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Saving Salish

If the Salish Native American language is to endure, it is up to the few remaining speakers and today’s youth together to save it. 

Nothing new here. There are dying languages all over the world. But here in the Idaho/eastern Washington/western Montana area, with a fairly homogeneous population base, it is exciting to see the Native American heritage honored and strengthened.

This video, courtesy of Spokane, Washington’s Spokesman Review, describes the work and lets you hear some of the language:

More information on preserving Salish can be found at

the Salish Language Revitalization Institute’s website.

Laurel Wagers, Rest in Peace

Laurel Wagers, managing editor of MultiLingual died on February 13, 2010.

An employee at MultiLingual Computing, Inc. since 1998, Laurel quickly found a home and took the editorial reins of MultiLingual. A self-confessed Luddite, she nevertheless jumped into all the editorial content, including the more technically oriented coding pieces. She had a sharp eye and a sharper editing pencil when editorial content was submitted, always keeping the integrity of the magazine and the interests of the readers in the forefront.

A bright student who headed to college at the age of 16, Laurel majored in journalism, but also studied French, which became a lifelong passion.

We are a small team in a small town, so we are close as coworkers and we know each other from community activities as well. This was definitely true with Laurel, who served on the local library board for five years, worked as an accompanist at local churches, and who helped to save the town’s historic theater and served on its board for many years.

At MultiLingual Computing, we will miss the curmudgeon who hated bringing food to our monthly pot lucks—so much so that she wrote an essay entitled “Potluck Anxiety Disorder.” But her standby of apples and cheese were always welcomed. It was Laurel who encouraged us to talk like a pirate on September 19. And who would often show up for work in costume on Halloween. It was Laurel who put together the MultiLingual spelling bee team for local competition.

As a critical staff member, as a coworker, as a friend—we will all miss Laurel.

Please feel free to add your comments below.

Meedan Aims High

There’s great excitement in the Twitterverse today about Meedan, a San Francisco-based operation that offers Web users English news articles translated into Arabic, and vice-versa. The site allows speakers of both languages to communicate with each other and, in addition to an international team of translators and editors, it uses IBM machine translation technology to expedite the commmunication. Any such development that encourages cultural and diplomatic understanding is very welcome.

The UK’s Guardian covers the story well here and here, as well as it being picked up by Wired, describing Meedan (which means “town square” in Arabic) thus:

Think of it a social network filled with people you don’t know, but want to understand.

You can also view a YouTube video that explains how the system works:

I am sure we will be hearing a lot more about this story soon.

Mental Acculturation

The world flattens by means of technology, brand names, and apparently even psychology, according to the New York Times: 

"Behind the promotion of Western ideas of mental health and healing lie a variety of cultural assumptions about human nature. Westerners share, for instance, evolving beliefs about what type of life event is likely to make one psychologically traumatized, and we agree that venting emotions by talking is more healthy than stoic silence. We’ve come to agree that the human mind is rather fragile and that it is best to consider many emotional experiences and mental states as illnesses that require professional intervention. (The National Institute of Mental Health reports that a quarter of Americans have diagnosable mental illnesses each year.) The ideas we export often have at their heart a particularly American brand of hyperintrospection — a penchant for ‘psychologizing’ daily existence. These ideas remain deeply influenced by the Cartesian split between the mind and the body, the Freudian duality between the conscious and unconscious, as well as the many self-help philosophies and schools of therapy that have encouraged Americans to separate the health of the individual from the health of the group. These Western ideas of the mind are proving as seductive to the rest of the world as fast food and rap music, and we are spreading them with speed and vigor.”

If Western ideas about the mind so easily creep into the subconscious of the rest of the world, what other cultural mentalities will drift away with time and globalization?

The Secret Language of ... Elephants

The Elephant Listening Project is putting elephant sounds together with behavior to create an elephant language dictionary.

CBS’s “Sixty Minutes” just ran a segment (video also available) on the central African forest elephants. The segment profiles Andrea Turkalo’s two decades of observing these elephants, and categorizing their sounds and actions. Many of the sounds are at levels below the pitches that humans can hear.

The Elephant Listening Project is associated with the Bioacoustics Research Program at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology in Ithaca, New York. Cornell University researcher Katy Payne began the Elephant Listening Project. She’s building an “elephant dictionary” that might help researchers learn how many elephants there are in an area, how they interact, what they’re doing—and if they’re reproducing. Turkalo frequently travels to Cornell to present data and observations from her work in the field.

(© Andrea Turkalo)

The “elephant dictionary” itself is in its infancy and work continues. The good side effect of this is that at least this particular batch of elephants has escaped poachers due to the fact that others are watching them.

It's all relative

What is wrong with the following sentence (other than the obvious heartbreak): “The thing is, is John just doesn’t love me anymore” ?

It’s the fake relative pronoun. A relative pronoun, obviously, is a word that begins a relative clause. In the sentence just previous to this one, the word is “that;” essentially, this pronoun melds two sentences, “a relative pronoun is a word” and “the word connects two relative clauses,” into one. Other such pronouns in modern English usage are who, whom, whose and which, as you no doubt know from grammar class.

Correctly, the opening example should be “the thing is that John doesn’t love me,” or merely the invisible “the thing is, John doesn’t love me.” Over the years, however, I’ve noticed people inserting an extra “is” in sentences like this because their brain tells them (assumedly) that something is missing from the more natural, more colloquial relative clause “, John doesn’t love me.” In many languages, one needs a relative pronoun at all times; it is not optional (C’est que John me n’aime plus) like it sometimes is in English. This option appears to cause confusion. Should there be something more? What if we just repeat “is”?

In the end I can’t pretend to know the motivation of the human brain, but I do find this phenomenon interesting. I predict that in the future, we may begin to see “is” labeled as a dialectical relative pronoun, much like the “what” found, for example, in archaic rural outposts of the UK: “The boy what eats more meat gets more dessert!”

As a side note, from the quick search I did on the internet, I did not see any research on this subject. I’m totally calling it, then.

Making up language

Vanity Fair, that bastion of linguistic knowledge, recently published an article on the creation of Na’vi, a constructed “alien” language used in the upcoming $400 million flick Avatar. There’s a bit of phonetic explanation, though not much, and a sound clip. I’m quite curious how linguist Paul Frommer came up with his linguistic hodge-podge; director James Cameron apparently told him he wanted it to be both exotic and pleasant, and gave Frommer some Na’vi names he’d already come up with. Browsing further articles didn’t turn up much detailing Frommer’s inspiration, though Wikipedia explains the basic construction rather well.

Typically, of course, languages develop in context, just as they are learned in context. This did actually happen occasionally even in this constructed language, as Frommer explains in the Vanity Fair article.

To some extent, new language creeps into being all the time. This year, for example, “unfriend" was officially recognized in English. Language evolves with the times and technology.

And also with the subculture. I had the strange experience of growing up in a rural microculture of ten souls: me, my four siblings, and the five children we played with. Somehow we invented our own words to keep the peace, the most important of which sounded something like “ught.” If someone said this word, everyone else had to shut up and listen. If you “broke ught,” everyone else looked at you like you were evil (In retrospect, this sounds disturbingly like the conch in Lord of the Flies, but fortunately our microculture remained entrenched in the rules rather than fragmenting into anarchy. Maybe this was because of the ten, six of us were girls, and our parents were never that far away).

Love by any other name

A rose by any other name would be as sweet, Shakespeare tells us, but not everyone agrees. An NY Times article sent in by an alert reader tells a different tale: words in other languages just may not mean as much to everyone. 

As someone who generally feels at ease in cultures not my own, I’m trying to weigh this, ask if it is true. On some level, I have to say that it is: culturally, things get lost in translation; I remember consistently being confused when I asked a foreigner if he wanted to do this or that, and his reply was “that’s Ok.” To his ear, this meant a polite yes; to mine, it meant a polite no.

But that’s simple lack of idiomatic translation. The idea that words mean less when they’re not in the language of your upbringing goes further. And I’m not sure I completely agree. I was perhaps more thrilled, not less, to be told affectionately “Je t’aime bien,” by a friend in France than I would be by a friend in the States saying the (more or less) equivalent “I love you, man.” A language not your own may still work its way deep into your heart. Sometimes it is merely by virtue of the fact that the person speaking the language is beloved; to hear “I love you” in any language, spoken with sincerity, is extremely moving as long as the translation is known. One watches the eyes, the voice, the intention, the kept promise, more than one watches the cultural diction. It’s amazing, really, how similar each culture’s facial expressions and moral tenants are (a frown is bad, a laugh is good, deception is bad, generosity is good).

And perhaps that’s this writer’s dilemma: doubting love (or anything) not because of language, but because of those unexpressed things, those nonverbals. Is an apparent lack of commitment real lack of commitment, or is it mere cultural rote? Does she doubt him because they don’t speak the same native language, or because he isn’t trustworthy?

This could apply to business as well as personal life, and the added obstacle here is our cultural delicacy — or indelicacy. We may be too PC to inquire into something we suspect might just be cultural difference, for example, and get cheated on a business deal. We may be too callous or xenophobic, and end up offending a potential business partner.

Whatever the case, language and culture continue to fascinate us and continue to demand education and better idiomatic translation, better localization. Making sure your actions match your words certainly doesn’t hurt in anyplace I’ve ever heard of, either.

Language -- what we have in common?

Once thought of differentiator between humans and other animals, perhaps we are now learning that language is something we have in common.

The New York Times reports from the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that a study of monkeys in Africa finds them putting conditional suffixes on sounds—or shall we say words? Klaus Zuberbühler and researchers previously identified sounds with meanings when studying Campbell’s monkeys in the Tai National Park of the Ivory Coast. They now have shown that the monkeys modify their sounds to communicate further refinements of the sound meanings.

Now, I know that some suffixes on sounds are a far cry from Shakespeare, but it’s fun to realize that these guys have been communicating quite well while we assumed, in our hubris, that such communication was ours alone.

A Language Gap: Kurdish and Arabic

Recent reports from the Iraq Programme of the Institute of War & Peace Reporting indicate a continuing language problem between Arabic-speaking Iraq and its Kurdish-speaking neighbors.

“Though they share the same country, Arabs and Kurds know little of each other’s history and even less today of each other’s languages,” writes Husam al-Saray, a journalist in Baghdad. “Their shared legacy of revolts against colonial Britain lies long forgotten amid a simmering internal conflict over land and resources.”

Under the Iraqi constitution Arabs and Kurds have equal rights as citizens. Both languages must be taught in all Iraqi schools. But few young Kurds speak Arabic, and even fewer young Arabs learn Kurdish.

Signs on roads and official buildings in each region tend to be either in Arabic or in Kurdish, rarely both. If a second language is used, it is usually English.

Journalist Najeeba Mohammed in Erbil reports the number of Kurds who can speak Arabic fluently is rapidly shrinking, and analysts say the next generation of Kurdish leaders could be compromised by their lack of fluent Arabic.

