Excellent food for thought Tony! +Sora, Tim, Nick, Caryl to see if they have ideas/suggestions below? <div class="gmail_quote">On Feb 20, 2016 3:35 AM, "Tony Anderson" <<a href="mailto:tony_anderson@usa.net">tony_anderson@usa.net</a>> wrote: <blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">As I understand the issue: SugarLabs has some funds available to support translation of Sugar. At the SLOBs meeting, it was proposed that SugarLabs recruit a 'translation manager', a possibly paid position. One question is the job description for this role. I would like to review the translation process: Translation has two separate parts: internationalization(I18n) and localization (L10n). The Sugar-Devel team is responsible for I18n (preparing the framework to support localization) and the community is responsible for L10n - providing translations (by default, from English) to other languages. The immediate focus is on using Pootle as the I18n framework with translators providing the localization. Let's divide the languages into three groups: - English (the base language) - Mediums of instruction (languages used at deployments as a common language where more than one language is spoken) - Local language (languages used by students at home) When a new Sugar release is made, the Pootle English master files should be a part of the release. Sugar development should ensure that Pootle files are available for all software in the release. Sugar may want to provide localization for one or more mediums of instruction (e.g. Spanish, French, Arabic). Since this would imply that files for these localizations are available at release, SugarLabs should decide which, if any, of these languages are to be supported. Deployments (or deployment sponsors) may need localization of Sugar for specific local languages (e.g. Kinyarwanda, Haitian Creole, Sotho, Xhosa). I believe these localizations are most likely to come from Sugar/XO deployments where the language is used. Some would seem to be a given - Cambodian. However, strange things happen. For example, Rwanda is one of the largest and most active deployments. However, there is no Kinyarwanda localization. The reason is probably that in Rwanda the OLPC laptops are part of a path to English. They are introduced at the fourth grade, the first year when the required medium of instruction is English. While Kinyarwanda is a subject in grades 4-6, the priority is using the XOs to facilitate learning in English, Mathematics, and Science. I believe that the Pootle files are distributed and installed with the released image. This should mean that XO users who know English and the native language could provide the localization. Once it is complete, the files can be installed on the XOs at the deployment and the localization would be available at the deployment. Ideally, localization would be done by the students as a learning activity. For example, in Rwanda, localization to Kinyarwanda would help students a lot in learning English. Sameer Verma has provided an excellent tutorial on how to do localization which could be included in the Sugar image. So, the translation manager would be responsible to identify deployments which use specific local languages and work with them to organize 'L10n' days for new releases. The translation manager should then interface with Pootle to submit the localization files for review and acceptance by Pootle. Sugar development could review Sugar (Python) activities to see if they support Pootle and attempt, eg. through GSOC, to get activities upgraded to implement Pootle and to include a base set of English Pootle files. Perhaps OLPC France could be tasked to provide French localization as part of the release process. For Spanish, perhaps Sebastian Silva (Peru) or Plan Ceibal could accept responsibility for Spanish. Meanwhile, being on the other side of the world, I have not made progress on getting a committee to help put their two cents in on this. Clearly, this scenario must be reviewed for Floss Manuals, Sugarizer, and other SugarLabs products which don't fit in this one. Also, how to provide localization of IIAB-2 content is, at least, a formidable question. Tony </blockquote></div>