Re: [LI] Linux in Hindi...

[Vivek Kumar <vk@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Sudhakar Chandrasekharan wrote:
> 
> Vivek Kumar proclaimed:
> > I am new to this group so please excuse me if this is
> > a repeat question. Could not find the archive of mails
> > anywhere so am mailing it here
> 
> Read the footer. ;-)
> 
> http://lists.linux-india.org/

Got it now... read it now... did not find anything useful

> 
> > Is some group working on porting linux/BSD to hindi. Just heard
> > the news that IIT-M was porting Linux into tamil (does someone
> > have there website).
> 
> The kernel need not be ported to any particular language (unless, of
> course, you want the boot up bogomippage of your machine to be printed in
> some local language ;-).  What needs to happen is the UI needs to be
> localized to whatever language you are interested in.
>

That is my long long term plan...

Hindi is one of the most spoken language in india and there is a lot 
of talent in hindi. At least one of my friends could not do well in
college
not because of his talent but his unfamiliarity with hindi.. Anyway it
is an endless discussion and definitely not feasible now... 
So I am not planning the kernel as of now...

> 
> 1. GNOME/KDE:  Both of these are pretty decently internationalized.  In
> most cases all you need to do is get the localized strings into the code /
> resource.  I'd start here.

This sure is a great place...

> 
> 2. manpages: Many popular manpages have been localized into languages like
> German, French and spanish.  AFAIK, no effort has happened in the Indian
> languages front.
>

Definitely needed...

> 
> 3. Command like utilities: Don't ever expect command like 'cat' to be ever
> called 'billi' or something ridiculous on a Hindi system.  The command
> names will never change.  Almost as unlikely is the output of these
> commands changing.

Nope not changing to change the command like utilities but will try to
provide
a decent front end in hindi so that a person only knowledgeable in
hindi could
do most of his work in hindi... i.e. something like a menu system in 
hindi which does most of the work. 

anyway imho cat could be translated to dikhao


> 
> > Well me and a couple of my friends have decided to port linux to
> > hindi. Initially we will be porting common applications like
> > text-editor, mailer, browser and some gui front end to the shell
> > in Hindi and then later attack the actual kernel. So it would be
> > great if there is some other group working for the same so we
> > could sync our efforts.
> 
> A good place to always start off is the standards.  Brush up on your
> unicode.  AFAIK, the unicode consortium has defined a block of codes for
> hindi.  The specifics of which code stands for which glyph is not
> standardized.  Also, to get a complex glyph you'd have to overlay smaller
> glyphs.
> 
> DON'T go with some propreitary way of encoding hindi.  This is a dead-end.
> And there are many incompatible encoding schemes out there.

I am planning not to use unicode till it is standardized. And
proprietary
way is not a dead end. If we plan to change later a perl script
/simple
c program can easily port one encoding to another...

> 
> One more thing that needs work on is a good trans-literation scheme.  A
> scheme where an english keyboard could be used to type Hindi characters.
> The easiest to choose would probably be a syllablic phonetic scheme (You
> get lower 'ba' by typing the letter 'b' and 'a' in succession.  You get
> 'bha' by typing 'b' and 'A' in succession etc..  This is how it is done in
> Hirangana for Japanese.
> 

Susha script in hindi does that... and till now that is the script
that I am most biased because I have been using it a lot...

check it out at http://www.bharatbhasha.org/

There is a cdac script (INSCRIPT) is equally good but does not 
have phonetic scheme. cdac says INSCRIPT is supposed to be the Indian
language equivalent of QWERTY.  It is a standard method of computer
input keyboarding which makes typing in Indian languages, fast and
easy. 
One can easily achieve speeds of 60-80wpm in Hindi typing through this
system

> > Also if there are any other internationalization projects
> > going on could someone please forward that information
> > also
> 
> See:
> http://www.mozilla.org/projects/intl/
> http://www.egroups.com/list/mozilla-indic/
> 
> > Work : 140 Scott Drive UMPK03-210, Menlo Park, CA -94063
> >        mailto:vk@xxxxxxxxxxx  phone:650-2166054
> 
> So you are with Sun, are you?  Wait a minute!  Has McNealy's ego balooned

Yes... till Feb End

> to such an extent that they have named a street after him? ;-)

- No Comments here ;-)
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