Breaking down language barriers (fwd)

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Breaking down language barriers

By Brier Dudley
Seattle Times technology reporter
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2001977256_swahiliword12.html

There is less than one computer for every 100 people in East Africa,
where the population worries more about getting water and electricity
than an Internet connection.

But that's where Microsoft is working on special versions of Windows XP
and standard Office applications in Kiswahili, or Swahili, the language
spoken by more than 50 million people in Kenya, Tanzania and other
countries in the region.

Kiswahili is among 40 languages Microsoft is taking on as part of a new
approach to localizing its products for overseas markets. The Local
Language Program, which began in March, is expected to broaden the
company's reach, build new partnerships with governments in developing
countries and confront the challenge of freely shared software.

It's part of a broad company effort to expand its global presence,
especially now that Western markets are saturated with technology.
Microsoft wants to help developing countries break down language
barriers that contribute to the "digital divide" that has left much of
the world behind the technology revolution.






MICROSOFT

Indonesian

"We wanted to bring our desktop to a broader set of people around the
world, and the way you do that is by breaking down the barrier," said
Lori Brownell, general manager of the Windows International group that
produces non-English versions of the software.

In some ways, Microsoft is playing catch-up. Governments, universities,
other companies and nonprofit groups have worked for years on an array
of projects to make computers more usable in developing countries.

It's complicated work, and Microsoft's contributions should make a big
difference, especially if they're combined with computer-training
programs, said Martin Benjamin, a professor of Swahili and anthropology
at Wesleyan University. Benjamin produced a Kiswahili interface for
Google two years ago and edits an online dictionary for the language.

"I think it will be substantial progress for the ability of people in
East Africa to use computers — it's about 10 years too late, but better
late than never," he said.

The politics of language

One of the challenges is figuring out which terms to use in the
programs. This is complicated by the politics of language, including
academic debates about whether native words should be used for
non-native products such as software.

"There's a lively debate among people about what words should be used,"
Benjamin said, relating how academics in Kenya even disagree on what to
call computers.

Some Kenyans believe the appropriate translation for "computer" is
"tarakilishi," a word with Kiswahili roots that relate to math. But
others, including Benjamin, favor the commonly used word "kompyuta,"
which is borrowed from English. Microsoft hopes to avoid these issues
by leaving the translation to local experts.

To develop the language kits, Microsoft is working in partnership with
government, universities and language groups. These partners are hired
to produce a glossary of 3,000 standard computer terms in their
language. Microsoft's software tools use these glossaries to produce a
local language "layer" over Windows and Office.

Microsoft also makes the glossaries available online at no charge to
software developers around the world. The glossaries are available at
members.microsoft.com/wincg/

In places such as Nepal, the people working on the glossaries don't have
Internet access. A company working on the project there went to a
community radio station and broadcast 10 computer terms a day, asking
listeners to phone in translations, said Andy Abbar, group program
manager for Microsoft's Information Worker International business.

Elsewhere, it's a multinational effort. The Kiswahili version is being
developed by professors in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda, and coordinated
by the University of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania. On the other side of
Africa, Microsoft is simultaneously working with Addis Ababa University
in Ethiopia on an Amharic version.

"What you don't want is to push a solution, so it's important it comes
from within the country, within the community," Abbar said.

Abbar said it's gratifying work, especially after seeing the lengths
users go to use software in a language they don't understand.

While in an office in Vietnam, he noticed a receptionist had ringed her
computer monitor with yellow sticky notes. He asked a Vietnamese
co-worker what the notes said, and it turned out they had translations
of desktop commands such as "Start" and file menu names.

Which markets picked

Microsoft began localizing its software in different languages about 15
years ago.

"We started out by saying, 'Well these are big markets, we should
localize.' That gets you the top seven, maybe," said Brownell, the
general manager.

Now Microsft chooses new languages after analyzing information from its
overseas subsidiaries. Criteria include PC sales, growth rates and
market potential.

Among the high priorities are languages in countries with fast-growing
technology industries such as India, where the company plans to
introduce versions in nine regional dialects over the next year. One of
them is Telugu, the language spoken in Hyderabad, where Microsoft has
had a software-development center since 1998.

The company also has worked on languages that were suggested by users or
governments, including the Irish and Welsh versions.

Currently, it has about 40 languages done, and it plans to complete
another 40 by the end of June 2005.

Outsourcing linguists

The language program also reflects the company's new way of doing
business. In years past, the company hired hundreds of language experts
to build "localized" versions of its programs for promising markets.

Now it's focused on software tools that simplify the localization
process, and it's outsourcing language work to partners in countries
where the languages are spoken. Instead of hundreds of linguists, the
Windows international group now has just 75 people doing software-tool
development, Brownell said.

The new approach coalesced about a year and a half ago, when the company
realized it didn't have to translate 100 percent of the program
commands to make Windows and Office usable by non-English speakers.

It developed tools for adding a foreign-language layer over Windows and
Office, based on what Brownell calls the "80-20 rule": By translating
just 20 percent of the commands — including key terms such as "start"
and "click" — the software is 80 percent usable to non-English
speakers.

The layers are built using tools the company originally developed to
help multinational corporations set up PCs for users in different
countries.

This leaner approach helps the company produce more foreign-language
versions of its products for less money, Brownell said.

"The team is building more layers now than in the past, when there were
more people, because of the tools," she said.

(Currently available layers — from Afrikaans to Zulu — may be downloaded
at www.microsoft.com/resources/government/locallanguage.aspx)

Competitors localizing

The new language program was announced in March by Maggie Wilderotter, a
senior vice president charged with building relationships with
governments and schools around the world. She's also a point person in
the company's competition with freely shared software such as the Linux
operating system and OpenOffice suite, which also have ambitious
localization programs.

OpenOffice is being translated into about 60 languages, said OpenOffice
"community manager" Louis Suarez-Potts, who also works as senior
community-development manager of CollabNet in Brisbane, Calif.

Suarez-Potts said Microsoft is trying to catch up to OpenOffice, which
is being embraced by developing countries. He contends that countries
can create software industries by creating local versions of freely
shared software such as OpenOffice.

"They've seen what we've been doing and how we've been trying to work
with the various national governments and regional governments to
create local economies," he said.

Either way, the localized software products are unlikely to find their
way into many homes in countries such as Tanzania, where people live on
a dollar a day, Wesleyan's Benjamin said.

"They're not going to be buying a computer anytime soon no matter what
happens with an interface available in Swahili," he said. "They don't
have electricity; they have more pressing concerns."

But if the language barrier were lowered, people would be able to use
computers in Internet cafes, and computers could be brought into
schools for students to use.

"People I know who don't have access to computers because in large part
they read Swahili but not English, they would love to be able to learn
computers," Benjamin said. "They know what's available with computers —
they'd love to be able to send e-mails, instant message chat, but they
can't."

Not for a while, at least.

Brier Dudley: 206-515-5687 or bdudley at seattletimes.com