[i18n] Re: [horde] Arabic Translation of IMP, Turba, Passwd, Kronoloithand Nag

[Mounes Kayyali]

Hello All, Hello Jan

As you might have noticed, we already have an Arabic translation of the
ar_OM locale. As I have not really any knowledge about Arabic languages,
it would be great if you could tell us what the exact differences are
and how we can make them visible to the user (language selection list).

There is not 'Arabic languages', it's one language for all Arab
countries, but the dialect or 'slang' is different even in same country.
Mr. Bill Gates adds to his windows _OM = Oman, _SY = Syria, _IQ = Iraq,
etc...
The only difference is how to translate technical terms from English...
The most popular mistake is translating by a translator, not by
programmer.
Arabic language is very rich language for writing, but it's very poor in
terms of programming. The word domain can be translated in many meaning
or HTML more difficult we'll need at least 5-6 words; we do not use
abbreviations currently.

Me, and my team have a 'not bad' experience in programming. We started
in 1985, and we have worked with Microsoft from 1996, then in 1998 we
started working on Web application only.
This gave us the ability to translate applications to Arabic and satisfy
most Arab users.

For example: I never studied English, I know Russian well and some
Chinese... I learned English in Singapore, but I can translate much
better than professional translators...

Existing ar_OM file is translated using some Shakespearian language.. It
has many wrong understanding of IMP; it will be not clear enough for
most Arab people. Any user can change _XX to any two CC letters; I mean
Saudi Arabian user will change it to ar_SA

About RTL:

Yes Mr. Jan, I saw that direction flipping is available... But this is
not enough. I have built many large and medium multilingual packages,
but interesting a variable into html tag is not enough, you need to
change some details in the design.
There is very important thing... computer it self was designed in
English or in Latin letter in general. Many things will have a totally
different looking when you are using some "script' language like Arabic.

Finally, I would like to apologize for such long message, and I hope in
near future I'll translate everything on horde's site.
I promise this will be last time with long message :)

Mounes Kayyali

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