Beginning translation for Chewa; Chichewa; Nyanja (ny)

This question was expired because it remained in the 'Open' state without activity for the last 15 days.

John,

Since the original request we haven't heard anything from you. Are you still interested in creating a team for Chewa? If so, was the information we gave you on the previous reply useful? Can we help you in any way?

Sorry - been a bit distracted with some other projects!

I'm very interested in doing this, and I know a group of about two dozen people who'd be interested in getting involved, I think; we're working on translating Google Search into Chichewa together, plus a couple of other translation/localisation projects.

I looked at some of the guidelines and how-to's, and began to worry if I was in over my head when I saw the pluralisation guidelines. https://help.launchpad.net/Translations/Guide#Plural%20forms I'm a bit confused here; at first glance it looks like I need to generate a chunk of code for Ubuntu OS to automatically change from the singular form in Chichewa to the plural form. Is this the case? I have to say, for Chichewa, this task alone could take a long, long time. There are 7 different primary noun classes, with seven different plural forms. Some of these noun classes have singular forms that are identical in structure, but different plural forms. Example:

mphunzitsi (starts with mp) - teacher
mpando (starts with mp) - chair

However, since mphunzitsi is a person, it belongs to the first noun class mpando, being an object, belongs to the second - a distinction that can't be detected immediately by any computer. The plural forms for these noun classes are different:

mphunzitsi -> aphunzitsi
mpando -> mipando

So, before I go any further, I suppose I need to know: does Ubuntu OS need to be able to detect the plural form automatically with any noun? If no, that's a relief and I'll be able to make some quick progress. If yes, well, I'll have to seriously hunker down and try to figure out a way to make it work.

Hi John,

Let's try to get this step by step. In principle, you don't have to generate any code. Most open source programs use a technology called Gettext that takes care of the most complex aspects of localization for you.

Since there isn't any precedent for a Chewa translation in the open source world, you'll need to some bit of groundwork before you can start translating, but this will only be a one-time effort and we can guide you along the way.

We can start with the information in Launchpad: if you go to https://translations.launchpad.net/+languages/ny, you'll see that there is some missing information:

* Plural forms
* Countries where Chewa is spoken

For the plural forms, you'll have to find out which is the proper Plural form for Chewa and define it once. Once that is done, you won't have to worry anymore about this, other than translating the plurals in programs.

You can find a list of plural forms for different languages here: http://translate.sourceforge.net/wiki/l10n/pluralforms. Perhaps there is a language with a similar plural form which you can reuse?

I'd recommend starting with these, following the steps outlined on the page at https://translations.launchpad.net/+languages/ny. Once you've completed those, we can come back to the rest.

You know, I might have been overthinking the whole question.

From that link, it looks like I need to find out the number of *different types* of plurals in Chichewa, not the grammatical forms of the different noun classes. In that case, like post languages, there's only one plural form and one singular form. Anything that is greater than one ought to be plural. I'll update the page with that information before long, if that's all that's needed.

Then, when it comes to translating the individual plurals, that's done on a case-by-case basis as needed, correct?

Thank you!

*Uh, "most" languages, not "post" languages.

El dj 11 de 03 de 2010 a les 15:44 +0000, en/na John Duffell va
escriure:
> Your question #102136 on Ubuntu Translations changed:
> https://answers.edge.launchpad.net/ubuntu-translations/+question/102136
>
> John Duffell posted a new comment:
> You know, I might have been overthinking the whole question.
>
> >From that link, it looks like I need to find out the number of
> *different types* of plurals in Chichewa, not the grammatical forms of
> the different noun classes. In that case, like post languages, there's
> only one plural form and one singular form. Anything that is greater
> than one ought to be plural. I'll update the page with that information
> before long, if that's all that's needed.
>

Yes, I was looking at other Bantu languages (Swahili and Xhosa are as
well, if I'm not mistaken) and they seem to use this expression for the
one plural and one singular forms, which many other languages use:

nplurals=2; plural=(n != 1)

If this is correct, that's the only info you'll need to provide
regarding plural forms.

