(Possible)Afrikaans Translation

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kolle_hond
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(Possible)Afrikaans Translation

Post by kolle_hond »

Hi,
I have previously played around with adding some Afrikaans translations, though before I commit myself to it, there was something I was wondering about:
For most things technological, we generally use the English terms, as the Afrikaans either A - Does not exist, B - Is overly long and complex, C - Causes confusion or just sounds wrong.
So, is there someone who governs the way I translate, or can I take it upon myself to use/create 'better' and 'more streamlined' (well, according to me) translations?
Let's use a quick example:
I do not know the 'official' translation for folder, but if you are referring to a physical folder, the translation (lêr) is also the translation for file. So, in order to avoid confusion, I plan on changing the terms for both in the translation.
So, can I go ahead and start, or will this get me (or the project) in trouble?
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EmuandCo
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Re: (Possible)Afrikaans Translation

Post by EmuandCo »

Translations always should be the official language, no abbrevations, dialect or slang.
ReactOS is still in alpha stage, meaning it is not feature-complete and is recommended only for evaluation and testing purposes.

If my post/reply offends or insults you, be sure that you know what sarcasm is...
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dizt3mp3r
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Re: (Possible)Afrikaans Translation

Post by dizt3mp3r »

Sawobona, kunjani. I'd love to see one in Zulu.

Official languages in South Africa abound but it makes much more sense for them to use just the English as it is the common connecting thread for all tribal languages that now thrive in South Africa. English is the more common inter-connecting language currency used in South Africa now that Afrikaans has been displaced as the ruling tongue. I mean this with no political inference whatsoever.

I see Afrikaans now as a tribal language, Zulu and Xhosa are the same, they are more basic languages that adapt and incorporate words that they have not invented themselves (who counts in zulu beyond 100? It gets difficult), how many hovercraft do you see in the Veldt?. "My hovercraft is full of eels" may be hard to translate. In Afrikaans equally so. "Mijn hovercraft is vol von palingen" I believe is the modern Dutch, which may help a bit for translating into the old Dutch or Afrikaans? :D

You see the issue? I think you will be largely wasting your time with such a small proportion of the population ever likely to use the translation but I can entirely see why you would want to do it given the faith that Boers (initially Dutch born settlers for those that don't know) have in their own dialect of the Dutch language. Good luck with that.
Skillset: VMS,DOS,Windows Sysadmin from 1985, fault-tolerance, VaxCluster, Alpha,Sparc. DCL,QB,VBDOS- VB6,.NET, PHP,NODE.JS, Graphic Design, Project Manager, CMS, Quad Electronics. classic cars & m'bikes. Artist in water & oils. Historian.
kolle_hond
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Joined: Wed Feb 20, 2013 11:29 am

Re: (Possible)Afrikaans Translation

Post by kolle_hond »

Thanks for the replies.
I have had the chance to work with system translations on a few occasions at my work, and the thing is that this is not only an issue with Afrikaans. One specific incident was a large international company who wanted almost all of the system default Russian translations re-done, as they did not make sense (according to the HR person at the company who natively spoke Russian).
I work with Performance Management systems, so the translations are much less complex than that of an operating system.

The big issue that I have, is that there is no standard Afrikaans translation that was included in windows out of the box, therefore almost no-one ever used an Afrikaans operating system, and the translations are unfamiliar to basically all native speakers.

As for the 'tribal' argument, I do see your point, and I thought so as well for a long time. Then I actually learned that for Finnish, there are only about 4-5 Million speakers, worldwide (please correct me if I'm wrong). There are at least double that amount of people who understand Afrikaans, and more people who understand Xhosa and even more who understand Zulu. Yet Finnish gets a translation in most programs, though you will be hard pressed to find proper translations for any South African languages.
Also, if you assume it is a sub-version of dutch, many translations of that type actually exist in systems, examples: Portuguese(Portugal) vs Portuguese(Brazil), French(France) vs French(Canada), Spanish(Spain) vs Spanish(Mexico) or the most obvious one English(UK) vs English(US)
And the guys usually doing the Afrikaans translations would try to do a translation for the word 'hovercraft' as well, "My hovercraft is full of eels" becoming "My sweeftuig is vol palings", making it difficult for even Afrikaans people to understand what is being said.

Also, to clarify, I do not plan on using abbreviations or slang (I am not sure about dialect), I only intend on making full use of my extensive vocabulary to find the word or expression best suited for every item/action. There are translations out there, though they seem more computer generated (i.e. google translate) than actually thought-through, therefore usually making little to no sense.
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dizt3mp3r
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Re: (Possible)Afrikaans Translation

Post by dizt3mp3r »

I look forward to seeing an Afrikaans version! I thank you for the translation of "my hovercraft is full of eels", that will definitely come in useful. :)

With regard to your point comparing Finnish with Afrikaans, Finnish is a language for an entire country, an integrated and advanced technological culture that is a known part of the European 'whole'. It makes sense to provide it.

Afrikaans is a component of a linguistically and politically splintered nation, South Africa, that provided most of its technical and cultural contributions to the rest of the world in the most logical form, ie. in English. In the absence of one cultural and integrated Afrikaans nation I can't really see the market for it. I don't see a lot of people using it, individuals perhaps but government, schools &c ? . Nor could I though for Zulu, Xhosa or siSwati. That is why I suggest that it really only makes sense for an Afrikaans translation in the light of the simple desire to create one.

I think it would be a valid achievement in itself but I still see a difference between a tribal language and the language of a integrated country.

There are 3.1 million Welsh speakers in the UK and there does exist at least some of the will to create a Welsh version of ReactOS, I applaud their efforts equally but I somehow doubt that many would use either Welsh nor Afrikaans version of Reactos in great numbers in reality. I couldn't go so far as to call Welsh a tribal language (the Welsh would go mad if I did that) but with regard to numbers and 'niche' applicability it is comparable I suppose.

What I am saying is not meant to be argumentative. I say go for it but only because you WANT to. If it achieves something else in the process, ie. some Afrikaaners are happy then it justifies the effort.
Skillset: VMS,DOS,Windows Sysadmin from 1985, fault-tolerance, VaxCluster, Alpha,Sparc. DCL,QB,VBDOS- VB6,.NET, PHP,NODE.JS, Graphic Design, Project Manager, CMS, Quad Electronics. classic cars & m'bikes. Artist in water & oils. Historian.
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