How do you say “click” in Basque?
Users seeking tools for promoting and preserving local languages get boost from Microsoft’s Local Language Program, which is making information technology speak their language.
PARIS, September 26 2005 — Entering the Ministry of Telecommunication in Vietnam in 2001, Microsoft’s Andy Abbar couldn’t help but notice the flutter of small, yellow paper notes stuck all over the receptionist’s computer monitor and how she was continually referring them as she typed. Seeing that she was working in Outlook, Abbar wondered why she wasn’t using the tools within the software to make notes and reminders for herself: was it because she didn’t know how to use Outlook?
“Of course she knows how to use Outlook,” Abbar’s host at the Ministry informed him. “She uses the notes to translate the menu items into Vietnamese.” So for the Start menu she had the word ”start” in Vietnamese on a note, and other notes for words like ”file” and ”edit”. Each note was a different word.
“In a way, I felt ashamed,” Abbar remembers, “I mean, here I am representing one of the biggest software companies in the world, and these people had to devise this work around to be able to use our product. It reminded me that technology can abandon people.”
Soon after in Barcelona, in his role helping international customers implement enterprise solutions, Abbar with fellow colleagues visited a large Spanish bank. Expecting to hear about the customer’s IT challenges and the desire to reduce development costs, Abbar soon learned the bank had another, more pressing issue on its agenda. “For an hour and half, not one technical issue was raised. The bank manager’s concern — above any other — was serving his customers in their native language, which in Barcelona of course isn’t Spanish, but Catalan,” Abbar says. “There were all types of language issues, for example, how to put a Catalan user interface on the bank’s cash machines (ATMs). I left that meeting determined to give users the ability to customise Microsoft software applications with local language capabilities.”
So began Microsoft’s Local Language Program (LLP).
The Council of Europe, which celebrates its European Day of Languages 2005 today, estimates the number of living languages in the world at around 6,000, with between 200 and 300 indigenous languages just in Europe. Globalisation means that citizens increasingly need foreign language skills to work effectively in their own countries. However, the Council warns, rather than increasing diversity, in many cases local languages and cultures are in danger of being diluted.
For instance, Kiswahili is a language spoken by over 100 million people throughout Africa, primarily in Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda. According to Nuhu Bakari, who works at Nation Media Group Ltd as a Kiswahili radio and TV presenter and writer as well as a Kiswahili translator, creating the perception that the language is relevant to the 21st century has been difficult.
“Initially, people had a very negative perception of Kiswahili because they associated it with illiteracy,” Nuhu says. “Kiswahili speakers were lagging behind in the technological revolution due to the language barrier applied in the modern systems.”
Microsoft has long recognised the importance of creating technology that is accessible across languages and cultures; however, so-called software “localisation” is far more complex than simple translation. When Microsoft began providing various versions of its most widely used software, it took the company 15 years to make those programs available in 30 languages.
So Microsoft product managers and software engineers started considering alternatives to the company’s existing localisation strategy, in part by observing how users were overcoming the challenges of technology and realised that the company’s history of fostering a wide array of partnerships was going to play a key role.
“I was working with other colleagues within Microsoft to figure out whether we could do twice as many languages in the next 15 years,” says Abbar, director of international strategic initiatives for the Information Worker business group at Microsoft. “We came up with LLP, and within two years we were able to triple the number of languages that the company is localising into.”
The objective of LLP, formally launched in March 2004, is threefold: to ensure language is not a barrier to technology, to help bridge the language and digital divide between developed and emerging economies, and to use technology to help preserve language and culture.
The programme emphasises collaboration with local experts — governments, universities and other interested parties — to develop a glossary of localised IT terms. The glossary provides the foundation of a Language Interface Pack (LIP), made freely available to users to overlay as a skin, or layer, on top of an existing installation of Windows XP Home and Professional and Office 2003.
To date, there are 30 LIPs for MS Windows XP and 20 LIPs for MS Office. Examples include a version in Basque — considered to be the oldest European language spoken today — and most recently in Gaelic Irish and Albanian. Additionally, LIPs are in development for dozens of other languages, such as Luxemburgish, Nepali and Kiswahili.
In the case of Kiswahili, a glossary of terms has been created and the resulting LIPs are scheduled to be launched in November. Those involved with promoting the language, according to Nuhu, who is also a director of the local language authority Kenya Kiswahili Institute (KKI), have always seen the partnership with Microsoft as an important boost in the evolution of Kiswahili to suit modern times. “This is a primary factor that we took into account while compiling the glossary with Microsoft, and the language is now being seen as an opportunity for career growth as more Kiswahili-demanding opportunities spring up,” he says. “Now that it has been integrated in the Microsoft system, the demand for the language will increase tenfold as will the demand for computers.”
