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(a)mail.huji.ac.il> wrote:
2011/3/26 KIZU Naoko <aphaia(a)gmail.com>om>:
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&am…
And here is a translation page for a message, with the displayed
documentation:
http://translatewiki.net/w/i.php?title=MediaWiki:Passwordremindertext/ja&am…
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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