OpenOffice.org In Swahili

linhux writes "A reported on Gnuheter (in Swedish) and elsewhere, OpenOffice.org has been translated to Swahili in a joint collaboration effort of the Department of Computer Science at the University of Dar es Salaam (UDSM) and a company called IT+46, and funded by the university and Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency. Neither Microsoft Office nor Windows supports Swahili. Currently, only the Tanzanian dialect has been completed, but Kenyan, Congo and Ugandan dialects are on their way. It's called Jambo OpenOffice and is part of the Kilinux Open Swahili Localization Project."

Re:African Market?

Big or not it is still another feature to add to the very small set of features that OpenOffice has and Office lacks. Makes it a somewhat more meaningful project.

Re:African Market?

How much of an emerging market is Africa? Is Swahili a real barrier to entry for a potential African Consumer? Really what I ma asking is is there a market that MS is missing out on in Africa by not having Swahili? If so this is a major blow to them, if not, then I'm not sure this makes much difference at all.

There isn't much of one. All Tanzanians and Kenyans speak English. Kids are required to use it in school starting around age 10. If you can get over their pronunciation, communication isn't a problem.

The official language in Tanzania is Swahili, so a translation there makes some sense. But the official language in Kenya is English, so it seems a bit silly. It's also considered cool to speak English (and uncool to speak Swahili) in Kenya, unlike Tanzania.

As an additional note, the signs BP gas stations in Kenya say "welcome" in English, while the ones in Tanzania say "welcome" in Swahili.

Its not profitable

Neither Microsoft Office nor Windows supports Swahili.

How much profit do you think MS is losing by not translating to Swahili? I'm guessing you don't see a Swahili version because they wouldn't get enough profit to support it.

Granted, I don't want to take away from OO's success here. Open source finding its ways into (technologically) underdeveloped countries will go a long way to making it more standard worldwide.

Opensource shines in small markets

Opensource shines in small under-served markets. Its allows small communities and organizations to bring effective computing power to everyone, not just the rich first world. I have been using Openoffice for over a year and it is a 95% replacement for Microsoft Word.

Well done Openoffice team!!

Jambo!

Jambo is swahili for hello (AFAIK).

Re:Jambo!

Nime farahi sana kukutana na we-we.

My mother is a hamster?

Re:Jambo!

and your father smells of elderberries!

Re:Do we have to...

I like it! Uhuru has a nice political ring to it, and doesn't have the confusion to go with multiple meaning of "free." You could lose the Q and X keys on the keyboard as well.

I think it is great to do a project like this. As far as cost goes, you have to remember that the Gross National Income of all sub-saharan africa is about equal to that of The Netherlands. Per capita income $400/yr. Yes, computer literate people make more than that, but money is a real issue.

An interesting side issue is the use of Swahili. Tanzania counts only swahili as an official language. Most business is done in Swahili. In Kenya, English and Swahili are official languages, and are taught in parallel in school. It is regarded as showing a higher status if you speak in English, so swahili is relagated to second place, and tribal language limited to close friends and family. I suspect that most computer users in Kenya would be more than happy to work in english.

I still admire the fact that kids who live in mud huts and have never been in a car can speak three languages. I struggle enough with one!

Think for a second

How is this a bad thing or a waste or time? It's one more developing place of the world that has a chace to use good, quality software. It's not like this venture is a going to make them charge you more for the OpenOffice.org suite, now is it?

Great...

Now only Kilingon and Yiddish remain..

Simon.

Seriously, well done : )

Yawn. I'll be impressed when it's available in esperanto.


-Colin [colingregorypalmer.net]

Be informed please

Be informed that though Swahili is widely used in that part of the continent, it is not as widely used in Uganda save for the north (where there is very little commerce), and the army. For Uganda's case, Luganda, a Bantu language is more dominant. This language is used where trade, politics and commerce matter. In fact, every politician tries to learn Luganda in order to be relevant, and not Swahili.

The Baganda (a tribe) whose native language is Luganda and from who the country name Uganda was coined, are very proud people. To this end there is a Mozilla project that was completed in Luganda. http://www.mail-archive.com/[e-mail]/msg015 66.html [mail-archive.com]

I wish them success, but doubt there will be any impact in that country called Uganda.

Just at the right time...

This is a big deal - and is part of the reason that I'm starting to commit to really learning to use the Linux desktop environments.

I'm involved with a number of groups that are doing relief work in Africa. The problem that we're particularly involved with is the growing population of orphan children being created by the devastation of the AIDS virus. There is an immense amount of basic education that needs to happen so that these children will be able to begin rebuilding the society they are going to inherit.

Part of that education needs to be computer based - and involves simply skills like typing, using the mouse, writing reports, etc. Having a version of an office suite that is going to be available in the children's native tongue removes one significant obstacle from this process.