Microsoft doesn’t simply create its own local-language glossary because the individual words — words like “mouse”, “file” and “start” — would lack the native, contextual meanings. But localising words is one of the biggest challenges in the entire LLP project. Native English speakers know what “click” means — that it isn’t the same as ”press” or ”push” — but what should that word be in Kiswahili or Basque? Or for that matter, in Amharic a language that employs a modification of the Ethiopic script, an extinct language of Ethiopia?
Working in partnership to find the right words
The LLP process begins by working with governments, local officials and language authorities to create the standard terminology glossary, consisting of about 3,500 IT terms, which is then put in the public domain via the web or CD. Anyone can take advantage of this glossary, be it a competitor or a third-party ISV, as it is for anyone who wishes to develop add-on solutions for their language.
First, a local Microsoft field office identifies local language authority, sometimes part of a ministry, sometimes a royal academy, and then Abbar meets with the language authority to explain the programme and its benefits.
“Every time I walk into any of these meetings I’m always met with suspicion, but by the time I’m done, they walk me to my car,” Abbar says. “They’re so excited they know that this is to their benefit. This is a Microsoft initiative that has no ’but’ or ‘if’ in it. It’s really for the good of the community.”
Once the local language authority and Microsoft agree to proceed with the project, partners are recruited to join the team and begin the task of creating the all important glossary. Partners are identified by the language authority, the government and the Ministry of IT in some cases, and by the local Microsoft office.
The length of time it takes to complete a glossary depends on the process created by the partner and the hunger level for IT in the community. In some cases the authority chooses to work with the broader community and have Microsoft set up a website for people to sign in and make recommendations on the terms. In this case, the language authority then becomes the de facto moderator, and it makes final decisions when there are conflicting opinions. With Kiswahili this was a successful approach because Kiswahili is spoken in six African countries.
The localisation manager at Microsoft East Africa, Patrick Opiyo also played a critical role navigating the trans-border process of finding Kiswahili terminologies that are easy to grasp and user-friendly, and at the same time retain the richness of the language. “Opiyo has seen this very process to fruition,” Nuhu says. “He had gone up the hills and the down the valleys; from when he could not even construct a correct Kiswahili sentence semantically, to the moment where he can stand up in a podium and give a very moving melodic Kiswahili speech.”
Other regions require an even more creative approach. In Nepal, internet connectivity does not exist, so the government nominated partner invited a Microsoft representative to do an interview on a local radio station to the call out for community input. Over the course of two months, ten new terms were broadcast each day and listeners were asked to call back with their recommendation for these words in Nepali.
In a country where the national language authority is extremely active, such as Malaysia, Microsoft often works directly with it, because it is seen as the guardian of the language.
Once the glossaries are completed, they are made available to the public for free. “It is a book of the community and not for Microsoft,” Nuhu says of the Kiswahili glossary. “The glossary can now be used by the moderators and the experts to liaise with the locals in their respective regions to spread the word of the new IT technology in Kiswahili.”
Microsoft enables partners to build the best LIP
Once the glossary is completed, Microsoft delivers the localised interface of Windows XP Home/Pro and Office Standard applications by working with two or three government-nominated partners. Microsoft provides the training, helps build expertise, sets up the contracts and compensates those who create this work.
In the case of Welsh, technical terms were already largely defined, but the Welsh Language Board worked closely with Microsoft to design a LIP that suited the needs of the strongly bilingual community. “Bilingual subject headers in e-mail weren’t standard,” says Dr Jeremy Evas, leader of the research and grants unit of the Welsh Language Board. “Microsoft worked with us to make sure that the headers would display in the ‘to’ and ’from’ fields and in replies are all bilingual: something that’s very important in Wales.”
Once the Welsh LIP was completed, the Welsh Language Board began testing it internally, loading the program onto computers and asking people to work as normal. “There was complete acceptance within ten minutes of a person using it,” Evas says. “It was a real joy to see faces just light up as people began to use their machines in Welsh.”
On 1 December 2004, the Welsh LIPs were made available online and on free CDs and Microsoft funded a launch event that received extensive media coverage. “The response was immediate,” Evas said. “The day after the launch, there were hundreds of e-mail requests for the LIPs in my inbox alone and I continue to receive those types of requests to this day.”
Extending the power of the LLP tools into the future
In the coming months, Microsoft will launch LLP 2.0 for Windows Vista and Office 12. The programme will also be extended to support over 65 languages across the globe, in places like Kenya, Nigeria and Senegal in Africa and Cambodia, Laos and Uzbekistan in East Asia. Between LIPs and fully localized products (including English, French, Russian and Japanese), Microsoft will be supporting over 100 different languages worldwide.
“I’m not saying that with LLP Microsoft has the panacea for languages and cultures that feel marginalised,” says Abbar, “but what we are providing is a tool to allow people to continue to be in touch with their native language.”
