In August, students at Makerere University made international news headlines when they undertook the ambitious project of translating Mozilla’s Firefox web browser from English into the local Ugandan language of Luganda. At Campala2008 I had the pleasure of meeting Olweny San James, one of the student developers who participated in the Luganda-Firefox translation. I decided to follow up with Olweny to ask him a few questions about the project and what his plans for the future are…
Olweny Presents at Barcamp Kampala
What was the Luganda-Friefox translation project and how did it come to pass?
The Firefox translation project was a localisation project that involved the translation of the Firefox web browser into Luganda, one of the local languages in Uganda. It’s coming to pass involved lots of activity but most important were the two day localization workshops famously known as translate@thon. This involved marathon translation by a fairly large group of people consisting of a team of two-hundred and fifty linguists and one hundred people with tech backgrounds working together to achieve a much bigger task within a limited amount of time. It was organized by Makerere University’s Faculty of Computing and IT. It had participants from the general community, from the Institute of Languages and from the Department of Software Development.
How did you get involved with the project?
I worked as part of the technical team, and was also assigned the responsibility of leading the post-translation team. That is, to lead the team that would carry out reviews of the translation and improve it further. Also to keep track of further releases of the browser and ensure that a localised version is always available.
Other things include establishing a translation community, making the translation project available online, and creating version control repositories online…thus ensuring continuity of software translation in Uganda.
What did you learn from your experience?
Quite a lot. Most importantly the use of the server application Pootle to carry out translations. It’s such a great tool to work with! Also, being part the organisation committee helped me quite gain a deeper understanding of the challenges involved in organising such a large-scale event. There were over three-hundred and fifty people involved!
Does your group have plans to translate any other software?
Yes. More precisely, we are a group of four who are taking care of the translation project. We would really love to do a lot more. This was just the beginning. As we continue to work on the Firefox translation, our next target is [translating] Open Office, which is going to be purely a local project. It will not involve any external help. If you remember, in the Firefox project we had the team from Translate.org.za, in South Africa that helped us. There after I would say the sky is the limit. It would be our pleasure to work on any software that could improve the user experience of the people, and increase thier productivity as they work with computers.
What do you feel the benefit of a project like this was to the local community? Do you think it will help people who are intimidated by English computer programs get more accustom to using computers?
Sure. Research has it that beyond just national pride, general productivity of users is also improved. Because people will definitely comprehend much faster and more accurately in their own language. It also creates a different mental picture, makes one feel like the computer was actually made for them or made locally. I strongly believe this will help. The second and sometimes most read newspaper in Uganda is Bukedde, a Lugandan newspaper. This is simply because locals retain more information in their local language compared to when things are written in English.
One of the things that was mentioned at Campala was that one of the hurdles your group faced was that some people spell Lugandan words differently. How true is this and how do you think projects like this can help?
I believe this is a general problem, even in English. Take the name John for example. One will use Jon, another Jhon and then Jone. Who’s right and who’s wrong? Perhaps all are right? Sometimes the problem is that there exist more than one term in Luganda for a corresponding English term.
The challenge is then, to involve a team of people whose speciality is language. To review the English term, agree on one spelling (for words with multiple spellings) or create a term (for words without any corresponding Luganda term). If there are multiple translations they’d also decide which would then be adopted and used even for future translations.
The field of translation is really a young field in Uganda. All that is being done currently is laying the foundation for translation in the future….creating terminologies, agreeing on standard spellings and standard terms.
What are your plans after you graduate from Makerere University?
Good question! Given the chance, I would love to go on and persue my Masters Degree. I love machines and technology. I’d love to do more in programing and systems administration. And yeah, I look forward to that. Otherwise, I would love to work and help my parents with my siblings. I have a brother and sister behind me and I want to see them also make it through school.
I look forward to doing more translations, especially of opensource software. This I believe should be my contribution to the society in which I live. I would love to see as many people as possibble using computers! Uganda has over eighteen other languages besides Luganda that also need to be translated!
What keeps me going is my passion and the heart to serve.
