Re: Going the easy way

["Chahine M. Hamila" <mch at chaham dot com>]

Isam Bayazidi wrote:

> HI all ..

Hi

>
>         Chahine suggests that we should go the easy way, and give the arabic
> alphabet to the english word that is known with their English names .. but
> I am afraid that we go far on doing this we will end up with a whole
> interface written in english with arabic alphabet !  How far should we go ?

Read the The Words She Stole, and the Common Popular Law from the draft:)
Not far, just when the use is extremely widespread...


> - here is the list of few of the word that are known in their English
> names, and either does not have an arabic translation, or it is not known :

a few answers from my limited knowledge (correct me if I'm wrong):

> directory

no borrowing here, "melaf" or "daftar" are the "common popular".

> symbol Link ( symlink )

no borrowing, "Qayd" is the "common popular"

> filesystem format alias applet

? ? ? ?
I have no idea here to be honest

> HTTP ( I think that this should stay at english letters, these names can't
> be used in  arabic alphabet"

Try saying that to a kid who hasn't learnt the Latin alaphabet yet:) That's the
best way to test if your translation is acceptable. Arabic URLs are coming, so
you'll have to translate it sooner or later, or our kids will have to either
change their mother tongue or learn hieroglyphs (Latin letters that is)...

> HOWTO
> FAQ

errrr... be creative;) "keyfa" for howto comes to mind... You don't have to keep
them as is anyway, someone who's going to look for docs is someone who's making an
effort to learn. There's room for creativity here. This is just a suggestion. In
any case, just make something that has chances to become "common popular" (i.e.
easy, clear, in Arabic, bayyen, that's the main driver).

> LILO

Unix commands are not arabized (yet). If it's a command, keep it in English, until
arabized, if ever.

>
> and other .. should we NOT use the English alphabet here ( specially for
> the last 4 examples ?) .. using the English alphabet is unavoidable, and
> using Arabic letters for it will confuse those who know the terms, or look
> for it in English later, to satisfy those who doesn't know the Latin letters...
> Let's set our priorities here .. we need Linux to be understandable by the
> average Arab Computer User, not by my grandfather or grandmother, we can
> work on the grandfathers and grandmothers later ..

Kids are the ones who have the most time available to invest on learning, hacking
and therefore developping this kind of thing. Right, our grandmas are not the most
important, our kids are. An American kid can start developping at the age of 7, an
Arab kid will have to wait his late teen at best, if he has enough means in
English or French to proceed (my teaching experience shows Latin alphabet is even
hardly enough for use).
If it's not easy to an average Arab user, it won't be easy for a kid, and
vice-versa, so you don't have to chose between today's average user and a kid
(tomorrow's average user, maybe developper if we give them a chance), you can have
both by eradicating English while keeping it simple.

> differences in translation between the words configure ,

Dabbet

> Options,

khayaraat

> setting,

ta7Deer

> preferences ..

mufaDDalaat