In a development that brings out the online convergence
of love for Tamil and passion for free software, Mozilla Firefox – a
free, open-source web browser, considered one of the most secure – will
soon be available in Tamil.
A group of over 10
volunteers who have been translating the browser menu and other settings
into Tamil, for over a year now, have confirmed the browser can be
downloaded from the Mozilla website after Tuesday.
In the Tamil Mozilla, the options are kopu for ‘file’, viruppangal for ‘preferences’, and nagal yedu for ‘copy’, among others.
The
Firefox browser has been translated into around 120 other languages,
including some Indian ones. But the Tamil browser boasts of a
near-complete translation of all the terms.
“The
other browsers that can be downloaded from the Mozilla site are a mix of
English and the regional language. Our focus in Tamil Translation was
to find the easiest possible translation for every English word on the
browser, in Tamil," said Arun Prakash, an engineering graduate
associated with the Mozilla Tamil Translation team, a group of
volunteers who are enthusiastic about Tamil and computing, which
initiated and finished the entire translation.
“There
is no need for a Tamil keyboard, as the keyboard shortcuts will be the
same. Settings, history, tools or download instructions will be in
Tamil, and the browser will lead you to the Tamil version of the website
you are looking for, if one exists," Arun said.
The
volunteers were given a glossary of most frequently-used words to aid
their translation work, after which every change was peer-reviewed.
Mozilla,
whose development depends on the contributions made by volunteers
across the world, releases a new version every 3-4 weeks.
But the volunteers said they would just need to make changes to the new fields as the old translations would remain intact.
The
Tamil Mozilla project is just a starter, and the efforts of the
translation committee can be put to bigger projects such as in
video/audio playing applications and projects websites, Arun said.
No comments:
Post a Comment