> Then, when it comes to translating the individual plurals, that's done
> on a case-by-case basis as needed, correct?
>

That's right, then as a translator you can translate using the correct
noun class and plural form given the context.

In that case, one more question just so I can get this info added.

I'm looking at the Launchpad page for Chichewa right now: https://translations.launchpad.net/+languages/ny

I would like to add the information for plural forms and countries, but all I get are messages that tell me to "open a question" if I know the plural form information or the country information. Forgive me for asking, I'm new to launchpad :) But can't I just add the information right here and now? Or do I have to open a whole thread for each topic? Feels like an unnecessary step.

El dj 11 de 03 de 2010 a les 17:46 +0000, en/na John Duffell va
escriure:
> Your question #102136 on Ubuntu Translations changed:
> https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu-translations/+question/102136
>
> John Duffell posted a new comment:
> In that case, one more question just so I can get this info added.
>
> I'm looking at the Launchpad page for Chichewa right now:
> https://translations.launchpad.net/+languages/ny
>
> I would like to add the information for plural forms and countries, but
> all I get are messages that tell me to "open a question" if I know the
> plural form information or the country information. Forgive me for
> asking, I'm new to launchpad :)

Don't worry about asking too much, we love helping people if we can :)

> But can't I just add the information
> right here and now? Or do I have to open a whole thread for each topic?
> Feels like an unnecessary step.
>

Generally, we do not allow just anyone changing this information,
because then it would be open to everyone to modify it even if they
don't have any experience with the language.

That's why we ask to file a support request: to make sure there is a
contact person accountable for providing this information.

In this particular case, though, there is no need to open a separate
request: simply tell us the info on this thread and then I or someone
else with admin rights will update it in Launchpad.

Fair enough! The plural forms:
nplurals=2; plural=(n != 1)

And Chichewa is spoken in Malawi, Zambia, Mozambique and Zimbabwe.

I notice under "countries" on the launchpad page, it says "If you know about a country that officially speaks this language, please open a question with that information." Chichewa is only an 'official' language in two countries: Malawi and Zambia.

Thanks John, I've now updated the info on https://translations.launchpad.net/+languages/ny.

I've added all countries you've told us Chichewa is spoken for now. If you think it is necessary to make a distintion where it is officially spoken, I can remove Mozambique and Zimbabwe from the list.

Ok, now we can continue with the next steps on:

    https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Translations/KnowledgeBase/StartingTeam

* Check for an existing team. That's done, since there wasn't any team previously registered for Chichewa.
* Locale, keyboard and fonts. That's going to take some more time: there is no locale for Chichewa in the Linux world, so we'll have to create a new one. You should start looking at this, but as it might be a bit more complicated than the other steps, you can start the others in parallel. In any case, remember you'll be enabling thousands of people to use Ubuntu and other OSs in Chichewa, which is just awesome!
* Launchpad team: you should create the 'ubuntu-l10n-ny' team as explained on the wiki page
...

In terms of locale, we're going to focus on Chichewa as it's spoken in
Malawi, which may be slightly different from Zambian Chichewa (which
is sometimes called Nyanja, while Malawian Chichewa very rarely is).
All of the people who will be making up this team are Malawians aside
from myself, and I, too, have only ever learned/spoken Malawian
Chichewa.

OK, this is embarassing, I've messed something up a bit already. I've
gone and set up two translation pages. One was from a couple of weeks
ago, when I had even less of an idea what I was doing:
https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-l10n-nya

Now I've set up a slightly more authoritative version with a slightly
different (but technically more correct) URL:
https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-l10n-ny

Sorry about that. More work for you, I think. Would you delete the
former page then?

