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Re: Why translation of open source software into local languages has failed

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To be honest, I believe because Shona has some unknown regulatory structure that doesn't even seem to issue "updates", so to speak of the language, we're gonna have a hard time trying to translate and creating knowledge in the language. If we knew who was responsible for moderating the language and they put out lists or announcements or whatever of what's happening with the language, it'd be much easier. Just recently I read that the organisation responsible for watching over the French language introduced native french terms for concepts such as hashtag and email. That's just one example. In Afrikaans plenty of computing/technology terms have been translated or transliterated so that students can learn in their mother tongue.

I do agree and understand that Shona is a byword for dialects that are spoken through out Zimbabwe but we need to have a standardized dialect that is used as the yardstick so to speak like they do in China where the Mandarin spoken in Beijing is considered standard and is used by government, education and the private sector for communication purposes. The other dialects don't die but they are promoted in their native areas. This is what we should have for Shona as well before we can go about trying to translate or create software that is written out for native speakers or shona second language speakers. Surely we cann all agree that if Zezuru is taken as the standard and then we incorporate terms and phrases from other dialects, we'd have made much more progress than if we bicker about cultural ignorance or what terms to use.


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