The Kiswahili Linux Localization Project
	Department of Computer Science - UDSM

The kilinux team completed 80% of translation work and now is collaborating with mozilla technical experts to create kiswahili language pack(sw-TZ.xpi) for Mozilla Firefox 3.1. Also, the team is arranging to meet with kiswahili experts from both Institute of Kiswahili Research (IKR) - University of Dar es salaam and Baraza la Kiswahili Tanzania (BAKITA) to discuss and translate difficult terms in order to complete 100% of translation work in few coming days.

The Kilinux team is in the process of localizing Mozilla Firefox 3.0.1. In the localization process, the team looks at two alternatives. Firstly, migration of the older version of Kiswahili Mozilla Firefox (Jambo Mozilla Firefox 1.0.3) to a new version (3.0.1) and Secondly, localizing Mozilla Firefox 3.0.1 from scratch. The team looks at the easiest alternative.

We are now in the process for making registration to get CVS account for the Firefox
Localization from Mozilla organization. This will take a few days to get the access
to CVS server.

Casablanca Statement

African localization Experts met in Casablanca in a workshop organized by the Kabissa NGO
under IDRC funding, in collaboration with the Technopark Centre. The event benefited from
contributions from the Moroccan Minister for Information Technology, The Canadian Ambassador
and experts from other continents. After three days of work, the participants in the meeting reached
the following conclusions:

Limiting people to the use of information and communication technology (ICT) in a foreign
language tends to exacerbate the digital divide; makes ICT adoption long, difficult, and expensive;
and impoverishes local culture.

Localization makes ICT more accessible to everybody, including users from rural areas and
young students, reinforcing the importance of our culture and helping us preserve our identity.
Localization of ICT into indigenous African languages is therefore a key to rapid and fair
development in Africa. For localization to succeed and have its maximum impact in society,
collaboration among governments, civil society, educators, linguists, computer professionals,
standards orginizations and donor agencies is necessary.

We, the participants, commit ourselves to promoting this vision and working towards social
development in Africa through ICT localization.

Yesterday, we started the localization work of OpenOffice 1.1.3m47, it contains 18079 messages and 64268 english words that need to be localized to Kiswahili. Our first milestone is to complete SW the text processing tool.


SW stands for StarWriter (aka. OpenOffice Writer) (1).

We are seeking for any electronic resources in Kiswahili language that we could use to support the translation. Dictionaries and glossaries of other areas that do not need to be related to IT are welcome!

We will try to integrate them in a searchable repository.

Notes: (1) SW stands also for Swahili.

Today, 6th of October 2004 we have started our localization of OpenOffice 1.1.3 (m47) to Kiswahili. Our localization roadmap includes a migration to OpenOffice 2.0 in a future time.

We are using the PO files generated by David Fraser from GSI format. The PO files have been generated using the latest version of David's translate toolkit

By having a running version of OpenOffice 1.1.3 available, I (aep) expect to speed up the process of identifying which PO files correspond to different areas of the "running" version.

For the localization we will use our developed IT Glossary as initial Translation Memory.