Cheers,
John

On 3/11/10, David Planella <email address hidden> wrote:
> Question #102136 on Ubuntu Translations changed:
> https://answers.edge.launchpad.net/ubuntu-translations/+question/102136
>
> David Planella gave more information on the question:
> Thanks John, I've now updated the info on
> https://translations.launchpad.net/+languages/ny.
>
> I've added all countries you've told us Chichewa is spoken for now. If
> you think it is necessary to make a distintion where it is officially
> spoken, I can remove Mozambique and Zimbabwe from the list.
>
> Ok, now we can continue with the next steps on:
>
> https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Translations/KnowledgeBase/StartingTeam
>
> * Check for an existing team. That's done, since there wasn't any team
> previously registered for Chichewa.
> * Locale, keyboard and fonts. That's going to take some more time: there is
> no locale for Chichewa in the Linux world, so we'll have to create a new
> one. You should start looking at this, but as it might be a bit more
> complicated than the other steps, you can start the others in parallel. In
> any case, remember you'll be enabling thousands of people to use Ubuntu and
> other OSs in Chichewa, which is just awesome!
> * Launchpad team: you should create the 'ubuntu-l10n-ny' team as explained
> on the wiki page
> ...
>
> --
> You received this question notification because you are a direct
> subscriber of the question.
>

El dv 12 de 03 de 2010 a les 15:42 +0000, en/na John Duffell va
escriure:
> Your question #102136 on Ubuntu Translations changed:
> https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu-translations/+question/102136
>
> Status: Open => Answered
>
> John Duffell proposed the following answer:
> In terms of locale, we're going to focus on Chichewa as it's spoken in
> Malawi, which may be slightly different from Zambian Chichewa (which
> is sometimes called Nyanja, while Malawian Chichewa very rarely is).
> All of the people who will be making up this team are Malawians aside
> from myself, and I, too, have only ever learned/spoken Malawian
> Chichewa.
>

Right, so that I understand it, is there a standard form of Chichewa
sanctioned by linguistic authorities and then other dialects? If I
understand it correctly, you'll be translating standard Chichewa,
independently of the region (although as you say the team members are
all from Malawi). Is that correct?

I'm asking this so to understand if it's something like the Spanish
team. There are many Spanish dialects. The one spoken in Spain is
different from the one spoken i e.g. Perú or Chile, but there is onlz
one Ubuntu Spanish translation team which translates using the standard
Spanish form, understandable by all Spanish-speaking regions.

> OK, this is embarassing, I've messed something up a bit already. I've
> gone and set up two translation pages. One was from a couple of weeks
> ago, when I had even less of an idea what I was doing:
> https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-l10n-nya
>

Don't worry, we can sort this out. For the future, remember you can
simply rename teams, without the need of creating a new one.

> Now I've set up a slightly more authoritative version with a slightly
> different (but technically more correct) URL:
> https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-l10n-ny
>
> Sorry about that. More work for you, I think. Would you delete the
> former page then?
>

Sure, I've filed a separate request for the admins to look at:

https://answers.launchpad.net/launchpad/+question/104146

Cheers,
David.

"Right, so that I understand it, is there a standard form of Chichewa
sanctioned by linguistic authorities and then other dialects? If I
understand it correctly, you'll be translating standard Chichewa,
independently of the region (although as you say the team members are
all from Malawi). Is that correct?"

Exactly. There actually used to be a Chichewa Board in the early days
of the Republic of Malawi. It was part of the government; they put out
an official orthography, things like that. They're still around, but I
think they've been rolled into other, larger government ministries. It
shouldn't be too hard to get ahold of their original orthographic
proceedings; those can be used as the guidelines for our translations.

I also have an acquaintance named Edmond Katchale, who will hopefully
be part of this team, and who is working on an ICT localisation
project to come up with Chichewa vocabulary for ICT terms.

Okay, I have just about everything done that I can get done for now, and the team should be juuuust about ready for its official establishment...

As for the "before you apply" checklist at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Translations/KnowledgeBase/StartingTeam:

*Check for an existing team* done
*Locale, keyboard and fonts* I have the information needed, but I'm not entirely clear on how to proceed with the locale.
*Launchpad team* done
*Moderated Subscription* done (moderated)
*Team Information* partially done; Welcome Note done, "How to Join" done, Links to communications channels PENDING (see note below on mailing lists)
*Team Communication* I sent an email to rt(at)ubuntu(dot)com requesting the creation of a Chichewa translation group email list yesterday, but I've heard nothing back.
*Guidelines* pending; working on getting a copy of the Malawi govt. official Chichewa orthography to upload
*Upstream Collaboration* Translation into Chichewa, such as it is, is being done by a small group of people; any people working on upstream collaboration, I'm in contact with them already.
*Coordinator* Unless I'm mistaken, this is me by default, but I'd be happy to hand the honor over to someone else once this gets underway - if need be. I'm already receiving emails from the Ubuntu translators list.

