by Michael S. Kaplan, published on 2007/02/01 12:06 -08:00, original URI: http://blogs.msdn.com/michkap/archive/2007/02/01/1575028.aspx
It was nearly a year ago that I did my first post about Language Interface Packs (LIPs), and about two months ago that I did most recent one for Windows XP for ქართული (Georgian) where I voiced the question people had asked me asbout whether LIPs for XP were done with proof that there was at least one more (the very Georgian one I posted about).
And now Vista has hit the street and the stores. Which of course brings up the next (obvious) question that people have already been asking me: When do the Vista LIPs start?
Well, wait no more for an answer, because the first Vista Language Interface Pack actually came out back in December of last year, for हिन्दी (Hindi), and you can get it right here!
The first of many, I can assure you (for those of you who are still on XP, the older LIP is available here still, of course -- it went up before I started posting about them here).
A bit of info about Hindi, via Soren:
Number of speakers: 180 million native speakers, at least 300 million second language speakers
Name in the language itself: हिन्दी or हिंदी
Hindi is spoken mainly in Northern and Central India and is the official language of the central government of India. It is not, however, "the" official language of India as sometimes erroneously assumed, but one of several languages that enjoy that status. At the state level, Hindi is the official language of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, Uttaranchal, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Chattisgarh, Himachal Pradesh, Haryana and Delhi. While its use is widespread in education, mass media (newspapers, radio, television), trade, and everyday communication, English is often still the stronger competitor. The movie industry of "Bollywood" has made Hindi films an important part of popular culture in India.
Among the most widely understood languages of the world, Hindi ranks second. It is estimated that as much as 800 million people understand it, while the number of speakers is at least 480 million (for first and second language speakers combined). It is not only spoken in India but also by the majority of the population of Mauritius and Fiji and by substantial groups in Nepal (8 million) and South Africa (890,000).
Linguistically spoken, Hindi is a standardized register of the diasystem which is known as Hindustani and of which the other important variant is Urdu. The primary differences between the two are the scripts used (Hindi: Devanāgarī,Urdu: Nastaliq, a variant of the Persio-Arabic script) and the drawing on Sanskrit for new words in Hindi while purging the vocabulary to a certain degree of the Arabic and Persian influences that Urdu is subject to.
Hindi has an rich phoneme inventory consisting of 10 vowels and 33 consonants (depending on the dialect examined) , which can make proper pronunciation hard to learn for non-native speakers.
Fun facts:
English words with Hindi origin include cushy (from a word meaning pleasant, happy, healthy), cummerbund, jungle, pajamas or shampoo (from a verb that means to massage). The word punch comes from the Hindi word for five because the drink was originally made from five different ingredients (arrack, sugar, lemon, water, and tea).
Classification: Hindi, a direct descendant of Sanskrit, is a Central Zone language of the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European language family. It is regarded as a big dialect continuum, bounded on the northwest and west by Punjabi, Sindhi and Gujarati, on the south by Marathi, on the southeast by Oriya, on the east by Bengali, and on the north by Nepali.
Script: Hindi is written in the Devanagari script.
Enjoy!
This post brought to you by ह (U+0939, a.k.a. DEVANAGARI LETTER HA)
# you know who on Thursday, February 01, 2007 10:24 PM:
There are other things you can do with other kinds of lips...
# Alan McFarlane on Saturday, February 03, 2007 8:44 AM:
Sorry to interrupt any romantic mood, but I saw kiss in the title and G_o_gi__ in the first paragraph and my scottish brain read "Glasgow Kiss". :-,) For the 99% of readers worldwide who don't parliamo glasgow see eg http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Glasgow_kiss, not pleasant...
Alan
# Pavanaja U B on Sunday, February 04, 2007 1:35 PM:
What is the status of Kannada LIP? Is there a beta available? The Kannada LIP for XP was very bad. It was not checked/validated by a native Kannada speaker. I hope the same story does not repeat again.
Regards,
-Pavanaja
# Michael S. Kaplan on Sunday, February 04, 2007 2:31 PM:
Hello Pavanaja,
There is no publicly available schedule information on other LIPs, you'll just have to watch here to see when they are released.
But you are actually making some huge assumptions that are in fact false if you believe that no native speakers hasve had asnything to do with the cretion or review of the localizstion effort put into the Kannada LIP.
It is perfectly acceptable to not like the terms chosen and this is something that can (and has, and does, and will continue to) happen with all languages. But making statements that this means no native speakers were involved is not terribly productive....
# Pavanaja U B on Tuesday, February 06, 2007 6:34 AM:
[Fixed up broken anchor where Pavanaja ignored the explanation that such HTML is not supported!]
It is not possible for me to believe that a person who has passed out at least a 8th grade in Kannada has evaluated the Kannada LIP for Win XP. The translation (oh, sorry, I can't call it that way) is nothing but some collection of words in Kannada script. For example the phrase "estimated time left" has been put as "ಎಡಕ್ಕೆ ಸಮಯ ಅಂದಾಜ". The software must have been fed with some sort of Kannada glossary. The method employed seems to be that each Kannada word is translated as per the glossary without any reagrds to the context. For example, the word "left" has at least two meanings depending on the context -left side (opposite of right side) and something remaining (the meaning in this context). But the Kannada word used here means left side.
# Michael S. Kaplan on Tuesday, February 06, 2007 10:00 AM:
It is also possible that there is confusion surrounding the intended meaning of pieces of the UI even in English though, which may explain some of the terminology confusion (other factors that may contribute to this would be an eagerness to see a release in a native language)....
# Michael S. Kaplan on Tuesday, February 06, 2007 5:35 PM:
Ok, I have more info on Kannada!
Some concerns about the translation quality have already been raised and they are actually working with new informants for the Vista LIP in order to try to avoid such issues. If you want more info then you should feel free to ask me via the contact link. :-)
# Michael S. Kaplan on Tuesday, February 06, 2007 5:49 PM:
On the other hand, I think you might already be involved in the Community Glossary project, so perhaps you already are in a position reviewing things for Vista! :-)
# Franknyt on Monday, October 22, 2007 7:32 PM:
I'm tired of this please send your Vista LIP issues to this guy:
"...to my manager, Christopher George, at http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=6998852
Please do not forget to indicate the name of my manager in the subject field."
Demand a download NOW!
NO MORE WASTING TIME ON BULLSH!T
Thanks!!!
referenced by
2007/04/04 Some new Vista LIPs have been released!