L10n:Teams:ta-IN/styleguide
Tamil Style Guide[DRAFT]
Introduction
Style guides define the standard against which we determine a translation's quality. They contain rules that are both defined by Mozilla and by Mozilla's localization communities on how to best translate text in Mozilla products, websites, and other projects. By following these rules, a translator has a better chance of producing a high quality translation that represents Mozilla values and culture
Why should we Localize?
Whenever we are touching a key on a keyboard for translating anything into Tamil, we are having great responsibility. The responsibility of conveying the message of any source text into Tamil is having the responsibility to convey to the millions of users. And so the problem is acute. Tamil is not just a language in India. Tamil is not just one culture of India. Combine many languages, many cultures, many dialects, many traditions – the one result you will get is Tamil. That is why it is not a simple job to define what really Tamil is?
What is Tamil?
According to WikiPedia, Tamil language, primarily spoken in South India, Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia (mainly Malaysia, Singapore) and many parts in the Western World.(Canada, Europe, Australia)
- Tamil script, primarily used to write the Tamil language
- Tamil (Unicode block), a block of Tamil characters in Unicode
- Tamils, an ethnic group native to Tamil Nadu, India and Sri Lanka
- Sri Lankan Tamil people, those Tamil people native to Sri Lanka
- Tamil News, a daily Tamil language television news program in Malaysia
Who is the target user for this project and what is their background?
General Translation Guidlines
- Font
For Translating any documents or any application in Tamil language, we need to use Unicode based Devanagari fonts. Eg. Lohit Tamil, Latha, etc. The font should contain a glyph for each allocated code point prescribed by Unicode. The font should contain the following: (1) vowels; (2) consonants; (3) glyphs for conjuncts; (4)variants for vowel signs, (5) vowel modifiers (6) consonant modifier; (7) digits and (8) punctuation marks.
- WhiteSpace
In computer science, white space is any single character or series of characters that represents horizontal
or vertical space in typography. When rendered, a white space character does not correspond to a visualmark, but typically does occupy an area on a page. There may be different pattern of any language related to white space. We should properly care and follow the source text and target language rules for placing any extra white space.
Ex:- %S is not a valid Location Wrong: % S ஒரு செல்லுபடியாகாதா இடம். Correct: %S ஒரு செல்லுபடியாகாதா இடம்.
- Accelerators
Mozilla Uses ampersand(&) accelerator markers.
- Program Syntax, Funtions, TAGs, Placeholders
Never translate program syntax or functions or tags, place holders. Sometimes some translators translate these as well. We should not translate any of these. This creates major error in translation.
- Message Length
The message length is an important aspect of any translation particularly in technical translation areas. The message length should not exceed more than 20 percentage of the number of words present in the source text. Though it takes time to make translation concise, but there is big need to concentrate on this aspect.
Ex:- AutoCorrect Wrong: தன்னியக்கச்சரிபார்த்தல். Correct: தன்னியக்கச் சரிபார்த்தல்
- Numeral
How are numerals and percentages expressed in your language?
Example: 1.23 (decimal separator) or 1,000 (thousand separator) using comma or period.
Note:We will use International form of Indian Numerals in translation instead of Devanagari numerals. However, the employment of Devanagari numerals is same as Indian numerals. So we will use 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 instead of 0,௧,௨,௩,௪,௫,௬,௭,௮,௯,௰
- Calender
The Tamil calendar (sometimes called Saka calendar) is the official civil calendar in use in India. It is used, alongside the Gregorian calendar, by The Gazette of India, news broadcasts by All India Radio, and calendars and communications issued by the Government of India.
- Honorific Usages
It is encouraged to use honorific pronoun in Tamil. So, it is better to useright words. Along with this, we should not translate like
Ex:- Find again wrong: மீண்டும் தேடு Correct: மீண்டும் கண்டுபிடி
- Acronyms
Acronyms and initialisms are abbreviations that are formed using the initial components in a phrase or name. These components may be individual letters. The term acronym is the name for a word created from the first letters of each word in a series of words. Acronyms and initialisms are used most often to abbreviate names of organizations and long or frequently referenced terms, or any products. In the case of acronyms as a file name don't translate standard acronyms like Jpeg, HTML, xml to name a few.
- Product/Brand/Company Name
For Product/Brand/Company Name, it is general rule accepted by agencies to keep as it is like English.
Ex:<HTML>Clear the contents of the location bar.</html> Wrong: <இடத்திலுள்ள உள்ளடக்கங்களை துடை> Correct:<HTML>இடத்திலுள்ள உள்ளடக்கங்களை துடை</HTML >
- Key Name
Keys name should not be translated. eg. Backspace, Delete, Enter should not be translated since we still use the same keyboard as English. Though some keyboard came in Tamil but it is not still popular.
Ex: Both Ctrl keys together change layout. Wrong: Correct:
- Currency
What are other widely used currency and symbols used in your country/language for paid apps.
- Dates and Times Formats
It should be noted that Dates and Times should be properly translated. If not it can create confusion much. For 28 August 2010, international dating system represents 20100828 but the American Usage is 8.28.10. But in Tamil we write it like 28 ஆகஸ்ட் 2010 and it is represented as 28.8.10. So we should follow this convention of writing. For translating time, using colon will be preferred then just putting period. For example, காலை 10:30 .