----

So, at the moment, I need help primarily with one thing, which is setting the locale. The name of the locale should be ny_MW, and no special keyboard layout will be needed. Chichewa uses the same alphabet as English (q and x are not used, but may be needed for spelling foreign names). In the past, one special character ONLY was used in Chichewa (ŵ), but it is my understanding that this has been rendered obsolete by the most recent government guidelines (I'll check to be sure). Most keyboards in Malawi use the standard British layout, with " on the 2 key and @ found with SHIFT + apostrophe.

Anyway, I have this information, but I'm not entirely clear on what to do with it. When you have some time I'd appreciate some help!

Thanks --John

El dj 18 de 03 de 2010 a les 15:05 +0000, en/na John Duffell va
escriure:
> Your question #102136 on Ubuntu Translations changed:
> https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu-translations/+question/102136
>
> John Duffell requested for more information:
> Okay, I have just about everything done that I can get done for now, and
> the team should be juuuust about ready for its official establishment...
>

Awesome.

I've now appointed the Chichewa team as responsible for Chichewa
translations in Ubuntu.

Welcome to Ubuntu Translations!

Let me comment on the particular points:

> As for the "before you apply" checklist at
> https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Translations/KnowledgeBase/StartingTeam:
>
> *Check for an existing team* done
> *Locale, keyboard and fonts* I have the information needed, but I'm not entirely clear on how to proceed with the locale.

That's actually the tricky part. However, this should not be a stopper
for starting translating into Chichewa in Launchpad.

The only thing to bear in mind is that while you can translate in the
meantime, users won't be able to use those translations until there is a
locale file defined and included in glibc.

You can consult the documentation on the wiki from the StartingTeam page
for that, and we can also assist you along the way.

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Translations/KnowledgeBase/AddingNewLanguage#POSIX is the part you can start with.

> *Launchpad team* done
> *Moderated Subscription* done (moderated)
> *Team Information* partially done; Welcome Note done, "How to Join" done, Links to communications channels PENDING (see note below on mailing lists)
> *Team Communication* I sent an email to rt(at)ubuntu(dot)com requesting the creation of a Chichewa translation group email list yesterday, but I've heard nothing back.

If you don't hear anything else in the next few days, I'd recommend
simply going to rt.ubuntu.com and opening the request directly through
the web interface. (username/passwd: ubuntu)

> *Guidelines* pending; working on getting a copy of the Malawi govt. official Chichewa orthography to upload
> *Upstream Collaboration* Translation into Chichewa, such as it is, is being done by a small group of people; any people working on upstream collaboration, I'm in contact with them already.
> *Coordinator* Unless I'm mistaken, this is me by default, but I'd be happy to hand the honor over to someone else once this gets underway - if need be. I'm already receiving emails from the Ubuntu translators list.
>

That sounds great.

> ----
>
> So, at the moment, I need help primarily with one thing, which is
> setting the locale. The name of the locale should be ny_MW, and no
> special keyboard layout will be needed. Chichewa uses the same alphabet
> as English (q and x are not used, but may be needed for spelling foreign
> names). In the past, one special character ONLY was used in Chichewa
> (ŵ), but it is my understanding that this has been rendered obsolete by
> the most recent government guidelines (I'll check to be sure). Most
> keyboards in Malawi use the standard British layout, with " on the 2 key
> and @ found with SHIFT + apostrophe.
>
> Anyway, I have this information, but I'm not entirely clear on what to
> do with it. When you have some time I'd appreciate some help!
>
> Thanks --John
>

Basically, you need to create a locale file and put this information
(and more) in it, following a defined syntax. Once you've created the
file, you'll have to test it. Once tested, the final step will be to
submit it to the glibc project.

You can start by looking at
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Translations/KnowledgeBase/AddingNewLanguage#POSIX

and if you get stuck or you need more help, just feel free to ask here
again.

I'm simply changing the status to Answered to reflect the current state of things.