Some 44 of 21,635 schools in Kurdistan offer education in Arabic at present, according to government figures. Many private language academies have popped up in the region, and English courses appear to be the most popular.

For the whole story, see IRAQI CRISIS REPORT, No. 306: http://iwpr.net/iraq

If only they had iPhones on the Titanic

One of the Multilingual features I enjoy is “Off The Map” by Tom Edwards. In the current issue, Tom writes about “Geopolitical correctness,” and I was reminded of Tom’s articles when I took a look at the data being used by my Accuweather iPhone app today (the app is free from the iTunes app store.)

Why, it’s using pre-Irish Independence (1922) placenames for Irish locations. I was able to find up-to-date weather information, including weather satellite maps for such places as “Kingstown” (Dún Laoghaire), “Maryborough” (Portlaoise), Philipstown (Daingean) and other distinctly er, royalist-sounding places.

Even “Queenstown” is there! That’s now called Cobh. It’s the place the Titanic called to before setting off on the final stage of its tragic journey in 1912. If only they had iPhones on board, they could not only have checked the Queenstown weather but they might have also seen the #icebergalert warning on Tweetie.

I cannot help but wonder where the Accuweather folks got this ancient data from. It’s a major localization and cultural error. Names of places in Ireland have all kinds of political as well as cultural and historic significance.

I wouldn’t mind, but there isn’t even a “Weather Conditions for Potato Famine Imminent” alarm. At least the Accuweather people could have been historically consistent with the feature set. Maybe Tom can add this one to his list for future articles!

Lost in localization

Maziar Bahari was imprisoned for interview on The Daily Show.

Maziar Bahari is a Canadian Iranian journalist. He was interviewed by Jason Jones of “The Daily Show” when Jones was in Iran during the upheaval earlier this year. If you are not familiar with “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart”, it is a US-based satirical look at the news. It should say enough about the show that it is aired on a network called “Comedy Central”.

After the interview, the segment was evidently not localized well enough. Or perhaps not at all, and someone watching it could not detect irony in another language. Whatever the reason, Bahari was arrested and jailed for espionage for 118 days. His account of this is in the current Newsweek. He was interviewed on The Daily Show about his incarceration.  The video below is blocked outside the United States. If you are unable to see it, please check out a commentary on the exchange at Mediaiate.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Maziar Bahari
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Health Care Crisis

Somes comedy—and always localization—is serious stuff.

Microsoft Word 2010 Translation

"Learn how you can translate entire documents easily with Microsoft Word 2010 Translation features by watching this quick tutorial,” claims a recently-posted video on Windows 7 Forums.

The video shows just how easy this is. You click “translate” and the pop-up notification warns (as you can see if you hit pause on this video): “Word is about to send the document for translation over the Internet in unencrypted HTML format. It will be translated by the Microsoft Translator service…. Do you want to continue?”

Office 2010 is not being released for a few more months, but the beta was available until the end of October. Has anyone tried using this? If so, what are your opinions? And is the Microsoft Translator service this references the 2007 MT solution or has it evolved significantly? 

Facebook I18N: Way More Than A Token Gesture

Tokens (markers that are replaced at run-time by other text or values) in strings can be the bane of a translator’s life if used incorrectly because they frustrate a correct translation being made. However, I love the way that the Facebook translation tool allows you to comment on their use as you translate. 

Looking at the options below for commenting on token use is an education in itself (the tokens concerned are {number} and {chat-service-name}).

This approach allows users to comment as much on the effectiveness of the internationalization (i18n) practice as on the quality of the translation.

Facebook’s internationalization best practices for developers are here.

Facebook: Available in How Many Languages?

I’m sure we’re all very familiar with the vaunted Facebook crowdsourcing translation model by now. It’s been central to Facebook’s phenomenal international growth, and it’s a fantastic innovation even subject to a U.S. patent application. Anyone who supports the global sharing of information can only but admire what Facebook have done, meself included!

But I’m stuck here. Maybe you can help me?

As a user experience (UX) professional, I can see how allowing users to translate their own content can be part of a compelling engagement strategy, and within that context I would have thought the entire user experience should be in the user’s language, not just part of it.

So, then, why is it that when we constantly read that Facebook is available in 65, 70, 80, whatever number of languages, we can find that the Facebook help is available in less than 10? Here is what Irish language (Gaeilge) users see under Help:

Is it because:
a) The Facebook crowdsourcing translation tool doesn’t allow the help strings to be translated?
b) Facebook users don’t want to translate help because they don’t like or need it, or doing so just ain’t cool (or easy) anyway?
or
c) There’s a whole bunch of places out there populated by people way way smarter than others and they don’t need help in their own language?

As a localization professional working according to budget, I was sometimes faced with the prospect of having to preside over a localization plan where help or doc not included and left in English (actually, Facebook doesn’t seem to allow users who switch their language to one where no help translation is available an option to read help in English instead). I wondered: if this approach was acceptable then why the help was written in English in the first place?

For me, partial localization is fine if the market and user experience accepts it, of course, though it’s clear that for some cultures doing so is a negative experience.

But what’s going on with community translation of user assistance like help?

Answers to the organizers of the next localization or UX conference, anywhere, please.

iPhone's Pic Translator translates for you

A new application for the iPhone allows you to take a picture of some text and then translate it. Not only that, with text-to-speech technology, it will pronounce the text as well.

With translation capability from English into 16 languages and pronunciation in FIGS plus Portuguese, the Pic Translator seems aimed at the monolingual American who ends up at a restaurant with indecipherable entrees. An interesting app—and at a cost of 99 cents, it seems worth a shot!

(Thanks to Fast Company for this item!

Facebook and Google: new translation tools free to the masses

Facebook’s recent announcement that it is releasing a new translation tool free of charge to other websites has caught the attention of such media giants as the New York Times. Scooped by the Times once again!

The announcement of a free translation tool based on Facebook’s own methods comes as a bit of a surprise on the heels of the hubbub over Facebook’s patent application over its method of crowdsourced translation (which you can read a bit more about in the upcoming issue of MultiLingual magazine… too bad this latest notice arrived just prior to going to print). To top it all off, Google announced it also is offering a free crowdsourcing method to translate websites. Quick thinking, Google.

What this means in the long run remains to be seen, of course.

Striking a blow for idioms

A book on “novel"-sounding idioms in ten languages will save you the trouble of learning the languages yourself, according to Jag Bhalla, the author of I’m not Hanging Noodles on your Ears and other Intriguing Idioms from around the World, a collection of 1,200 idioms from National Geographic Books, illustrated by New Yorker cartoonist Julia Suits. 

A guest column on the book by the author mentions a few examples, such as to live like a maggot in bacon (to live in luxury: German) and to strike the 400 blows (to sow wild oats: French). The last one may not be so “novel” to fans of French cinema, who will undoubtedly recall a French New Wave flick by the same name (Les quatre cents coups). Apparently, there are two bands that have discovered this delightful idiom as well.

The column also discusses the use of idiom in language (which seems nearly unavoidable, at least for the native speaker) so check it out if you’re interested in anything beyond literal one-to-one language.

Sand calligraphy

Feast your eyes on these pretty symbols.

No, they don’t necessarily fit together into a meaning message, but who can complain when looking at beautiful calligraphy on a gorgeous beach with the light hitting the symbols “just right”?

(The characters in this piece take their inspiration mainly from the Adinkra symbols of the Akan people of Ghana and the Ivory Coast.)
If looking online is not enough, Andrew van der Merwe also offers prints for sale.

Don't sleep, there's a good book

“Don’t Sleep, There Are Snakes” is a fascinating book by Dan Everett detailing living, studying language and observing culture among the Pirahã people of the Amazon jungle.

Everett, who is currently the chair of Languages, Literature and Cultures at Illinois State University, was funded by SIL to study the Pirahã language, and to translate the New Testament into it. Over a span of thirty years, he spent seven living among the people, studying their language and culture. His findings challenged his own (commonly accepted) linguistic theories as well as his belief system. Listen to the language here, and see nonrecursion demonstrated:

The stories in the book are riveting, and the linguistic discussion is approachable even for me, a non-linguist. But the most intriguing part is Everett’s realization that the Pirahã people have a culture completely different from ours. The obvious superficial differences aside, they have no counting system, no color names, no creation story, no history and they are completely content with laughter-filled days. And the title? That’s a common good night phrase – part teasing, part true.

Technology Company in Silicon Valley Applies for a Patent

If you’d been following @localization on Twitter, you’d know it was announced days ago that Facebook has applied for a patent (in the U.S.) called “Community Translation On A Social Network” (this was covered on the Baltimore Sun’s Tech Blog before anywhere else.)

The details, filed with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, aim to patent the much-vaunted social network translation process we hear so much about: where Facebook “volunteers” contribute freely-provided translations, which are then “voted” on as being appropriate or not. The filing states:

Embodiments of the invention provide techniques for translating text in a social network. In one embodiment translations of text phrases are received from members of the social network. These text phrases include content displayed in a social networking system, such as content from social networking objects. A particular member is provided with content including a text phrase in a first language, and the member requests translation into another language. Responsive to this request, a translation of the text phrase is selected from a set of available translations. The selection is based on actions by friends of the member in the social network, the actions being associated with the set of available translations. These actions can the viewing of or approval of translations by the friends, for example. The selected translation is then presented to the member requesting the translation.

(I admit being familiar with some of this kind of language, although lawyers were paid to explain it.)

This development would seem to offer a great deal of potential to not only extend the debate about crowdsourced translation, to whom the benefits really accrue, at what cost to others, and so on, but to ask the question “where will this all end up?” Except that a linkedinfail-style debate hasn’t ignited (yet.) Facebook, although wrong-footing the pundits very badly on this, is really doing what anyone else in the business (and it is a business) would attempt to do, so such a patent application isn’t surprising. It’s what tech companies do all the time, and why wouldn’t Facebook want to try and “own” a core global user engagement process like this? Amazon, after all, made a science out of it (and nice profits after a bit.)

However, Facebook is not alone in the social networking space (and the filing is specifically for “social networks") using the approach for translation, but that’ll be a “prior art” issue that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office will need to examine.

All I can say - as the pursuer of a patent application with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office myself - is these things can take years to conclude - even if the patent is to be awarded eventually.

Personally, I think this patent application will eventually fail, but yet again Facebook has made its translation process a headline event in even trying (nothing wrong with that.) You may have an opinion on all this, so until we hear from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, we’d like to read it ...

Chinese input on the new Mac OS

Perhaps it is because the new Mac operating system is nicknamed “snow leopard.” (What’s with the cat names? Personally, I am holding out for “margay"-- should be fast and small. But I digress.) The snow leopard’s habitat is mostly in China.

And the new Macintosh OS (more mundanely known as OS X 10.6) has a fun input method for Chinese characters. According to Apple’s release, “You draw them right on the Multi-Touch trackpad in your Mac notebook. They’ll appear on the screen in a new input window, which recommends characters based on what you drew and lets you choose the right one. The input window even offers suggestions for subsequent characters based on what you chose.” Fun! I can’t wait to see it!