Olweny can be reached via email at sjolweny [at] yahoo.co.uk
Interview With Luganda/Firefox Translator Olweny San James
In August, students at Makerere University made international news headlines when they undertook the ambitious project of translating Mozilla’s Firefox web browser from English into the local Ugandan language of Luganda. At Campala2008 I had the pleasure of meeting Olweny San James, one of the student developers who participated in the Luganda-Firefox translation. I decided to follow up with Olweny to ask him a few questions about the project and what his plans for the future are…
Olweny Presents at Barcamp Kampala
What was the Luganda-Friefox translation project and how did it come to pass?
The Firefox translation project was a localisation project that involved the translation of the Firefox web browser into Luganda, one of the local languages in Uganda. It’s coming to pass involved lots of activity but most important were the two day localization workshops famously known as translate@thon. This involved marathon translation by a fairly large group of people consisting of a team of two-hundred and fifty linguists and one hundred people with tech backgrounds working together to achieve a much bigger task within a limited amount of time. It was organized by Makerere University’s Faculty of Computing and IT. It had participants from the general community, from the Institute of Languages and from the Department of Software Development.
How did you get involved with the project?
I worked as part of the technical team, and was also assigned the responsibility of leading the post-translation team. That is, to lead the team that would carry out reviews of the translation and improve it further. Also to keep track of further releases of the browser and ensure that a localised version is always available.
Other things include establishing a translation community, making the translation project available online, and creating version control repositories online…thus ensuring continuity of software translation in Uganda.
What did you learn from your experience?
Quite a lot. Most importantly the use of the server application Pootle to carry out translations. It’s such a great tool to work with! Also, being part the organisation committee helped me quite gain a deeper understanding of the challenges involved in organising such a large-scale event. There were over three-hundred and fifty people involved!
Does your group have plans to translate any other software?
Yes. More precisely, we are a group of four who are taking care of the translation project. We would really love to do a lot more. This was just the beginning. As we continue to work on the Firefox translation, our next target is [translating] Open Office, which is going to be purely a local project. It will not involve any external help. If you remember, in the Firefox project we had the team from Translate.org.za, in South Africa that helped us. There after I would say the sky is the limit. It would be our pleasure to work on any software that could improve the user experience of the people, and increase thier productivity as they work with computers.
What do you feel the benefit of a project like this was to the local community? Do you think it will help people who are intimidated by English computer programs get more accustom to using computers?
Sure. Research has it that beyond just national pride, general productivity of users is also improved. Because people will definitely comprehend much faster and more accurately in their own language. It also creates a different mental picture, makes one feel like the computer was actually made for them or made locally. I strongly believe this will help. The second and sometimes most read newspaper in Uganda is Bukedde, a Lugandan newspaper. This is simply because locals retain more information in their local language compared to when things are written in English.
One of the things that was mentioned at Campala was that one of the hurdles your group faced was that some people spell Lugandan words differently. How true is this and how do you think projects like this can help?
I believe this is a general problem, even in English. Take the name John for example. One will use Jon, another Jhon and then Jone. Who’s right and who’s wrong? Perhaps all are right? Sometimes the problem is that there exist more than one term in Luganda for a corresponding English term.
The challenge is then, to involve a team of people whose speciality is language. To review the English term, agree on one spelling (for words with multiple spellings) or create a term (for words without any corresponding Luganda term). If there are multiple translations they’d also decide which would then be adopted and used even for future translations.
The field of translation is really a young field in Uganda. All that is being done currently is laying the foundation for translation in the future….creating terminologies, agreeing on standard spellings and standard terms.
What are your plans after you graduate from Makerere University?
Good question! Given the chance, I would love to go on and persue my Masters Degree. I love machines and technology. I’d love to do more in programing and systems administration. And yeah, I look forward to that. Otherwise, I would love to work and help my parents with my siblings. I have a brother and sister behind me and I want to see them also make it through school.
I look forward to doing more translations, especially of opensource software. This I believe should be my contribution to the society in which I live. I would love to see as many people as possibble using computers! Uganda has over eighteen other languages besides Luganda that also need to be translated!
What keeps me going is my passion and the heart to serve.
Olweny can be reached via email at sjolweny [at] yahoo.co.uk