Hi Siebrand,<br><br>Thanks for reaching out.<br><br>I am keen to help in anyway I can in my spare time towards this (connecting people), though my time is a bit constrained with few other commitments.<br><br>Happy to try and connect you with people, who may have skills to help in some of these languages.<br>
<br>I agree it is important to spread the word and focus on getting more
and more localization done for languages spoken in India.<br><br>There are a few others who would be keen to assist. I can connect you to them as well.<br><br>Regards <br clear="all">Arun <br><br>Bangalore, India<br><a href="http://www.arunram.net">www.arunram.net</a> | <a href="http://www.twitter.com/arunram">www.twitter.com/arunram</a><br>
<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Wedf t, Oct 7, 2009 at 8:53 PM, Siebrand Mazeland <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:s.mazeland@xs4all.nl">s.mazeland@xs4all.nl</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
Dear Wikimedians from India.<br>
<br>
For those who do not know me, I am a staff member of<br>
<a href="http://translatewiki.net" target="_blank">http://translatewiki.net</a>, a project where most of the translation of<br>
MediaWiki is done. MediaWiki is the software used by all wikis of the<br>
Wikimedia Foundation. There is more to translatewiki, but I hope you may<br>
discover that later.<br>
<br>
I have made an analysis of the localization of MediaWiki and its extensions<br>
with regards to use by the Wikimedia Foundation. I have done this with a<br>
scope of the 50 languages with the most speakers in the world[1]. As India<br>
is an enormous country, with a long history, it is no surprise that many<br>
languages are spoken by a lot of people.<br>
<br>
For India the following languages make the top 50 of most spoken languages<br>
in the world: Hindi (3), Bengali (10), Gujarati (34), Kannada (33),<br>
Malayalam (39), Marathi (17), Nepali (43), Oriya (42), Punjabi (15), Sindhi<br>
(37), Tamil (28), Telugu (20), and Urdu (29). Some of these languages have a<br>
fair level of localization (Telugu and Hindi are doing OK, but not<br>
excellent), but many others have very poor localization (Oriya and Urdu are<br>
doing particularly bad)[1].<br>
<br>
As I do not speak or read any languages that are not in a Latin, Greek or<br>
Cyrillic script, and live in the Netherlands, it is hard for me to crowd<br>
source translators for these languages. I am in dire need of structural help<br>
in that area. Having Wikimedia India formed is something I recognize as an<br>
enormous opportunity for getting the localization level of languages spoken<br>
in India to a higher level. It will enable more users to experience and<br>
enjoy the freedoms that we as Wikimedians try to create and provide.<br>
<br>
Please help me help in getting India's languages gain more ground and<br>
availability in the Wikimedia universe. Ideally I would like some kind of an<br>
ambassador from your community to spread the word and focus on getting more<br>
and more localization done for languages spoken in India. If you are<br>
interested in contributing as a translator, please visit <a href="http://translatewiki.net" target="_blank">translatewiki.net</a>.<br>
If you are interested in investing time on a higher level, please contact me<br>
on-wiki, on this list, or by private e-mail so we can work something out.<br>
Any help is greatly appreciated.<br>
<br>
Thank you.<br>
<br>
Siebrand Mazeland<br>
<a href="http://translatewiki.net" target="_blank">translatewiki.net</a> staff<br>
<br>
[1]<br>
<a href="http://translatewiki.net/wiki/Project:MediaWiki_localisation_in_the_50_most_" target="_blank">http://translatewiki.net/wiki/Project:MediaWiki_localisation_in_the_50_most_</a><br>
spoken_languages<br>
[2] <a href="http://www.mediawiki.org" target="_blank">http://www.mediawiki.org</a><br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
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</blockquote></div><br>