The OS will sell for $29. Plus the cost of a Mac notebook, for Chinese input. 

Translation Party

Bored? Try Translation Party.

Yes, if you’ve nothing to do because Twitter and Facebook are broken again, then amuse yourself for hours this way. Translate phrases backwards and forwards between English and Japanese using Google Translate until you reach a state of “equilibrium.” Or your boss appears.

More on Translation Party from Techcrunch.

If you think that’s pointless, then consider some people have no problem paying good money for back-translations.

Whiffling away

Adam Jacot de Boinod brings us a blog and tweets based on his book.

The Wonder of Whiffling by Adam Jocot de Boinod explores “extraordinary words in the English language.” He has now started a blog on the topic, and also tweets regularly. The blog website also has several pages of pages from the book.

Check it out! It’s good for at least a snirtle. 

Localized Spam

Are people six times less likely to be irritated by localized spam?

Perhaps you are familiar with Common Sense Advisory’s report “Can’t Read, Won’t Buy: Why Language Matters on Global Websites.” Well, it seems the spammers are on to this fact, as well. Slashdot reports that some Europeans are being targeted with automatically translated spam.

Danch Danchev has a great blog entry on this phenomenon.

For language learning and ... other learning

Two interesting resources for those interested in learning language or expanding their grasp of a particular area of language:

1. My Language Notebook, allowing users to record, download and store segments of audio or other language feedback as they attempt to master a new language. Supposedly, this tool aids in practice, and the site allows for language data exchange between users.

2. 84 Dictionaries, with links to NASA, foodie, quotation, rap, slang, and multi-language dictionaries — 84 of them in total.

Amo Amas A-what?

You may have heard of the Pope’s recent call for a global government. Topics such as global government or the Pope often elicit all kinds of reactions. But to me, the interesting tidbit in the news was: “Filled with terms like globalization, market economy, outsourcing, labor unions and alternative energy, it is not surprising that the Italian media reported that the Vatican was having difficulty translating the 144-page document into Latin.”—New York Times.

Windows 7 Internationalization

Microsoft blog entry is a nice overview of the upcoming global features of Windows 7.

I am one of the many people looking forward with fingers crossed to the release of Windows 7. This entry tells us some of the new international features of the version, including more fonts for non-Latin scripts than Latin ones and a new font manager application. Existing fonts have been improved.

And, of course, more language packs (32) and locales (210). The post goes on to describe their localization process with concentration on German, Japanese, Arabic and Hindi in the beta version to unearth potential localization issues. With beta testers from 113 countries, Microsoft was able to take advantage of a variety of installations and locales. 

Yamli - Arabic Without an Arabic Keyboard

NPR’s All Tech Considered has a great story about Yamli - a very cool technology helping users connect through Arabic.

You can use your regular keyboard and non-Arabic input to search in Arabic. According to the story:

"The idea is, if you don’t have an Arabic keyboard, you can type Arabic by spelling your words out phonetically.” .... “For example ... when you’re writing the word ‘falafel,’ Yamli will convert that to Arabic in your Web browser. We will go and search not only the Arabic script version of that search query, but also for all the Western variations of that keyword.”

The technology recently “best in show” at a recent “new” technology forum at MIT. Very neat.

Bowlingual 2.0

Japanese toymaker Takara Tomy has announced a new and improved version of the IgNobel-Prize-winning Bowlingual “translator” of dog-to-human communication. The device was displayed at the Tokyo Toy Fair on Thursday. (See reports from sources as diverse as Computerworld and Gizmodo.) The Gizmodo story includes aw-gee photos.

Originally launched in 2002, Bowlingual allowed an owner to see emoticons representing the dog’s emotions. The new version includes speech-to-text and a speech synthesizer so the user can read and hear — in Japanese only, at this point—what the dog is believed to be communicating. It’s scheduled to be available in Japan in August — no word on when you can pick one up at the nearest US pet supply emporium.

Moving pictures: new tool claims to help build correct picto-translations

Edongba facilitates modern hieroglyph use.

Zmnsoft has released a Windows application allowing users to create documents and messages using Dongba hieroglyphs, the only hieroglyphic writing system still in use today. This ancient language is used by the Naxi people of Lijiang City, in China’s Yunnan Province, and is expressed in a combination of Dongba hieroglyphs and Geba symbols. The tool allows hieroglyph use in text editors, word processors and graphics programs, and a press release claims that the tool “makes it easy to select the proper symbols, and build messages.” This helpful translation tool appears to be limited to English-to-Dongba, and indeed the only purpose of the tool appears to be the novelty of word-processing hieroglyphs. The program’s Dongba font includes 1,561 Dongba hieroglyphs, 661 Geba scripts and a 50-character international phonetic alphabet for the Naxi language. The cost is $30, but if you’re just curious you can download the trial version from the Edongba website, which also has historical notes on the language.

Clever toolbar for translators

The folks at Qabiria have put together a handy Firefox and Internet Explorer toolbar for translators.

Of course, being supplied by a consulting/translation house, the toolbar has pointers for Qabiria resources. But it also features online applications including measurement conversion, a world clock a text-to-pdf converter, bookmarks to key online language resources, specialized magazines and translation forums. Check it out! It’s free, and, if not to your liking, you can remove it.

Nifty typing aid for Latin script characters

There is a free online editor for typing ‘special’ characters in Czech, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Hungarian, IPA (English), Italian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Spanish, Swedish and Turkish. I am referring to the characters that are beyond the standard ascii set, and in some programs are hard to find the insert keystroke for. The nice thing about this is you don’t need to change any settings on your own computer. Just go to the TypeIt website, select the language, the character, and then copy and paste it into your program. Thank you to Tomasz P. Szynalski who created the site!

Obama translated into Farsi and Arabic

Perhaps it was in response to claimed mistranslations of previous statements. Whatever the reason, the Obama administration has posted a translation of his opening comments at a press conference (June 20, 2009) in Farsi as well as Arabic (down-loadable). (Note to White House: when you finally publish a pdf, remove the version number—“final_2” looks like a working title.)

And, as always, using current technology as much as possible, the White House also tweeted the translation in Farsi and posted a subtitled version of his opening remarks.

That #Linkedinfail Firestorm

For those of you not up on Twitter yet (you sinners) you might be unaware of the #linkedinfail ’firestorm‘ concerning the recent survey of translators by LinkedIn about translating the site on an, er, non-monetary basis.

Much debate ensued, and continues, and you can read the opinions of CSA, Matthew Bennett, and Nick Peris for a good take on the various perspectives.

Many questions, and different opinions there. Not much I can add except that a) I don’t think we can conflate all kind of community, volunteer, crowdsourced, user community and such like translation together so easily, a subject I will return to, b) we might consider that the Facebook crowdsourcing translation model should be considered as much, if not more, a part of a user engagement strategy as just a localization one, so the model may not apply depending on your content, market, and branding, and c) this whole episode is as good a case study about change management (or lack of) as any you’ll get in your MBA textbooks.

About all we can agree on now, I think, as I pointed out as a result of the San Mateo Localization UnConference last year and the thoughts of Sun Microsystems, is that this stuff ain’t free in either the short or long run. I’m sure we’ll hear more about this one…

Update: [29-June-2009] The story has also made the New York Times - Translators Wanted at LinkedIn. The Pay? $0 an Hour.

Localization Unconference Dublin

I haven’t forgotten the Localization UnConference that was held in Dublin, Ireland, last month. Honest!

I’ve been so busy with international travel (it’s a hard life) that I haven’t had a chance to mention it on Blogos. Suffice to say for now, until I get back to the subject, that it was a super event, with the best part of 50 people attending. Congrats to Tony, Mark, Antoin, Martin and Henry for getting this together and to Vistatec Ireland for the premises. Watch out for an article on the subject in a forthcoming issue of Multilingual too.

Here’s to the next one!

Google Translator Toolkit: Share and Share Alike?

By now, you have probably seen all sorts of chatter on Google’s new Translator Toolkit. Just as with anything Google does, it seems clean and useful. But what do professional translators think? That seems to be a mixed bag—and people appear to be adopting a “wait and see” attitude.

I was a little concerned in reading the help pages to see: “By default, we save your translations to a shared, publicly searchable [sic] translation memory.” The help goes on to describe how to avoid the default condition.

I just wonder, until we all decide that no one owns TMs (will we decide that? when?), this seems to be a bit risky. Translators will have to be on their toes to avoid sharing TMs that belong to their clients.

Twitter

Where have I been for the last month? No Blogos postings? Been on Twitter, that’s where. You can reach out to me (if it’s really me, or just me, which it might not be) at @localization. If you don’t know what Twitter is, then it’s a kinda cross between making a long-distance telephone call in the 1980s and hanging up after 10 seconds and a bunch of drunks screaming into the night at their “friends.” Er, I mean, it’s a social media micro-blogging tool.  It’s the latest thing. Or was, given the pace some people tire of social media. Multilingual is there too, tweeting away (@multilingualmag).

Anyway, after about a month, and picking up about 180 “followers” hanging on every letter of the @localization wit, wisdom and erudition encapsulated in those 140 character “Tweets”, I can say I really like the medium. Besides the directness implicit in making comments on just about anything in 140 characters or less, there’s something refreshingly honest and a lot more robust about Twitter communications. Unlike blogging-which for the most part is really a load of guys with beards moaning about stuff, making contrived pronouncements about subjects they haven’t really a clue about, or suits scratching each other’s backs now, anyway, isn’t it? Unless it’s been written by me, of course.

In the localization/internationalization space (I refuse to use the word “globalization"), I can see a number of possibilities for Twitter, some of which we’ve explored already in the past month’s exchanges (and some are being implemented as cloud or collaborative customer solutions by enterprises already, by the way):

* Cloud service and solutions - vendor feedback, terminology queries, internationalization issues ("my Tweetdeck don’t work with Japanese characters, what’ll fix?"), location of resources, tools support ("how do I do X or Y in Trados?"), and so on. Real time and searchable knowledge.

* Communications, marketing and promotion - announcements, headsups on events, soliciting submissions, calls for papers, making time-bound offers, spreading the word virally, and more. Although I certainly want more from Twitter than just reading Tweets about what conferences and reports are for sale, directing me to the standard press releases for more details. If you’re using it for that, don’t be surprised is somebody asks you for a discount. Or a hard question about the content. You’ll have to respond. Great way to build a network of contacts, gather market intelligence, too.

* Information filtering by peers - gathering information, links, opinions, survey responses, obtaining recommendations, and so on. Using the intelligence of your followers to mine raw data for you.

* Real time commentary and feedback on events, products, services - for example, using hashtags to track webinars, or conference presentations as the event occurs. Come to think of it, why even bother going to the conference at all to obtain the real time feedback? It’s all there on public view as it’s recorded (for example, the Twitter “hashtag” #DuLu.) Listening to customers, users, and so on.

There are all kinds of possibilities, admittedly low-level at present, and non-revenue generating. You can get a flavor by looking at these Twitter hashtags: #l10n, and #i18n.

