a thought on microsoft... & "why would you want it in [language]"

[Keola Donaghy]

Aloha Don, agreed. I've been faced with this kind of mentality many times
the past 12 years or so that I've been focusing on Hawaiian and
technology. You're right, there are people in many companies who
understand are needs and are supportive in whatever way they can, even
though there is hardly a huge market for Hawaiiann language versions of
the programs. Apple has been incredibly supportive, and I'm sure there is
someone within Microsoft that would be the same, I've simply been unable
to identify him/her/them. In MS case, they've already done a Maori-enabled
system, so we simply need one change of the keyboard to get Hawaiian
included. If we could get date formatting, sorting routines and a locale
in there as we have in Mac OS X I'd be happy with that. 

I will give MS credit for getting Office 2004 OS X Unicode compliant
(http://www.olelo.hawaii.edu/eng/resources/osx/office2004.html). That was
a huge step for us toward the day that we won't have to provide fonts,
keyboards and other hacks to people simply to be able to type in Hawaiian.

Keola

Penei ka ‘ölelo a Indigenous Languages and Technology
<ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU>:
>Keola, Some quick comments re part of your message...
>
>Quoting Keola Donaghy <keola at LEOKI.UHH.HAWAII.EDU>:
>>                 ...         . Among some of
>> the more snide replies I've received from MS have included "Why would
>you
>> want it in Hawaiian, don't you all speak English anyway?"  :-/
>
>MS being so huge, there may be different tendencies within it, as it
>were. I'm
>aware of people at MS who are doing significant work re unicode and
>African
>languages whose operating assumptions are different.
>
>Regarding the phrase you quote, it is similar to the thinking in so many
>cases
>that limits the expansion of use of languages other than the dominant
>international ones. I've heard similar, though more innocent sounding,
>questions re French and African languages. The following quote from
>Kenneth
>Keniston (1999) re India puts this issue in a different light:
>"It can be argued that, given the fusion of language, wealth and power in
>India,
>there is simply no market (and perhaps no need) for software in any
>language
>other than English. Asked about localization to Indian languages,
>international
>software firms sometimes reply, ‘But everyone speaks English in India,’ by
>which of course they mean that the present market consists of people who
>speak
>English."
>http://web.mit.edu/~kken/Public/papers1/Language%20Power%20Software.htm
>
>Coming full circle with this theme, MS's efforts with certain languages
>can be
>seen as representing their recognition of markets - which I guess can be
>as
>much a cause for concern as celebration.


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Keola Donaghy                                           
Assistant Professor of Hawaiian Studies 
Ka Haka 'Ula O Ke'elikolani             keola at leoki.uhh.hawaii.edu 
University of Hawai'i at Hilo           http://www2.hawaii.edu/~donaghy/
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