tool, and allow different terms to compete for the 
user favour, in a free-market of words.

>
> 2) How many people actively participate in the KDE Catalan
> translation team?

Although historically we had been a small team, consisting only of myself for 
some time, and then by 3-4 people, we are now much more stronger, consisting 
of over 12 people with various degrees of involvement and dedication. It also 
helps that a key member of our group (Albert Astals) is also a main developer 
of KDE and belongs to KDE e.V.

>
> 3) Is the translation team completely a volunteer project? Or are any
> members sponsored (by a governmental organization, company, or non-
> profit group) to work on the KDE Catalan translation?

We are a completely volunteer project, even lacking any legal structure. We 
are not sponsored by any organization, private or public. In my opinion this 
might limit us in some ways (lack of resources) but gives us a great 
independence in order to take our own decisions.

> Thank you in advance for your time. If you know of any other
> resources or documentation about Catalan software translation
> projects, I would greatly appreciate any links or pointers.

Thank you for your interest. I hope this email is not too long and helps you 
with your project. A list of pointers follows, most of them in Catalan.

Our group wiki:
	http://cat.kde.org
Termcat Web site:
	http://www.termcat.cat
Softcatalà Web site:
	http://www.softcatala.cat
Several high quality online dictionaries:
	http://www.grec.cat/home/cel/dicc.htm
	http://dcvb.iec.cat
	http://pdl.iec.cat/entrada/diec.asp
The Wikipedia entry for the Catalan language. High recommended, with lots of 
pointers. In English:
	http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catalan_language
We organized a dinner to celebrate KDE's 10th anniversary. Here is the web 
page, with photos of some members of our team:
	http://cat.kde.org/index.php/Sopar_10è_Aniversari

> Thanks,
> Lane Schwartz

My pleasure. Just two more things: would you be so kind to acknowledge the 
receipt of this email, so that I know it hasn't been gobbled up by some 
anti-spam software? and can I copy this answer to our internal mailing list? 
If you prefer it, I can erase your email.

Best regards,
Sebastià Pla
-- 
Encara quedem valencians que no volem deixar d'ésser el poble que som,
que no volem cedir a la dissolució ni a la indiferència.
		   Joan Fuster. "Nosaltres, els valencians"