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.)
- d.