On 16/07/07, Delirium <delirium(a)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.