I can see some limitations at present, namely the lack of any supporting metadata around Tweets which would allow analysis, but I am sure that can be dealt with over time.

Anyway, all I can do now is encourage you to come on over to Twitter and hook up with us @localization and @multilingualmag.  10 minutes a day is all you need to join in the fun.

I’ll get back with more Blogos stuff as soon as the beard grows a little more.

Now Oracle has a new Sun

Update: Oracle buys Sun. Oracle is positive about the acquisition, which, I suppose, makes sense. Nobody would shell out $7.4 billion for something that was obviously a bad investment, unless bad investments themselves have become a way of getting added cash flow. Sun also appears positive, naturally.

Recent commentary by a Cyber Cynic is not so glowing, and I’m always tempted to give cynics more credibility than CEOs (though I probably shouldn’t, since CEOs typically have more to gain or lose). Any thoughts? 

Spring drama with Sun and the big Blue yonder

There has been much speculation on the talks that IBM and Sun Microsystems aren’t officially having, ever since word leaked out that they weren’t officially having them.

Now the deal may have turned sour. If due diligence rather than just price slowed the IBM acquisition talks with Sun Microsystems, trying to sort everything out may have made IBM drag its feet. The Wall Street Journal reported March 20 that IBM was researching Sun’s business contracts in standard preparation for a possible merger, and said the research was expected to take “a number of days.” Weeks later, speculation on both corporations’ continued reticence pointed to potential intellectual property entanglements.
Both IBM and Sun’s portfolios contain open-source and commercial licenses as well as third party patent and cross-licensing deals. Of particular interest is an agreement Sun forged with Microsoft in 2004, ending a lawsuit over Java software. Sun had brought suit alleging that Microsoft maintained an illegal monopoly in the “worldwide market for Intel-compatible PC operating systems,” and also that Microsoft distributed “source code in the Java platform” outside a license that Microsoft received from Sun. After the private anti-trust lawsuit ran into Estoppel, Sun struck a deal, netting $700 million for dropping the Java suit against Microsoft, and $900 million for a patent-sharing agreement that could be extended for up to ten years. Whether in shrewd observation or sour grapes, Microsoft now wonders why IBM would even want Sun.
IBM, whose software business depends heavily on Java, would need to carefully dissect this agreement and others before continuing with acquisition, even if the price is right. IBM has not returned calls to comment on this, and the implication for the localization industry if the deal does or doesn’t go through is unclear as well. Most everyone I’ve chatted with so far seems to assume that either way, it would be more or less business as usual.

Localizing team spirit and other impossibilities

Rugby is not that popular in America, the land of college sports. Like soccer, it’s sort of relegated to the shadows, played by club teams and European transplants. However, it has, at least in the Stateside circles I know, gained a bit more steam in recent years. I went down to a Rugby tournament this weekend that featured teams from at least three states to cheer on my brother, until a few months ago an American football player to the core.

Here’s the tricky thing about localizing sports: if you forget which one you’re playing, or fall back on instincts that used to work perfectly in the old sport ethos, it can kind of hurt. Sam spotted someone about to score and went in for the kill, smashing him, as he used to do in football, skull-to-skull, full steam ahead.

He forgot that neither of them wore a helmet. He woke up staring at his hands, wondered at the blood on them, and stepped out to get his face bandaged (and be lectured by two sisters to stop giving himself concussions). The other guy went to the hospital and got 20 stitches.

I’m really not sure if this kind of damage can occur with cross-cultural instincts elsewhere, but I’m willing to bet so. I’m also willing to bet that localizing your instincts might be one of the hardest things to do, short of learning the hard way.

A love story

Jost Zetzsche introduces us to characters he loves.

And, I am not talking about human characters. Jost Zetzsche of International Writers Group fame has a great newsletter, The Tool Kit. A computer newsletter for translation professionals, it is filled will useful tips and interesting commentary—even if you are not a translator. A free version is available for the asking and a premium edition is only $15 a year.
Occasionally, Jost features a character that he loves and writes about why he is taken with it.

These are listed as “Characters with Character—a love story”. If your browser is Java-enabled, you can see his comments when you mouse over each graphic. Check it out! And, fall in love.

Mapping endangered languages

UNESCO has released a new “Atlas of the World’s Languages in Danger”. 

Following the end of the International Year of Languages (2008) and International Mother Language Day, The United Nations Educational, Social and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has released an “Atlas of the World’s Languages in Danger". Available as a downloadable 19 MB file, there is also a time-draining interactive version that had me virtually traveling all over the world to “visit” the endangered language sites. Each language entry in the interactive Atlas contains a tab for comments designed to collect feedback from speakers of endangered languages and experts who study these languages. (Thanks to John Prieur of Language Line for this information.)

Continuing the theme, the current issue issue of The UNESCO Courier focuses on languages at risk of disappearing. UNESCO’s Lucía Iglesias Kuntz states, “When languages die, not only words disappear, but ways of seeing and describing reality; we lose valuable knowledge and worlds of thought.”

Blogos Wordle Cloud

Just for distraction, I created a new word cloud from Blogos:

Create your own word cloud at Wordle.

"The Linguists" chronicles the search for endangered languages

Film captures two ethnographers circling the world to record endangered languages.

The film The Linguists, which was shown at Sundance, will be aired on public television in the United States on February 26, 2009. Funded in part by the National Science Foundation, the film chronicles the work of David Harrison of Swarthmore College and Gregory Anderson of the Living Tongues Institute as they traveled around the world to record languages that are in danger of disappearing.

Interviewed this morning on NPR, the pair of language specialists speak 25 languages together. But they are most interested in the languages that may be gone by tomorrow. The movie promises to be an interesting watch.
If you do not have access to US public television, or your station is not broadcasting the film (mine is showing it at 2:00 AM — thank heaven for TiVo), you might want to order the dvd from the film’s website.

A sweet goodbye to the Year of Languages

UNESCO’s International Year of Languages (2008) comes to a close with International Mother Language Day on February 21, 2009. The Orphan’s Lullaby project, a “multilingual celebration of languages spoken in Africa, and a multilingual expression of uniting for children and uniting against AIDS” has create a sweet lullaby on video to commemorate the day.
The lullaby is sung in English, but you can see translations of the lyrics into languages such as Wolof, Xhosa, Zulu, Sotho, Arabic, French, Lingala, Afrikaans, Chichewa, Hindi and Igbo, and learn more about the Orphan’s Lullaby project on Alex Smith’s blog.
For more on the International Year of Languages, see Don Osborn’s great collection of links.

Lost in the Editing

Are you as bored as I am with these stupid “lost in translation” stories that appear in the media? Every time a story appears concerning some translation or interpretation issue, however vague, the headline always manages to somehow include the phrase “lost in translation.” Here’s the latest: “Rogue driver Prawo is lost in translation.”

Why is this phrase popular? This is why.

The story itself reflects badly on the Irish police, and gives life to the claim by Irish author, poet, playwright, freedom fighter, and er, well-rounded Guinness drinker, Brendan Behan that the only foreign language the police force knew was “Garda“:

The Polish term for driving licence, “Prawo Jazdy”, has been taken down in error by members of the traffic corps as the actual identity of the motorists they stopped.

Other “lost in translation” stories are here, and here, and here, and here, and here, and here, and here, and ...

Ironically, if the phrase itself was to be easily translatable, it should have the article included: “Lost in the translation.”

Of course, I’ve used this tiresome phrase myself, even though I thought the movie was mediocre at best. I was being lazy. Come on media people, at least pretend to be original, and try watching more than one movie, or buying a dictionary. You could even try playing on “Locale Hero,” “Support Your Locale Serif,” “Austin Powers: Internationalization Man of Mystery,” “Miss Interpreted,”....

Getting It Sorted

A simple challenge to you: How do you alphabetically sort your translated XML or HTML content?

I’ve been to many L10n/I18n conferences, workshops, and sales events, and have read many, many articles in various industry publications over the years. And yet, when it comes to the part when you’re supposed to tell everyone how you alphabetically sorted all that translated HTML and XML that was so wonderfully handled by the best in modern technology, everybody ducks.

Why? The reason I suspect is that there are no out-of-the box solutions out there that really work for every language anyway, and when it comes to the sorting part, well then it’s down to human intervention? Am I right?

So, how do you do it? Assume you’re translating HTML and need to resort an alphabetically sorted index or glossary for an online manual. How do you proceed? Is there a tool you use? Or is it a manual process? How much does this process cost?

Do you translate XML? How do you sort the transformed content? Do you render it from the XML file directly? Use a database? XSLT?  Do it the hard way? Ever used the index-sort-as element in DITA? Again, assume I want a sorted index or glossary.

What do you recommend? If you have examples and details, let us know and I’ll record them here. Or even better, write an article about how you alphabetically sort your content and submit it for publication in Multilingual.

Learning Yakama Sahaptin is cool

Columbia River language taught by native speaker at University of Oregon.

I don’t know what about this story from Spokane, Washington’s Spokesman Review I love the most:
- Here is a state university (University of Oregon) offering a course in Yakama Sahaptin, one of the native languages found along the Columbia River.
- A student thinks it’s “cool” to learn it.
- And, best of all, the teacher is an 87-year-old native speaker of the language, born in a bear cave, earned a degree in anthropology, authored Yakima Language Practical Dictionary in 1975, earned a master’s degree in bilingual and bicultural education, and (oh, by the way) is now working on her Ph.D.

The University of Oregon’s Northwest Language Institute recently held a conference for Sahaptin language teachers.

Kudos, all around!

Betrayed

We’ve mentioned the fate of Iraqi translators and interpreters who worked for the Americans in the Iraqi war before. George Packer wrote an article about their story for the New Yorker magazine in 2007. It’s worth reading. Now, the story has been turned into a play, also called “Betrayed.”

Dave Iverson recently interviewed George Packer about his play on KQED.

There is a video on the New Yorker‘s YouTube channel about the play too (note there are profanities included).

KnsT2?

That’s Irish language text (or SMS) speak for “Conas atá tú?” ("How are you?"). Dr Muiris Ó Laoire of the Tralee Institute of Technology (that’s in County Kerry, in the south west of Ireland) has drawn up a list of list of the commonly shortened phrases in Irish to promote the use of the language and speed up the use of the cúpla focal (literally “couple of words”. An Irish idiomatic expression used to convey the true depth of the average Irish person’s knowledge of their own language) on cell phones.

The good Dr dismisses fears that Irish language purists will be up in arms over this. Instead, he says:

"It’s quick and its creative. I would see this as having the effect of making the language more accessible. I would say that it’s making the language more vibrant, that it is a living language and that it can be used for more than just teaching. If we keep it in the classroom and text books it will die.”
(Source: Irish Daily Mail, 2-February-2009).

