[Indic-computing-users] NEWS-S.AFRICA: Web browsers and free office in S.African languages

[Frederick N. <fr...@by...>]

Web browsers and free office software suite available in major South
African languages 

South Africa has eleven official languages, yet most computer software
is only available in English and is poorly supported in Afrikaans. Until
recently the other nine languages had no translation. Translate.org.za
is coordinating, initiating, sustaining and focusing the efforts of
South African translation teams to give all citizens of South Africa
access to computers in their mother tongue, firstly with tools for email
and web-browsing, then office productivity tools and lastly with a
completely translated desktop.

Software has currently been translated into Xhosa, Zulu, Venda, Northern
Sotho, Siswati and Tswana. "In South Africa many languages have been
marginalised through the history of apartheid which has led to a lack of
language pride," says director, Dwayne Bailey. "Seeing Linux users
working in German and French environments made me realise that this
could do the same for South African languages. I hope that simply
allowing people to use the computer in their mother tongue will
stimulate pride in their language ... plus the fact that learning
something in your mother tongue is naturally easier."  

"Translation does not remove all barriers to computer access", says
Bailey, "but it helps to eliminate one. This together with low cost
computers, open source software and low cost Internet access will go a
long way to making a dramatic IT impact on South Africans, especially
the disadvantaged."  

Opensource Software Translation Project: http://www.translate.org.za 

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