David Gerard wrote:
On 16/07/07, Delirium delirium@hackish.org wrote:
This seems somewhat different than advertised. Localizing an interface to a language means making it be *in that language*. Coining new terms to use in the interface, even if based on other words in the language, does not make the interface in that language. Rather, it makes it in a new language (or dialect, at least), invented at Wikipedia. "Purified" languages, in which loanwords are purged and replaced with neologisms based on "native" roots, are often created, and sometimes they succeed and sometimes they fail. See [[en:Katharevousa]] for an example of a purified Greek that eventually more or less failed. Regardless of the merits of such a project, I don't think it appropriate for *us* to engage in such language-invention.
If they're a native speaker, they're arguably allowed to use new words and see if they catch on :-)
(e.g. in Welsh the neologism for "computer" is "cyfrifiadur", but quite a lot of native speakers just use the transliteration "compiwtar" so the latter may eventually win.)
I guess to me it depends on who's doing it. If, for example, Welsh uses either one, then when localizing MediaWiki I wouldn't mind either one being used. But if the only word used in Welsh heretofore had been "compiwtar", then I would oppose Wikimedia coining the new word "cyfrifiadur" as part of some project to purify Welsh. That isn't really our job, and we should follow developments in the language elsewhere, not lead them.
-Mark