Here’s a few examples you can try out yourself the next time you text (SMS) an Irish person:

GRMA: Go Raibh Maith Agat (Thank you [singular])
CGL: Ceart Go Leor (OK)
MGL: Maith Go Leor (Great, good, right, and so on)
E va: Óiche Mhaith (Good night)
Fadhb r b: Fadhb ar bith (No problem)
Chor r b: Ar chor ar bith (At all, at any rate, and so on)
9L is am: Níl a fhios agam (I don’t know)

and here’s one I just made up:

SFL!: Is Feidir Linn! (Yes, we can!)

Coming after the launch of predictive text software as Gaeilge this is a great development

Irish speakers are being invited by trading card maker Panini to submit more suggestions for Irish txt spk online at the British-hosted web site www.mutones.co.uk.

The non-localizable language

Watching a documentary on the practice of rumspringa (“running around,” sometimes also referring to the whole period of adolescence), when 16-year-old Amish kids release themselves from their normal boundaries and go out into the world (or out into the back field) to taste and see if they want to live as others do, or else join the Amish church, I heard Pennsylvania Dutch for the first time since I was about 6 years old. 

“That’s some German derivative,” I said to my co-watcher.

“It’s called Pennsylvania Dutch,” my co-watcher pointed out.

I insisted that it must be a misnomer. More interestingly, this is one endangered/minority language whose speakers may actually continue to grow in number, due to the high birth rate of its population — even given that around 10 percent of Amish teens decide not to join the church, which is almost intrinsically tied to the broader community and the practice of speaking their own language.

Localization into this language would probably not work very well, however, even if a large number of people spoke it, since the point of its existence is to create a barrier from the outside world, consumerism, corrupting technology, and excess. The Amish also seem perfectly capable of speaking English if they need to.

This is not to say that they are completely closed off from English or “the English,” i.e. mainstream Americans et al.

My parents made friends with an Amish family over 20 years ago as they traveled through Pennsylvania, and were invited to stay. I’m really not sure how rare this is, but I’m assuming that there was a certain amount of mutual respect there, since my parents also thought TV and material excess were bad ideas. I remember wearing a corduroy skirt out of deference to their culture and playing with a drawer full of buttons, although nobody had buttons on their clothes. I saw a chicken running around headless in the yard, ate the chicken that evening with dumplings, searched for eggs in a giant henhouse (I broke one), watched my dad help build a barn one night with the neighbors. I shut myself in a dark room expecting to find a light switch and screamed until someone came and lit the lamp. Everyone was kind, and always busy; sweeping the stairs, cooking, walking around with those terrifying chickens in their hands. For how plain everything was supposed to be, it was very vivid and happy.

Téacs (Cell Phone Predictive Text in Irish)

Thanks to free software designed by Vodafone and Foras na Gaeilge, you can now avail of predictive texting in Irish on your cell phone (or mobile phone, depending on your locale).

The Irish Times says that only about 80 of all the world’s languages are supported by predictive text (sometimes referred to as T9) software. So this announcement is a great move that should have a positive impact on the daily use of an teanga duchais (Irish to you) here in Ireland.

The software, called Téacs, means that Irish speakers can set their phones to prompt them from more than 25,000 Irish language words and phrases, with full grammatical support for all common terms when they begin to enter a text (or SMS) message.

Téacs is available at http://teacs.ie (note I have not tested it out yet and that although the software is free, the data transfer is not).

Don’t know what predictive texting is? Try this.

Crowdsourced translation via cell phone

”...distributing questions to participants in such developing countries via text messages or audio clips could make certain tasks more economical, such as the translation of documents into other languages...”

For the full article from the Technology Review, published by MIT, click here.

A little language irony

Multilingual signs in Malaysia spark suit. Suit is rejected: no locus standi

According to the Sun2Surf website (a pause here for a sigh from all us northern climate readers), a suit was filed because the government was putting up multilingual street signs in George Town. It seems the government anticipates increased tourism due to the recent UNESCO World Heritage Site designation of George Town, and not many international tourists understand Malay.

The person who filed the suit stated that since Malay is constitutionally the official language, the multilingual street signs were illegal.

The suit was not accepted because the person filing it is not a resident, and therefore has no locus standi to file the suit. Hmm. Do you suppose they used that term in the proceedings? I don’t think Latin was one of the languages used in the signs.

Schadenfreude

Now that you’ve annoyed everybody over the age of 30 by using Gammelfleisch in their presence, you might like to join in the increasing uptake of another German word.

The Financial Times tells us of the bullish market conditions for the word Schadenfreude :

Usage of the word among Britain’s national newsprint media is up 29 per cent this year with 543 mentions in the period to December 15, compared with 422 in the same period in 2007; in the US news media it has risen 30 per cent (223 against 171).

For the life of me, I just cannot understand why.

Outside Edge: An über language for the Zeitgeist

ASL from AND TO English?

A bidirectional dictionary for American Sign Language.

Any English speaker who wants to learn how to sign (in American Sign Language) a meaning for a hearing-impaired person can look up the meaning in a dictionary to find the appropriate gestures. Or, for immediate gratification, one could look it up online. But what if someone is looking at an ASL gesture and needs to find its meaning?

According to Technology Review new sign-language dictionary is being developed that allows the user to look up gestures in order to glean their meaning. Developed at Boston University as part of the American Sign Language Linguistic Research Project, the system lets users communicate a gesture into a computer camera and submit that as a query to the dictionary.

Additional applications besides a strict dictionary include the possibility of a Google-like search based on sign-language. It seems to me that someone who is hearing impaired could probably zero in more precisely for search results by using the same keyboard input that others use. But, usually a development such as this has benefits and ramifications beyond what was ever pictured (or signed) for it.

Next time on "the Tudors"?

An alert reader (as Dave Barry calls them) has just sent in a December article appearing in the Economist on one of the first martyrs of translation.

“AN EMERGING nation looks increasingly confident as a player on the world stage, thanks to a mixture of commercial prowess and deft diplomacy. In its capital and in coastal cities, you can feel the excitement as small manufacturers, retailers and middlemen find new partners across the sea. But the country’s masters face a dilemma: the very technology, communications and knowhow that are boosting national fortunes also threaten to undermine the old power structure.

“China in the 21st century, contemplating the pros and cons of the internet? No, Tudor England, at the time when a gifted, impulsive young man called William Tyndale arrived in London—not to make his fortune, but to transform the relationship between ordinary people and the written word.”

Tyndale believed that knowledge and truth—in his estimation, the Bible—should be available to everyone in a language they would comprehend. He was eventually burned at the stake by Henry VIII for his translation and publication via the printing press, a new and dangerous commodity. Later, as a biographer recounts, his translation was rather ironically used to create about nine-tenths of the King James New Testament, given both his penchant for linguistic and literary brilliance.

Newsflash: English Not Only Language In World

The New York Times and CMS wire most recently have been reporting on Quillpad as an inventive new technology allowing users to type Asian scripts phonetically and get something like Devanagari script as a result, bypassing the need to learn (or use) tricky keystrokes on a Roman keyboard.

This is presented in both articles to underscore the growing importance of non-English languages on the web: by 2012, Asia will have three times the internet users of North America. Giving the current trajectory, any predictions as to what, if anything, will become the new lingua franca, and when? Or will there be several, or none; will globalization result in more language preservation or less? I’m wondering how stable the current state of affairs is, where, for example, an Asian tourist may speak to a Chilean in English and expect a response (according to a former South American ESL student of mine). Greek passed, Latin passed, French passed, even from their own former empires, though the marks of each are still there. How much longer does English have?

On a certain level, it would be nice if everyone spoke everyone else’s language and no lingua franca were needed, but then we’d be out of a job.

May You Have a New Year Filled with (fill in the blank)

Automated Chinese couplets available for the new year. 

The Chinese New Year is just around the corner (January 26, 2009, for your party planning). While we try to not miss a celebration for any reason, many westerners may not know of the custom of chun lian, a poetic couplet written on strips of red paper specially for the new year in China. Usually posted on a door, it conveys a happy and hopeful message about the new year. Traditionally, of course, for thousands of years, these were painstakingly painted.

Now we have yet another tradition adapted to the current times with technology. Sina Corporation has moved this custom to their mobile phones.

Aah, but not only has the custom been adapted, it has been automated! Enter Microsoft. Sina has contracted to use Microsoft’s technology to automatically complete a chun lian couplet. The user enters a first line, and "the engine will automatically build the second line and horizontal scroll bearing an inscription to users in the form of multimedia message service or SMS.”

Fascinating technology! I leave it to my Chinese-speaking friends to try it out and comment on the poetic quality.

Gammelfleisch

Given the recent international warnings concerning Irish pork, Gammelfleisch is my new favorite word of the month.  Roughly translated, the word refers to suspect meat that’s past its sell-by date. It’s kinda still edible, at your own risk sort of thing, and definitely not in the spirit of EU consumer legislation. 

I learnt about Gammelfleisch from some attendees at a recent localization conference in Dublin. Gammelfleisch was in the news in Germany during the year because of the Gammal-Skandal there when dodgy meat was supplied to kebab restaurants.

Seems like German kids are now using the term to describe people older than themselves, and a get together of such old fogeys (anyone over the age 30) is known as a Gammelfleischparty:

At best they resemble the worst wedding reception disco you have ever been to, with dozens of people dancing like your drunken uncle to tunes from the dark ages.

Gammelfleischparty is now the German youth word of the year, and I’m told that Ü30 (for Über-30) is another good German term used to describe the same scene.

So, now you’ll have something to talk about at the office Christmas party...

Ireland's Localization Business Hasn't Changed At All

I got a good laugh when I heard that a picture of myself downloaded from the Facebook Microsoft WPGI Alumni group was used as part of a presentation given at a localization conference to Dublin today to help explain how Ireland’s localization business has changed and what it will look like in the future.

I should tell those presenting and in attendance that, except for changing my hair color to reflect that of the local culture, I haven’t changed at all since that photograph was taken of myself in 1993, and I’ll look just as young in another 15 years.

Unlike some. I must get on to my agent.

Muslim Virtual World Launched

A trial version of Muxlim Pal, an online virtual world aimed at Muslims, has been rolled out.

It’s described as:

Muxlim Pal is the first Muslim virtual world providing a new kind of family friendly social online environment for your entertainment.

The values of the site include an absence of sexual and profane material, references to violence, drugs, and so on, not only out of respect for Muslim values, but also to make the site more family-friendly.

The community guidelines say that “a wide variety of non-religious and religious content including discussions, polls, videos, images, files, audios, debates, praise or constructive criticism are welcome.” and that “everyone is welcome to express their faith and lifestyle in their own way. We only ask that you express yourself with sensitivity and respect towards others and the community.”

The Muxlim Pal folks say:

The community believes that a welcoming attitude and transparent communication creates better understanding between people.

Can’t argue with that. The Muxlim Blog has more information. If anyone wants to check out the localization and cultural aspects of Muxlim Pal by signing up, then we’d love to hear your comments.

Learn language with bears

Well, not exactly, but this flash card widget might be a fun addition to your web page.

The Language Bear website offers language flash cards in the form of web page widgets. These are available in French, Italian, Spanish and the Japanese shown below:

Created by Tim Johnson as a personal study tool for foreign languages, he decided to share the widgets with the world. The flash cards offer several hundred words per language, and allow you to pick either a category or a word type, or select ALL categories and word types for random study.

