No longer double Dutch
Dwayne Bailey is passionate about languages. Almost as passionate, in fact, as he is about open-source software – software that is freely available on the Internet to download and modify.
Bailey is director of the Translate.org.za project, a nongovernmental organisation whose work involves translating popular free software applications into Zulu, Afrikaans, Xhosa and other indigenous SA languages.
A self-described computer geek, Bailey first started translating software in 2001 while in the employ of open-source software specialist Obsidian Systems. He says he felt it was a great way for him to make a contribution to the community.
Obsidian provided the first, albeit small, tranche of funding. But, within a year, Bailey had secured a R300 000 investment from the Shuttleworth Foundation. More recently, Translate.org.za has secured funding from Canada's International Development Research Centre and George Soros's Open Society Institute.
The organisation's first project involved translating the K Desktop Environment, a popular graphical user interface for Linux, into four indigenous SA languages. Web browser Mozilla Firefox and e-mail client Thunderbird followed. Then work began on OpenOffice.org, a popular and freely available open-source alternative to Microsoft Office.
Today, Firefox, Thunderbird and OpenOffice are available in all 11 official languages. The Afrikaans version of Firefox has proved particularly popular; African language editions less so. Bailey says this reflects the demographic profile of computer users in SA.
He admits that it is sometimes difficult to translate computer terms – such as "proxy server" or "mail merge" – into other languages. But, he says, it is always possible, with enough thought, to find appropriate terminology.
"It can be difficult to find the right words but it's not impossible, as some people suggest. By not translating we would make access to technology much harder for non-English speakers."
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