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7 <title>Internationalizing, translating, being internationalized and being translated</title>
9 Debian supports an ever-increasing number of natural languages. Even if you
10 are a native English speaker and do not speak any other language, it is part of
11 your duty as a maintainer to be aware of issues of internationalization
12 (abbreviated i18n because there are 18 letters between the 'i' and the 'n' in
13 internationalization). Therefore, even if you are ok with English-only
14 programs, you should read most of this chapter.
18 url="http://&www-debian-org;/doc/manuals/intro-i18n/">Introduction to
19 i18n</ulink> from Tomohiro KUBOTA, I18N (internationalization) means
20 modification of a software or related technologies so that a software can
21 potentially handle multiple languages, customs, and so on in the world. while
22 L10N (localization) means implementation of a specific language for an already
23 internationalized software.
26 l10n and i18n are interconnected, but the difficulties related to each of them
27 are very different. It's not really difficult to allow a program to change the
28 language in which texts are displayed based on user settings, but it is very
29 time consuming to actually translate these messages. On the other hand,
30 setting the character encoding is trivial, but adapting the code to use several
31 character encodings is a really hard problem.
34 Setting aside the i18n problems, where no general guideline can be given, there
35 is actually no central infrastructure for l10n within Debian which could be
36 compared to the dbuild mechanism for porting. So most of the work has to be
39 <section id="l10n-handling">
40 <title>How translations are handled within Debian</title>
42 Handling translation of the texts contained in a package is still a manual
43 task, and the process depends on the kind of text you want to see translated.
46 For program messages, the gettext infrastructure is used most of the time.
47 Most of the time, the translation is handled upstream within projects like the
48 <ulink url="http://www.iro.umontreal.ca/contrib/po/HTML/">Free Translation
49 Project</ulink>, the <ulink
50 url="http://developer.gnome.org/projects/gtp/">Gnome translation
51 Project</ulink> or the <ulink url="http://i18n.kde.org/">KDE one</ulink>. The
52 only centralized resource within Debian is the <ulink
53 url="http://&www-debian-org;/intl/l10n/">Central Debian translation
54 statistics</ulink>, where you can find some statistics about the translation
55 files found in the actual packages, but no real infrastructure to ease the
59 An effort to translate the package descriptions started long ago, even if very
60 little support is offered by the tools to actually use them (i.e., only APT can
61 use them, when configured correctly). Maintainers don't need to do anything
62 special to support translated package descriptions; translators should use the
63 <ulink url="http://ddtp.debian.org/">DDTP</ulink>.
66 For debconf templates, maintainers should use the po-debconf package to ease
67 the work of translators, who could use the DDTP to do their work (but the
68 French and Brazilian teams don't). Some statistics can be found both on the
69 DDTP site (about what is actually translated), and on the <ulink
70 url="http://&www-debian-org;/intl/l10n/">Central Debian translation
71 statistics</ulink> site (about what is integrated in the packages).
74 For web pages, each l10n team has access to the relevant CVS, and the
75 statistics are available from the Central Debian translation statistics site.
78 For general documentation about Debian, the process is more or less the same as
79 for the web pages (the translators have access to the CVS), but there are no
83 For package-specific documentation (man pages, info documents, other formats),
84 almost everything remains to be done.
87 Most notably, the KDE project handles translation of its documentation in the
88 same way as its program messages.
91 There is an effort to handle Debian-specific man pages within a <ulink
92 url="&url-cvsweb;manpages/?cvsroot=debian-doc">specific CVS
97 <section id="l10n-faqm">
98 <title>I18N & L10N FAQ for maintainers</title>
100 This is a list of problems that maintainers may face concerning i18n and l10n.
101 While reading this, keep in mind that there is no real consensus on these
102 points within Debian, and that this is only advice. If you have a better idea
103 for a given problem, or if you disagree on some points, feel free to provide
104 your feedback, so that this document can be enhanced.