Type: Dates Ex: 25 September 2016 Wrong:செப்டம்பர் 25 2016 Correct: 25 செப்டம்பர் 2016
- Units and Grammar
- Units and Unit Conversion
- Domain Name
- Tense
Do you have standards for verb forms that indicate or express the time, such as past, present, or future, of the action or state? What is your policy on tense consistency for certain use cases? For example, for phrases that ask a user to make an action (like "Download Firefox"), do you use a future tense, a command tense, or a neutral tense?
See: (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grammatical_tense )
- Abbreviations
How are abbreviations expressed in your language?
Example, in English, abbreviations are made by removing most vowels and only using the first 3-5 consonants followed by a period (e.g., abbreviation = abbr.)
see: (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abbreviation)
- Punctuation
Do you use different punctuation rules in your Firefox localization than what your language standard defines?
Example: do you use a period at the end of every user interface element translation or only some? What is the international/national standard for punctuation in your language?
How would I express that meaning in my own language?
Terminology
Should Not Translate
- Shortcuts and accesskeys
In Firefox and other software it's possible to use keyboard shortcuts to invoke a specific command. For example, to open a file in Firefox you can press the combination of keys CTRL+O (Cmd+O on Mac). The accelerator key depends on the operative system, but the letter itself is normally localizable. This is what is called a shortcut, or commandkey. For example, the Open File… menu item is stored as
<!ENTITY openFileCmd.label "Open File…">
<!ENTITY openFileCmd.accesskey "O">
<!ENTITY openFileCmd.commandkey "o">
The commandkey is stored in openFileCmd.commandkey (sometimes the string has .key in the identifier). Normally you should not localize this key, since shortcuts are often common across the entire operative system (e.g. CTRL+S to Save) or similar products (CTRL+T to open a new tab in most browsers). But it needs to be localized if the letter is not available in your keyboard layout.
In the code fragment above you see also an accesskey defined for Open File…. Accesskeys are used to access a UI element from the keyboard. Example: if File menu has an accesskey F, and the Open file… menu has O, you can press ALT+F to access the menu, and then O to open a file.
If the label is File, and the accesskey is F, it will be displayed as "File" on Windows and Linux, with an underscored F. If the accesskey was "O", so a character not available in the original label, it will be displayed underlined between parenthesis: "File (O)".
One important thing to determine is if, for your locale, it makes sense to have localized accesskeys: for example, if most users will use a keyboard with a different layout (English), it might make sense to keep the English original accesskey instead of using a letter available in your localization.
E.g.- <html>Clear Location bar</html> Wrong:<இடப்பட்டையைத் துடை> Correct: <html>இடப்பட்டையைத் துடை</html>
Accesskeys, like commandkeys, have their own lines within .dtd and .properties files and are usually identified by .accesskey in the string ID.
- Command Key should not be translated
- Variables
Variables should never be translated. You can recognize a variable within a string by its beginning with a specific character (e.g., $, #, %, etc.) followed by a combination of words without spacing. For example, $BrandShortName and %S are variables. You can move a variable around within a string, if the translation of the string requires it.
E.g.- Changes made to the document in the last %ld second will be permanently lost.
Wrong: ஆவணத்தில் கடைசி வினாடிகளில் செய்யப்பட்ட மாற்றங்கள் நிரந்தரமாக அழிந்துவிடும்
Correct: ஆவணத்தில் கடைசி %ld வினாடிகளில் செய்யப்பட்ட மாற்றங்கள் நிரந்தரமாக அழிந்துவிடும்
- Brands, copyright, and trademark
Brand names, as well as copyright and trademarks should never be translated, nor transliterated into a non-Latin based script. See the Mozilla branding guide for more details.
About Mozilla culture.
- Legal content
Mozilla projects will often contain legal content in the form of user agreements, privacy statements, etc. When reviewing the translation of legal content, Mozilla localizers should do so according to the criteria concerning accuracy, fluency, style, and terminology found within this style guide and according to Mozilla culture and values.
- Fluency
To produce a fluent translation, not only should the translation follow the language's standard grammar, punctuation, and spelling rules, but it should avoid being ambiguous, incoherent, or inconsistent, and unintelligible.
Inconsistency can pop up in many forms. A translator must be consistent in their use of abbreviations, references, and links within each localization project. They must also be consistent with Mozilla and the localization communities' style guides and approved terminology. Abbreviations, like terminology, should come from either a standard reference (like a dictionary of abbreviations) or should follow your language's rules for creating abbreviations. Once used, the abbreviation must remain consistent every place that it is used in the translation. Cross-references (or links) must also be consistently used within a translation. If a text contains a hyperlink URL to a support article in English, the translation should also contain a hyperlink to a translation of that support article (if available) or the English version. Links should not redirect to other pages nor should they be broken and unusable.
Finally, there are times that a translation simply doesn't make sense. It's hard to put your finger on what exactly is wrong with it, but you know it is unintelligible and not fluent. While this is uncommon, it's important to report these unintelligible translations and offer suggestions to correct them.
