On Tue, 2007-12-25 at 21:28 +0530, Akash wrote:
Some of the users of guwiki were against the practice.
But I think transliterating the words is much better than just keeping them in English
Translating them would be much better option. Transliteration is needed,
but not on all strings. For those strings that do not have an
alternative word that a native speaker readily understands, we could
make do with transliteration. In fact, that is the way we've done the
Kannada language pack for mediawiki.
In Kannada context I can say that in cities, English words are
predominantly used in the spoken language. But as you go outside metros,
the usage of English words narrows down to only those that do not have
alternative Kannada words. For instance, "Bus", "CD",
"Cigarette" etc.
We should keep the larger audience in mind rather than just Urban users
when translating/transliterating since Internet penetration outside
cities is increasing by every passing day.
- Hari Prasad