I don't think original texts should be by any means unambiguous. On the other hand, some comments on such ambiguos messages and pieces should be appropriately commented.
On Sat, Mar 26, 2011 at 7:50 PM, Amir E. Aharoni amir.aharoni@mail.huji.ac.il wrote:
2011/3/26 KIZU Naoko aphaia@gmail.com:
Respectfully disagreed, Amir, that was not perfectly suited.
For example, "First" and "Last" variables in the language page were translated literally which had been meant first and last names in some language (I wouldn't like to mention what it was, it's a bit embarassment, eh?) - and a certain donor complained to otrs that they were meaningless. I'd have liked it were easier in twn to view a certain valuable would be used in which context, if MediaWiki developers could not avoid their anglocentric attitude totally; it couldn't happen when these valuables had been named "name" and "surname".
Indeed - the writers of the original English should choose expressions that are as unambiguous as possible. I wrote about it in a thread on foundation-l very recently
Sometimes even that doesn't help, but the Translate extension has a structured solution for it: the message can be documented and the documentation will explain the context. Here are, for example, all the documented messages for MediaWiki: http://translatewiki.net/w/i.php?title=Special%3ATranslate&task=view&...
And here is a translation page for a message, with the displayed documentation: http://translatewiki.net/w/i.php?title=MediaWiki:Passwordremindertext/ja&...
The writers of the English text need to write comments for the localizers in any case; The Translate extension makes it easier and more structured both for the writers and the translators.
-- Amir Elisha Aharoni · אָמִיר אֱלִישָׁע אַהֲרוֹנִי http://aharoni.wordpress.com "We're living in pieces, I want to live in peace." - T. Moore
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