PayPal in Trouble for Mixing Up Vikings with Australia

We mentioned PayPal before. More trouble this time, as the family of the Aboriginal inventor and writer, David Unaipon, pictured on an Australian $50 note, have called on PayPal to pull down its “degrading” and “disrespectful” ads that use a doctored picture of the man. 

It seems that PayPal launched an campaign in Australia, using ads that have images of the $10, $20, $50 and $100 notes with motorcycle police helmets added on the characters depicted to suggest PayPal has heightened security for its users.

The Sydney Morning Herald tells us:

Well-known Aboriginal activist Allan Campbell and his brother John, great-nephews of David Unaipon, who is pictured on the $50 note, were shocked to learn their uncle’s image had been used in that way.

and

“It is very disrespectful because for a start no Aboriginal people have a helmet - we’re not bikies and we’re not Vikings,” said Allan, 61, from Murray Bridge in South Australia.

In defense, PayPal say it’s perfectly legal. But I agree with TechCrunch - that’s missing the point.

Just because it’s legal in a country doesn’t mean it won’t be be culturally offensive. Or right.

Accents

No, not diacritics. How people sound. I’ve just read Jakob Nielsen’s latest alert American English vs. British English for Web Content. There’s a section called “Spoken English.”

This includes the remarkable observation about “Irish” being a regional accent of the United Kingdom that should be avoided because, like Scots, Welsh, and Northern English, it’s “hard for foreigners to understand.” As for “Midwestern or Northeastern American accents” having “less of an upper-crust connotation,” well, obviously Jakob has no consideration for the impact such a comment can have on the price of real estate in New England.

Oddly enough, some of those very accents appear to be very reassuring in some cases, according to some research, and if you’re in the financial services industry, Scottish accents in particular seem to do the trick.

Of course, not having an accent myself, I’m no expert ...

DITA: The Obama of Global Content?

Is Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA) the answer to all our content globalization problems? On its own, no. The big issues remain fundamentally the same as before. Yet, that’s not the impression we’re often given when out shopping for solutions, but rather a switch to DITA will somehow solve issues of cost, quality, content in every language. But then, most of us have yet to come across a vendor who wouldn’t say, “Yes, we can” (for a price) either, have we? Here’s my analysis…

Time and time again there’s a claim that the use of DITA leads to big translation savings, better content quality to translate, easily delivered content in every language and so no. Usually, the use of DITA is positioned in this context along with the use of some content management systems that are then plugged into various localization workflows.

This kind of DITA globalization solution stuff has been kicking around for 4 or 5 years now, and various “out of the box” solutions are pushed by various vendors. Of course, people have solutions to sell, white papers to post, and PowerPoint Karaoke to rehearse for the next localization conference, but all this touching faith in DITA per se from solutions vendors needs to be challenged.

Perhaps think about the following issues and questions when you’re considering a DITA globalization solution:

* If you have existing content, including translated material stored in a CMS or in TMs, especially content created from a non-structured environment, then how do you migrate to DITA? What about internal tags that might be stored in TMs? How does a format-based content creation system map to a structured environment? What for example would you map the STRONG or B element in a format-based HTML environment to in DITA land? Or an heading level 5 equivalent in RTF? Oh, and can we see a large-scale solution please? Not one based on the translation of a couple of hundred of pages. Anyone who has been involved in these migration projects knows that it is not a trivial undertaking - even with customized tools. Sorry folks, no out of the box solutions there.

* Why would DITA reduce word count, as has been claimed, if you can still write as much content as you like, in any way you like? Just like in any other environment, structured or otherwise, you need to establish authoring rules, educate about them, enforce the rules and then measure the resulting volume and re-use. DITA on its own will not help.

* Why does it improve content quality? It cannot. DITA is about structuring content, not QA of that content. You need manual or automatic review tools or a combination of these. Just like any other authoring environment you need a process for this. The tools and processes that might - like controlled authoring - work on the same principles as non-DITA content.

* Why does DITA make product globalization easier - “content in any language”? Just because you can structure your content does not mean the rendering of that content is automatically provided for. In fact, the two issues - structure and formatting are deliberately separate. So, think about how your ability to render your XML content as Arabic PDF using XSL-FO (a little more complicated than CSS) or whatever.  Why would using DITA make such rendering easier than if you used any other flavor of XML to write simple topics?  As far as I can see there are a good few DITA pushers out there who simply haven’t a clue about rendering in this regard. Oh, and how does DITA solve the old problem that nobody wants to address (and I’ve been asking about for 10 years) - the automatic and correct alphabetical sorting of localized content such as online and print indices, glossaries, and so on?

* What is the relationship between DITA and the ITS and XLIFF? Do you translate DITA directly? If not, why not?

* How do you address the problem of topic-based authoring from a translation viewpoint? If you’re translating piecemeal, then obviously there is less overall context, so what happens when you assemble it using a bookmap? At lower granularity, the use of DITA element names like step or shortdesc don’t help that much (particularly if they content they’re supposed to express bears no relationship to the element name - oh, but that problem exists in any XML environment).

* Translation rules - with the exception of some best practices from Joann Hackos and the DITA translation subcommittee (practices that I rarely see cited) - has anyone considered the potential translation problems of conrefs and the challenges of indexing topic-based materials with keywords? There are other areas too. Even conrefs at the paragraph levels present challenges for translation.

* What translation tools support DITA out of the box (I mean non-specialization)? When I last checked the leading tag-editing tool couldn’t do it, and required faffing about with INI files and so on to cater for the different non-specialized topic solutions of DITA. Plus, if there is any specialization of the DITA DTD or schema, then even if there was an out of the box solution, content authors would still need to tell content translators what those XML elements and attributes really meant. Er, just like you did years ago with HTML too…

* Most importantly, will DITA speed up the arrival of my economic stimulus check from the IRS?

So, is anyone up to the challenge of addressing these issues? Asking the questions, and demonstrating the answer for real?

Global Product Naming

Listen up, people. Global Product Naming 101.

Firstly, coming up with something called “Sweet Lord” chocolate Jesuses is not universally acceptable. In fact, tasteless (the name, not the chocolate presumably) to some.

Secondly, “Chinese Democracy” is not a great name if you’re trying to shift units of your latest album in a big market in Asia (I shall reserve comment about the sensitivities of any culture that expresses a fondness for Kenny G.).

By the way, I discovered the real reason for the name “Jesus Phone” today in Ireland - 569 Euros (735 US dollars) for an iPhone.

Best steer clear of religion and politics, I think (being Irish, I should know)

Amo, But Not A Mass,...

I’m a regular reader of DCU (an establishment that localization folks should know well) President Ferdinand Von Prondzynski’s blog “A University Blog: The diary of a university president.” It’s the best “catch-all” blog coming out of Ireland, in my opinion. Perhaps I am biased, as the author is a former lecturer of mine from my Trinity College Dublin days and I always enjoyed not only his teaching, but his opinions on all manner of subjects. It’s so refreshing to come across a blog writer who can actually write.

Today, the blog posting laments the loss of the Latin language as a taught subject in schools and other educational establishments. I totally agree. I would love to see it restored. A knowledge of Latin (I studied it in high school) helped me to understand the origin of many words in many languages, encouraged me to read more widely, and to develop my writing ability.

For a while, it looked like the success of the book “Amo, Amas, Amat...”, reinforced by the utterances of “brainy” celebs such as Stephen Fry, might spearhead a revival of interest and use of the language amongst the populace, but that promise now seems to have disappeared.

In Ireland ‘though, usage of Latin on a small scale remains popular with Roman Catholic mass-goers, and I regularly see large numbers of devotees attending Latin mass around the corner from me in Dublin. There is even an Irish Latin Mass web site. However, on the whole, the language is dead in Ireland and other countries as far as the majority are concerned.

Perhaps other readers of Blogos have an opinion?

Google Reader: Blogs in Any Language

The Google Reader team have announce a feature whereby you can easily translate any subscribed blog into your language.

MAKE has more information.

So, now you have no excuse for missing that all-important news item, opinion, or comment anywhere!

South Asia Languages Resource

South Asian languages your thing? Then check out the Digital Dictionaries of South Asia Project.

About:

The Digital Dictionaries of South Asia Project is a collaborative effort to widen access to South Asian Language Dictionaries. Established dictionaries for each of the twenty-six modern literary languages of South Asia will be mounted on the web for free and open access.

Hat tip: Daniela.

iPhone International Features and Apps: IMUG

According to Larry Ellison’s expectations (never wrong), mobile devices will be the next major computing platform. So, As I am in the Bay Area, and the subject is a popular one on I18n and L10n blogs like this one, I thought I push the forthcoming related event at IMUG: iPhone International Features and Apps.

Lee Collins, Deborah Goldsmith, and Chuck Soper will present on multilingual support for the iPhone, the development perspective on such support, and getting localized apps onto the App Store.

Location: Apple Computer, Apple Campus, 1 Infinite Loop, Cupertino
Date: 20-November-2008

Not to be missed.

I am not in the office at the moment...

Several people have now sent me this daft story from Wales about the officials who asked for the Welsh translation of a road sign by e-mail and then thought the reply - in Welsh - was what they needed. They promptly put up the sign. In fact, the reply was an automated out-of-office e-mail message.

So, instead of a sign warning heavy goods vehicle drivers about a residential road, the public was treated to a large display of “I am not in the office at the moment. Please send any work to be translated” in Welsh.

You can read more about the story here.

That’s what you get when you welsh on the translation budget (groan).

TXT+100%+ Expansion: A Question

Perhaps some of you can help me. I read recently about a Swedish student, My Svensson, who won a competition by taking only 61 seconds to type a 141-character SMS message.

Apparently, her winning text was:

Ok, skriv fort nu. Fortare! D1a går för långsamt. Stavas långsamt så? Hinner inte titta, måste bli klar. Snart, bara 1 ord till. Klar!

I’m no expert, but that doesn’t look very text-speak to me (I can’t imagine any Irish teenager SMS texting 141 characters in one message - for any reason).  Is it? In Swedish?

How much longer is that phrase than the equivalent text-speak localization into English? Do other languages have text-speak or is it largely used for “imported” English words?

No. There’s no prize for the answer.

Back to School Time! Here's Some Reading...

With a timely release for the oncoming academic year and conference season (though you can enjoy it regardless of whether you’re an MBA student or not) me old mate from Silicon Valley, Dr. E. S. Wibbeke (whom some of you might remember as the Eileen from Web of Culture) has just published a timely new book called Global Business Leadership.

The book is now available from Amazon.com, and like all the best it has an accompanying web site: http://www.globalbusinessleadership.com

No less a culture expert than Geert Hofstede says about the book:

One of the pernicious problems of globalization is that leadership exists only in the eyes of the followers - and followers are always local. Dr. Wibbeke undertakes the immensely important task of preparing American businesspersons for their culture shocks in trying to lead abroad.