106 <section id="l10n-faqm-tr">
107 <title>How to get a given text translated</title>
109 To translate package descriptions or debconf templates, you have nothing to do;
110 the DDTP infrastructure will dispatch the material to translate to volunteers
111 with no need for interaction from your part.
114 For all other material (gettext files, man pages, or other documentation), the
115 best solution is to put your text somewhere on the Internet, and ask on
116 debian-i18n for a translation in different languages. Some translation team
117 members are subscribed to this list, and they will take care of the translation
118 and of the reviewing process. Once they are done, you will get your translated
119 document from them in your mailbox.
123 <section id="l10n-faqm-rev">
124 <title>How to get a given translation reviewed</title>
126 From time to time, individuals translate some texts in your package and will
127 ask you for inclusion of the translation in the package. This can become
128 problematic if you are not fluent in the given language. It is a good idea to
129 send the document to the corresponding l10n mailing list, asking for a review.
130 Once it has been done, you should feel more confident in the quality of the
131 translation, and feel safe to include it in your package.
135 <section id="l10n-faqm-update">
136 <title>How to get a given translation updated</title>
138 If you have some translations of a given text lying around, each time you
139 update the original, you should ask the previous translator to update the
140 translation with your new changes. Keep in mind that this task takes time; at
141 least one week to get the update reviewed and all.
144 If the translator is unresponsive, you may ask for help on the corresponding
145 l10n mailing list. If everything fails, don't forget to put a warning in the
146 translated document, stating that the translation is somehow outdated, and that
147 the reader should refer to the original document if possible.
150 Avoid removing a translation completely because it is outdated. Old
151 documentation is often better than no documentation at all for non-English
156 <section id="l10n-faqm-bug">
157 <title>How to handle a bug report concerning a translation</title>
159 The best solution may be to mark the bug as forwarded to upstream, and forward
160 it to both the previous translator and his/her team (using the corresponding
161 debian-l10n-XXX mailing list).
162 <!-- TODO: add the i18n tag to the bug? -->
168 <section id="l10n-faqtr">
169 <title>I18N & L10N FAQ for translators</title>
171 While reading this, please keep in mind that there is no general procedure
172 within Debian concerning these points, and that in any case, you should
173 collaborate with your team and the package maintainer.
175 <section id="l10n-faqtr-help">
176 <title>How to help the translation effort</title>
178 Choose what you want to translate, make sure that nobody is already working on
179 it (using your debian-l10n-XXX mailing list), translate it, get it reviewed by
180 other native speakers on your l10n mailing list, and provide it to the
181 maintainer of the package (see next point).
185 <section id="l10n-faqtr-inc">
186 <title>How to provide a translation for inclusion in a package</title>
188 Make sure your translation is correct (asking for review on your l10n mailing
189 list) before providing it for inclusion. It will save time for everyone, and
190 avoid the chaos resulting in having several versions of the same document in
194 The best solution is to file a regular bug containing the translation against
195 the package. Make sure to use the 'PATCH' tag, and to not use a severity
196 higher than 'wishlist', since the lack of translation never prevented a program
203 <section id="l10n-best">
204 <title>Best current practice concerning l10n</title>
208 As a maintainer, never edit the translations in any way (even to reformat the
209 layout) without asking on the corresponding l10n mailing list. You risk for
210 example breaksing the encoding of the file by doing so. Moreover, what you
211 consider an error can be right (or even needed) in the given language.
216 As a translator, if you find an error in the original text, make sure to report
217 it. Translators are often the most attentive readers of a given text, and if
218 they don't report the errors they find, nobody will.
223 In any case, remember that the major issue with l10n is that it requires
224 several people to cooperate, and that it is very easy to start a flamewar about
225 small problems because of misunderstandings. So if you have problems with your
226 interlocutor, ask for help on the corresponding l10n mailing list, on
227 debian-i18n, or even on debian-devel (but beware, l10n discussions very often
228 become flamewars on that list :)
233 In any case, cooperation can only be achieved with <emphasis
234 role="strong">mutual respect</emphasis>.