Re: Arabeyes Technical Dictionary

[Youssef CHAHIBI <chahibi at gmail dot com>]

السلام عليكم

في أربعاء 22 مارس 2006 18:22, كتب Afief Halumi:
> <quote>
> المشكلة أن المجموعة تبدو كـ (مجموعة تعريب باللغة الإنكليزية)!!!!!
> العمل بالعربية والتراسل بالعربية سيكشف الكثير من ثغرات التعريب ونواقصه
> ويدفعنا إلى حلها.. والعمل على حلها سيدفعنا للعمل معاً على وضع ضوابط ومعايير
> لهذه المهمة أساساً
> </quote>
>
> sorry Anas, but i am having a real hard time reading what you wrote since
> i'm new to linux and don't exactly know how to make arabic more
> readable(right now the letters are not connected in gmail, in gaim the font
> is horrible....)
Everythings works correctly for me, just email me personnaly so I could help 
you if you want incha'allah. Try to add some good fonts from Khotot from 
arabeyes, or use the fonts included in Windows
>
> Talking arabic would indeed solve problems. it would. but from my personal
> experience, using english is much more rewarding. the rules for writing are
> easier, the terms are much less rigid, the language itself has a "norm"
> that can be used to address specific issues(anybody knows a good
> translation for "Kernel ooops"?) and unless i'm very mistaken it usually
> takes way less words to convey a meaning. I don't mean to start a flame war
> here, but in my opinion english is the most user friendly language.
Well, actually this is the point of this project: unification. Using arabic is 
a matter habit not of an handicap in the language. Arabic can be a right 
replacement for english, in the same way other l10n projects do, even for the 
most complex ones like asian languages. If English wasn't the language of 
computer technology, it would surely have the same problems. Also, you need 
less effort in arabic to express the same thing, for example in translation, 
as as school projects, a latin text takes 1.75 more space than Arabic, and we 
use Arabic easily in scientific subjects. The issue you're raising is not 
new, as it was raisen for different domains and almost fixed.
But I should agree that as long as there is no definite glossary, we can't 
speak arabic in this list.
>
> I have worked on translating 5% of Rhythembox(gnome music player) before I
> realized that i was doing a terrible job, simply because i was having a
> very hard time find ingeasy, intuitive and not too long/complicated words
> for terms such as Playlist, Track, (file) Stream, URL... etc. Now i know
> there probably are terms for these things out there, but i will cut my hand
> off if i ever saw one!
Don't be so pessimistic, be realistic, and work to attain a goal.
> A unified dictionary would be a blessing, as it would save me the trouble
> of looking for these words. It would make translation much faster and
> smoother, it would make all program(eg. AmaroK, Rhythembox...etc) use the
> same words to tell the user the same thing.
>
> Practically, though, it looks a bit tricky: {You need a dictionary of all
> the translated words you're going to use. You don't know the words before
> you start working on the translation. You need the dictionary to work on
> the translation.} So the strickt aproach of doing things wouldn't work,
> that's for sure.
I don't see how, if we work correctly we can fetch all the words you need, 
including from the po files, and then discuss the equivalents with arabic 
authorities (yes, it's possible incha'allah). It surely needs a lot of work, 
but it's crucial.
> Instead, i think there should be some kind of translation 
> manager which searches for the words in a given sentence  automaticly(a
> list of sugested words to be used?) and through which the user can add and
> suggest changes to the dictionary. This way it i *think* it would work much
> better...
This is more tricky than what I suggested, slow and unorganized, as the 
project maybe interrputed many many many times.
>
> Now if i only knew enough about programming to do that...
You can always learn, as many did.

السلام عليكم