It’s brilliant to see yet another person you know in the industry striking out like this, doing what they love with such passion, and then seeing their efforts come to fruition in material form. I’m looking forward to reading this (I’d better since I took part in the research survey).

An inspiration to us all, I must get around to writing my own book shortly (ahem).

Kraftwerk: No Localization Needed

I went to see Kraftwerk perform in Dublin a few days ago. A brilliant event. Four middle-aged German guys with Sony VAIO laptops making the most amazing music, accompanied by a fantastic video show. Perfect. However, I doubt that any other modern band could do what Kraftwerk do so well, moving seamlessly across borders with the same show.

Now if you’ve ever been to a rock concert in Ireland, you’ll know the visiting band usually attempts some form of cultural customization, whether its “Hello, Dublin”, “Ireland, You’re Great” banter, the waving of tricolors, dancing of hokey Irish gigs, sometimes unfortunate references to the North of Ireland/Northern Ireland, sequed performances into “Danny Boy”, and a bunch of other stuff that would make Darby O’Gill and the Little People look like the paragon of cultural sophistication.

Not Kraftwerk. They came on, played for nearly two hours. And left. Passed not one comment. Did “Tour de France” include images of Irish cyclists Seán Kelly or Stephen Roche? Was there an explicit campaign comment made about Sellafield (British nuclear plant polluting the Irish Sea) during “Radioactivity”? No. Nothing. Were the robots painted green? Come on.

Ralf Hütter (and the Kling-Klang technology) “sang” songs in English and German. They showed English, German, Japanese and French language on screen, and a host of global images the same way they would in Asia, Europe, or America. And the lack of “a bit of Irish” detracted not in in the least from the power of their sound and vision. In fact, it was better without it.

And that’s the way it should be. Perhaps it’s the nature of the Kraftwerk sound and image to be culturally agnostic (’though nobody is in any doubt that they’re German), but I can’t help feeling that when you’ve such a brilliant presence and offering that works worldwide, then leave it alone - whatever the rest of them do.

Invading Italian

Nick Squires in Rome reports for Telegraph.co.uk that Italians are using—and stressing—about the growing incursion of Anglo-Saxon words and phrases into everyday use.

From ‘il weekend’ to ‘lo stress’ and ‘le leadership’, Italians increasingly sprinkle their conversations with English terms, some of them comically mangled and bizarre sounding to a native English speaker.

‘Baby parking’, for example, is a child care center or nursery.

A ‘baby gang’, on the other hand, means a group of young criminals or hoodlums.

As with the French and their use of Franglais, Italians sometimes throw in English words to appear worldly and cosmopolitan, and at other times to describe things slightly alien to the Italian mindset, from ‘il fitness’ to ‘il full immersion training’.

But now a cultural guardian of the Italian language is saying ‘basta!’ – enough.

The Dante Alighieri Society, a less strident equivalent of France’s Academie Francaise which promotes Italian culture and language around the world, has called on Italians to reject Anglo-Saxon linguistic imports, ‘Anglitaliano’, and return to the true lingua italiana.

Over the last four months the society, named after the Florentine poet Dante, author of The Divine Comedy and regarded as the father of the Italian language, asked visitors to its website to nominate their least favorite Anglicisms.

The results judge the ugliest imports to be ‘weekend’, ‘welfare’ and ‘OK’, followed by ‘briefing’, ‘mission’, ‘know how’, ‘shampoo’ and ‘cool’.

The worlds of business and politics contributed alien words from ‘question time’ to ‘premier’ and ‘bipartisan’.

Some English words that escaped the wrath of the society’s correspondents include ‘sexy’ and ‘webmaster’—but ‘water’, short for water closet or lavatory would give me pause.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2712197/Italians-vote-for-ugliest-English-words.html

So, will you take that as a problem in grande or venti?

Commonsense 2.0 in Poland

Those of you who cringe at those sad people so keen to embarrass themselves in New York, San Francisco, Dublin, or London by being shown in the media as a “first” iPhone purchaser after waiting outside the store for a significant percentage of their life to buy the thing will be heartened by this bite of reality from Poland.

Seems like Orange in Poland (the carrier for the iPhone there) has had to hire professional actors to stand in the queues outside stores before the launch.

Now this could be due to a number of reasons: economic conditions/marketing mismatch in trying to position the “Jesus“ phone in a country that takes its religion seriously/difficulty in finding somebody in Poland who doesn’t have a job/life/partner/clue what a “pub” is…

Speaking of those who walk on water, I haven’t enjoyed a story so much since the collapse of U2 sales in Dublin. The guilt!

And Now For Something Completely Different ... Comic Books

Google have released their new Chrome browser. Nice and simple, ‘though I won’t be switching to it as my main browser for a while yet. I’ll be sticking with Firefox.

That said, I was intrigued by the documentation that comes with it.

See for yourself at: http://www.google.com/googlebooks/chrome/#size=small&page=4

I really like the approach at getting the message across and challenging the accepted notions of user assistance that comes with these kind of products. Good job.

But I wonder how it will fare in translation? Can it be exported to SVG? XLIFF? Can SDL Worldserver do it?  Or “volunteers”? Or will there be a different version for the international versions (there should be an alternative version for accessibility anyway)?

How novel (groan)...

What’s lost? Who will even know? (comment on botkin entry)

Of all that is being lost in turmoil and conflict in the Caucasus right now, this has to break a linguist’s heart. Is there hope that someone somewhere has been working with this? Or the other 40-plus languages of the region?
Once again thanks to The New York Times and John Freivalds () August 24, 2008
The World:  Barriers That Are Steep and Linguistic By ELLEN BARRY:  To understand the conflict in Georgia, listen to how people speak in the Caucasus. 

“A language is the prime indication of the existence of a people,” said George Hewitt, a University of London scholar of Abkhaz, the language spoken in Abkhazia, another separatist region of Georgia. “If a language dies, the culture dies as well. The people will become assimilated.”

One more question to be answered in the calm that comes after the end of fighting: Caucasian expert Dr. Anna V. Dybo at the Russian Academy of Sciences has yet to hear from a library in Tskhinvali, which held a magisterial lexicon of the Ossetian language that was compiled over the course of many years. It’s a single manuscript, never transferred to a computer.

She is not sure, she said, but she thinks it burned up on Aug. 8.

“She is not sure. . . .”

War, language and the tower of Babel

Previous to Russia re-asserting herself over the Georgia provinces of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, I can’t say I knew much about Georgia. When I lived in Normandy a few years ago, I would run into a fellow from Georgia at the rock climbing gym, and he was nice enough to teach me the French rock climbing terms (He was very careful to explain that he was from Georgia, the country, not Georgia, the state—so as not to whip me into a frenzy at meeting a fellow American far from home, I suppose). That was about as much direct exposure I’ve had to Georgian culture, language, heritage, you name it.

But it seems that the ungoing Georgian struggle is a very old tale—besides talk as to whether it’s spurred on by greed for oil, greed for power, or greed for land, the New York Times hints that a lot of it —some of it— originally— is linguistic. As the Rhineland was linguistically different than France, so the would-be independent provinces are linguistically different than the rest of Georgia. As the former Yugoslavian region was divided by language, so is the Caucasus.

As with English in the new World, as with Normans in Saxony, as with Saxons in the Celtic lands they conquered—to overcome a place or a people is to bring new language or force two differing systems together; to rebel is to speak the ancient or traditional one. Being as old as language itself, this is not something that is easy to solve.

Linguistic Paranoia

Kudos to Nataly Kelly of Common Sense Advisory, whose recent editorial submission to the Boston Globe, Caught in the grips of linguistic paranoia, was picked up by The Week.

Why are other languages so threatening to us monolingual Americans? I think it is a testament to the power of language. I lived in South Africa for a while in the early 1980’s and saw first-hand how languages can be used to control parts of the population. It is not a pretty site.

But if language is so powerful, why don’t we tap in to that resource? It takes effort, especially in a country that can be rather insular. Kelly suggests: “Accepting that we are a multilingual nation is a challenge, because it requires looking beyond our borders and outside our comfort zone.” She follows with: “The only solution? Know thy enemy.”

I submit that if we study our enemy’s language, we may find a friend. Or at least someone we can live peacefully beside.

Across thinks large

Do you remember the vehicle ad campaign in the early sixties “Think Small”? It was a great campaign to catch the American market’s eye for the tiny Volkswagen Beetle. And it worked. VW Beetles may be small, but the company is anything but that. With nearly 10% of the global automobile market and 49 production sites, Volkswagen produces Audi, Bentley, Bugatti, Lamborghini, SEAT and Skoda in addition to the VW line.

Along comes Across. With their Language Server, Across is making major inroads in the market as an independent technology provider, just when we thought that was a difficult thing to do. And a major inroad was announced last week: Volkswagen is going to implement Language Server from Across Systems, GmbH.

Just three years ago, we received press releases about how TRADOS was being used at VW and now VW is changing over. Is this a blip on the screen? An anomaly? Judging by other recent announcements from Across, I think not. They are evidently thinking large.

MySpace and Facebook: Lessons from Japan

Good article on techcrunch.com called Taking social networks abroad - Why MySpace and Facebook are failing in Japan reminds us not to get too caught up in all this Web 2.0 hype and remember some localization and internationalization basics.

Issues like cultural misalignment, lack of localized features, dismal translation quality, wrong platform emphasis, and more, are all covered.  For example, the writer, Serkan Toto laments the lack of optimized versions of MySpace and Facebook for Japanese mobile users:

Millions of Japanese are accustomed to using one thumb, a dialpad and a jog dial on their phones when accessing the web during their commutes to school and work. In this country, the mobile web is bigger than the PC web.

And again, we hear about the presence of a local offering that’s holding its own: Mixi

Mixi, the country’s biggest social network, positioned itself as a tool for communicating at a distance through diaries and communities to meet like-minded members. It doesn’t primarily exist to make new friends (poking is restricted) or as a platform for public self-presentation.

A basic reading of the Pew Internet and American Life Project tells us that American boys and girls don’t even use social networking the same way, so why would people in different countries be expected to behave the same, without even a pause for thought?

Why companies continue to make such mistakes amazes me.

KQED Forum: Operation Falcon

Last week, San Francisco’s KQED covered the case of translators who worked for the U.S. Military in Iraq and Afghanistan and who are now trying to emigrate to the United States.

I know this is a subject close to many of your hearts (including Laurel’s), and you can listen to the entire program here.

The discussion centers on Haitham Jasim, one such translator, who has now moved his family to San Jose, and introduces us to Operation Falcon, a non-profit devoted to bringing translators like Jasim to the U.S. The phone-in section includes the concerns of citizens of the U.S. struggling in a declining economy, so it’s a well-rounded discussion.

By the way, it’s really great to be back in the Bay Area.

Google: 1500 localized products

Taken from the Google Official blog, today: Google have 1500 local-language versions of various products. 

Amazing growth. A testament to the pervasiveness of the Google message, but also Unicode.

Fantastic.

