GNOME In Hindi 21
whacker9 writes "IndLinux.org has released GNOME interface in Hindi which is the most commonly spoken language in India. The interface is called "Milan" which is Hindi for "union". Check out the press release on New Indian Express, the release page and some screenshots (for those who understand the lingo).."
Kind of unimpressive (Score:2)
Re:Kind of unimpressive (Score:2)
At some point you are going to need English. The program names are English, and so are the directories. So are usernames (?) or at least 'root' is. Further than that I cannot say. Whether doing the application menu in english is a design plan, not possible yet (mixing of english (program name) and hindu description, on one line), or a to-be-done, I don't know.
Re:Kind of unimpressive (Score:5, Insightful)
Inevitable, in fact, IMHO, necessary.
The reason I believe is this:- unlike other language users, Hindi speakers like me are essentially bi-lingual (penta-lingual in my case). Which is to say, even if we type/speak in Hindi, we're used to a more English version of things. I mean, really, how would you translate "OK" to Hindi? Theek hai? For a natural language speaker who's used to an English interface, nothing could sound more funny. Which is also the reason why many of Devnagari commands on the menus are direct transliterations of actual English commands. The translation, as opposed to transliteration, is actually less than it seems.
The problems don't stop there of course. Like most Americans and most other Indian programmers, I'm used to the 101 US keyboard with ASCII layout. I have five Indian language (Telugu) word processors on my system, but rarely use the regular keyboard interface that comes along. Reason:- it easier to type with an ASCII layout keyboard than the ISCII one. More used to it.
Professional DTP folks back in India also apparently have a similar problem; most seem to prefer SreeLipi, which uses the traditional typewriter layout for keyboards, instead of iLeap, which uses the ISCII layout. This, I think, is IndLinux's biggest drawback. How many would like to change their typing habits, especially in languages with complex glyphs?
And finally, despite all appearances, this is not the first Indian language layout for Linux. Tamil Linux, apparently, got there first.
Re:Kind of unimpressive (Score:1)
Basically, it's all just a matter of getting used to a layout. I type in hindi on this interface, and never skip a beat when switching from the non-ASCII layout for Hindi to
Re:Kind of unimpressive (Score:2)
The Inscript layout has the vowels on the left side of the keyboard and the consonants on the right. The idea is you to type the consonant first and then *mould* the glyph using the vowels. It's the same layout for all Brahmi-scripts, which includes Sinhalese, Thai etc as well. Nifty idea, I'd say, but again, needs some getting used to.
Generally speaking, all CDAC software is Inscript, so it's quite possible that the layouts you've been talking about are Inscript. (The keyboard layout is actually called In
Re:Kind of unimpressive (Score:1)
Ind linux does not use ISCII encoding they use unicode. For typing in the respective languages you will have to map your keyboard for that language. You can try downloading their input methods from there website and check them out (it works only for redhat didn't work on my debian m/c). I don't think they will be any different from the popular phonetic layout.
And yes you were correct about the Tamil version of Linux, Hindi verion is not the first one.
Re:Kind of unimpressive (Score:2)
My mistake; I meant to say 'Inscript', which is the Indian keyboard layout, when I said 'ISCII'. I pointed this out later in a reply to someone else's reply.
You're right though; IndLinux uses Unicode and not ISCII.
Cool Enough (Score:3)
I remember seeing some of my own work translated into Japanese. Can't read a word, but it was still neat to see.
Re:Cool Enough (Score:2)
It's not Indian Express... (Score:2)
Sanskript? (Score:2, Funny)
Daniel
Sanskrit is too recent (Score:2)
Re:Sanskript? (Score:2)
Sanskrit uses the same alphabet, Devanagri. And official (sarkari) Hindi, ie, Hindi in governmental legalese, uses a lot of Sanskrit words, so you could argue that Sanskrit is waaay closer to a Linux port than most other Indian languages.
Re:Sanskript? (Score:2)
That will be my blame for spelling it with a 'p'...
*runs to get bandages for bleeding mouth*
Daniel
Re:Correct me if I am wrong. (Score:3, Insightful)
Have you even lived in India? First of all India has 14 different principal languages and most of them have a separate script of their own. There is a huge number of people who speak their native languages properly and find it difficult understanding English (even if they can read the letters, it does not mean they can understand messages and prompts!).
Hindi being the most widely spoken in India, the
Figures. Figures. Figures. (Score:3, Informative)
18 official languages (check a recent rupee note). 845 non-official, but recognised. 1053 dialects. :-)
Also, as I said in my earlier post, this is probably not the first Indian language port; Tamil got there first. Any case, IndLinux, the group behind this particular port, has sub-groups for all official Indian languages.
Running as root? (Score:2)