A group of us are in the process now of getting ready to travel to southern Africa to do a needs assessment. We need to find out what sorts of tech might work and how to get it set up and running. Linux is a pretty obvious answer - since we can install it on older hardware, and one reasonably beefy computer can serve a number of thin clients in a classroom.

Yay for group that is doing this particular localization.

Open source software very important in Africa...

In a move IBM offices are hailing as a major step in the company's ongoing worldwide telecommunications revolution, M'wana Ndeti, a member of Zaire's Bantu tribe, used an IBM notebook computer yesterday to crush a nut.

Ndeti, who spent 20 minutes trying to open the nut by hand, easily cracked it open by smashing it repeatedly with the powerful computer.

"I could not crush the nut by myself," said the 47-year-old Ndeti, who added the savory nut to a thick, peanut-based soup minutes later. "With IBM's help, I was able to break it." Ndeti discovered the nut-breaking, ThinkPad R51 yesterday, when IBM was shooting a commercial in his southwestern Zaire village. During a break in shooting, which shows African villagers eagerly teleconferencing via computer with Japanese schoolchildren, Ndeti snuck onto the set and took the notebook computer, which he believed would serve well as a "smashing" utensil.

IBM officials were not surprised the longtime computer giant was able to provide Ndeti with practical solutions to his everyday problems. "Our consulting services offer people all over the world solutions that fit their specific needs," said Herbert Ross, IBM's director of marketing. "Whether you're a nun cloistered in an Italian abbey or an Aborigine in Australia's Great Sandy Desert, IBM has the ideas to get you where you want to go today."

According to Ndeti, of the Thinkpad's many powerful features, most impressive was its hard plastic casing, which easily sustained several minutes of vigorous pounding against a large stone. "I put the nut on a rock, and I hit it with the computer," Ndeti said. "The computer did not break. It is a good computer."

Ndeti was so impressed with the ThinkPad that he purchased a new, state-of-the-art IBM OpenPower (TM) Linux server, complete with a 1.5 GHz POWER5 (TM) microprocessor, an internal DVD-ROM drive and two 10/100/1000 ethernet adapters. The tribesman has already made good use of the computer system, fashioning a gazelle trap out of its wires, a boat anchor out of the monitor and a crude but effective weapon from its mouse.

"This is a good computer," said Ndeti, carving up a just-captured gazelle with the computer's flat, sharp internal processing device. "I am using every part of it. I will cook this gazelle on the keyboard." Hours later, Ndeti capped off his delicious gazelle dinner by smoking the computer's 200-page owner's manual.

IBM spokespeople praised Ndeti's choice of computers. "We are pleased that the Bantu people are turning to IBM for their business needs," said company CEO William Allaire. "From Kansas City to Kinshasa, IBM is bringing the world closer together. Our cutting-edge technology is truly creating a global village."

Microsoft's Achilles Heel

Microsoft has gotten into trouble internationally with cultural problems [bytelevel.com]. Free software has a natural immunity from that.

Because FOSS developers rely on the people closest to the problem to solve the problem, such cultural difficulties are minimized. It's a built-in advantage: rather than translating the program for a language, people who live in a different culture will, without thinking about it, translate the program into that culture.

As this story shows, markets for which commercial software companies can't find an adequate profit potential are ripe for introduction of FOSS. All you need is one user, one willing programmer, and one native translator - and in fact, those can all be the same person.

Uhm... folks?

Why the joking about the Swahili translation? Yes, it seens to be a small market. But please remember that Swahili is something like the 7th most commonly spoken language in the world. It's a well-known trade language in East- and Central Africa, and in a hugely polyglot culture, the trade languages are very important. Swahili is an official language in Kenya, and Tanzania, and probably in Rwanda and Uganda as well. Think about this: it could be that the proliferation of high-tech tools in underdeveloped areas is hindered by the lack of working software in local languages. Would you like to learn Swahili just to read the help files in Gnumeric? This is a big deal - most especially because it was done by Swahili speaking techs at a Swahili speaking school (Okay, so Tanzanian colleges teach in English mostly - all the students speak Kiswahili.) The fact that a local community took sofware and adapted it to their needs is the very essence of open source. Nafurahi Chuoo Kikuu Cha Dar Es Salaam cha kufasiri OO.O! (I love the University of Dar for translating Open Office.)

Christ, liberals are going to go apeshit

Expect long lectures about how Western intellectual imperialism is destroying the nascent African software development industry

Re:Swahili? How about the real problems?

If your life is so full of "things to do" that a 20 second difference between the loading of MSOffice and OpenOffice is that important to you, how come you're wasting time on Slashdot?