China Leads Web 2.0 Usage Say BCG

"China’s digital and online communities are the world’s leading users of mobile communication, instant messaging and web 2.0 applications, according to a new report by the Boston Consulting Group (BCG)” says China Daily.

The report is well worth a read, ‘though some of it is not that surprising given the size of the market and what we know from other developing nations about the “bypass” impact of cell phones and how other phenomena of technology adoption can change communication and business patterns:

“Where most American netizens still rely on emails to communicate with each other, their Chinese counterparts use IM and web 2.0 applications.”

It appears there are three categories of Chinese user: little emperors, reform beneficiaries, and frugal middle-agers (this stuff must have lost something in translation).

However, the report is largely business driven (Really? The BCG?). Despite claims that with “many activities such as IM and blogging, China is more advanced than the United States and other Western economies” we’re not told about how the participative social side of Web 2.0 and what the French call “contenu auto-créé” are impacted by the state’s censorship.

And I’ve love to know how many of those “web 2.0 applications” (it would be more helpful if they were named) are localized and to what extent. I am guessing quite a lot, and that as we have seen from search engine market growth in China, local app offerings rule the day.

See also John Yunker’s posting on iPhone localization opportunities, by the way.

In the Name of the Fada

You might remember my griping about the Polish support folks in CWT not being able to handle the apostophe yet alone the accent on the capital “O” in my name. Now some Irish people have similar problems with diacritics (extended characters).

If you have an Irish name, say “Liam Ó Maonlaí”, then you might expect U.S. authorities (whatever about the population) to mangle your name thus:

* Liam OMaonlai (IRS/DMV: Don’t do accents, apostrophes, or spaces)
* Liam O’Maonlai (Department of State: Don’t do accents).
* Liam O. Maonlai (telephone providers, insurance, etc, immediately giving you a middle initial. I always liked to insist on a trailing “VI” everytime they did this to me).

The Social Security people get it right: Liam Ó Maonlaí (ironically, the SSN itself tracks you anyway).

But now, the Irish themselves are at it. And worse, they’re managing to combine apostrophes with the accent on the “O” (known as a fada or síneadh fada in Irish):  Liam Ó’Maonlaí

(photo taken in The Coombe, Dublin, 25-June).

So, the next time you hear an Irish person knocking how Americans say “Ma-Hone-E” instead of “Mah-On-E” for “Mahony”, ask them to spell the name of the former lead singer of the Hot House Flowers.

Tom Cruise Talks at TED about the origins of language

OK, it’s really Murray Gell-Man talking at TED 2007. I was confused when the presenter said the guy possibly knew more about everything than anyone.

Anyway, you can see and hear what Murray (Maurice to his friends) has to say in about a common ancestor for languages in this video from TED 2007:

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/276

This is an interesting perspective, though as all Irish people know, language begins and ends with James Joyce.

Check out the other videos there too.

New German Capital Announced: Curb Your Enthusiasm

Don’t all rush to WikiPedia to update the entry, but the Irish Times today tells us that “an addition to the German alphabet (has) emerged blinking into the daylight after a campaign lasting 130 years - to a hail of indifference.”

Apparently, it’s the capital letter equivalent of ß, which up to now has been taken care of (in Germany) by use of two “S” letters instead, because only a small letter ß exists.

They’d been trying to kill the case for the thing off for years, but now, the “German Norms Institute (DIN) ...proposed a capital ß to the International Organisation for Standardisation and, on Monday, the letter became standard - with ISO 10646.” The article quotes an excited Dr Günter of the German Language Council:

"We are not responsible for letters, but for keeping an eye on spelling and to make sure rules are followed. Whether there is a need for this letter is a question that remained unanswered for centuries. It’s likely to remain that way for a while to come.”

Anyway, I couldn’t find much about on the Internet as to what this new letter even looks like, or is supposed to look like. Maybe someone knows?

Yes: Someone did (see the comments too):

(WikiPedia has Unicode details too. Hat Tip: Will)

To read more about it, you’ll need an Irish Times paid subscription (don’t bother, it’s not worth getting streßed about).

Will this lead to a mad updating of translation memories, I wonder?

Chinese Facebook Launched - Ish

Facebook in Chinese (Simplified, I presume) is available. The Wall Street Journal (a fine publication I read every morning in my local store until the Polish guy comes over and tells me to either buy it or get out) has the story.

The Chinese site can be accessed by going directly to zh-cn.facebook.com. However, this takes me to an English logon screen (presumably because of my Irish IP address), and then logging in with my usual details makes me think this Chinese version is rendered from a single global instance that’s just been cross-mounted with a .CN domain.

However, it does not - unlike other “international versions” - allow for “social translation” (see the “Translations” options in the following screen shot):

You can get the Chinese UI by simply switching your language option. Go to account > Language.

Hhmmmmm.....

More Global Accessibility: WebbIE 3.6.10 Available - Language Versions Too

We’ve had a couple of articles written in Multilingual on the subject of internationalization and global accessibility requirements: The first by myself on the leverage points between accessibility enabling and internationalization, and the other by Libor Safar on what’s required and available worldwide for the user with visual impairment*.

Continuing the latter theme, I draw your attention to the new release of WebbIE - which is also available in French, Spanish, Estonian, Polish and Greek. WebbIE is a free browser for users who have visual impairments or are completely blind.  It’s a a free web browser, and pod-catcher, podcast downloader, accessible version of the BBC’s iPlayer (note that you need to be in the UK to get certain programs), Gutenberg Library, BBC’s Listen Again Player, Web Directory, accessible PDF reader, RSS reader, and a bunch more.

Check it out.

* However, JavaScript is not inaccessible. This myth is shattered by this book; a resource I encourage all interested parties to read.

Global English Style Guide

I met John Kohl of SAS again at the recent aQuatic conference in Berlin, and learnt about his new book “The Global English Style Guide: Writing Clear, Translatable Documentation for a Global Market”.

This publication will be of big interest to those interested in delivering a quality global product: writers, user experience folks, and localization people (manual, automated translation, controlled authoring, and so on).

The books up for a full review in a forthcoming issue of Multilingual, but looking through it myself now, this looks like a very valuable resource.

You can get the book here or through Amazon.com.

Centre for Next Generation Localisation (CNGL) in Ireland

You may have missed this. Dublin City University in Ireland has hosted the inaugural convention of the Centre for Next Generation Localisation (CNGL). This included the signing of an Intellectual Property Framework agreement, opening the way for 14 million Euros in industry funding for research into the area. 

The DCU folks tell us:

NGL is a Centre for Science Engineering and Technology (CSET) established with funding of €16.8M by Science Foundation Ireland (SFI). The centre brings together thirteen different partners spanning international industry, including IBM, Symantec, Microsoft and Dai Nippon Printing, local SMEs and Irish universities. The industry contribution will bring the total value of the centre to over €30M over 5 years.

Good job DCU! Delighted to see this development, inaugurated by me old mate from Trinity College Dublin Dr. Ferdinand von Prondzynski. And thank you for keeping that word “Globalization” out of the name.

The list of industry partners, according to DCU includes: IBM, Microsoft, Symantec, Dai Nippon Printing and Idiom Technologies* and Irish firms Alchemy*, VistaTec, SpeechStorm and Traslán.

Ah, see how fast the industry changes?

Web Globalization Lessons for the EU: "Where's My Stuff?" and WEEE

The European Consumer Centres network, by way of the European Online Marketplace Report, tell us that non-delivery of goods, purchased over the internet, accounts for half of all their consumer complaints.

The centre in Ireland says that:

"While shopping online offers tremendous choice and value to Europe’s 500 million consumers, problems persist, particularly with delivery of goods.”

This, of course, is important for you Web Globalization folks. Make sure you can deliver to the countries you are selling to or if you can’t the say so.

Be aware of the Waste Electronic and Electrical Equipment (WEEE) Directive - which means that distributors of new products must accept the old equipment being replaced. Some companies are citing the lack of clarity around the WEEE Directive as a reason for non-delivery.

So, go clarify it then, and explain it on your website and whether you will ship or not.

Read the report here: http://www.eccireland.ie/news/whats_new.html

Cross-Culturally Collaborating Together -- Global Marketplace Message

An interactive exercise presented to the attendees at the Localization World 2008 conference in Berlin:

Find someone from another country of origin. Mutually agree upon one important message that both of you believe the globalization services industry should communicate to the global marketplace. Please write this message in the comments for this entry. You must register in the blog to write a comment, but please know that these e-mail addresses are NEVER used outside this blog. Period! 

Cross-Culturally Collaborating Together -- Country Cultural Aspects

An interactive exercise presented to the attendees at the Localization World 2008 conference in Berlin:

Find someone from another country of origin. Ask them to exchange with you three important cultural aspects about doing business in your respective countries and write them in the comments for this entry. You must register in the blog to write a comment, but please know that these e-mail addresses are NEVER used outside this blog. Period!

MS Funded L10n Project in Ireland: Crowd-sourcing Project Too

Just bringing your attention to this:  Microsoft funded MSc Project at the Localisation Research Centre (LRC) in Limerick, Ireland.

Proposed research areas:

* Localisation file formats, tools compatibility, format conversion
* Recycling, MT, & translation workflow automation; tool and process integration
* Modular and web-based localisation editors, localisation in the cloud

I like the idea of research into “crowd-sourcing” - the LRC define this as being like Facebook localisation, and wiki-editing - and its rôle in scalable localisation workflows.

The closing date for applications is actually 10-June-2008 (not 3-June-2008), but hurry. The annual stipend is 16,000 Euros - that’s about 2.5 million US dollars - plus expenses.

I’d do it myself, but, er, I’m already doing some MSc research into the Web 2.0 space (shameless plug for own survey - here)

PS: Yes, we do spell out L10n with an “s” over here.

Aberdeen group contrasts Best-in-Class with "Laggards"

If you’re interested in getting a copy of the Aberdeen group’s recent “Documentation Goes Global” report (at the price of an e-mail address), click here. When asked what the most significant finding of the report was, research director Chad Jackson said: “I think the growth in localization spend is alarming. In the past five years, it grew 32% of Laggards compared to only 7% for Best-in-Class. We found a correlation with that performance of the Best-in-Class with their use of stricter control and execution of processes along with Terminology and Translation Management solutions.”

In other words, we might not be doing so hot. We’re better at lagging behind than springing ahead. (Or are we?)

Globalization: The Race to the Bottom

There’s a good debate on the views of western workers and globalization on the Financial Times Economists forum here that’s worth following.

If we’re going to be honest about globalization then we need to address the downsides and the fears that this globalization stuff is a race to the bottom.

Sure, if you’re an in-country translator then your job can’t be outsourced (not that you see any of the huge profits made by LSPs from some industry niches where the localization margin is as high as 40% anyway), but if you’re a “western” developer of MT, TM, or GMS technology or work in localization project management then you might want to think harder, read more widely, and drink less Kool-aid ....

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Blogos covers language through multilinguality and translation, localization and global markets, individual skills and emerging technologies, enablers and barriers, knowledge and speculation.

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